( no matter how ridiculous the aim, with enough funding, anything is possible.
this is a lab usually kept secret but known best among the upper echelons of the wealthy and influential. its goal is the proof of supernatural and mythical through creation— if it can be bred in a lab, then there is no doubt it exists. it's the backwards sort of logic born of desperation on part of researchers and boredom on part of the rich, who would pay good money to see that which was a little bit more exotic.
for some sponsors it's simply a matter of scientific pursuit; for some, they care for other secrets (immortality being popular) that might be unlocked by the creation of such creatures; for some, they want a mythical alternative to cockfighting, or they want more interesting pets.
eichi was of the lab's divinities branch, which has found particular popularity but bears in equal measure equal amounts of failure. it is not so easy to create heaven, it seems, and its products are often misbegotten if beautiful, their bodies delicate and unable to bear the strain of what the scientists have determined denotes holiness in their dna. each generation is a little better than the last, but eichi finds himself the last of his cohorts, the rest all died out early, and the last one to bear such strain on his health.
the next generation, he hears the scientists say, looks like it might be much more promising when they create it, much more stable. eichi can only listen with quiet envy from behind his small glass confinement. it's just big enough to sit and lay in with his crooked wings folded up, and around him are the empty cells where the other angels used to be a long time ago. it was too dangerous to keep them with other creatures, given their health was so fragile, and so they had this private room on their own - to his own, now.
and they do have to move onto the next generation eventually. once the funding for supporting the expensive cost of eichi's maintenance - his continued living - begins to outweigh the cost of the amount of data they can collect from him, once the experiments and probes he can tolerate begins to grow less and less, they decide it's time. a few more months, and they'll let him die.
but first, one last trial.
he had heard of this wataru, though not in great detail, from the other scientists chatting with each other as they sorted through data in the room. his results were always excellent, they had some endless number of takers for him when they had finished their data collection, he was quick-witted and beautiful, et cetera. he was almost the only other creature they mentioned by number or name, names being offered to the most outstanding experiment of each branch (though, in eichi's case, it's simply that he was the last one alive), and so, with time, eichi began to take this name and shape it into the name of a friend to keep him company in his empty confines.
he had no idea what sort of creature wataru was, or what he looked like or what he was for, but he liked to imagine they got along, and they had long conversations about all sorts of things (the specifics being vague in his imagination), and that they had a lot of similar interests. of course, eichi had overheard his death date, too, but it was less depressing to think that he was spending his last days with a friend who did not prod his body with disappointment as the scientists did, who did not inject him with false divinity and find it a shame when he did bleed.
his surprise is immense, then, when he hears this last experiment was going to be with this very same wataru, for reasons he can't entirely comprehend. it's something to do with breeding habits from what he can gather, probably to do with wataru's, and he supposes that there might be a suspected risk of wataru's mating, since they're offering wataru a partner whom the scientists wouldn't mind losing. ah, well. he doesn't think he would mind; if he's got no choice but to die, then maybe it would be more pleasant if wataru is the one who does it, intentional or no, even if he's a little bit nervous about meeting him, and of wataru falling short of his expectations.
they place him in a room comprised of an artificial environment with features closest to whatever wataru presumably might be most comfortable with, it basically being a sort of shore, where eichi is, that slopes into deep water, where wataru is.the room, too, is kept at a more tropical temperature, and the air is filtered clean so eichi can breathe easy.
eichi himself is dressed in a simple white chemise, thin and open-backed, to let his wings - vast but asymmetrically curving - breathe comfortably. a strange halo of turns out of sync with each ring does hang behind his head, as if he were truly descended from heaven, and he gives off a faint light that reflects over the water. he's been dressed with some kind of scent or marker that, supposedly, wataru and his kind find themselves attracted to - something between pheromones and perfume - but they've otherwise been left in their natural states, not wanting to pollute the results with things like aphrodisiac if not necessary.
eichi can't . . . see wataru, though, wataru being too deep under the water, and, after some period of waiting, he gradually edges toward the shore, delighted as he feels the artificial waves tickle his toes - delighted by the whole environment, actually. not detecting any immediate response - and, admittedly, feeling equal parts anxious about meeting wataru and willful in wanting to explore this room for himself - he chooses to walk instead along the short shore with wonder as he feels wet sand below his feet, stopping to pick up the colorful shells placed there. it isn't long until he reaches and climbs up onto the rocks too, terribly enamored with the mere act of it, curiously digging his nails into the little dents of the brittle zone. ah, how wonderful; he wonders if wataru's always in such a wonderful room, or if this experiment is special?
ah, he's so terribly jealous - he murmurs this in the false angelic tongue he's learned, sounding more like a melody, as he curves his wings above him to shield him from the high lights, and he gazes into the water around the rocks below in search of more shells to carry. )
no subject
this is a lab usually kept secret but known best among the upper echelons of the wealthy and influential. its goal is the proof of supernatural and mythical through creation— if it can be bred in a lab, then there is no doubt it exists. it's the backwards sort of logic born of desperation on part of researchers and boredom on part of the rich, who would pay good money to see that which was a little bit more exotic.
for some sponsors it's simply a matter of scientific pursuit; for some, they care for other secrets (immortality being popular) that might be unlocked by the creation of such creatures; for some, they want a mythical alternative to cockfighting, or they want more interesting pets.
eichi was of the lab's divinities branch, which has found particular popularity but bears in equal measure equal amounts of failure. it is not so easy to create heaven, it seems, and its products are often misbegotten if beautiful, their bodies delicate and unable to bear the strain of what the scientists have determined denotes holiness in their dna. each generation is a little better than the last, but eichi finds himself the last of his cohorts, the rest all died out early, and the last one to bear such strain on his health.
the next generation, he hears the scientists say, looks like it might be much more promising when they create it, much more stable. eichi can only listen with quiet envy from behind his small glass confinement. it's just big enough to sit and lay in with his crooked wings folded up, and around him are the empty cells where the other angels used to be a long time ago. it was too dangerous to keep them with other creatures, given their health was so fragile, and so they had this private room on their own - to his own, now.
and they do have to move onto the next generation eventually. once the funding for supporting the expensive cost of eichi's maintenance - his continued living - begins to outweigh the cost of the amount of data they can collect from him, once the experiments and probes he can tolerate begins to grow less and less, they decide it's time. a few more months, and they'll let him die.
but first, one last trial.
he had heard of this wataru, though not in great detail, from the other scientists chatting with each other as they sorted through data in the room. his results were always excellent, they had some endless number of takers for him when they had finished their data collection, he was quick-witted and beautiful, et cetera. he was almost the only other creature they mentioned by number or name, names being offered to the most outstanding experiment of each branch (though, in eichi's case, it's simply that he was the last one alive), and so, with time, eichi began to take this name and shape it into the name of a friend to keep him company in his empty confines.
he had no idea what sort of creature wataru was, or what he looked like or what he was for, but he liked to imagine they got along, and they had long conversations about all sorts of things (the specifics being vague in his imagination), and that they had a lot of similar interests. of course, eichi had overheard his death date, too, but it was less depressing to think that he was spending his last days with a friend who did not prod his body with disappointment as the scientists did, who did not inject him with false divinity and find it a shame when he did bleed.
his surprise is immense, then, when he hears this last experiment was going to be with this very same wataru, for reasons he can't entirely comprehend. it's something to do with breeding habits from what he can gather, probably to do with wataru's, and he supposes that there might be a suspected risk of wataru's mating, since they're offering wataru a partner whom the scientists wouldn't mind losing. ah, well. he doesn't think he would mind; if he's got no choice but to die, then maybe it would be more pleasant if wataru is the one who does it, intentional or no, even if he's a little bit nervous about meeting him, and of wataru falling short of his expectations.
they place him in a room comprised of an artificial environment with features closest to whatever wataru presumably might be most comfortable with, it basically being a sort of shore, where eichi is, that slopes into deep water, where wataru is.the room, too, is kept at a more tropical temperature, and the air is filtered clean so eichi can breathe easy.
eichi himself is dressed in a simple white chemise, thin and open-backed, to let his wings - vast but asymmetrically curving - breathe comfortably. a strange halo of turns out of sync with each ring does hang behind his head, as if he were truly descended from heaven, and he gives off a faint light that reflects over the water. he's been dressed with some kind of scent or marker that, supposedly, wataru and his kind find themselves attracted to - something between pheromones and perfume - but they've otherwise been left in their natural states, not wanting to pollute the results with things like aphrodisiac if not necessary.
eichi can't . . . see wataru, though, wataru being too deep under the water, and, after some period of waiting, he gradually edges toward the shore, delighted as he feels the artificial waves tickle his toes - delighted by the whole environment, actually. not detecting any immediate response - and, admittedly, feeling equal parts anxious about meeting wataru and willful in wanting to explore this room for himself - he chooses to walk instead along the short shore with wonder as he feels wet sand below his feet, stopping to pick up the colorful shells placed there. it isn't long until he reaches and climbs up onto the rocks too, terribly enamored with the mere act of it, curiously digging his nails into the little dents of the brittle zone. ah, how wonderful; he wonders if wataru's always in such a wonderful room, or if this experiment is special?
ah, he's so terribly jealous - he murmurs this in the false angelic tongue he's learned, sounding more like a melody, as he curves his wings above him to shield him from the high lights, and he gazes into the water around the rocks below in search of more shells to carry. )