fiction - brigits_flame - evolution

[hwango]

“I forbid it,” Naya’s father said. He was visibly quivering with barely-contained rage. Her mother, on the other hand, seemed to be too stunned to react at all.

“You haven’t even met him,” Naya said. “If you did, you’d realize that –”

“I forbid it!” he interrupted, leaping to his feet. “The boy is a...a...a deviant! A monster!”

“Just because he’s different –” Naya began, but got no further.

“No daughter of mine is going to be seen consorting with someone who regulates their own body temperature independently of the sun!” her father screamed. “Warm-blooded?! It’s unnatural! It’s evil!” His tail lashed from side to side and his toes dug into the hard earth. Naya, however, refused to back down.

“You hypocrite!” she shouted back at him, abandoning her attempts at calm reason. Her father actually retreated a step, it caught him so by surprise. “You’re always going on about our proud ancestry! How our brave and noble ancestors were the first to crawl out of the ocean and start living life on land! Well, Klar has that same drive and ambition! He’s not going to depend on some light in the sky to tell him when he can be active! He’s not going to spend half the day lounging on some rock just to stay warm!”

Her father just stared at her with a mix of shock and revulsion. Finally, in barely a whisper, he spoke.

“I disown you,” he said, without a trace of emotion. This, finally, elicited a response from her mother, who let out a tiny cry of despair. “You are no longer a pelycosaur. You and your filthy suitor can both turn your backs on Lord Sun and run off together for all I care. You are dead to us.”

Naya’s own rage left her just as suddenly, but the feeling that rushed to replace it was more pity than sadness. She left them both without another word, and did not look back.

“Stupid old dinosaurs,” she thought. It was time to look toward the future.

Comments

[gunthersdncemix.livejournal.com]

That is awesome! I love this take on kids doing things their parents don't approve of. :)

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I was pretty happy with the number of levels on which I managed to make this work, in spite of it being rather short. Rebellious youth, forbidden love, evolution vs religion, literally cold-blooded parents, "dinosaur" in a literal sense and as a term for someone opposed to progress, etc. - all packed into an easy-to-carry box. = )

Plus, you know...dinosaurs. They rock.