First Age Memories: Showoff (Exalted Fiction)

You may or may not have noticed that an Exalted post hasn't appeared this week. This is because the last session ended in the middle of a combat that we still need to wrap up, and I wanted to resolve that before doing up a post. I have, however, thrown together a little something as an experiment. It's a short mini-fiction in my setting, giving a glimpse of a couple of characters as they would have been in an earlier Age. It might even be a glimpse of a memory or a dream that one of the relevant characters is having now. I might do more in the future if people like it.

And, um, yeah. That's it. Enjoy!

Showoff

"That's never going to heal if you keep picking at it."

Konala looked back at his Lunar mate, his expression equal parts amused and annoyed. The effect, normally charming, was thrown ever so slightly 'off' by the implant in his left eye, a contraption of orichalcum and jade (and some weirder stuff he couldn't recall the name of) that all meant he had depth perception again after a recent misadventure. It faintly glowed in the shadow cast across his face by a passing cloud. The flesh was still a little raw around the edges, signs of just how recently the artifact had intruded upon his features.

"Still getting used to the weight of it. They keep insisting that I shouldn't notice it at all, but sometimes when I turn my head, my balance..." He trailed off and turned his head left and then right. "You see it, right?"

"I do not."

Konala rolled his one remaining eye and stepped up to the edge of the craft as he readied his powerbow. Made of dull gray chitin stitched together with moonsilver thread and dull brass brackets, it looked like someone had taken apart a very large spider and put it back together in the shape of a bow. There was a very good, very simple reason it looked like that.

He actually cut quite the dashing figure standing against the sky like that, with a bronze-skinned swimmer's build. He had the blue hair of a Westerner tied into a topknot, a Tengese silk sarong that matched it, and a ray leather quiver hanging off his hip. His remaining eye was a blue so dark it was almost black, and he gripped his bow with lightly-webbed fingers -- not enough webbing to be useful but just enough to make it difficult to wear rings. He kept it as a reminder of his family and their ties to one of the various divinities that frequented his home of Luthe. 

Their yacht hovered above the water, and had been gliding over the surface without disturbing the water some dozen or so feet beneath until Konala decided he needed some target practice. It was a nice day, sunny with the occasional fluffy cloud; right at the start of summer so it wasn't too hot, but they were past the worst of the cool spring storms. Konala channeled Essence into his implant, and watched the Western ocean beneath come alive with his enhanced ability to pick up on the life swirling around below. He had to admit, it was an improvement over his 'typical' inhumanly-sharp vision.

"Still gotta give it the true test..." he muttered to himself. He looked back. "Toss me one of those grenades you've got?"

"What grenades?"

"You know, the explosives."

"I didn't bring any explosives."

"Why would you not -- y'know, never mind. I mean, you've got your little alchemy lab there, surely you can just..." Konala tucked the bow under one arm and made a series of complicated hand gestures that, on reflection, could have referred to mixing together chemicals. Or possibly describe a sex act.

"Okay, hold on..."

"Yessss," Konala hissed with triumph and a fist-pump.

"Think fast," he heard right before a bottle with a pair of chemicals in it whizzed at his head, and the bottle made a meaty smack sound as the glass met his palm.

"Was that safe? How do I use this?" the Solar asked, swirling a pair of blobs that didn't seem to be mixing.

A weary sigh. "Open it, spit in it, and close it. That'll start the reaction. After that you've got about twenty or thirty seconds before it goes off."

"Fantastic. You're the best."

"Yes, yes. Now just do what you're going to do, I need to go back over these revisions for the feed mix for Wantari's lizard-things. She's looking for some reassurance that the geothermal heating system isn't going to set something off." A pause. "You're not paying attention, are you?"

"Nope," Konala said as he peeked into the water. 

He opened the bottle, spit in it, and tossed it overboard. He then turned away and crouched as his mate sighed, put down the pen, and just watched so as not to hear the whining later. Twenty-six seconds later, the water sloshed with the shockwave. 

A school of flying fish took to the air and Konala sprung up into a backflip. He drew several arrows and fired them in rapid succession mid-flip, spearing a half-dozen of the fleeing creatures. The bow, as part of the magic running through it, connected a thread of hell-silk to each arrow. He landed, grinning broadly, the bow in one hand and a fistful of threads in the other. Wisps of pale gold and gray swirled around him, and an empty golden circle lit up on his forehead.

"Are you done?"

"Oh yes, I'm good now," Konala said as he started reeling in the impaled fish. "Gimme some time to fry these up, and we'll have lunch. And don't worry, I'll save you the bones."