Welcome to Gaia! ::

If he was feeling any cold at all from the hallway, Zachary showed no sign of it as he stood in the shadows, absently flicking ink off of his fingers and watching it splatter on the wall and floor before coagulating and oozing back to him to be reabsorbed into his feet. Thanks to the ink that ran through him like black, watery blood, being cold was as commonplace to him as being bored. Right at the moment, bored was exactly what he was. He hadn't had much of a desire to socialize since he had arrived there, and he figured that most found his appearance and demeanor unnerving, or at the very least uncomofortable. He supposed he couldn't blame them there; avoiding him was one discomfort the patients in this Hell-hole could actually do something about. He wouldn't begrudge them that.

He paused as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching down the corridor, and he willed that the newest spatters of ink return to him quickly. The last thing he wanted was to run into another doctor. He suffered their prodding and poking when he was in his stark white quaratine bubble of a room; they would not have their way with him during his free time. As the footsteps got closer, he had a sudden thought. Closing his eyes and honing his mind, he focused his power until a gooey trail of ink detached itself from him and pooled at his feet to form a tiny dragon, which he sent out with a thought to confront the approaching visitor. If it was a doctor, it might be fun to lead them on a merry chase before having his little friend vanish down the nearest mouse hole.

Zachary stood there with his eyes closed, willing the creature forward, then his eyes snapped open in surprise; somewhere, his dragon had just.....vanished. He wrinkled his nose; usually the dragon remained whole when he sent it out to scout the lay of the land. Had it spotted a doctor and was playing dead? Or was there another of......his sort in the hall; someone with powers who had seen his dragon and disabled it, thinking it to be a threat?

Sensing the last remaining thread of sentience still hovering around the inky puddle, Zachary willed the puddle to reform and 'escort' its executioner to him. With a barely perceptible schwip!, the inky dragon reformed, shaking stray droplets of ink from its hide before moving to catch up with Liberty, scampering around her legs like an excited puppy.

Sensing the dragon getting closer, and now hearing the footfalls of whoever it was that was following it, Zachary willed the dragon to scamper the rest of the way, rounding a bend and screeching to a halt in front of him that left little inky skid marks on the floor.Smiling a bit, he reached down to pet the inky little head just as the person emerged from around the corner.

He had tensed up at the sight of movement, but visibly relaxed again when he saw that his little friend had not brought a doctor, but another patient. He unabashedly sized her up, from her ordinary-looking clothes to her braided hair. He felt himself bringing up a hand to feel a lock from his own head, slippery with ink. He couldn't so much as run a comb through his own hair without it getting ruined, but the ink kept it from tangling, so there wasn't a point anyway.

Focusing his mind back to the matter at hand, he assumed a relaxed posture to show that he wasn't interested in picking a fight, or much else for that matter. "Hey."

Zarchary could tell from the look on the other's face that she wasn't quite convinced that he would not just pounce on her and drag her into some unknown inky abyss. While he couldn't deny that the concept sounded kind of cool, it was also pointless. This girl standing before him had nothing that he really wanted, except perhaps some company, although that was a need that he would never admit aloud.

With a flick of his fingers, the ink-dragon walked up to him and proceeded to march up his leg, moving slowly and meticulously the higher it got, as though it was walking through deep mud. As it climbed higher on him, it got smaller and smaller, until by the time it reached the bottom of his inky vest, it had become little more than a hint of movement in the cloth, like a black leviathan lurking below a murky surface.

Still looking keenly at the girl and offering no smile, he allowed himself to relax a little more. Exercising his abilities always made him feel more confident that whoever he met in the halls, he could and would give as good as he got. Still, no need to be a thug. "Chill; I'm no doctor and I'm not interested in skull-bashery. You new here?"

Zachary fought back a smile as he saw how much the dragon melting back into him unnerved the other. Not that he loved to scare people; he just liked to establish right from the off that there was more to him than met the eye and it would not be wise to try anything funny with him. He would much rather conserve his energy than engage in any sort of barbaric, pecking-order brawl; appearing this way just helped avoid such a situation, and just because the person in front of him was a girl made no difference to him.

He snorted a bit at the answer; apparently he had unnerved her pretty well. He shrugged inwardly; if she wanted to be all say-nothing, it was her lookout; he had no particular reason to hide anything. "Been here for a bit; dropped off here, same way as most of these poor idiots." He may have had nothing to hide, but some things he didn't care to talk about, particularly why he was brought there in the first place. He didn't want to talk about his failure, his fractured reason for being. Especially not with some girl he had just met.

Zachary hadn't expected the other to just suddenly drop at his feet. He blinked in surprise as he looked down at the sprawled figure on the floor. She looked pretty worn out; to him it spoke of the possibility of her being new. True, it took some patients longer than others to work out how they were to sleep in such a place, but as far as Zachary was concerned, he had lived the worst possible walking nightmare he could have, and nothing the sadistic sons of bitches in this asylum could possibly rival it. He had nothing to fear here except fear itself, to coin a corny but truthful phrase.

He nodded a tiny nod as the other would introduce herself. He found the name interesting and wondered if it was something the girl had bestowed upon herself. Street kids did like to shed their old names like dirty clothes and don new ones, more fitting to what they perceived to be the 'real them'. Sad though that such a name belonged to one who did not have her liberty, but was stuck here the same as everybody else. "Zachary," he said with another shrug, and then spoke in a flat tone as though it didn't matter to him either way. "You look like you could use a rest or food or something. Sprawling out in the halls is the best way to get yourself found by the wrong sort of people in here."

Small talk not being his forte either, Zachary just nodded, actually more content with uncomfortable silence than with any sort of talking. He had never had a time where he had been particularly social, and was never shy about letting people know when he was getting bored with their chatter. Then again, having someone collapse in front of him was bound to hold his interest for at least an hour or two.

He raised his eyebrows at her mentioning the cafeteria. Now he was certain she was new there; wearing herself out trying to find a place that had only a slim chance at best of having anything close to edible! He himself had been there a few times, finding little more than drippings of food's past and something that tasted like tomato soup that was half water. Still, it wasn't as though he needed much anyway, and he hadn't been bold enough to try solid food since.....well, since the rest of him seemed so UN-solid.

"I know where the cafeteria is, but I wouldn't get too excited about it; there's almost never anything good in there." He shrugged his shoulders at her kidding, showing no outward sign of mirth at it. "I'm not afraid of much in here; it isn't as though they can do much else of what's already been done." He eyed her critically, thinking that she looked pretty defenseless to him, but he was once again reminded of street kids and just how tough some of them could actually be. With another small shrug, Zachary turned and started walking down the hall, turning his head slightly as he did so. "You coming?"