Imakarum had to fight very hard to
keep himself from staring. He had known, on an intellectual
level, at least, that Kenji’s voice would have broken when he
was aged in the processing-tank, but hearing his
own
voice coming out of Kenji’s mouth was something that he had not
been at all prepared for.
"Good morning, Kenji-chan," Imakarum
said gently as Kenji blinked the last of the sleep from his
eyes.
"Where’d you get that new pair of
sunglasses, dad?" Kenji asked, staring up at his father’s visor
with his newly slitted pupils. "They look really neat."
Feeling somewhat uneasy, Imakarum gently
stroked Kenji’s left cheek, but it was only after his son had
closed his eyes in pleasure that Imakarum felt comfortable
enough to respond. Seeing Kenji with the body of a grown man was
one thing, but to see the catlike eyes of a Zoalord staring out
of his son’s face… it was just too much to deal with at once.
"A friend gave them to me," he answered,
still rubbing Kenji’s cheek and hoping his son would keep his
eyes closed for a little while longer.
"That was nice of them." Almost as an
afterthought, he added, "have I met them?"
"No." Imakarum lifted his hand and
ruffled Kenji’s hair. "But you will as soon as we get you up and
dressed."
Taking his son’s hand, Imakarum gently
helped him stand for the first time since he had undergone the
processing to become a Zoalord.
"Ah!"
"What is it, Kenji?" Imakarum asked,
worried.
"The floor’s all cold," he said
plaintively, hopping from one foot to the other.
It was such an unexpected answer, yet at
the same time so much like Kenji, that Imakarum had to laugh,
and it wasn’t all that long before his son joined him. However,
the knowledge that Lord Alkanphel was expecting him kept
Imakarum from getting too carried away with his mirth. Giving
Kenji a quick hug once they had both calmed down, Imakarum
turned and led him to his closet.
"I hope your feet aren’t so cold
anymore, Kenji," he commented, trying to keep the worry from his
voice.
He had by now remembered that Zoalord
bodies were not supposed to be vulnerable to environmental
threats such as temperature changes and the like—if something
had gone wrong with Kenji’s processing, Imakarum wanted to know
quickly so that he could correct the problem.
"No, I’m fine now," Kenji said,
stretching out his arms above his head and yawning deeply.
"You’re sure?"
"Yeah, I don’t even feel the cold
anymore."
Imakarum considered his son’s
words even as he stepped up to the closet and opened it. Perhaps
it had merely been a case of human reactions overriding Zoalord
adaptations, thus making Kenji
think
that he was cold when he really wasn’t. As Imakarum pulled
Kenji’s nightshirt off over his head and helped him into a new
shirt of almost the same color, Imakarum decided that that had
most likely been the case.
As he helped Kenji to dress himself in
his new clothes, Imakarum wondered why his son hadn’t started
asking questions yet. He had expected him to be at least a
little curious about the fact that he was being given clothes
that under any normal circumstances would have been several
sizes too big for him, but Kenji seemed to be taking the changes
to his body with a truly remarkable amount of equanimity.
Imakarum was well aware that his son was
very adaptable, but this kind of drastic change had made even
him uneasy—the first thing that Imakarum himself he
had done when he had first awakened as a Zoalord, though he
hated to even think about it even now, was to attack Lord
Alkanphel. He had not done any damage to his master, thankfully,
but even after he had apologized and been granted forgiveness,
he was still reluctant to discus the subject.
Imakarum hoped fervently that
Kenji would not try anything like that, since if he did Imakarum
doubted that even he
would be able to protect his son from Lord Alkanphel’s fury. But
still—this strange acceptance on Kenji’s part was almost as
unsettling.
"Kenji?"
"Yes, Dad?"
"Aren’t you frightened?" Imakarum asked,
gently taking hold of Kenji’s wrists so that he could hold the
larger, stronger hands up into Kenji’s line of sight. "You’ve…
changed a lot, Kenji-chan."
"I know," Kenji answered, looking at his
hands.
They were clearly no longer the hands of
a six-year-old boy, being instead the powerful, well-developed
hands of a twenty-five-year-old man. And not just any man,
either, Imakarum knew, but one who would shape the future of the
world. Kenji was a Zoalord now, and even though he would never
be a part of the Council of Twelve, Imakarum knew that his son
would have an important part to play in later events.
"I know I’m different now, dad, but he
said that I shouldn’t be scared." Kenji turned back to Imakarum,
his blue-green eyes shining with happiness and a wide smile on
his face. "He also said that you’d be here to help me adjust."
Now he wrapped his arms around his father and leaned his head
against his collarbone. "I’m really glad you’re still here,
dad."
Imakarum smiled to himself, running his
fingers through Kenji’s long hair again. "I’m glad you’re here
with me too, Kenji-chan." Imakarum was silent for a moment,
thinking about what Kenji had just said. "Who told you not to be
afraid?"
"I don’t know his name," Kenji said,
sounding only mildly concerned. "But he told me that he knew
you."
Imakarum, holding Kenji tighter, decided
to just this once see what memories that Kenji had of the person
who had told him not to be afraid. Concentrating, Imakarum felt
Kenji’s mind open up to him.
-Show me…-