“‘Doratev, my esteemed, I seem to have misplaced my sense of humor today. Would you happen to be suffering a similar ill, and misplace some of that pug-related liquid you are investigating?’

‘I think I had a bit more puggum yesterday, sir Parvov. I assume it may have evaporated. Any particular reason for your question?’

‘Nothing , really. It’s just that… there’s a burning sheepdog running about the upper deck and Galara rides on it!’”

—Parvov and Doratev, having a little chitchat while a Splinter of Babesi improvised a hellhound.

Few where the royals that had been awoken by means of receiving a slap dished out with a pair of Basenji lungs, and Dirofil was fortunate enough to be granted acceptance into such a select group by Doratev’s hand.

The offending party was readying a second slap when Dirofil foiled his attempt with a quick grasp on the Splinter’s arm.

“I see you are awake, Fourth Imagined. I finished extracting the respiratory system.” He proudly exhibited the bloodied lungs, trachea and voice box of the dog, raising it high with his right hand, as if he had finally fished it out after hours of struggle against rod, line and treacherous waves.

“I can see you did. Don’t hesitate to ask me for a favor in the near future.”

Doratev entrusted the lungs to the Fourth imagined without showing major care for the delicate tissues. “What about the distant future, Fourth Imagined?”

“If I succeed, there won’t be a distant future, Doratev,” his voice trembled with emotion, betraying his eager desire for a new world.

“In the world of the creators, such statement would have been met with scorn, I believe. Parvov wanted us all to live together forever, if we were meant to live; or to die together, if to die was to be our unavoidable fate.”

“Past tense,” Dirofil simply said, holding the lungs aloft against the light as they dripped blood. “You addressed Parvov in past tense.”

“Well, I cannot know his mind in the present tense, just the thoughts he expressed in the past,” the Doctor answered quickly.

Dirofil thought that he had the excuse ready to go in case someone ever noticed one of his slips. “Fine. Get out.” Dirofil signaled at the door. “I want to absorb this mess.”

“I’d like to observe the process. Document it.”

“No. Either you get out or I look for an empty room. This isn’t mere Chihuahua teeth. I am afraid these could blow up and harm your new body.”

Doratev shuffled his feet outside his laboratory while grunting. “Break anything and, I swear, you will rebuild it!” He warned, shaking his fist with excessive drama before disappearing down the corridor.

Once the amusing investigator was gone, Diorilf stashed himself on the emptiest corned of the laboratory, and held the lungs at eye level. He gawked into them, at the patterns the vessels formed on the outside, and pictured the white hues of his spirit running through them, only to be expired through the alveoli.

He knew about them, the alveoli. And he knew about the faveolate lungs of reptiles, the long ones of snakes. He knew about the simple lungs of the amphibians and the fish. But nobody knew about lungs for a Thinker. None of his siblings, nor Shadiran’s, had ever taken a breath.

But he would. Not to take it from the dogs. Not to merely triumph over a sea that promised destruction. Not even for the power that he so desperately needed. He would take a breath because maybe, just maybe, it was worth to do so. To bask in the glory of having air, stale or delightfully fragrant, soothing or noxious, freezing or searing, flowing into one’s self. To be so intimately entangled into the fabric of nature. To have a taste of the creators’ life, something that they themselves had never done. The makers had gifted the Thinkers with the divine revelation that there were no children of the gods walking about them. That they had been created in spite of the image of the gods, whatever it may have been. That no afterlife awaited them beyond the veil— or rather, that the very concept of the veil was erroneous. Children of a mind, a Thinker was no more than the flimsy ideas that powered them, and forgotten ideas go to no heaven nor hell. And if death would come, by his obsessive hand or by another’s gaping maw, why not steal a breath from the world while he could?

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With this in mind he pressed the bloody organs against his own chest, and the slime changed shape to receive them. They entered by the left side and spun around Dirofils core like a snake jealously defending a melon. Pale fire lapped at the lungs and trachea, turned the flesh and cartilage to a bastard material that wasn’t neither biological nor mineral, and coiled the shriveled structure around Dirofil’s spine, at the height of the clavicles, right over the core. Then, part of the slime opened on the back of his chest, creating a slim tube that would allow air to flow freely into the hoarding dragon that had made its lair at the base of Dirofil’s neck.

And that’s how it happened. A Thinker took a single breath, and the stale air of the ship saluted its new tyrant. The lungs inflated ever so slightly, struggling against their own flexibility as the slime clumsily tried to expand them. A feeble breath, a pathetic breath it was, but how exhilarating it was to take it!

An exhalation, and Dirofil tumbled to the floor, landing upon his hands, a low cackle coming from his voicebox. Nobody had told him breathing would be so hard, or so empowering. Nobody could. Sitting up and straightening his back he began to move the vocal cords of the dog without passing air through them. Gurgles emerged from the borrowed throat as he involved his slime into the task.

Serendipity. It was hard to pull from the lung’s walls to expand them, yes. But he needed not the respiratory epithelium inside to remain functional. The limitations of those that had developed pumps in their mouths and chests to aid ventilation were no matter of concern for him.

Intrusive slime gathered in the lungs, and it smeared itself over the walls, forming a strong net under the control of Dirofil’s will. A net that would push from the inside, not needing a grip to do its job.

And so, the second breath taken by a thinker began, and it didn’t sputter off like the first. This one came out in a howl, and the sound coalesced behind Dirofil, made him feel another back sitting against his. There, barely visible due to how it distorted the air, sat his clone, holding the very position in which he had let the yodel erupt from the back of his neck.

The clone dispersed whilst Dirofil circled it, examining the frozen figure from every angle.

And something did blow up. Outwards boomed the kingly laugh of the Fourth Imagined. His was the power of the Yodeler, and now all that was left was to learn how to use it.

He had decided to give Morbilliv no notice of his little escapade. No words were uttered when he passed in front of Dalvari and Tuldrum, more out of hurry and eagerness than out of disrespect. He left the ship behind with a long jump, aiming for the nearest tail that wagged out of the Bernese structure. He swung on the underside of a ramp, ascending in a race against the incessant march of the Corship. A blink of the Reaper’s eye revealed the soul society inside the ship, and his brother’s soul shone bright at the bridge. He let a howl rip out from his new toy, and crawled across the wall of Berneses like a gecko aiming for a moth. Leaping off the wall with no regards for the dogs his legs pressed against, he threw himself onto the ship’s roof.

Morbilliv sat onto the floor of the bridge, looking out the One Eye of the Corship. Parvov’s eyes, and also the one from Leptos, lidded in Parvov’s face, and for a moment he felt he was channeling the frustration of his brother. The legsteerers had sent notice of something latching onto one of the forelegs, and doing so furtively, avoiding the end of the mentioned appendages. Now he saw the problem clearly, and the problem was his brother.

“This idiot will get himself killed,” Morbilliv lamented, and then peered over Parvov’s shoulder at Filbaros, the Splinter of Parvov.

He beckoned for him with a waving of two fingers. “Tell me, Filbaros: is it normal for one of ours to leave barely visible afterimages and howl while practicing gymnastics on the Ship’s legs?”

“No, sir, I don’t think so.”

Then, a miscalculation on the heartworm’s part made him cast a sound clone on top of another, gifting the captain and crewmate with a show of fireworks that splattered a twitching Dirofil against the thick and convex window, like a mosquito getting unfortunately intimate with a windshield.

Morbilliv found himself thinking how useful it would be to have a nose bridge to pinch in those moments, but he settled for fiddling with the tip of his horn. “Does your team detect anything worrysome, Filbaros?”

“No, sir, but Dirofil’s antics have been reported as distracting.”

But the Captain simply regarded the window in front of him. “Do you think we can get Doratev to fabricate some wipers?” he said, as Dirofil scratched and scratched to clamber up the window.

“Humor won’t help the crew overcome the problems Dirofil may cause, doltish tyrant.”

This prompted a proud laughter from Morbilliv. The little Splinter sometimes felt like a reincarnation of Parvi. “But the powers he’s learning to harness—” Another explosion, this time sending Dirofil flying into the dark. “He should be learning to harness could aid us, Filbaros, as long as he fights by our side. Where we see a parade of curses and enemies, he sees an arsenal.” A third explosion, followed by the unmistakable sound of something hitting the ship’s hull. “That’s it! I am fetching him!”