Welcome to Gaia! ::

The boy grinned up at Triton. "I never see'd a pink cat before, or a cat with wings," he told him matter of factly. "Did she come from the same place as you? Cos I never see'd nothing like you or her before."


The boy nodded and tugged at the collar of his shirt as if trying to take it off. He looked at Cindy sadly, his gray-blue eyes filled with pain.


The girl looked up at Feng timidly, but she put one hand in Feng's in a gesture of trust.

The boy grinned up at Triton. "I thought so, she's really neat. I like animals, they're nice too, most of the time, unless if you steal their food then they get mean but if you don't steal their food then they're nice, most of them."

He paused. "D'you wanna hear 'bout my fam'ly now?" he asked, his tone hopeful.


The boy lifted his arms obediently and allowed Cindy to remove his shirt, flinching as she did so. The reason for it was immediately apparent: his entire back was a criss-cross of slashes and cuts, some shallow, but most of them quite deep, all of them more than a week old but none of them beyond the first stages of healing.


The girl stood motionlessly, watching Feng silently as she waited to be given a fresh set of clothes. Though her face was expressionless, her eyes were filled with longing as she watched Feng rummaging around in the chest. She had seen what the first girl had been given, and she was anxious to get her own clothes.

The boy clapped his hands eagerly. "Well," he began, "there's my Mama and my Papa and me and my brother ... 'cept, well, I don't got no brother no more, the dwarfs made him disappear ... and my Papa's big and strong and he can kill a hundred dragons! He's the best Papa in the world, I think. Big and strong and really smart, he's the smartest elf in the whole wide world ..."


The injured boy shivered slightly in the open air, his scrawny shoulders hunching forward protectively. Still he remained silent, bearing the pain and discomfort without making even the smallest of sounds.


The girl smiled brightly and clutched her new set of clothes close to her chest, her blue eyes watching as Feng headed over to Lindis.

Lindis looked up as Feng approached, then looked at Lin curiously as if asking her what Feng wanted.

The boy beamed brightly, flattered by the compliment.

"And my Mama's real strong, too," he continued on. "She can make anything and everything that anybody could ever want! She makes really good cakes and bread and candy and snacks and meals and dinners and clothes and everything too, 'cept she didn't make these clothes I got on 'cos they wrecked a long time ago so I had to get new clothes from the dwarfs 'cept they weren't really new cos I think somebody else weared 'em before."


The boy sat on the floor and hunched forward, hugging his knees, so that Cindy could work more easily with his back. He closed his eyes and bit his lip in anticipation of the stinging that he knew would be coming.


Lindis looked at the chest, then at the other girl, then back at Lin.

"Clothes and bath?" she repeated, tugging indicatively at her collar.

"Oh, we get a bath next?" the boy asked brightly. "Good! I like baths. My Mama gives good baths, she scrubs and scrubs until I get good and clean and then I get to play again or have something to eat ... or ... or ... or I can sleep!"

He nodded matter-of-factly, but the more he talked, the more it seemed as though he were making most (or all) of it up.


The boy looked up at Ryu hesitantly, then nodded and crawled up into Ryu's arms once more. He buried his face in Ryu's shoulder and braced once more for the stinging of the sponge bath he knew was coming.


Lindis smiled and nodded, rising to her feet and leaving the doll on the floor where she had been sitting. "Clothes," she repeated, tugging once more at her collar.

The boy grinned up at Triton, but for the first time he had nothing to say. As much as he claimed he loved baths, it had been a very long time since he had actually had one, and he could hardly remember what it felt like at all.


The boy's muscles tensed as the water ran over his wounds, but not a sound escaped his lips, and he remained so still otherwise that it seemed as though he might have been asleep. Still, every time Cindy put fresh water on his back, his shoulders tensed and his muscles flexed in response to the pain.


Lindis smiled brightly and hugged the clothes to her chest. "Clothes!" she exclaimed happily - and then she turned to the other girl that was standing there and chattered to her in elvish. For a moment the other girl remained as she was, watching Feng with wary eyes, but eventually she relaxed and smiled, nodding slowly. Seeming to get the reaction she wanted, Lindis giggled and grabbed Feng's hand, then tugged her gently towards the door where the first girl had disappeared with her shortly before.

The boy nodded, his face still buried in Ryu's shoulder, and even when Cindy had finished cleaning his wounds he didn't react, save to relax slightly. His back was hurting worse now than it had been before, and the skin around his wounds was red and raw from being washed, but still he made no sound. It was almost as if he were incapable.


The girls both smiled and followed Feng up the stairs eagerly, not understanding her words but knowing that wherever they were going it would be a good place where something good would happen to them.