[Survey] What You Can't Have
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By Zuki
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"If you could remove or add any mutation to yourself, what would it be and why?"
Eber read and reread the question scrolling along the top of his slate, tapping the stylus against his teeth as he considered. His fellow xeros came in such a variety of shapes and morphologies; he'd be a liar to claim he wasn't envious.
"I'm really stuck on this one, ma. Can I just, uh, talk through it with you?"
"Sure, hon," Angharad replied. The taller alien crossed her arms and leaned over the back of the couch. Eber wasn't completely sure how she'd become one of his foster parents. ARC staff visited regularly, and everyone was conspicuously Polite And Well-Mannered. Eber's impression was that there was something Deeply Irregular about the whole affair but nobody had, as of yet, told him what that was.
"So, my, uh, *type*-" Eber here leans over to the window to check if the thornapple cutting from his tail had started to root yet. "They're pretty infamous for the, ah, whole arboreal-patagia-glider-wing-skin-flaps thing. Sure, it's the first thing I thought of."
"Mmhm....?" Angharad pushes a lock of white hair away behind one pointed ear and waits for her adoptee to get to the point.
"I really don't want them! The glider thing is cool, but, I could just save prestige for a wingsuit, you know? I'd have to completely retailor my favorite vests. I just. I feel like they'd get in the way for me."
"So what do you want? Kiddo, you literally have XNA we can modify with a daytrip to the lab. Do you know what I'd do with that?"
Eber paused. It had never occured to him that his guardian could be envious. "...what would you want, ma?"
She snorted and lightly 'punched' her charge in the arm. "Eb, I don't even know! Something different every month! I'd be unrecognizable in a year and then they'd cut me off for being an incorrigible science fruit junkie."
Eber snickered. "There you are, strung out on the divan with blue ru juice all over your lips, carpeted in dozens of antennae...."
"One hundred percent. You're a regular prophet, Eber. So." She leans forward and taps the pad with a thick-nailed finger. "Survey."
He picked the slate up again and swiped to display a small gallery of pictures. "The other big one I was thinking about was, they call them hollow eyes? I liked the idea of being able to see in near-total dark."
And also nobody else being able to see where I'm looking, maybe, he thought but didn't say. Eber had been caught staring at a particularly attractive individual once or twice and the embarrassment had been excruciating.
"But I was asking a, um, a friend about it and xe pointed out that xer sunhats and goggles are for blocking out the daylight and that the rest of the time they get overstimulation headaches easilas sneezing. So maybe not? There's also biolum, it's gorgeous, absolutely. I could read in the dark, but what if it keeps me up a night? Bobtails are cute as anything, but I love my bottlebrush, it's the best growing medium I could..."
Eber walked into the kitchen as he continued wool-gathering and rambling. Grabbing the handles of cabinets and edges of shelves with his hands and his nearly-as-flexible feet, he climbed up to the countertop. He reached for a knife on the wall-mounted magnet strip, and, sitting on the countertop, begun slicing fruits.
"Ang, do you want some?"
"With salt on the side!." The older woman was an utter field for the not-too-sour not-too-sweet flavor of fresh redshade.
~
Once settled with their snacks, Angharad--long faced, pointed mobile ears, hoof-nailed--fixed her foster son with a calculating eye. "So what's holding you back, Eber?" He only rambles this much when there's something he doesn't want to spit out.
He sighs. "Well. There are- There are some traits they can't just wiggle into someone's XNA, ma."
She smiled indulgently. "Of course. Always reaching for the impossible. So...."
The pause extended. Eber looked around their home--his favorite napping hammock tacked onto the ceiling, the ladders and grips on the sides of cabinets and bookshelves, at the holographs of him with family and friends.
"Ah. Well. For example- for example." Eber swallowed. "The tundra xeros, you know? They're--" Tall. Like everyone else in my family. I don't need two meters but it sure would be nice. Jungles weren't as petite as deserts, but Eber felt the disparity keenly.
"...Extra fluffy?" Angharad's tone was dry and her brow raised. She wondered if he'd be honest or take the out.
"Yeah," Eber agreed, relieved. He continued the double-speak, "They're extra fluffy, in a way that's not quite something you can just, uh, The Curator can't wiggle that in." This was, they both knew, a lie.
There was another pause.
"--'M just going to say I would get those hollow ears."
"...and I'm going to call the builders again about that kitchen redesign we keep talking about."
She thought they'd done a good job making the apartment accessible, but maybe it was time to call the nerds at ARC Labs again for one. more. consult.
Eber wishes he could be more like the rest of his family, but there is only so much a xero can do.
Submitted By Zuki
for ARC Survey: 031
Submitted: 2 years ago ・
Last Updated: 2 years ago
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