Spiked
Cellic / Nonsurat
It happens right at home, when they're just finishing lunch.
Nonsurat is feeling pretty content, all told. The house is clean, the atmosphere is quiet and peaceful. As quiet as it can be with an energetic child, of course, but Cellic has been contenting himself with his food and he hasn't heard much out of him at all. He could think of a few of the boy's cousins who were quite talkative eaters...
He mills around the kitchen, mopping the floors, cleaning the counter, doing the dishes and setting them aside. He's got a lot of chores to do today he thinks, and Marlo is going to be out for awhile yet. She would appreciate a clean home that she doesn't have to worry about.
"I'm done!" He hears Cellic call from off to the side, and Nonsurat turns with a chipper smile. There the boy floats, empty plate and glass on the table in front, and he looks eager and bright eyed as he gets up, holding the kitchenware aloft. "Can I help?"
"Sure you can, just make sure to use lots of soap, alright?" And he moves over a bit to allow Cellic to float on over. That was the thing with his boy; he would help as much as he could if he were allowed or able to. Although getting him situated to his new home had been a bit of an experience, now he runs around like he's been living there his whole life. Nonsurat likes to think he had a good hand in that.
He moves off to let Cellic clean his plate and starts to walk out of the kitchen to go grab a duster because the living room needs cleaning and that's usually the first place to start. Again with the contented quiet along with running water and the sound of dishes clinking in the sink, and he thinks Marlo would be so proud Cellic is picking up after himself-
/Crack/.
...What.
/Crack/.
Nonsurat pauses where he is in the hallway, looks up towards the entrance where he can just barely see into the kitchen. That. Doesn't. Sound good.
"...Dad?"
Nonsurat doesn't think. He just runs. Down the hall and into the kitchen faster than he's been in /years/ and--
He feels like he’s going to throw up.
Cellic is floating there, just a foot away from the sink maybe where he’s wandered to try and grab his father, but it’s not that. The boy, his spikes. Two of them are broken, fallen to the floor in great big chunks and leaving behind nothing but stumps that drip with a viscous blue fluid (blood, his mind tells him, it’s /blood/). The others are cracked horribly and Nonsurat doesn’t understand because they had looked fine just a few minutes ago-
Another cracking noise, and another and another as the spikes begin to splinter and break off, and Nonsurat moves before he’s really aware of it, reaching out to grab one to try and keep it there in some foolhardy attempt at preventing an absolute disaster. Too late, though, it’s completely dislodged, and he thinks he can even /feel/ the blood dripping onto his hand where he’s trying to hold the spike together.
What’s happening? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a clue. His teacher, he had been a Gordo, but never in his life had he seen his teacher do something like this. Teacher Gordon had been made of metal, or at least he felt like it, smooth and sharp points with just a few cuts from many battles. This was…not that.
What if it was a sign of ill health? Cellic didn’t look like any typical Gordo, not from what Nonsurat had heard described to him. It could be anything. He could be /dying/.
Oh, NOVA--
“Dad?”
He feels Cellic move, hears him speak with puzzlement looking over at where he stands half like a fool with the spike, and Nonsurat forces himself to breathe, forces his burning lungs to take air where he had forgotten in the sudden mayhem. No time to freak out. Cellic is there, he can’t worry the boy. He can freak out in private /later/.
“We’re going to the hospital. Come on.”
Nonsurat’s voice comes out like steel, far stronger than he feels in that moment. He doesn’t wait, just scoops Cellic in one arm with his little broken spike still in his other hand, leaving the mess of spikes and fluid forgotten on the floor. The boy asks questions but half of them go unanswered, the other half given terse and firm in a way that sounds less than reassuring to the boy. He just can’t think properly to give his son a proper response.
He runs out of the house, drags Cellic along out into the open, into town, knowing the route to the hospital on an old muscle memory more than anything else. Not for the first time he curses his lack of wings, his slow speed, and it feels …far too close to something that had happened long ago.
Not this time.
The hospital comes into view after what feels like an eternity, long after his lungs have begun to burn with his exertion. It’s the same as it always was, framed by plants and in the midst of minor repairs, but his goal is on the door, and he about smashes right through it with the force in which he runs up to the hospital’s entrance.
“Help!!”
For Mends, it’s a cry he’s heard a few times before in his many years of medical practice, and not a cry that should be taken lightly. Emergencies don’t come often to the clinic, but there is never a time where he’s not prepared for the worst should they happen.
Nonsurat is breathing heavy when Mends comes to see him, sweat beading his brow and a look in his eye that Mends has seen only once but nevertheless strikes him as familiar. His son is there in his arms, looking frantic and more than a bit teary-eyed, and it isn’t hard to see just what the problem is.
“Please, my son, he’s—” Nonsurat struggles with the words but pushes the child forward and brandishes the fallen spike in his grip, face twisting as he tries to describe exactly what it is he’s looking at. Mends can’t blame him.
“Give him here. Quickly.” He takes the spikes first and his eyes soften minutely as he reaches out for the child who backs up on pure impulse, gesturing for them to come over. “It’s alright. I’m going to have a look at you, that’s all. You won’t be hurt.”
“D-Dad…?”
“He’ll be right outside. Come along, quickly.”
And he takes the child from Nonsurat’s grip before either of them have anything to say about it, sweeping him away into the back, into one of several patient rooms catered more towards children than adults. Colorful, with a few activities tacked onto the wall to amuse them while they wait, and he can see the way Cellic stares at them before he’s set on the bed.
Mends considers himself a professional in his field, experienced with all sorts of species. In studying for his medical license, this was a requirement. However, he can safely say that he’s never treated Gordos, not once during all his years. Gordon had never visited his clinic, too afraid of needles and sharp things to provide much study. Of course, he knows the basics of where they come from, but that’s about all
This one doesn’t look like any Gordo he’s seen or even heard of. But in any case, there’s no time for thought. He’ll treat Cellic as he treats all of his new patients and go from there.
The tests that Mends runs are standard, but numerous. Checking his eyes, his breathing, the usual fare for a child on their first check-up, though quickly with the emergency on his hands. The spikes or lack thereof he pays careful note to, touching and feeling the bloody stumps while looking over the one that’s fallen off, reaching for gauze to stymie the flow of fluid while he understands what’s happening.
He talks to Cellic the whole while as he does this. Asking questions about how he feels, does he hurt, does it pinch when he does this? Does touching these spikes sting? He feels scared, no he doesn’t hurt, no it doesn’t pinch, it doesn’t sting either.
So, Mends takes a closer look, reaching out and feeling of the jagged edges of one of the stumps, feeling the way pieces chip off with nary a bit of effort. It feels not like metal, but a mixture of things. Keratin, perhaps a kind of coral. Organic. And it keeps coming off the more he touches it, and Cellic isn’t hurting at all, just confused and nervous.
“Has this ever happened before?”
Cellic will hear Mends’ voice come out calm and kindly, as soothing as he can be for a child completely lost on what’s happening.
“I can’t remember…”
“You can’t remember…”
And then he pauses, examining the stump directly above the other’s eyes. He pauses for a long moment, still as a statue even, long enough that Cellic begins to squirm as, slowly, the anxiety begins to taper off.
“…Don’t worry. You’re just fine.”
-------------------------------------------------
“Your son is shedding. For lack of a better word.”
This Nonsurat hears just a split second before he feels Cellic’s full weight barrel into his stomach, effectively knocking the wind out of him. He had been staring at the hallway leading back into the patients’ rooms, wondering with bated breath and a drumming heart and a repeated mantra in his mind that this couldn’t happen again, not again, not again. Cellic’s form, whole and alive despite his wandering thoughts, is a balm on his soul like no other.
He looks up at Mends with an expression of clear exhaustion, mouth just barely open as he tries to process the words. “…Shedding.” It doesn’t sound very believable. “But-“
“The fluid is normal. It happens with others who shed as well, nothing to worry about.” Mends points up towards his head as he speaks, gesturing. “His spikes appear to have the same method of growth as certain hard-shelled creatures you might find living in the sea. He grows, the spikes do not, and they eventually break off to allow new ones to take their place. Look closely at his head.”
So Nonsurat does, moves his boy back a bit to take a closer look. The top is more chipped now than it was, likely Mends’ doing, and in the middle, just barely peeking out is a hint of spike. Smoother, brighter, but all too easily missed it’s such a tiny speck. He touches it just to be sure and it definitely does feel firmer than the surrounding area. At least, he thinks so. It’s too tiny to tell.
He feels a lot of things in that moment. Anger, relief, elation, exhaustion. Remnants of fear just from seeing the sorry state of his son who, still cuddling him, looks a lot more chipper than he had just a few minutes ago.
“What do I…”
“Let it be. It will come off on its own.” Mends pauses, and Nonsurat can feel his stare as sharp as a thorn in his back. He isn’t looking at him, so he can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he can take a few guesses.
Cellic peeks up at him finally with a bright-eyed gaze that only a child could possess. “Hey, dad! Dr. Mends got me a sucker!”
He raises up the candy to present to his father who hadn’t seen it in the flurry of commotion, brandishing it like a trophy. Nonsurat can’t help but grin, tired as it may be. It’s hard to really believe Mends, hard to think that this look his child sports isn’t painful in some way. But Cellic is as cheerful as he had ever been, not uncomfortable, not hurting. He's happy.
That’s all Nonsurat wants,
“You can eat it on the way home for being so good, how’s that?”
Cellic cheers his assent and Mends begins to leave. “Call if you have any questions. Cellic, tell your mother I said hi, okay?”
“Okay!”
Cellic’s mother…
Nonsurat pales.
Oh, she’s going to kill him if she’s home to see the kitchen before he is.
“Come on, Cellic, let’s go.”
So he takes his son and starts off for home, quickly, urgently, trying not to make the child worry again but eager to get home in time to clean up the mess. If he gets home before Marlo does, it will give him time to explain how Cellic looks, then maybe she won’t overreact and they can just pretend everything’s perfectly normal, and…
Oh, who is he kidding. She’s going to freak out anyway he looks at it. He just really hopes he can mitigate the damage somehow.
Still, he thinks looking at Cellic, seeing him happily with his candy, at least the boy is okay.
That’s all that really matters.
Nonsurat is feeling pretty content, all told. The house is clean, the atmosphere is quiet and peaceful. As quiet as it can be with an energetic child, of course, but Cellic has been contenting himself with his food and he hasn't heard much out of him at all. He could think of a few of the boy's cousins who were quite talkative eaters...
He mills around the kitchen, mopping the floors, cleaning the counter, doing the dishes and setting them aside. He's got a lot of chores to do today he thinks, and Marlo is going to be out for awhile yet. She would appreciate a clean home that she doesn't have to worry about.
"I'm done!" He hears Cellic call from off to the side, and Nonsurat turns with a chipper smile. There the boy floats, empty plate and glass on the table in front, and he looks eager and bright eyed as he gets up, holding the kitchenware aloft. "Can I help?"
"Sure you can, just make sure to use lots of soap, alright?" And he moves over a bit to allow Cellic to float on over. That was the thing with his boy; he would help as much as he could if he were allowed or able to. Although getting him situated to his new home had been a bit of an experience, now he runs around like he's been living there his whole life. Nonsurat likes to think he had a good hand in that.
He moves off to let Cellic clean his plate and starts to walk out of the kitchen to go grab a duster because the living room needs cleaning and that's usually the first place to start. Again with the contented quiet along with running water and the sound of dishes clinking in the sink, and he thinks Marlo would be so proud Cellic is picking up after himself-
/Crack/.
...What.
/Crack/.
Nonsurat pauses where he is in the hallway, looks up towards the entrance where he can just barely see into the kitchen. That. Doesn't. Sound good.
"...Dad?"
Nonsurat doesn't think. He just runs. Down the hall and into the kitchen faster than he's been in /years/ and--
He feels like he’s going to throw up.
Cellic is floating there, just a foot away from the sink maybe where he’s wandered to try and grab his father, but it’s not that. The boy, his spikes. Two of them are broken, fallen to the floor in great big chunks and leaving behind nothing but stumps that drip with a viscous blue fluid (blood, his mind tells him, it’s /blood/). The others are cracked horribly and Nonsurat doesn’t understand because they had looked fine just a few minutes ago-
Another cracking noise, and another and another as the spikes begin to splinter and break off, and Nonsurat moves before he’s really aware of it, reaching out to grab one to try and keep it there in some foolhardy attempt at preventing an absolute disaster. Too late, though, it’s completely dislodged, and he thinks he can even /feel/ the blood dripping onto his hand where he’s trying to hold the spike together.
What’s happening? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a clue. His teacher, he had been a Gordo, but never in his life had he seen his teacher do something like this. Teacher Gordon had been made of metal, or at least he felt like it, smooth and sharp points with just a few cuts from many battles. This was…not that.
What if it was a sign of ill health? Cellic didn’t look like any typical Gordo, not from what Nonsurat had heard described to him. It could be anything. He could be /dying/.
Oh, NOVA--
“Dad?”
He feels Cellic move, hears him speak with puzzlement looking over at where he stands half like a fool with the spike, and Nonsurat forces himself to breathe, forces his burning lungs to take air where he had forgotten in the sudden mayhem. No time to freak out. Cellic is there, he can’t worry the boy. He can freak out in private /later/.
“We’re going to the hospital. Come on.”
Nonsurat’s voice comes out like steel, far stronger than he feels in that moment. He doesn’t wait, just scoops Cellic in one arm with his little broken spike still in his other hand, leaving the mess of spikes and fluid forgotten on the floor. The boy asks questions but half of them go unanswered, the other half given terse and firm in a way that sounds less than reassuring to the boy. He just can’t think properly to give his son a proper response.
He runs out of the house, drags Cellic along out into the open, into town, knowing the route to the hospital on an old muscle memory more than anything else. Not for the first time he curses his lack of wings, his slow speed, and it feels …far too close to something that had happened long ago.
Not this time.
The hospital comes into view after what feels like an eternity, long after his lungs have begun to burn with his exertion. It’s the same as it always was, framed by plants and in the midst of minor repairs, but his goal is on the door, and he about smashes right through it with the force in which he runs up to the hospital’s entrance.
“Help!!”
For Mends, it’s a cry he’s heard a few times before in his many years of medical practice, and not a cry that should be taken lightly. Emergencies don’t come often to the clinic, but there is never a time where he’s not prepared for the worst should they happen.
Nonsurat is breathing heavy when Mends comes to see him, sweat beading his brow and a look in his eye that Mends has seen only once but nevertheless strikes him as familiar. His son is there in his arms, looking frantic and more than a bit teary-eyed, and it isn’t hard to see just what the problem is.
“Please, my son, he’s—” Nonsurat struggles with the words but pushes the child forward and brandishes the fallen spike in his grip, face twisting as he tries to describe exactly what it is he’s looking at. Mends can’t blame him.
“Give him here. Quickly.” He takes the spikes first and his eyes soften minutely as he reaches out for the child who backs up on pure impulse, gesturing for them to come over. “It’s alright. I’m going to have a look at you, that’s all. You won’t be hurt.”
“D-Dad…?”
“He’ll be right outside. Come along, quickly.”
And he takes the child from Nonsurat’s grip before either of them have anything to say about it, sweeping him away into the back, into one of several patient rooms catered more towards children than adults. Colorful, with a few activities tacked onto the wall to amuse them while they wait, and he can see the way Cellic stares at them before he’s set on the bed.
Mends considers himself a professional in his field, experienced with all sorts of species. In studying for his medical license, this was a requirement. However, he can safely say that he’s never treated Gordos, not once during all his years. Gordon had never visited his clinic, too afraid of needles and sharp things to provide much study. Of course, he knows the basics of where they come from, but that’s about all
This one doesn’t look like any Gordo he’s seen or even heard of. But in any case, there’s no time for thought. He’ll treat Cellic as he treats all of his new patients and go from there.
The tests that Mends runs are standard, but numerous. Checking his eyes, his breathing, the usual fare for a child on their first check-up, though quickly with the emergency on his hands. The spikes or lack thereof he pays careful note to, touching and feeling the bloody stumps while looking over the one that’s fallen off, reaching for gauze to stymie the flow of fluid while he understands what’s happening.
He talks to Cellic the whole while as he does this. Asking questions about how he feels, does he hurt, does it pinch when he does this? Does touching these spikes sting? He feels scared, no he doesn’t hurt, no it doesn’t pinch, it doesn’t sting either.
So, Mends takes a closer look, reaching out and feeling of the jagged edges of one of the stumps, feeling the way pieces chip off with nary a bit of effort. It feels not like metal, but a mixture of things. Keratin, perhaps a kind of coral. Organic. And it keeps coming off the more he touches it, and Cellic isn’t hurting at all, just confused and nervous.
“Has this ever happened before?”
Cellic will hear Mends’ voice come out calm and kindly, as soothing as he can be for a child completely lost on what’s happening.
“I can’t remember…”
“You can’t remember…”
And then he pauses, examining the stump directly above the other’s eyes. He pauses for a long moment, still as a statue even, long enough that Cellic begins to squirm as, slowly, the anxiety begins to taper off.
“…Don’t worry. You’re just fine.”
-------------------------------------------------
“Your son is shedding. For lack of a better word.”
This Nonsurat hears just a split second before he feels Cellic’s full weight barrel into his stomach, effectively knocking the wind out of him. He had been staring at the hallway leading back into the patients’ rooms, wondering with bated breath and a drumming heart and a repeated mantra in his mind that this couldn’t happen again, not again, not again. Cellic’s form, whole and alive despite his wandering thoughts, is a balm on his soul like no other.
He looks up at Mends with an expression of clear exhaustion, mouth just barely open as he tries to process the words. “…Shedding.” It doesn’t sound very believable. “But-“
“The fluid is normal. It happens with others who shed as well, nothing to worry about.” Mends points up towards his head as he speaks, gesturing. “His spikes appear to have the same method of growth as certain hard-shelled creatures you might find living in the sea. He grows, the spikes do not, and they eventually break off to allow new ones to take their place. Look closely at his head.”
So Nonsurat does, moves his boy back a bit to take a closer look. The top is more chipped now than it was, likely Mends’ doing, and in the middle, just barely peeking out is a hint of spike. Smoother, brighter, but all too easily missed it’s such a tiny speck. He touches it just to be sure and it definitely does feel firmer than the surrounding area. At least, he thinks so. It’s too tiny to tell.
He feels a lot of things in that moment. Anger, relief, elation, exhaustion. Remnants of fear just from seeing the sorry state of his son who, still cuddling him, looks a lot more chipper than he had just a few minutes ago.
“What do I…”
“Let it be. It will come off on its own.” Mends pauses, and Nonsurat can feel his stare as sharp as a thorn in his back. He isn’t looking at him, so he can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he can take a few guesses.
Cellic peeks up at him finally with a bright-eyed gaze that only a child could possess. “Hey, dad! Dr. Mends got me a sucker!”
He raises up the candy to present to his father who hadn’t seen it in the flurry of commotion, brandishing it like a trophy. Nonsurat can’t help but grin, tired as it may be. It’s hard to really believe Mends, hard to think that this look his child sports isn’t painful in some way. But Cellic is as cheerful as he had ever been, not uncomfortable, not hurting. He's happy.
That’s all Nonsurat wants,
“You can eat it on the way home for being so good, how’s that?”
Cellic cheers his assent and Mends begins to leave. “Call if you have any questions. Cellic, tell your mother I said hi, okay?”
“Okay!”
Cellic’s mother…
Nonsurat pales.
Oh, she’s going to kill him if she’s home to see the kitchen before he is.
“Come on, Cellic, let’s go.”
So he takes his son and starts off for home, quickly, urgently, trying not to make the child worry again but eager to get home in time to clean up the mess. If he gets home before Marlo does, it will give him time to explain how Cellic looks, then maybe she won’t overreact and they can just pretend everything’s perfectly normal, and…
Oh, who is he kidding. She’s going to freak out anyway he looks at it. He just really hopes he can mitigate the damage somehow.
Still, he thinks looking at Cellic, seeing him happily with his candy, at least the boy is okay.
That’s all that really matters.
-The End-
Artist Comment:
June 12, 2020
-----------------
I NEED MORE CELLIC ART!!! I must draw more!!!
If you haven't read the latest comic page (POW Page 9) I talked about different types of Gordos in the description. I'd recommend reading it. This is the first time Nonsurat witnessed Cellic shedding. Cellic sheds his spikes once a year, and it takes several weeks for it to fully grow back. Poor Nonny freaks out and assumes the worse, but thankfully Mends figures out it's nothing major. x)
The lovely piece of writing was commissioned by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess)
June 12, 2020
-----------------
I NEED MORE CELLIC ART!!! I must draw more!!!
If you haven't read the latest comic page (POW Page 9) I talked about different types of Gordos in the description. I'd recommend reading it. This is the first time Nonsurat witnessed Cellic shedding. Cellic sheds his spikes once a year, and it takes several weeks for it to fully grow back. Poor Nonny freaks out and assumes the worse, but thankfully Mends figures out it's nothing major. x)
The lovely piece of writing was commissioned by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess)
Species © Nintendo/ HAL Laboratory
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem