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A discovery

Darby sauntered down the alley next to their house on an evening patrol, warbling tunelessly as she went. Due to her fur, she was ignorant of the cold that kept everyone indoors - in fact, she loved evenings like this. They were always soft and blue on the sharpness of winter daytime, and maybe, sometimes, snow was falling down as she was on her walk. As self proclaimed Queen of the Alley, it was her duty to go on these patrols. You never knew what people were up to.

Sitting back for a moment, she blinked and tilted her head. Now that she thought of it, things were rather quiet...

A piercing yowl, and something slammed head-on into her; they both went down in a tangle of paws and squalling and scratching, as even more cats went flying past, terrified. Darby squirmed. "Lemme GO, you idiot!" she howled. The orange tom was startled enough to let go. He was even more startled when Darby flowed up into an angry bundle of cream and orange fur, looking like a furious behemoth ready to kill. "Now what's going on?" she demanded, planting herself firmly in the way. They'd almost trampled her! And she recognized him. Another one of those flighty, flirty alley cats. Meh.

He hovered there, confronted by the much larger feline, clearly nervous of what lay behind him. As she stepped forward, the orange tom relented. "There's something back there." he whispered, with the air of sharing a great secret. "Something strange."

"Something strange?" If neighborhood kids were trying to fool with the alley cats...or, help her, their own kids...that wouldn't be good. So much for a quiet evening. Little details didn't escape the tom's eye; the tiny claws flexing, fur bristling, tail lashing, that meant a possible trouncing for the first thing the ciel saw. Darby in a Mood wasn't something to be tangled with. He recognized this and hastened to explain. Her guard had relaxed, and he took the opportunity to scoot away from the thing he was so afraid of.

The explanation didn't make any sense. She stared at him, slowly calming down, only to be confused. "Let me get this straight. There's a flower but not a flower in a flower thing?" Toms.

Shaking his head, the cat gestured for her to follow him; he couldn't see any other way. Darned ladies. She sure wasn't going to let him go unless she saw the creepy thing for herself. She had to push her way through with her shoulders, dirt crumbling down around her, into her eyes - the opening soon widened into an alleyway much like the one next to their own house. It wasn't hard to miss the thing. Bright orange, a flowerpot lay tilted in the dirt, covered in the dusty skeletons of dead vines. This she pulled away.

"This is what you guys were scared of?" she asked wonderingly, just looking at the tom.

He shifted, noticably uneasy. "But it moved. It hissed at us!"

THAT was too much. Darby snorted, unable to help herself; she broke into a fit of laughter. All of her remaining irritation melted away in an instant.And here she'd thought it was something horrible! Imagine, being terrified by a leaf in a pot! It was kind of weird, since all the other plants were dead...maybe it was plastic or something. Still.

"It's a leaf!" she squealed. "OOH! OOH! The big bad leafy's gonna attack us! Ohno!" She giggled helplessly at his expression. It wouldn't hurt to take it off their paws. Things were getting crazy back at home, and it'd be a welcome distraction for some of the younger kids. It'd keep them busy from their usual job of wrecking everything in sight. Now that she thought of it, that was a really good plan. "Pathetic. Well, if it's gonna freak you guys out so much, I might as well take it back. Hee...oh, damn, this thing is kinda heavy..."

Mobile or not, the alley cats were glad to see it go.

Awww heart

It took longer than a week for the blue color to finally fade away. It took even longer than that for the leaf's pride to heal. Blue! 'course, it was kind of interesting, but it couldn't see anything different about being blue, besides getting stared at. Someone took pity on it and brought up a carnation (for Valentines' Day) up to 'visit'. It was the exact same color. The leaf had tentatively tried to talk to it, in a leafy way, but the thing turned out to be dead. Ick.

Once the flower started getting brown, it was time for a new friend. She was a little yellow bloom. And for once, he actually had some semblance of company that wasn't furry and thought it was partially insane for talking to a leaf. For the bloom's view of the matter, she thought she could like anybody, even Sabriel. At least, until she met the leaf.

Being stuck up was bad. Not knowing you were was even worse. She endured it, but wasn't happy about it, and it must've showed. On this day, a rainy, sulky day, she could tell he wanted something. But instead of the usual chatter, he abruptly spoke up and asked - you don't like me, do you?

The bloom couldn't argue with that.

Okay, then. I'll leave you alone. We don't have to be friends.

Oh, well... As an empathetic soul, she pretty much guessed what he was trying. It'd be mean of her not to do something. And he HAD asked (sort of), which was a miracle. Sending warmth in response, she hoped he'd take it as yes, they could be friends. As long as he stopped being annoying once in a while.

The Eden was embarassed to find he was relieved, and covered it with pleasure at his own sneaky manuevering - that took real skill! Well...if you insist.

Oh oh...when the leaf is put under the lamp is suddenly decides to twitch as if it felt too hot. For a few moments it seems like it's going to wilt, but just a few seconds later is appears to be as fresh as always. What happens ?

Instead of stopping the movement the leaf's tip tries to move in circles now and is slowly becoming white and fades into slight shades of grey. It seems like it's trying to bury itself with earth now and suddenly starts to glow faintly.

As it hears the well-known voice the leaf stops the wriggling and starts to glow more intensively. It is fading from white to black within seconds and dips the room into a strange athmosphere as it starts to screech and squeak loudly. The light becomes so intense that you're not able to see the buried leaf properly anymore and suddenly you hear something bursting.

The light has vanished and the flowerpot seems to have exploded as the leaf turned into a toddler who looks straight at your face.

Darby's limp body started to roll up the side of the sofa. Salem put his back into it. With a final effortful heave she flopped onto the cushions, and he sank to the floor, panting. "You need to diet." Salem said fondly up at her, amazed she hadn't so much as twitched while being pushed all over the room. Looking around, he saw the toddler had found the yellow bloom and was patting it into the spilled dirt.

"Come on, now." Salem gestured once he was done. "We need to find you someplace before...um..." Cough. "..she wakes up." He seemed to take the hint. Abandoning the flower, the white haired boy trailed up the stairs after him, wide blue eyes taking in everything along the way. Did they even have room? What were they going to -do-? Salem worried chronically. He could have collapsed with relief, remembering there was indeed a room open - he snapped his fingers and strode over to the door.

It was one of the storage rooms that nobody wanted due to just how small it was, with a large bed in one corner under a sloping ceiling that had meant quite a few banged heads to sleepers. Right beside it was a closet, jumbles and jumbles of dusty boxes spilling out over that entire side of the room. There was barely enough space for the two to stand once Salem had ushered him in, a fact he looked duly embarassed about. He cleared his throat. "I guess this'll be your room for a little wh -- HEY!" The Eden had shot by on the words 'your room' and was already on his way to inspect the closet. Salem's cough caught his attention again. "And PLEASE, please don't go downstairs unless somebody says something, okay?"

There. Job done. Stepping out into the hallway, he quietly shut the door, but needn't have bothered. The boy was all but oblivious to the rest of the world - the last glimpse he had of him was a fuzzy white head buried in boxes. Crazy kid.

It took a while before Cain dared venture downstairs again. "Pfft! Speak for yourself, pudgy!" A round of drunken laughter blasted out the kitchen door. Evidently the two had made up. "You might've laid off the mayo. How much more before you go and explode??" More guffawing. He worked up the courage to peek inside, only to find...the two 'ladies' seated around the table, not a drop of alcohol in sight. The strange girl who'd come over that morning was in possession of an absolutely enormous sandwich that she kept trying to bite but burst into a fit of hysterics every time she tried. Ah. Two girls together, drunk or not, were giddy idiots. He filed this away for further thought.

Unfortunately they'd spotted him, and Darby waved him over with a paw. "Hey, Cain!" she chirped. "You want to meet Chin? She's okay after all. Well..." Exchanging a look with Chin, she rolled her eyes and smirked. "Maybe not." The boy reluctantly shuffled in.

"S'nice to meet you." He put on his best formal voice. When he held out a hand to shake, Darby leaned in and whispered something that had to do with 'told ya he's shy'. Cain frowned a little, deciding to let it go. He was not shy! He liked to make a good impression. Some people could mistake anything. Shaking the hand, he found it a little hesitant but pleasantly free of talons or anything like that. Strike one against the ciel again - so much for her being an evil, vengeful creature who would murder at the sight of another kid - she might even be nice!

He remembered the earlier shouting. Taking a seat (he could barely see over the table), he studied her curiously, unaware that she was doing the same, taking in with interest the ice blue eyes and white hair. Chin coughed nervously. When she glanced at Darby, wondering why he wasn't saying anything, Darby just quirked an ear and shrugged. It was a Cain thing.

"Um. Sooooo." She rubbed the back of her neck, smiling faintly. "Darby tells me you're friends with our little bloom? That's good to hear. Sabriel wasn't all that nice to it." And so on and so on. Neither of them let on that he'd been the source of an arguement, and Chin was nothing but nice, even though he was a bit too quiet for her to be comfortable. He obligingly followed while they toured the house and was left alone after that. Later on he found out just who Sabriel was. That satisfied one of his questions - the other he asked Darby in an offside while Chin was sleeping. "Did she eat a watermelon? Wouldn't that hurt?"

He didn't understand why Darby burst into laughter."She's going to have a baby! See, when it gets even bigger it'll eat its way out of her tummy and then you'll have a brother or sister. Won't that be delightful?"