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Attentive listening 101. Step one: eye contact. That one was easy enough to keep, even when halfway through Alexander's explanation he leaned forward, resting one elbow on his leg and resting his face in his hand as he continued to look up at the zomboil. Step two: feedback. He nodded when it was appropriate to nod, made small noise of affirmation, and raised one eyebrow at the comment about the hugs. Yeah, he really did not mind avoiding hugs from strangers.

The train was beginning to move, which was faintly unsettling for the mantodae. He resisted the urge to look around, but the motion was not particularly pleasant. In fact it made him feel slightly queasy. But that did not make him lose his focus. His dad sounded...subservient. Which meant that his mom probably ruled the house with an iron fist. The thought made him feel even queasier.

The zomboil was waiting for him to speak, and he racked his head for a question. "And your mother demands such a devotion?" Okay, so not his best question ever. But his stomach as beginning to roll about uncomfortably.

Was there a certain weremantis that was really, really bad at admitting when he was sick? Yes. Still, he looked outside the window, and almost immediately regretted it. Why were things moving so fast? It was much too distracting to focus on something far away when everything was moving so fast and looked so foreign to begin with. He turned away, feeling even worse than before.

Listening to Alexander talk about his mother's description was odd. Yin had met enough people that others naturally respected that he could imagine what type of woman she was. Yet he also described her as doing ordinary, run-of-the-mill household chores.

Alexander was moving forward and he looked up to give him a small smile. "I believe I shall be alright. I have just...never been inside something that moved before. I simply need to adjust to this." Adjusting apparently involved a headache. He tilted his head down, resting his forehead against his hand and rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

"What...what else are mothers like?" He did not really know what to expect from the woman, and while Alexander had said she behaved as a mother that could mean any number of things. Things like feeding people at every opportunity, to calling them every day, to oh say, abandoning them as soon as they were born. And who knew what lay in between those two extremes.

Yin took the bottle from Alexander, (water could not have cost him anything, right?), wondering briefly if their hands had brushed or if the bottle was simply that cold, and sipped at it gingerly. He hoped that having something in his stomach would help to settle it, and water could not upset it. Sip, sip, sip.

The description of what a mother was like was not completely foreign to the mantodae. He had seen the mothers with their daughters at market, doting on them and holding their hands as they picked out ribbons and combs. The little ghouls had always looked so pleased, so he was glad that his friend had grown up with that experience. Alexander had even bothered to talk to her about him? He felt oddly happy that he was that important to be talked about.

"The water seems to be helping, thank you. Would you like a drink?" As he held the bottle out for the other boil the wheels in his head kept right on clicking.

Alexander had told his mother about him. Forget kind, gentle, and understanding...he had said she was strong and protective. What all had Alexander told her? Had he told her about being kicked in the face? About how rude Yin was? About Yin supposedly staring at his breasts when he was a ghoul? How Yin had completely blown off their study session?

Was not his father huge and strong and would listen to whatever his mother said?

Now it made sense. Now this whole trip made sense. If he was lucky they would just dissipate him and get it over with. If not? One did not dissipate when their Fear shield failed.

'Yin had no intention of ever, ever mentioning to anyone that they had been turned into ghouls. Ever. He had rather hoped that everyone else had forgotten it, but hearing it mentioned aloud he found himself blushing at the memories and glancing around, hoping no one had heard what Alexander had said. But if his mother did not know about the training then that was one less thing to worry about, two if he counted their dispute. He relaxed a little, taking a small sip from the bottle now that it was back in his possession.

He straightened up, leaving his head back against the seat, "I shall do my best not to tell her. You are right in that I will not lie to her, but if I can avoid telling her I shall." So now he could hear about his sisters or brother? A brother sounded wonderful, but it would probably be best to get the information about his sisters first in case they ran out of time. They had to be almost there after all, Yin had been sitting forever and were they slowing down?

Then Alexander told him three more stops after the announcement came on. He started bouncing his leg up and down, desperate to have some sort of activity as he looked out the window to see what was so interesting. Too fast. "You have a brother?" he found himself saying. If they still had that much time he could push off the horrible idea of sisters until later.

Yin frowned and nodded his agreement. Losing Alexander was not precisely what the mantodae wanted either, so he would have to be careful about what he said. He might even have a chance to use some of his old skills, how to delicately phrase things to ghouls so that they heard what they wanted to hear and it was not technically a lie.

Nathaniel sounded...interesting. One of the nice things about young boils was that they were smaller and typically did not mess with those that more than a couple of inches of height on them. So a boil who was large but still young? "So essentially he is younger, but if he annoys me too often and something...happened...I would still be picking on someone my own size?" the weremantis asked quite innocently. He would not harm a young boil, especially not Alexander's brother. But he did have a rather well-developed arsenal of tricks, and could probably use a refresher course. Training. It was all for training purposes.

Speaking of trains, they should certainly not be allowed to lurch. Yin's stomach decided that it would also lurch, and Yin was suddenly glad that there was no actual food filling his stomach. He leaned forward again, the shift in his position helping his stomach slightly and put his head back into the hand not clutching his ticket and water bottle.

Just three more stops.

"I would not hurt him Alexander," Yin said, tone slightly amused. Which meant that he was actually fairly amused, but feeling ill took quite a bit out of him. It would not be right to actually beat up an inexperienced child. He was thinking more of...side-stepping, holds that would not harm the boil but would essentially put him at Yin's mercy...the like. Training exercises. Plus, there was always the possibility that once he proved to the younger boil that he would not put up with such tricks he would stop, though it was probably just a wishful thought.

Alexander had talked about his room quite a bit, but things were just now clicking for Yin. "You have a lock for your door? And...despite having a brother the room is your own?" He understood separate rooms at the dorm as students flocked from everywhere, but Alexander did not have to share with even one other person at home? He looked up, expression thoughtful. A room with a lock and no one there except for him and Alexander? An escape from the zomboil's family? This sounded...perfect. He grinned, the very idea of a haven making him feel a little bit better. "I believe I would like that. We should certainly keep that option open."

"She should not have just for me," the mantodae said rather uselessly. "I am sure I could have found a perch somewhere, or simply slept on the floor." It flustered him to be reminded of what they were doing to make this trip possible.

It would have been nice if that worry had distracted him from the comment about the sisters. But Alexander was not that lucky. "Shae and Ava? Are they your sisters?" Yin wished that the zomboil would say "oh of course not, they are our minipets and are somewhat nosy," but he had the sinking suspicion that he would not. His stomach seemed to agree with the general air of doom and gloom, reaching out tendrils of queasy-ness to remind him that he was on a train. He took another sip of the water, wishing he could drown out the unease he was feeling.