Assyrian has a minion!

Jam the Friendly Sprite

Assyrian

pronouns: he/they


Iahset and I were living happily in our apartment that we’d built for ourselves out of a warehouse before it was cool, sampling all the hip new street food places and reading every book they introduced to the library, listening to every fresh artist’s music and visiting every rotating display at the museum… living high class, cultured lives, basically.

Enter: Zvi.


Later, I found out that she’d gotten into a fight with her mentor, Rakover, and had decided to run away and become a street racer. Rakover would blame it on Problobly, who was always telling her his fan fiction stories about kids in Ziara city (some of which are street racers). Problobly says he tried to convince her not to go. This is how their version goes:Zvi walked up, snotty nosed and mad looking, like she’d just been angry crying, and said, “I’m running away to become a street racer, and you’re coming with me.”

“What? No. Zvi, that is a terrible, terrible idea. Why are you having this idea?”

“Rak’s made me mad and I want to run away.”

“Ok, well, that’s understandable, but-”

“You love Ziara, come on, let’s go! I don’t need anything, I’ve got some money-”

“No, no, no, Zvi, this is a horrible idea. You can’t be serious.”

“Well, I’m very serious, and I’m pretty sure it’s the best idea I’ve ever had, and you should think so too, because this is the kind of life you’re clearly always wanted.”

“No, no it’s not, I make stories about that kind of life, that doesn’t mean I want to-”

“Well, I’ll live it, and you can watch me.”

“You’re too young for street racing.”

“Um, they don’t have rules, that’s kind of the whole point Obs, duh.”

“They have their OWN set of rules. Zvi, you don’t even know how to drive.”

“I’ll learn.”

“Zvi, I can not go along with this.”

“Fine, then I’ll go by myself.”

“Zvi-”

“It’ll be great material for your books! Don’t you want to see all the things you’ve only daydreamed about?”“Well, yes, but-”

“Then come with me! I don’t want to get lonely. And if you tell on me, wether you’re coming or not, I’m throwing you back into the Rift.”

“I’m not sure that would work now. And I do want to go with you, and I do find it touching that you would want my company-”

“Then come ON.”

“No, Zvi, I can’t - ok how about this. No street racing.”

She crossed her arms and pouted at them.

“I’m not going unless you promise.”

“But that’s the most fun part!”

“There are plenty of other exciting things to see and do in Ziara.”

She rolled her eyes, stomped her feet a few times, chewed on her lip, and finally said, “FINE.”

“You have to promise, I’m not leaving until you-”

“Fine! Yes, I promise, ok? Can we go now?”

Except that she used the oldest trick in the book, and they didn’t catch it: she crossed her fingers.

- - - - - -

So anyway, with the full intention of giving her time to cool down and explore a bit and then turning her back gently home, Problobly let her drag them along.

- - - - - -
This is how Zvi tells it:

“Obs was taking too long in the museum, so I went outside to get something to eat, and there was a street race happening, bam! Right there on the street I was on! And some boy dared me to race and I obviously can’t not take a dare.”

“But you promised!” Problobly wailed.

“One: I crossed my fingers. Two: I’m a DRAGON, I can’t just NOT take a dare.”

Which is a rule I’m pretty sure she made up.


This is how I tell it:

I was picking up some food for some late night munching, and overheard the squeal of cars a few streets over, which I know means there’s a street race going on, which means the area is about to get messy with law enfacement, so I was going to hurry on home before I got caught in the traffic - but then there was this terrible crash. It sounded like one of the cars had gone through a building. I couldn’t just ignore that. Being made of metal, I’m quite strong, so I rushed over to see if I could be of any assistance. A small blue child came crawling out of the smoking wreckage, coughing and grinning and waving the fumes out of her face. A great cheer went up from the crowd, she raised her fist in triumph, and then the air erupted in sirens and everyone scattered. The blue child scattered her way straight into me.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked her in concern.

“No time now to figure that out,” she said in a hoarse voice, looking around quickly for an escape route.

“You’re too young for racing,” I said, catching her inside the curve of my paw as she tried to swerve around me.

“That’s what I tried to tell her,” said a broadcasting telepathic voice.

I turned sharply to see a Riftborn Blob making it’s way towards us, wringing it’s nether material like you would hands. I felt Zvi sigh and somehow knew that she was also rolling her eyes.

“There’s my self proclaimed babysitter,” she said sarcastically.

“Zvi!” The blob wailed, “You promised!”

“We have to get out of here,” I said, before they could engage in an argument. The sirens were getting closer. I scooped the kid unceremoniously onto my back, and took off down the street in huge bounds, the blob making its way through the air behind me.When we reached the apartment, neither of them were certain about following me up the stairs.

“Thanks for the save,” the blob said stiffly, “But we’ll be alright from here.”

“Not in that incriminating helmet, she won’t be,” I said, and the kid frowned deeply, then slowly and regretfully unbuckled the half busted helmet and removed it from her head. There was blood coming from somewhere.

“Throw it in the garbage somewhere, quick!” The blob said, looking around frantically with it’s one big eye.

A siren turned a corner and started making it’s way down our street.

“No time,” I said quickly, prodding the kid through the door with my nose.

“Really now, we don’t even know you-” the blob began to protest.

“Better get to know me instead of them,” I said, hoping my body was hiding the kid’s from view as a police motorcycle blared past.“Come on, Ob,” the kid called as she made her way up the staircase, one stair at a time, limping painfully as she gripped the handrail. “We’ll be alright.” This time I could hear her gritting her teeth as she spoke.

“Here, kid,” I said, ducking my head back under her body so that she sat on my neck. She didn’t protest, for once, and just patted my ear wearily.

We rarely have visitors, so Iahset was quite surprised when I brought them up. She went into instant repair mode, even though the child wasn’t made of metal. She got her out of scorched and torn driving suite, and when she wriggled off her boots, found that she’d smashed her one foot pretty badly.

“You should consider a less brutal pursuit in life,” I told her from the table, munching on the sushi I’d brought home. The blob had absorbed a few pieces as well.

The kid made a face at me.

“What’s your name, dear?” Iahset asked, prepping a bath for her.

“Zvi,” she said; though it came out a bit muddled by her quickly swelling lip.

“Pain In The Ass, more like it” the blob muttered quietly; though if it hadn’t wanted anyone to hear that, it wouldn’t have projected it.

“And that’s Problobly,” Zvi said, pointing to the blob, “Or more like, A Most Royal Pain In The Ass.”

“Alright, alright,” Iahset said, giving me a private roll of her eyes as she ushered Zvi towards the bath.

When she’d been washed and stitched and and bandaged and wrapped up in ice packs, she and Iahset joined me at the table. Problobly had already retired into a sleepy but still watchful cloud near the ceiling. Somehow, the kid still managed to gulp down some sushi, even over her now sizable lip. We made a bed for her out of some cushions, afterwards (automatons don’t need beds, so we don’t have any. What’s the point of having squishy things when you can’t feel them? The only reason we even have the cushions is for aesthetic reasons.), and while Iahset and I retired to our books, Zvi fell right to sleep.

She woke up in the morning so stiff and sore she could barely move, but when I brought fresh waffles back from our favorite street stall, she still managed to eat several. Problobly admired our tea collection. Iahset checked on all Zvi’s wounds, gave her more ice packs, and the kid went right back to sleep.

Problobly and I had a chat. They told me all about their life back home, Zvi’s conniving to get them here, and their intense love of the Streets of Megito series. I allowed that I’d heard of the best selling YA series, though I’d never read it. The longer Problobly talked about it, and the OCs they’d written to fit into the books’ world, the more excited his tone got, until Zvi rolled over in her sleep with a groan and mumbled, “Obs, shut up already.”

I was working on a painting by that time, and was mostly ignoring them. “We have a full library with various histories and resources you might find interesting,” I offered.

Problobly said, “May I?” With a blissful look about their eye, and then wisped off to absorb the materials.

Which is exactly how blobs read, by the way. They slowly dissolve themselves through the pages, letting the narrative steep into them, until they’ve reached the end, and then they move onto the next one. Problobly would be able to read our entire library without ever removing a book from the shelf.

Though they’d promised Zvi not to be a tattle tale, Problobly was worried about the feelings of everyone back home, so they privately told me that they needed to send a message, to let everyone know they were alright. I signed into our communications network for them, so they could send the message, and Problobly reasoned guiltily to their self that since Zvi had broken her promise, they could break theirs as well. I told them that they were only being a rational adult, but Problobly paused for a moment and then asked in confusion,

“Do I count as an adult? I’ve only been around a few years, you know…”

When Zvi woke back up later that afternoon, she limped her way into the kitchen and made herself some tea and a sandwich, let herself out onto the balcony, and watched the city for awhile while she ate. Then she grabbed a pillow, and came and cuddled against me while I continued to work on my painting. I usually paint in my studio, but I was painting at the apartment so I could keep an eye on the both of them.

“You’re really good at that,” she said after a while.

“Thank you,” I said, a small warmness growing in my chest toward her, in spite of everything.

After another long moment of quiet, she asked, “How old are you?”

“Very old,” I said, mixing up a new color.

She leaned back so she could look me in the eye, her own amber ones full of an unusual amount of perception. “HOW old,” she repeated, with emphasis.

I looked at her for a long moment, then turned back to my easel and began to tell her my story. “Long ago,” I began, “In a land you now know as the Sacred Planes, there was a god who fell in love, for one night only, with a Tigrean. That Tigrean gave birth to me. And as I grew, it became apparent to everyone that I was stronger than most…”

I still hadn’t finished by the time Iahset came back from her workshop, bearing steaming bowls of noodle soup, and boxes of frozen mochi for dessert. Zvi slurped up her soup quickly, then licked all the powdered sugar off of her mochi before taking tiny, tiny bites of it, savoring every bit of it, and, I imagine, how nice the cold felt against her still very swollen lip. After she was done, she begged Iahset for her story, which she indulged in beginning (hers is even longer than mine), until Zvi’s eyes slowly fell closed. I couldn’t move after that, because she’d fallen asleep curled up in a little nest of pillows she’d created for herself against my side.This pattern continued for the next few days as she healed - faster than most humans heal, but still too slow for her liking. Our stories were her solace, as Problobly took to exploring the city and it’s many wondrous sights without her, chiding her when she protested that she “shouldn’t have gone breaking promises and being reckless with her life.” She curled herself up into a ball and cried into my chest, but I couldn’t tell her that they were wrong about that.

Eventually, her mentor came to collect her, along with their muscle man, Namesake. Namesake is an ancient being as well, and though not as ancient as Iahset and I, we enjoyed a good conversation out on the balcony while Zvi and Rakover had at each other inside, Rakover’s shouts bigger than his body, and Zvi’s shouts edged with screaming rage.

Eventually, they came to terms about whatever it was they’d been fighting about before, as well as her runaway stint, and they joined us on our very little and now quite crowded balcony to enjoy some fruit flavored icees, which Problobly had brought up as a peace offering between everybody.

They all stayed the night before their planned journey the next morning, and once they’d all retired, Iahset and I had a murmured conversation about how we didn’t like the look in Rakover’s eyes, or the way he held himself. It wasn’t even that he and Zvi had had a shouting match - we’d lived with her just long enough to figure that’s just how things get with her sometimes - but we’d become a bit more protective and fond of her than we’d anticipated over her brief stay with us, and we weren’t sure we were ready to let her go, especially if it was back into Rakover’s company. But what could we do? She’d made amends and this was her family, messy though it seemed to be, and she wasn’t making any protests about going back with them, though she did lament to us the next morning, as we enjoyed some fresh eggs down at a food stall just a few doors down from our apartment, that she hadn’t gotten to see much of the city after all.

I jumped in, much to Iahset’s amusement, to say that she was welcome back anytime, and that we’d always be happy to host her. “Finish mending up, and then come back to us for a visit, and we’ll take you on a full tour,” I promised.

Rakover gave me an appraising look, but didn’t say anything, Problobly hummed enthusiastically about loving the chance to come absorb more of our library, and Namesake said, with a sort of dry humor, “Just tell us where you’re going this time, alright sweetheart?”

She gave him a smile filled with chagrin and ruffled his ears (which he frowned at, but didn’t protest), Problobly gave an akward laugh, and soon they were all on their way.

“You old softy,” Iahset said with a chuckle and a rub of her shoulder against mine, as she turned back towards the apartment after they’d disappeared down the street.

“Well,” I said gruffly, turning to follow her, “It had to happen at some point, didn’t it? We’re old enough to be the grandparents of generations long dead.”

She just chuckled again.



They do visit quite often; Namesake and Problobly and Zvi all together. Namesake is a writer, and trying to figure out the details of various past lives and surrounding elements, so he’ll sit Iahset or I down with a big pot of tea and rack out brains for stories of the bygone eras he’s trying to remember. Problobly usually bumbles about happily, distracted by every passing fancy, completely unreliable for keeping an eye on Zvi. After mostly ignoring their rambles for awhile, I finally started listening to the stories they were telling me, and was surprised that they were actually… pretty good. The characters were well fleshed out, the humor made me chuckle, the stakes were high - I let them know about an online fan fiction community that might enjoy their stories, and they got all misty-eyed, saying that it was their dream to be published, but that they didn’t have a way to record their stories, being unable to hold a pen. “Nonsense,” I snorted, and introduced them to one of Iahset’s many inventions - a completely mechanical laptop computer. I can plug my limbs into it and pretty much type without thinking, so we now have a little arrangement: Problobly tells me the stories, I type them in, we go back over them and edit them together, and then we post them on online. They’ve already got a growing fanbase. Sometimes Zvi will lie on the floor and give us feedback during our sessions, whether we want it or not. She’ll interrupt us to go off on her own tangent on what she thinks should happen next, we listen politely, I maybe take a few notes so she won’t feel ignored, and then when she’s done, Problobly will say something along the lines of, “Thank you so much for your input, Zvi, and I will consider it, but for now I think we’d better get down what’s already been in my head.” She accepts this graciously and lets us go on for awhile, until she comes up with another inspired interruption, and if she has too many of these we eventually mention to her that we could really use some ice-cream, do you think you could get us some? Then she’ll run off and be distracted by a million other things before eventually making her way back to us, and by that time we’ll have gotten a few thousand words down and be really truly ready for an ice-cream break.

Iahset and I keep our promise (which I made for the both of us) of taking Zvi on a tour of the city - several, actually; it’s a big city - but even once that’s done, she still visits. She lays on her back and eats cookies in Iahset’s workshop, prattling on about her latest adventures while Iahset works, or else she’s in my studio, painting with me, or else following me to the academy where I teach dance to only the most rigorous, serious, and stiff-upper lipped students (“You’re harsh to them, Papa Rian.” “I give them what they need, little Zvi.”). She gives us nicknames and we don’t protest - she seems to do it to everyone, and no one wins if they try to protest anyway. Besides, we’re kind of touched to be called Papa Rian and Mama-Set. She runs “Mama-Set” together more than she does “Papa Rian,” so that “Mama-Set” sounds more like one word. We’re the only ones that we know of that have titles attached to the abbreviations of our names, and we’re quite honored by that.

Sometimes, she tells us stories of her own past, and we listen to the longing for home in her voice. “Rak said not to tell you I was a dragon,” she told us, early on in her visits, “But Rak doesn’t know everything he thinks he knows.”I wish Rakover visited as well, so I could get a better feel for him, and Iahset’s proposed visiting them a few times. We don’t travel much these days, but who knows? Perhaps for our darling grand-dragon, we will.

“I’d do just about anything for that kid,” I told Iahset one night as we were finishing our dinner.

She didn’t laugh at me this time; she just nodded and said with a wistful smile, “So would I, my dear. So would I.”

Profile template by Lea, edited by myself, kitten, and Lea

background art by waneella

story by me, Nrogara

pixel arts linked back to source, and belong to these artists as follows: Abricot-Jaune, YuukiMokuya, kouenli, silkanide, profiledecor, and cutiezor, all from devianart and are free to use