Welcome to Gaia! ::

This section of the lake was fairly developed, houses up to the beach, and lakeside shops pushing ice-cream and cheep T-shirts. The shops, for the most part, were closing now, as the day came to an end. The sun was sinking low, gilding the water and painting the clouds with its exit. Not, in fact, a place one would normally expect to find the quiet, serious young man that was Autsu.

Yet here he was. He had had errands, earlier, as evidenced by the brown paper bag that he had beside him. And then, the errands done, he had found himself walking the empty sidewalks, not quite willing to wander down to the sand, to the water. Water had a certain nostalgic quality for him, home had been a place of lakes and coastlines. Fountains too, once he'd come to live in the palace.

But he wasn't here to think of the past. Or the present. Or the future. For the time being, Autsu had decided that thinking of any kind was strictly off limits. There were too many thing to figure out, and the blue winged one was simply not up to the figuring. Instead, he'd found a an empty wooden bench, and sitting sideways, to accommodate for his wings, he was studying his skateboard.

This, in fact, was why he'd come down here in the first place. A good skate shop. He'd picked up the parts he'd wanted, but now, in retrospect, he was wondering if perhaps he should have at least considered getting a new board. This one was starting to show its use, the griptape dirty and worn.

The weight of a strangers attention was not something easily missed by the dark skinned boy. And when it quickly became apparent that said attention wasn't waining, the former guard became nervous. His hand left the skateboard, and fell lightly to his nearest knife, the one strapped to his upper leg. He didn't actually remove the weapon, simply rested his fingers there, then slowly lifted his eyes to see the watcher.

But upon seeing the stranger, he stilled, the sense of anxiety gone, replaced with confusion. There was something, a distant familiarity here. A memory of teeth and fists and the recession of anger that he could not puzzle out. His early days on Gaia were experienced through such a haze of hatred and hurt that he had a hard time recalling the details. And time had changed the one he studied. So he could not, quite, recall him. Yet his mind said comrade, and he was not one to distrust his instincts.

"I... Good Evening." He said, with his habitual formality. And then, at a loss for how to think of a way to explain the nagging hint of memory, he pulled his wings against his back and scooted over, his skateboard still on his lap. "Do you wish to sit?"

He was not used to feeling unsure. He was not used to operating without a mission. He didn't know what his goal was, here.

"I am unsure." Autsu admitted, his own quiet confusion coloring his voice. Comfortable, to be confused about this. To be puzzled by something that did not hurt or demand. It endeared the stranger to him, made him more willing to attempt a conversation, an area that was not exactly his forte. One could not really say that the blue winged one had friends. He had Kian, who was ally, friend, and, perhaps more. But the others, they were comrades with a common cause. He did not know how to talk to them.

He didn't know how to talk now, either.

"There is a memory. It is... old." He admitted, his wings rustling softly as he shrugged.

Well, then, there was only one way to resolve this really. One question that would answer at least some of his questions. If the other was one of theirs, then perhaps that explained at least some of the odd feeling of familiarity. It was not a question that he asked most, and he found himself wishing he had his list. Perhaps, with that, he could simply check the boy he was looking at against the descriptions Archie had given.

"Are you an exile here?" No points for tact, there. But was there a tactful way to ask whether or not someone was a criminal?

"They call me Autsu." The winged one replied in quiet echo, looking at Otieno with silent consideration. His dark face was hard to read, if it was empathy that he felt at that moment, it didn't show. But it was. They were not all angry at the past, though most that he'd spoken to were. They were all alone, and that was difficult, in its way.

That was the whole point of the Unit, wasn't it?

"Because, it makes you a comrade to me, whether or not we remember correctly." He wanted to believe that was true, though it wasn't, always. He had met some that were not comrades, regardless of their shared circumstances. He'd met some with no interest in an alliance, to angry or to content to look for other.

"It is difficult, this place. These forms." His wings rustled as he spoke. Those obnoxious wings that set off his balance and inhibited him in a fight. "We have made a place where those who reached this place in our way can meet. So that alliances can be made. If you are interested."

"I can land softly, but I am to heavy for flight. They are an encumbrance only." No affection, there. Warriors had tails with spikes. Warriors did not have big fluffy wings. Big fluffy wings did not intimidate the enemy or offer a manner of offense. "I am not... over fond of this form. Though I have done my best to train it to use."

"There are more than a handful who are part of the Unit. More who were not interested. And some who are new to their forms here, not yet able to speak the language. Small." He echoed Otieno then, looking up in the sky as if to find what might be troubling this new comrade. Seeing nothing unusual he turned his attention back to the conversation. "They are not sending exiles to any set location, anymore. So the pods... some of us are trying to locate those who were not assured the protection of a guardian."

For his part, Autsu was greatly fond of his father. Perhaps not all were similarly fond, but to have fallen to Gaia with no one? He would have died, surely.