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Autsu RP. Fwee!

Dinner was usually a rowdy time. With so many children, so many contrasting personalities, there was bound to be conflicts. It was an average meal at the evening in the White household, children saying odd things, food being jostled from one place to the other and despite the uncomfortable wooden seat that barely fit his tail, Kian was comfortable.

His siblings couldn't tell, but he was. Consuming and listening to the chatter was comforting. It felt as it had with the creatures in the Below, the ones not like them. They had family units, they were loud and they were different, but they had enjoyed life. It comforted the alien and he remained silent until a familier voice slid through the crowded din from his position at the table.

"You know," PAtricks voice was lazy when speaking to his dark son, "I can't get over how DIFFERENT you used to look, Kian."

The alien froze, his fork full of animal halfway to his mouth. His tail een stopped its near contant movement as the yellow eyes rse up to meet the older mans own. Iamel and the younger siblings went quiet as well, chatter stopping on a dime. This was holding their attention. Only the eldest knew Kian was an alien. Oh, but there was murder in that little aliens yellow eyes.

Black lips peeled apart to reveal hostle white teeth, his fork being put down very gently. Deliberately. When he spoke, Kians voice was no longer the monotone they had gotten used to but it held acid in the very roots and his shoulders leaned in to give him the appearance of a crouching animal. "How do YOU know how I appeared, Parental?"

Patrick gazed back at his suddenly infuriated charge and he grinned. This was the most emotion he'd seen out of Kian since the boy was an infant. But even then, there had never been tears; he didn't expect them now.

"I got a picture of you, before you got here. Calm down, Kian. It's not a bad thing. You look good as you are now."

"Shut up." The words were snarled out in such a manner that Patricks mouth closed and his voice died in his throat. "You just shut UP. How dare you? To compare me in front of others who do not know - to compare me at ALL. You are a bad Parenting Unit and a waste of flesh and bones."

"I was just saying that you looked diff--"

He was cut off by hands, made heavy and hard in their anger, smashing against the table. Silverware clattered and silence reigned for a moment afterwards.

Just a moment.

"Do you not think I know I look different?" Malice, hatred was dripping off of his tongue and if looks could kill, Patrick would have been dead ten times over. "Do you not think that I know I am small and dark and fat, Parental? Does it not occure to you that I wis to abolish those memories of how I looked during my duration here? Is this what you think?! No! You do not think! You act without thought and you are cruel. Let me stab you," Here, he flung a fork at his father. It missed by about four inches, serving only to make him even angrier, "And jab at the wound as often as I see you and remind you that you - small and dark and without thought - is less then what you should be, you sickening Parental!"

At the end of his speech, Kian was panting. One thick hand was wrapped dangerously around his dinner knife and all three eyes were trained on Parick. This did not look good.

But there was silence, thick and suffocating in the room. Iamel cleared his throat, standing abruptly. Kians glaring didn't waver nor did Patricks wide-eyed shock and fear. The others, though, looked up at their brother. Some, like Akilah, looked a bit worried while others, such as Yashima, merely looked amused.

"Well. I'm STUFFED." Iamel announced, his deep, nasal voice loud over the silence. "C'mon, spawn, let's .... Let's go watch Stranger then Fiction, alright? C'mon!" His hands moved in a shooing motin, grabbing all the siblings out of the chairs.

If there was to be bloodshed, he didn't want the rest of them to see. And who was he, to say Kian was wrong? The alien wasn't in this case, and it would do the children good to know of Kians temper a bit. It would do ROTHE some good if Kian harmed PAtrick just a little. Maybe it would make the boy learn something.

With the others gone and the still the ebony alien didn't move his eyes from his father. He was growling, deep in his throat, the feral sound of a man possesed. Or roughly, violently angry. Patrick had gone ashen under his own natural melinin.

"Kian--" He was cut off by a hiss and his mouth clamped shut.

"What I was - who I was - is NONE of your business, Parental." The acid was still there; he would leap over the table at the lightest bit of urging, "Nor is it theirs. If anyone will be hearing of my past, it will be someone who can understand. You lack that capability I am NOT like the other children, Parental My mind is older then yours. I have Pride in what I was Do NOT sully that with what you think my differences are."

As Patrick listened, the color slowly returned to his face He had to calm down, had to keep it good And so, he spoke, voice quick as to get it all out before the boy could backlash with another hiss "I didn't think you cared." Kian didn't move. Kian didn't speak Kian, it seemed, was waiting for him to continue...So he did. "You're emotionless, Kian. I just didn't think you cared."

The aliens hand loosened on the knife drastically. There was still anger in his gaze as he slowly reined in his bloodlusting fury. His face slid back into that expressionless mask, only his eyes speaking of his uspet.

"My past is still mine. Do you know of my crime as well?" At his fathers mute head shake, Kian sighed - the noise nearly without sound - and slid down to his chair. "Destroy the photo of Koreshan Jo'nas. Forget you had seen him."

"It's your PAST, Kian." Patrick protested. "Destroying your past won't make it go away."

He earned himself a glare a that. "MY past, Parental. I do not wish others to think on it."

Patrick stood finally and his head shook. "I'll give you the picture, Kian. You can do what you want with it." He hesitated, moving around to rest his hand on the rounded shoulder of his son. "I'm sorry I brought it up. I just...Well. I'm sorry."

He disappeared after that and left Kian to his thoughts.

There had been anger and yelling. There had been fighting before. And when Autsu had come over to discuss their Unit, there had been talk of mating and what they could do with a six-person staff. Plans were in the works but...there was one person that Autsu had not asked. There was only one that he was wary of.

Rothe.

Kian was outside of his brothers room, face expressionless in it's normal mode. He was in loose jeans and an even looser red, long-sleeved shirt. Insecurity of his own body had increased over that last time - where his father had told him how he had looked in his past.

"Rothe." This time he said it outloud, knocking roughly at the door. "Rothe."

The boy had mostly stayed in his room as soon as he gained the ability to talk and move without stumbling. Not only did he generally not think anyone was worthy of his presence, his family annoyed him to absolutely no end - especially those twins. It was worse that Patrick and Mordread were still at "odds" and his own father could often be heard sniffling at night (There WERE advantages to having the ears that he did, even if he wouldn't admit it) and he was just...close to packing up and leaving. Nevermind that he was a kid and likely wouldn't be taken seriously.

In fact, he was in the middle of pulling up one of his suitcases when Kian knocked on the door. Rolling his eyes he went over to the door and opened it a crack, "What do you want, dragon boy?"

There was that glare. Kians main two eyes narrowed at his sibling and one shoulder dipped to basically force the door open with a jab of those shoulders. "Didn't we have a non-hosiltity agreement, Sibling?" His voice was grating, forcing himself fully inside.

Still, his face was expressionless when he faced the other, his arms folding tightly over his chest. "I have a thing to speak with you for. Tsu forgot to speak to you of it."

"And the thing at the dinner table wasn't hostility?" He shrugged and sat down on his bed, arms crossing. At least he hadn't said anything about the open suitcase on the floor - not that he thought his brother would care any. "And what did Tsu forget to speak to me about, Kian?"

And who the hell was Tsu?

His expression darkened from the expressionless into something a bit more savage then that. Kian was a rebel leader; he was no gentle thing from nowhere. "That was not hostility towards you. Parental was being cruel."

A pause, the suitcase catching his eye and his eyebrow quired over his right, lower eye. His gaze moved back to the pale one, face once more smooth. "We do not like doing nothing, here. Idleness is not a gift. Tsu and I have thought to make things easier for those like you. Like me. To make a place that is neutral where one can have things on this odd world explained to them, be around those who know what it is like."

A neutral place? For people like them? "You mean criminals like us, Kian? Just say it. Crim. Inal. That is what we are, are we not?" The fact that he was called a criminal grated his nerves badly - but Rothe wasn't the kind of person to dance around something. He was oddly blunt about things even if they annoyed him. After all, he was nothing like a criminal. Criminals were dirty, scruffy things with no sense of self respect.

"Anyway...What do you want from me?"

"I did nothing wrong." His voice flattened at that, eyes catching Rothes. "And nor did he. They say we did but we did not. Maybe they said the same of you. How do I know." Kian shrugged, hands rising, fingers spread and webbing taunt in a movement of uknowing.

"I am not sure what Autsu told the others when asking them of the recruitment, but there will be a unit forming for this." The third eye flickered around his siblings room. He hadn't been in here before. "We are still not sure how to make this world a place to be staying. It is odd. But as I said, yes. A neutral place for those like us. Where we are not crimminals."

The walls of Rothe's room had been painted a lovely green color and edged with a light grey that looked silver in a fancy design. He had somehow convinced Mordread to fork out the money for it despite most of the money being gone from the book as it was. Actually, Mordread had been a pushover as of late and Rothe didn't mind taking advantage of that - which is why there were expensive hangings on the wall and his bedsheets were pure silk. Perfect for a person of his standing criminal or no.

"I was a slaver, and I killed. Not necessarily a bad thing for the old man had it coming and the slaves were lesser beings." He really didn't care if Kian knew. "And I suppose if I am a part of this unit I will have to take orders from you?"

"I was a rebellion leader and murdered more times then I can remember." He had no concept of what a 'slave' was and therefre, he did not care. It was also how he didn't 'have' emotions. There were no names and thus, he didn't care. But the little alien grinned, teeth flashing almost silver in the light.

"I do not think your dominance as a child will be called into question. I do not order unless it is a life or death situation. But you would not be bossing me around. Or Autsu."

Rothe snorted. If Kian thought he wouldn't be bossing him or Autsu around, he didn't know his brother very well at all. "You know me better than that, Kian. I do not take orders, I give them. I have never followed an order in my life unless there was something for me to gain from it and even then I do not follow said orders exactly. What makes you believe that I will not attempt to put you and this Autsu into place?"

Kian looked at his brother blandly, thick tail swooshing back and forth behind him. "There is a reason, then, that you are in a new life now." He said, shoulders rising in a shrug. "You order Autsu or you speak harshly to him, and I will break your neck. I may be fat, brother, but I am strong. What makes you believe my desire was to drag you into the fold? You are almost kind, when you are not determined to show all what a steel-hearted being you are."

Another shrug and Kians chin tilted, just a little. "Maybe there is a reason why one as flawed as I could make an ally when someone such as you cannot."

Rothe narrowed his eyes, "Kind is something I am not. Kindness is a weakness and cannot be tolerated. Get out of my room, Kian. You are not welcome if you are going to insult me in my own space."

Kind indeed. And threatening him? He didn't appreciate that much either. Actually, Rothe was half tempted to grab the whip hanging on one of the walls and show Kian what his threats meant to him.

Kian paused a bit at the others words, blinking at him in confusion. "Is kindness a weakness?" He frowned a little bit, eyeing Rothe curiously. "That was something from your planet, was it not? Not from here. Here, mating is legal which I find odd." But he shrugged a little, continuing on. "Either way, you are rough and you are rude. Unpolished. I think those are insults more then being called 'kind', Sibling. 'Tsu is kind and he is very strong."

The alien turned towards the door, moving back to it. "Think what you will, Sibling. I think you are wrong."

"Kindness leaves a space for manipulation." Rothe shook his head, just glad that Kian was leaving. His brother was the oddest thing and he just didn't understand. Just like he still did not understand the world that they lived in now. "Strength does not matter when one has gotten under your skin. And I am anything but unpolished."

Perhaps a bit clumsy in this body and the ears and the people that he did not understand...but not unpolished.

"Oh, he is not strong in the body. He is like you. He is slim and fragile, almost. But he is strong and there is no room for manipulation there, even with the kindness. You are easily manipulated as well, Sibling. Just get you angry enough...." His fingers tapped lightly at the door before he slipped out.

"You are as unpolished as a common stone, Sibling. Even a barbarian knows that." And he's out, door closing gently behind him.

[My computer ate the begining when I first wrote it. I'll rewrite it...eventually. For now, just know Patrick approached Kian on his temper and told him that if he couldn't talk about his past, he could write it down. This is Kians response]



To Parental.

You say that writing out what happened would make me feel better. I do not feel bad over what happened on my planet. I would do each thing the same way I did then... Except I would not have gotten caught. He would not have tackled me.

You say I am without emotion. You are a bad Parental. I am not without emotion - I feel anger. I feel frustration. The same as you do. I am a solider. I fight for what should have been fought for many, many times and won thrice over.

I killed others. I killed the creatures, too, when they were hurt and bleeding. We had no way to care for them. You would have done the same as I did, if you had known. You are free-thinking and you are rash. You would have done the same thing.

I have been to your room. I have been on that computer Iamel has. I have read things. What my people did to themselves, to their younglings, is called mutilation. Physical and chemical castration. When we are still small, our Parentals tell us when we are larger and changing, becoming different and therefore disgusting, the Others will help us. They will make us look just like our Parentals, they will make us proper, full members of our society.

Males would get their ears shaved down to small pointed things. Females would get theirs put up. DNA would be taken and then they would alter our bodies. Breast tissue would be shifted and differentiated so there were no pectorals or breasts - flat, smooth chests. Males would get their eyelashes surgically removed, never to return and their wrist-wings, so useful for leveling spears, would be burnt off. Then, of course, the genetalia removal. For both female and male, they would be altered to have the same corresponding genetalia that had no sexual use what so ever - simply to pass unused matter from the body.

I saw this. I fled. I was the first. How I was able to leave and get out is no ones business but mine. Let us just say a patroller got in trouble for my disappearance.

So I hid, parental. I hid Below, where the creatures lived, untouched by hundreds of years of genetic mutation. They were small, smaller then I am now, and they were brown. Each had four arms and a center eye, as I do now. They all had the ears that males did. Their speech was different and stilted. They took me in and treated me kinder then my parentals had.

My Parentals had not been bad ones. They were simply good in the way my people were supposed to be. I obeyed them, as younglings should, and there was a bit of what you would call affection in my chest for them. But there was never physical touching as there was with the creatures. The hugged, they sat close. There was mating and coy games. If you felt close to one, mating-wise or ally-wise, you allowed them to see it.

They were fighters. They wanted my people, who were destroying the once pristine forests, gone. Dead. Subdued. Any of those would work. I trained, then, in fighting with weapons. ALl fashions of them. Ruthlessness. To kill, to hunt, to gain revenge on the one who drove me out of my family with his words, who fueled my hatred and started it all. He was the one I was found murdering. We killed Patrollers, we made several runs on other Communities, to frighten them. To gain resources and knowledge.

His name was Ga'Veen. He was insisting the creatures be hunted down and killed. 'Genetic impotence', he claimed. From patroller to Elder. Chairman? He was of importance. Politics, or what little my planet had. The plan was to take some younglings, younger then I had been, and foster them away in the forests. To kill Ga'Veen was my plot, along with theirs. It infuriated me to think I was the only grown male of my people, in hundreds of generations. I was the only one who was right and he was advocating my death.

While the others grabbed the younglings and hoisted them away, I attacked Ga'veen. He died. One of my people stoned me in the head and I fell. That picture you had aquired of me had been taken after Ga'veen died, before that One stoned me. There is no anger on my face.

Next I awoke, my ears had been carved and I was in the blackness of space. I remembered they were going to preform the Ceremony of Forget on everyone in the Community. Hopefully, the creatures and those younglings are living well.

That is my past, Parental. That is my crime. That is what I did. Are you pleased now? Are you ******** happy I just told you everything I tried to keep to myself?

You are a bad parental. How DARE you

****

Patrick was standing motionless in his sons doorway. Kian had been scribbling furiously on the paper, his pen scratching and tugging at the tender tooth with each loop and whorl of the note. Each word had made his face contort more into a mask of what looked to be anger and agony. His fingers were getting tighter and tighter on the pen until the thing actually broke in half.

Ink splattered like blood, catching the boy on the side of the face. He didn't make a noise but the pen dropped, his shoulders hunched over in something like despair. Kians third eye was shut tightly, tail listless through the hole in the chair. Anger was still there, he could tell, and Patrick slowly moved into the bedroom.

"Kian?" His voice was soft, echoing the feel of the area. The dark boy didn't move for a long moment, his fingers visible clutching at his shorts under the desk.

"Why must you make me remember all of my failures?" He whispered, voice hoarse. THere were tears, bubbling just under the surface, and they needed to be released. Those yellow eyes continued to stare at the paper, the ink blotches roiling over it for one more moment before relaxing. "My ribs hurt."

Patricks hand went to Kians shoulder; surprisingly, the boy didn't shove or shrug him off as he usually would have. He leaned in. A few blinks from Patrick but he was agreeably hugging the boy closer before picking him gently off the chair and leading him over to the military-made bed. There they both sat, his arm still around his son. "Your chest hurts." He murmured, head dipping closer. "Hurts how? Like a broken bone?"

"Like a fire. A fire licking at the insides of my skin and fueling up my throat."

"Ah. That." Patrick sighed, smoothing back some of Kians hair. Still the boy didn't pull back from the scientest. It was a good thing, in Patricks mind. "THat would be regret."

Silence reigned for a moment and he could feel Kians jaw shifting slightly as he digested that. "This is regret?" Kian finally whispered, a hand moving up to touch at his chest. Patrick blinked. The kid didn't know what regret felt like. Well.

"It feels a lot like love, sometimes. But love makes you feel floaty AND burning." He nodded, otherwise still against Kian. "You are feeling regret right now, Kian."

"Do not wish to regret.." A sniffle and then suddenly, two strong arms wrapped around Patricks shoulders and he had Kians face pressed against his. There were tears smearing from his shut eyes but neither of them said anything. Patrick, although surprised still, wrapped his arms around his son, squeezing him close. That was all it took for the alien to start sobbing. They were deep sobs, chest-rattling and hungry for air, wrenching against the very anguish he kept inside of him. It was the crying he needed to soothe the fire of his regret...at least for the moment. All the while, Kian just kept repeating that he did not wish to regret, he did not, he did not...

When Kian awoke, it was strangly quiet. There was no yelling, no screaming. Iamel was not threatening people with firey, vengeful death and Parental was not laughing obnoxiously in the background. There was no clopping of Akutis hooves on the ground and Lahelas squaks were gone. Even the twins squallor was muted, somehow.

Immediately, he wa suspicious. The dark boy slid out from under his covers, feet landing on the carpet silently. Still, there was no noise. Clad in his boxers only, he slowly made his way form the bedside to the door. His hand turned the knob slowly, letting it open and...

There was no one in the hall.

What the hell?

The aliens two main eyes narrowed as the third rolled about to try and catch a glimpse of someone. Anyone. Had something happened? Prehaps the Counsel thought it best to find Koreshan Jo'Nas and exterminate him - him and every one he'd loved. THe bile of such a thought rose in his throat, causing the tempered solider to almost expell such waste onto the hallway floor.

Luckily, common sense won out over his paranoid delusions of what the counsel could do to his new unit of family. They did not know where on Gaia Koreshan was. They did not know what he looked like and they would not wish to waste all that valuable time and coins on looking for a fugitive that was supposed to be returned to them reformed anyway.

He shook his head, the long nest of his thin black hair falling down around him like an added cloak against hte silence. Some more creeping down the hall led to little sounds, in the kitchen. Kian wouldn't admit the amount of relief he felt flow through him when he could hear his Parentals soft voice speaking through the walls.

The alien straightened, lips pulling into a straight-edged mask as he moved into the kitchen. Everyone was in there, crowded around the table like it was a holiday. Well. Rothe wasn't there. It was early and Rothe was a grouch. He probably tried to chop of peoples fingers if they came to wake him up at that hour in the morning. Nor were some of the more hyper, younger siblings. It was, again, early and they were crazy.

But there they were. Almost all the siblings and the Parentals. Well, Patrick and the ex-Parental? But here they were. And there were packages on the table, along with a small pastry like confection. On one end, Akuti was holding a small potted plant; it was a single flower, white and soft looking in its perfection.

Kian just stared. "....what are you doing?" The words made a few of them start grinning and his Parental laughed, hopping up from his chair.

"As of today, Kian, you've been with us an entire year."

"You're cuter then you were back then," Iamel assured him over his Parentals shoulder, grinning widel, "And you're better at talking to people."

"No more biting." Yashi echoed from his position by the wall. His mask was in place and he didnt look too pleased but he didn't look angry either.

"So we decided to throw you a little thing." It was Parental again, looking amused as anything. His brown hand gestured towards the table. "To celebrate you being here and not being such a little a*****e anymore."

"You're still kind of a d**k though." It had to be Iamel, didn't it? Other siblings chimed in with their opinions but Kian remained wordless for a long, long moment.

Being singled out was something his people didn't do. Letting a child know they were different, special, was something forbidden and disgusting to them. Koreshan had once thought that way, until he ran and survived and really Lived. While Koreshan had been singled out many times because he was the leader... it had never been because he was just him.

A celebration. For him being him, even though he wasn't such a nice person to be.

The siblings noticed his silence and they just kept talking, laughing and pushing the packages at them. They left, one by one, shoving him jokingly or making some sort of comment. It was not cruel. Iamel gave his tail a pet, a thing that made the boy jump and shiver, and Yashi had patted at his head in a gesture that was almost affectionate.

Parental swept Kian into a hug, gripping him tight and squeezing roughly. Then, when he was gone, the alien was left alone with Akuti. For some reason the little satyr girl hadn't left with the others and she just held out her potted plant.

She was shy. He knew that much. It was the only reason why he didn't just glare at her. Instead, Kians impassive face just made her creep closer, hooves scraping delicately on the floor before she offered up the potted plant to him.

"I saw it," She said, her voice a near whisper on her throat, staring up at Kian in something akin to fear, "I saw it in a store and I thought it was like you."

He frowned. She drew away. But Kians hands reached over, despite his own misgivings, and they covered her smaller ones over the pot. Her aquamarine eyes jerked up, looking at him in confusion. "How is a vegtable like me?"

Akuti let him take the pot, watching her younger, taller, faster maturing brother curiously for a moment. "All the other flowers were together. In threes or fours. And when I asked the lady why it was alone, she said it was the other seedlings had died in the cold. Only that one was strong enough. So it's standing alone and it's so PRETTY and it's perfect because it's just...it's just." She shrugged, looking abashed. "All you have to do is water it and put it in some light. I just--"

"No." Kian hardly interrupted, so she shut up. "It is a nice vegtable. It is not a burden. I will care for it."

He ended up with a full length staff that was taller then he was, a portable, button-pressing opening staff, a note from Parental telling him he was signing him up for more martial arts along with swimming, a book titled 'kama sutra' from Iamel that he had yet to look through, a book from Iamel and an assortment of other odds and ends from the siblings.

And there was the little daisy. He had looked it up. The daisy, just like him.

How nice.

He named it Jo.

Meeting Karl

The water was cold. The thermometer had said it was in the low eighties but it had been busted from the day Kian had started swimming and he had a hunch it was still rather broken. It was in the high sixties, low seventies tops, due to a community that didn't care enough to pay for heating in the local pool. It hadn't mattered that the pool the university was located on had an award-winning swim team... After all, if they had won all of those things while swimming in that water, they didn't need warmth.

Kian didn't mind. It made it feel more like flying in the cold water then it would in the heat. The webbing between his fingers and toes made the soaring just that much more easier, pushing his shorter frame towards the other end.

Fingertips touched the worn, almost soft stone of the side and his body curled, bared toes pushing off against it to propell himself once more towards the other end. His tail was the one muscle he didn't use at this time - it would be cheating, in his mind. So he swam, mind blanking from the things that would usually stress him during the day, things that would haunt his mind.

The nightmares had been coming back. Seeing his sisters face before he had ran as a youth; the boys face when they gassed his Dome. The blood, the pain. Out of nowhere, the dreams had usually melted away into another memory. Lips on his. It was something painfully like that book that Iamel had pushed at him. Not the one with pictures - the one
with the story. It had been a story about a man and a woman but it was alike all the same.

Autsu had been angry. Kian had forced him to be angry. Kian forced himself to swim harder, taking deep breaths during the strokes as his muscles began to burn for more oxygen. The clawed alien had pushed his friend into irrationality and had tried to push him into doing something rash.

It had led to a confused Kian. Autsu had recovered quickly enough, especially when they had decided to commadere some of Autsus siblings fabric, and to throw the sling once more. Sleep had come easy, that night. It was only later, wide awake at three AM in his own bedroom in his own boxers, alone, that the memory came once more. It was only in
his dreams that he was now remembering that it had become a memory he could feel. It was a memory he could not expunge, no matter how much he swam or how cold the water was or how late he stayed up at night in an attempt to be too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep and not dream.

It had been anger and nothing else. True, Kian wasn't all together sure what 'nothing else' was, exactly, but he had a feeling it had more then just anger to it and softer touches then the angry, rough motion that Autsu had done. At least he hadn't been stupid enough to tell Iamel. Iamel would have laughed at him and told him what to do.

The wall, once more. Turn, twist, push. More jets of cold pulling at his headcap, where he had managed to stuff all of his hair. It was always difficult but Kian did not wish to cut his hair. It had colorful bits to it and he was fond of the length. Yes, as Rothe pointed out, it was difficult to fight with it so but it was much, much easier when he simply bound it all up against the base of his skull. Heavy but weight was not something that Kian was unused to.

Then there was Rothe. He had gotten taller and despite being younger and less physically mature then Kian, he was taller. He had gotten crueler as well, calling Kian his property and demanding special rights if he was to join the Unit. That was uncalled for and stupid. Kian wished his sibling to stop being so selfish and to realize the unit wasn't about him. It was about them all. Rothe couldn't see that.

Rothe was, as Autsu had once said about the Parental, very short sighted. He could not see the pathway to things. He could only see the ending, his own ending, a selfish, greedy ending. He wanted to hurt people to get there, to get what he wanted. Rothe had yet to realize that acting as such wasn't the way the world worked.

His muscles were screaming and his lungs felt as if they were on fire. Sluggish pleasure at the roughhousing with his own body filtered through Kians conciousness as he hit the wall again and planted his palms on the sides of the upper concrete. It didn't make his arms any less pained as he hauled his entire, bulky frame up, out of the water with a single pull.

Others in the pool paused and stared at him, as if he was... well, an alien. A few females giggled in the far corner; Kian ignored them. They were odd things, females. They were nothing like the girls he had known in his childhood as Korshan. They were nothing like the genderless Parentals there either.

While the girls in his own house, now, were female... They acted noteably less silly.

With a shake of his head and a towel wrapping around his waist, Kian headed towards the shower, his muscles protesting each move now that the bouyancy of the water had dissapated. It was time to go home.

Conner had forgotten something at the workplace and Patrick, being rather lazy, sent one of his sons to do it. Kian had offered, as it gave him reason to run and stretch his legs as he had only done rare times, and he arrived at Matsuo and COnners place just slightly sweaty. His hair was in the usual style, tail swinging back and forth as he rapped at the door with a hard knuckle, lips pursed into the usual expressionless mask.

Matsuo answers the door, dressed just in skintihgt jeans resting dangerously low on his hips, raising a brow at the creature there at his door. Three eyes, claws, tail... only one conclusion. "I must be Really high right now..." He snorts, laughing lightly to himself.

"...what?" Kian blinked at the man, his own eyebrows arching slowly. "I have come to speak with Conner. Who are you? Parental did not speak of you." His lips pulled into a small scowl, one hand holding the box under his hand, the other hand moving to tuck in his own pants.

"You speak too? Awesome." Laughing again Matsuo shakes his head. "The weed must have been laced with something." Pausing, he eyes the alien "I hope you're really there and I"m not going to look like an idiot bringing you into Connor." He grumbles, opening the door up. "I'm Matsuo. Who's this parental?"

Kian frowned at him and he slides inside, eyein the place suspiciously before heaving a sigh. "Patrick White." His voice was a low grumble, head shaking as the package was put on the ground lightly. Conner was sitting in the living room with Mele, playing with the small boy with a grin on his face. "I am really here. Otherwise, I would not be perspiring. Where is Conner?"

"I don't know I've had some pretty ******** up delusions before." Matsuo laughs again, heading into living room where he had last seen the Irishman playing with their little blind alien baby. "Conner. I think you have a visiter." He calls out as he stops in the doorway. "Please tell me you see him too."

"Stop smoking so much pot, Matsuo." Conners voice was a sigh, a little exhasperated, and he glances up. Pause. Blink. And he smiles, hauling Mele up onto his hip. "Hey, Kian. What are you doing here?"
"You forgot this." Kian thrust the package out to the other man, glancing at the child in confusion. He frowned slightly. "Parental did not inform me you had a child, either."
Conner flushed lightly, giving Mele a tickle. "Mele is Matsuos kid. Matsuo is my boyfriend, he lives here now."

Matsuo is a little startled by how calm Conner is with the alien. "Wait.. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Tail, claws, third eye? And you're just sitting there calmly? I'm obviously not high enough then." Laughing a little as he shakes his head. Mele is just a cute ball of cooing, peeking curiously at the third blob of heat he can see, his butt wings flapping curiously.
Matsuo nods to Conner's last words. "Yeah found him in an alley behind the bakery. Took him in to show up my brother."

"This is Patricks son, Kian. He's an alien and he's a rather calm boy. Yes. He has tails, claws and a third eye. When he scratched and numbed Patricks arm, I'm assuming he has a bit of poison under his nails as well. I've met him several times." Conner glances at Matsuo with a little blink, his eyebrows arching. "You've ******** a bird-turned-person, Matsuo. Is an alien that hard to believe?"
Kian paused at that, leaning in to peer at the blind little thing. Meles nose gets a tap as Kian, distracted, speaks. "Bird-turned man? You had relations with Iamel or one of his kind? Sibling does not seem the type to do such a thing. What was he in, in the ally?"
"Stop trying to be a hardass, Matsuo. You like the kid."

"Not hard to believe. Just making sure it wasn't something in the weed." He corrects with a glare to Conner. "I thought we weren't going to bring that up any more." He says grumbly as he turns back to the alien boy. "Yes I ******** Iamel. It was a one night stand sort of thing. He nearly killed me last time I mentioned it to someone so.. you probably shouldn't mention you heard that from me." Pausing. "what was he in? It.. was like a smouldering trashcan or something. I don't know. i didn't look at it that closely. It was metal and torn apart. It might still be there for all I know."

"You said we weren't going to." Conner just gives the Japanese man a cheerful, slow grin, shoulders rising into a brief shrug. Kians line of question made him curious, however, passing Mele bak to his boyfriend. "Why? You think he's an alien, Kian?"
"Strange things happen, here. Tsu has informed me that there are rouges of us, unknowing, dropping without Archies aide. Our mission is to find them." He faltered a bit at that, shrugging just slightly. "There was no photo with him? Parental recieved a photograph."

"You think babies normally come with wings on their butts and no toes?" Matsuo asks with a snort "Not to mention the purple swirls?" Shaking his head. "A photo? There could have been back in that trashcan contraption." He shrugs a little. "Who's Archie? And this Tsu?"

"THis is Gaia. Odd things happen." Kians gaze was unamused on the skinny human male, pausing slightly as he watches the human. "You will show me where this garbage can is. I will look." He hesitated, thick tail swinging briefly before curling up behind him. "Archie is the one who gave me to the Parental. He knows what is happening. Tsu is my ally."