2nd Ashan 718
Fiona remembers a story she once heard a long, long time ago.
It goes like this: Once upon a time, there was a family of three living in a mansion by the… she couldn’t remember what it was. A lake? A castle? A cave filled with treasure? Don’t know. Let’s say it was a administration building. Okay, once upon a time there was a family of three living in a mansion next to an shoddy administration building. Sure why not. They consisted of a mother, a father, a daughter, and a series of interchangeable dogs that came into and out of their lives like used candy wrappers. The daughter took the departure of each dog very hard.
Fiona was never sure why they subjected themselves to that kind of heartbreak for something as banal as a canine companion but, again, it was a story. It didn’t have to be realistic. Maybe these people were masochists. Maybe the original scribe who penned the story had the intent to showcase the mental frailties of the kind of people who would feed, wash, and care for a creature just to inject a bit more love into their life. Or maybe the scribe was just like the rest of them: seeing no perversion in loving something for the sake of loving something.
A shepherd dog’s she could understand. A guard dog she accepted. A dog dog that only existed to dog? A dog warped into some twisted parody of a wolf and forced to live out its life as a stout, heaving, disease-riddled creature with limited mobility, no utility, and to serve as some kind of inexplicable trophy? No. An ornament was easier to maintain. A tree would live for centuries. A body honed to martial perfection would at least carry you through decades. But a dog? A dog was slobber and energy and a disruption in all home activities of the day-
Nope. Going off track again, Fiona. The sensibilities of pet caring were of no concern to the narrative here.
The father was an alchemist. A pretty good alchemist actually. He was a respected member of the state’s leading alchemy program, the head of Alterations and Special designs. His wife was… Really, scribe? Just dead? That’s conveniently disposable. Yes, she died a few years before this story or whatever. They were a happy family, then they were not. The daughter was, like, all little children, a complete dipshit. Fiona remembers the story telling her how cute, how adorable, how endearingly squeaky she was - and it completely broke her suspension of disbelief.
You could call shit gold but the smell was there for everyone to sniff.
Anyway, she wasn’t quite clear of the sequence of events by virtue of the fact that she didn’t really care, but apparently the dad fell on hard times. Whatever juice he was cooking up for the alchemy program wasn’t cutting it anymore. His daughter begged him to play, she begged him to read her bedtime stories, she begged him for whatever it was with people with parents did, but he could no longer afford that lifestyle of alleged happiness. Once upon a time, he had the mother to do that heavy lifting - but she was gone now.
He didn’t know what to do.
His career was failing, his remaining family member was uncontrollable, there was a shitty dog in his house that he may or may not be able to afford in the coming seasons. It was all quite a bit of a mess.
So he did the one thing he could do to solve his problem.
He did the one thing that would enhance his career, quiet his daughter, and keep the dog out.
He dunked the daughter and dog into a vat to create an entirely new experimental breed of creature. What was the name again? A chime-? No, Fiona remembered it was called an Edward. Anyway, the Edward was received very warmly by the alchemy program. The father was called a pioneer, a genius of his time, a man who had managed to breed intelligence into an animal and gave it the ability to talk, to solve problems, to have a conversation, to, to, to, it was simply a remarkable creature.
Then a bunch of meddling kids showed up. A bunch of meddling kids that were apparently amateur detective sleuths and very keen on finding out what happened in that mansion and, well...
Well, turns out mixing your kid and a cute puppy into a blender was frowned upon by the ethics committee.
Ain’t that just a bitch?
Fiona remembers a story she once heard a long, long time ago.
It goes like this: Once upon a time, there was a family of three living in a mansion by the… she couldn’t remember what it was. A lake? A castle? A cave filled with treasure? Don’t know. Let’s say it was a administration building. Okay, once upon a time there was a family of three living in a mansion next to an shoddy administration building. Sure why not. They consisted of a mother, a father, a daughter, and a series of interchangeable dogs that came into and out of their lives like used candy wrappers. The daughter took the departure of each dog very hard.
Fiona was never sure why they subjected themselves to that kind of heartbreak for something as banal as a canine companion but, again, it was a story. It didn’t have to be realistic. Maybe these people were masochists. Maybe the original scribe who penned the story had the intent to showcase the mental frailties of the kind of people who would feed, wash, and care for a creature just to inject a bit more love into their life. Or maybe the scribe was just like the rest of them: seeing no perversion in loving something for the sake of loving something.
A shepherd dog’s she could understand. A guard dog she accepted. A dog dog that only existed to dog? A dog warped into some twisted parody of a wolf and forced to live out its life as a stout, heaving, disease-riddled creature with limited mobility, no utility, and to serve as some kind of inexplicable trophy? No. An ornament was easier to maintain. A tree would live for centuries. A body honed to martial perfection would at least carry you through decades. But a dog? A dog was slobber and energy and a disruption in all home activities of the day-
Nope. Going off track again, Fiona. The sensibilities of pet caring were of no concern to the narrative here.
The father was an alchemist. A pretty good alchemist actually. He was a respected member of the state’s leading alchemy program, the head of Alterations and Special designs. His wife was… Really, scribe? Just dead? That’s conveniently disposable. Yes, she died a few years before this story or whatever. They were a happy family, then they were not. The daughter was, like, all little children, a complete dipshit. Fiona remembers the story telling her how cute, how adorable, how endearingly squeaky she was - and it completely broke her suspension of disbelief.
You could call shit gold but the smell was there for everyone to sniff.
Anyway, she wasn’t quite clear of the sequence of events by virtue of the fact that she didn’t really care, but apparently the dad fell on hard times. Whatever juice he was cooking up for the alchemy program wasn’t cutting it anymore. His daughter begged him to play, she begged him to read her bedtime stories, she begged him for whatever it was with people with parents did, but he could no longer afford that lifestyle of alleged happiness. Once upon a time, he had the mother to do that heavy lifting - but she was gone now.
He didn’t know what to do.
His career was failing, his remaining family member was uncontrollable, there was a shitty dog in his house that he may or may not be able to afford in the coming seasons. It was all quite a bit of a mess.
So he did the one thing he could do to solve his problem.
He did the one thing that would enhance his career, quiet his daughter, and keep the dog out.
He dunked the daughter and dog into a vat to create an entirely new experimental breed of creature. What was the name again? A chime-? No, Fiona remembered it was called an Edward. Anyway, the Edward was received very warmly by the alchemy program. The father was called a pioneer, a genius of his time, a man who had managed to breed intelligence into an animal and gave it the ability to talk, to solve problems, to have a conversation, to, to, to, it was simply a remarkable creature.
Then a bunch of meddling kids showed up. A bunch of meddling kids that were apparently amateur detective sleuths and very keen on finding out what happened in that mansion and, well...
Well, turns out mixing your kid and a cute puppy into a blender was frowned upon by the ethics committee.
Ain’t that just a bitch?