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 Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:02 pm
Shiromaru finally had a Feien bloom... and he'd about wrecked the poor thing.
It had started off with simple tests, experiments to soothe Shiro's curiosity -- he'd heard about others doing so, and wanted to try it out for himself. It was easy to decide how to do the elemental tests, as he had everything he needed right there. The first was fire, a candleflame a foot away from the bloom for half an hour. When that resulted in no changes, he blew out the candle and turned on the heater, leading to the bloom squirming some and wriggling. It wasn't much of a result, but it was a result. Excited, Shiromaru turned the heater off and grabbed a bowl of ice, setting the bloom near it. When another half hour resulted in the bloom shivering violently, Shiro pulled the bowl of ice away, sitting back and thinking as he waited for the bloom to settle down.
"Okay... so. Fire's no good, heat just makes it wriggle, and ice is definitely a no-go," he mused as he settled into his sofa, his gryphlet immediately burrowing under his arm. He pet Konxin absently as he made notations on the clipboard he was carrying, scribbling down the results to the tests he'd done so far. "Next should be... water." He paused, then considered the bloom rather anxiously. "I do hope you at least like water, since it'll be hard to escape it around Kailas."
Once the bloom stopped shivering, Shiromaru filled a shallow bowl with water and set the bloom inside of it. Half an hour of that resulted in the bloom looking a little sickly and wilted. He bit at his lip, anxiously, then made a note on his clipboard to keep the bloom away from Sanshi's pool... just in case. After that was earth. He emptied the bowl, dried it out and filled it instead with some dirt and grass, then set the bloom atop it. When half an hour's wait revealed that the brilliant coral-red of the bloom had turned brownish and the entire bloom wilted more, Shiromaru hastily pulled it out of the dirt and grass and set it in front of the fan.
Finally. Some success.
Being in front of the fan brought some of the color back to the bloom, and Shiro sighed in relief, reaching out to gently pet one of the coral-shaped petals. "I'm so sorry... just hang in there a little longer, okay?" he whispered, anxiously. "We only have a few more to go."
Darkness was next, and proved to be the most disastrous of them all. Shiro stuck the bloom inside of the closet for a half-hour -- the time he'd been using for all his experiments -- and when he pulled it out, it was quivering madly, as if scared. "Okay. No more closets. Ever. I promise!" Shiromaru assured it, desperate for a reaction; getting none, he opened every windowblind and curtain in the living room and turned on all the lamps, flooding the room with light. That had absolutely no result, and the bloom kept shaking, even after Shiro turned in desperation to his cds. None of the natural sounds he tried worked at all, but the music he played made the bloom curl up into a wilted ball... still shaking.
And, by that point, so was Shiro. "...I have to talk to Shinobu," he whispered, looking around desperately. "Or Schu, or Trio, or Youko, or... ...I'm so, so sorry!" He knelt in front of the end table that the quivering bloom sat on, then turned on the fan again in the hopes that it would help. While the bloom didn't improve any, at least it didn't deteriorate further. "I'm so sorry," Shiro whispered again, cupping his hands around it gently. "I promise, I'll find someone who can help... I promise."
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:03 am
Shiro, Trio and Aileron Aileron glanced at the back of Trio's head again, brow furrowing as he tried to recall last night. He remembered slipping into her room and watching her sleep. Or he thought he did. Just like he thought he remembered Sankouri directing him to curl up with the icy Zurui. But when he'd awakened, he was tucked against Ailis, which was so common he'd dismissed the other as a dream - likely brought on by all the strange events of the day before. But now, watching her set up the Pixapet sale she'd been planning for ages, and get all the puppies and kittens in the right pens, he couldn't quite ignore how real the encounter had felt to him. So either I got moved last night, or I've started to dream about Trio. What's going on? he wondered inwardly, catching a manx and tucking her into the pen with the other kittens. "Trio? Trio! Trio, are you there?" The door to the shop was opened suddenly, though the person opening it paused and peeked in, cautiously checking to make sure he wasn't about to trample any pixapets. The three creatures with him held no such reserve, however, and tumbled into the shop with a series of happy yips, yowls and mewls. Shiromaru's Zurui, Murasaki, was first, with Konxin, the gryphlet, bounding after him. Makoto came last, and bounced off the other two's heads until he could race into the shop proper. Finally, Shiromaru came after them all, looking around anxiously. "Trio!" He held in his hands a rather wilted and quivering Feien bloom, the source of his extreme anxiety. Trio glanced up, smiling when she caught sight of Shiromaru. "Hey there," she called, picking her way through the myriad of pets, large and small, with grace. She made it look easier than it actually was - long months of having to wade through waves of pixapets without hurting any had given her quite an education. "What's up?" Catching up with Shiro, she gave him a hug, then stepped back. She blinked as Aileron landed on her shoulder, glancing to the feien before following his gaze to the bloom in Shiro's hands in curiosity. Shiromaru returned the hug, tightly, then showed both of them the bloom in his hands, a startling red-brown against the blue of his gloves. "This is what's up. It's my bloom. I did some things but I think I hurt it, and it won't stop shaking, and I don't know what to do, and what if it comes out injured? Or it doesn't come out at all? I don't know what to do!" "Well, the first thing you need to do is calm down," Trio advised gently, even as Aileron moved to kneel on Shiro's wrist. Lightly, he touched a hand to the bloom, feeling the movements with a frown. "Come with me, Shiro." Trio led the way to one of the back rooms in the shop, shutting out all the other pets. As she closed the door, she speared Ailis and Sankouri with a look and told them to keep the rest out of trouble. Sankouri turned abruptly away, padding off without acknowledging the order. Ailis, on the other hand, nuzzled Trio, then trotted off after Sankouri, already rounding up some of the little pets who'd followed after them. "Now then," Trio said, gesturing Shiro to a seat. "What exactly have you done to your bloom? That IS a feien bloom, right?" She glanced at the way Aileron hovered near it and smiled, nodding to herself. If anyone in the shop would recognize a feien bloom, it would likely be him. "I'm sorry, I'm just so nervous..." Shiromaru sat down in the indicated seat, careful not to move so quickly that he dislodged Aileron from his wrist. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly before explaining. "It's a feien bloom, yes. I did a little experimentation on it, but I think I did too much. I was curious, and I'd heard about others doing the same thing, but I think I did it all wrong, or for too long, or... Okay. In order. I held a candle near it, kept it around heat, cold, water, earth, air, darkness, light, then let it hear some sounds and music. Fire had no effect, heat made it wriggle, cold made it shiver, water made it look kind of sickly, water made it start to wilt, same with earth, air made it a little better, darkness made it start shaking like this, and by the time I got to light, nothing was helping. When I tried to play music to see if that would help, it curled up into this ball!" The last word came out rather shakily, then Shiro forced himself to calm down. Trio's eyes widened at the recitation, and Aileron winced slightly at the thought, grateful he didn't have much idea of what the blonde had done to HIM while he'd been in bloom. "Right...," she said softly, peering at the bloom in Shiro's hands. "How do you know nothing was helping when you got to light? Did you go through all that twice?" she queried softly, while Aileron motioned for Shiro to place the bloom on a small table nearby. Shiro shook his head quickly, staring down at the bloom as well. After a moment, he set it on the table, kneeling beside it. "I've been calling it 'Koralu'... it looked like coral when it was healthy," he explained. Then, "I only went through it once. I was too scared to do anything after that." "Well, it sounds like it was responding fairly well to heat," Trio said softly, looking thoughtful. "Hang on. I've got a small space heater somewhere around here. I use it to keep the little ones warm when they're sick." She rose, moving out of the room and returning with the space heater. "Try setting it near the bloom, but not too close at first. Work from mildly warm to hot, and stop the moment it stops responding, okay?" she advised. "And take it slow - give it time to get used to things before changing the atmosphere again." "How long have you had it?" Aileron asked, sitting near the bloom and continuing to leave a hand on it. "So the wriggling is a good thing?" Shiro asked, gently touching a petal, as he'd picked up the habit of doing. "I was afraid that it didn't like it at all. "A space heater would be good then." Turning to Aileron, he shook his head again, sighing softly. "Only a few days, that's all." "All of that in a few days?" Aileron blurted out, only to be silenced by a Look from Trio. He frowned, peering back at the bloom. "It sounds to me like the best reaction you've gotten so far," Trio said gently. "But just like you, I don't know for certain. Try going slower, Shiro. You've got plenty of time." She reached out, laying a gentle hand on Shiro's arm. Shiromaru sighed softly, rubbing at his eyes. "I know, Aileron. I messed up. Trust me, I know. But I didn't know before." The hand on his arm did wonders to calm him down, however, and he offered Trio a shakey little smile. "I'll go slow. Maybe we can reverse the damage. Or at least make it as minimal as possible." Aileron frowned at Shiro, but said nothing as Trio reached out to hug Shiro. "With the right care, and some patience, there's nothing to say you can't," she noted, ruffling Shiro's hair. "Patience is your best friend when it comes to pets. You know that, right?" "I know," came the soft agreement as Shiro returned the hug, then reached up and fussed with the patch over his injured right eye. There was still a jagged scar across his face, from right eyebrow to left cheek. "Considering the ones I already have -- especially Yue -- I know. So, we'll try the heat first, and see if that has any positive effect, yes?" He reached out, touching the petals again in a gentle attempt to soothe the bloom. "Heat AND quiet," Trio reminded Shiro softly, smiling gently at him. She reached up to tap at the skin near his scar, one eyebrow raised. "So what happened here? One of your companions?" Shiro blinked, then looked up at Trio's fingertip before wincing rather sheepishly. "Ah... no. More like, that damned book of Shinobu's dragged me with him, and we ended up at the bottom of the ocean. Middle of a whirlpool, so we were standing on the ocean bed at the bottom with air to breathe, but Shinobu was stuck in the muck. I tried to pull him out, and managed it, but I ended up crashing into a propeller as well. I almost lost the eye, too, but Shinobu managed to heal me enough before I got sent back here that I didn't." Trio whistled lowly, her eyes wide. "Remind me again why Hermione likes books so much," she said, her tone wry. Aileron snorted, floating up to hover just before Shiromaru as he examined the cut. "It looks awful," he finally pronounced, sympathy lacing his voice. At that, Shiromaru waved a hand airily, laughing softly. "Oh, don't worry. It looks worse than it really is. The only thing that's going to take time is my eye, and that'll heal. One of the few mercies of being a demon -- we can heal things like this, however slowly." "So you won't be stuck with the scar forever?" Aileron asked, raising an eyebrow. He touched his own face, then shook his head, retreating to Trio's shoulder. As he alighted, a soft knock at the door caught his attention. "Trio? There's already someone requesting some pets," Levon called quietly. "Can you come take care of it?" Trio nodded, rising from her chair and smiling gently at Shiromaru. "Duty calls. Feel free to stick around here for a while, if you like. I'll send Levon in with the heater in a moment." She slipped through the door, pausing briefly to tell Levon before heading out to take care of the pets. Levon nodded, padding away to retrieve the heater before returning and setting it on the table next to the bloom. It wasn't plugged in, but it was easy to see how the heating element could be dangerous to a plant if too close. "There you go," he said cheerfully, smiling at Shiro before ducking out to help Trio again.
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Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:06 pm
Shiromaru lugged the space heater Trio had lent him home with him, and hunted out the most quiet room in his house -- which, considering the crowd, was quite a feat. Kailas was rarely ever quiet. Luck seemed to be with him, however, for one of the spare rooms at the far end of the house was nearly silent. He settled down with the space heater and the bloom, taking a deep breath. Trio suggested heat, so heat he'd try. He set the bloom down on the floor, then set the space heater down about six feet away and plugged it in, setting it at its lowest setting.
And sat back to wait, watching the bloom anxiously.
When it became apparent that it wasn't going to uncurl in the slightest, or stop twitching, and when he noticed that the bloom had lost nearly all its color, Shiro sighed and turned off the heater, then reached up and cracked one of the windows open. A wind was picking up outside, whistling past the house. Dismayed, Shiromaru just curled up around the bloom on the tatami, one hand protectively guarding it without quite touching the petals. He had to find a way to help his bloom, but everything he tried just made things worse... Maybe it would be best to just stop, and pray for the best.
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Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 4:19 am
"Shiro."
Silence.
"Shiro, come on."
Still nothing.
"Shiromaru, you can't stay in there forever."
"Yes I can."
Aimei sighed softly, flicking her white wings behind her back. Normally she didn't bother with them, but she'd only just come in from flying. "Shiro, you need to eat something. You're going to do that bloom no good if you pass out from malnutrition."
"I'll just make myself some water and drink it."
Twitch. Ruddy stubborn water demons... "Shiro, now, be reasonable," Aimei began, sweetly, and finally opened the door to the dollhouse room -- and blinked. Shiromaru was curled up in a ball around a trembling little bloom, and the demon was paler than usual. "...Shiro, what in the hells happened to that poor thing?!" ...Whoops. Not what she meant to say.
Shiro glanced up and shot Aimei a Look, and Aimei couldn't tell whether it was hindered or helped by the fact that Shiromaru's right eye was still completely covered. "My fault," the water demon murmured, finally uncurling and sitting up, though one hand stayed by the bloom. "I messed the bloom up. So I'm not going to do anything else to it because if I do, it might really mess it up even more." He sighed, and absently rubbed at a horn, then very carefully picked up the shaking bloom and held it close to his chest, the bloom's soot sprite entourage sneaking up his arm. The Alchemoomba Aquarius crooned at it lightly, then hopped up onto Shiro's shoulders, settling there while Shiromaru rose. "I'll go eat something, if it means you'll stop harassing me," he informed Aimei rather petulantly, then paused, sighed, and offered an apologetic smile. "Sorry. My nerves are shot."
Aimei chuckled softly, then lightly yanked on Shiro's dark blue hair. "C'mon. I'll even make you something to eat."
"No you won't! You'll scorch it! You make everything too spicy!"
"Oh, I bloody well do not!"
"You do too! Ruddy fire demons think every night is Indian food night..."
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Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 4:13 am
It had taken massive screeching, which Shiromaru had carefully shielded his still-shaking bloom from, but he'd finally gotten Aimei, Koumyou, Hun Min and everyone else to leave him alone with his poor bloom. Even the pixapets had vanished from the dollhouse room, leaving him alone with Koralu's bloom and the soot sprites, which were still waiting patiently with their sugar stars, wanting to give them to the bloom.
Or, rather, what they seemed to know was inside it.
Curled up as usual in a circle around the bloom, Shiromaru watched as the susuwatari started to pace back and forth in front of the bloom. Something was happening, and it didn't involve his bloom curling up in a tighter ball or shaking like it always had.
Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact, for the bloom started to slow its shivering, the petals slowly beginning to open up. Instantly alerted, Shiromaru went up on one elbow, watching the bloom move, then finally squirmed around so that he was laying flat on his stomach, chin on the tatami about a foot away from the bloom. No, not bloom... Feien. The small creature slowly emerged from his bloom, blinking at it curiously, then touched a petal -- he remembered something else touching the petals constantly while he was inside.
Probably this big person. The fairy jumped back a bit, startled, eyes widening, before he ventured quietly, "Ah... hello?"
"...You're alive... you're okay..." All the tension went out of Shiromaru in a sudden rush that left him dizzy, and he was grateful for the moment that he was horizontal, for the room was swimming around him for a moment. "I'm Shiromaru. I'm your bond."
"Bond?" the Feien echoed, blinking, then smiled happily. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Shiromaru."
Shiro shook his head slightly. "Call me Shiro. Do you have a name you like?"
The little Feien considered that for a long moment, then offered, "I remember someone calling me... Koralu, I think it was. I really like that. So, can I keep that?"
For a moment, the demon just blinked at the fairy, then he nodded softly. "That was me calling you Koralu. So if you like that name, of course you can keep that."
Koralu beamed, obviously forgetting his earlier fear of seeing Shiro looming over him, then blinked at the soot sprites. These, he remembered, just like he remembered Shiromaru's constant presence. The first soot sprite stepped forward, offering Koralu a sugar star, and he took it, nibbling on it slowly. The rest of the sprites laid the sugar stars in front of the Feien, then curled up together in a pile nearby.
Shiromaru couldn't shake the feeling that something was still very... wrong here, but he couldn't figure out what it was. But his Feien was alive, at the very least -- he hadn't flat-out killed the poor thing, and for that he was thankful. "I promise I'll do my best to take care of you," he vowed, curling his arms in a circle around both fairy and soot sprites, watching the lot of them on the tatami. After a moment, he added, much more softly, "I promise, I'll make it up to you..."
Koralu just looked up at him, smiled rather absently, and went back to his sugar star.
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Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:55 am
Shiro, Trio, Aileron and Koralu "...So I told her that we needed to contact Shiromaru and that I'd introduce her to her sibling. Surely, by now, Shiro's bloom has opened, after all," Aileron finished, peering up at Trio curiously. He nibbled on a Cheerio as though it were a doughnut, while Trio nodded thoughtfully. "You'd think so, wouldn't you. Of course, with the way that bloom was shaking, I'm not entirely certain I'd blame the feien for staying inside. Think he took our advice?" Trio asked, taking a spoonful of her cereal and munching. It didn't seem to bother her that she was eating cereal so late in the day. Often, when she was busy in the shop, her dinner (or lunch) consisted of a bowl of cereal and coffee. Today wasn't hugely busy, but she'd felt a bit too lazy to find something else Aileron could easily share. "Don't you?" the feien asked. "He was genuine about wanting help, after all." Trio started to nod, then glanced up as the bell over the door chimed. "Hello?" she called cheerfully. "Trio?" Speak of the demon. "It's me, Shiromaru. I was wondering if I could come in...?" Shiro was waiting just outside the door, folding his wings in against his back, a tiny creature on his shoulder, one hand cupped over it until he was certain it wouldn't fall. When he pulled his hand away, it was revealed to be a feien, wings buzzing for a moment until he'd situated himself. "You settled, Koralu?" "Mmmm," came the vague agreement. "Just the man we were talking about," Trio grinned, waving him in. "You brought your feien! Wonderful!" Bright eyes assessed the little creature as Aileron set his Cheerio aside and took to flight, moving toward the younger fairy. "Koralu, say hello to Trio and Aileron," Shiro urged gently as Koralu looked around, utterly distracted at first by the new scene. After a moment, the little creature slipped away from Shiromaru's shoulder, wings working quickly as he settled down onto the table, Shiro's hand cupped a few inches beneath the entire way. Another glance around kept Koralu silent for a few moments more, then he blinked up at Aileron and Trio both. "Hello." "You were talking about me?" Shiro added, casting a curious look Trio's way. "What about?" "Koralu, actually," Trio nodded, grinning widely at the little feien. "Hi there, Koralu. It's good to finally meet you!" Aileron followed Koralu as he landed, then held out a hand, his smile bright and charming. "Welcome," he said warmly. "Do I know you?" Koralu asked, curiously, peering up at Aileron. That proffered hand gets blinked at for a few moments, then it seemed to click just what he was supposed to do. He took Aileron's hand and shook it, the other feien's grin proving infectious as he returned it broadly. "Not yet, I think," Aileron said. "I'm Aileron, Trio's bonded. I met you while you were still in your bloom." As he spoke, a couple of pixacats tumbled up, darting around their feet as one tried to pounce the other's tail. Koralu listened intently, repeating Aileron's name to himself a few times, as if that would help him remember it. It went clean out of his head, however, the moment he saw the pixacats, lighting up as he flew over to them curiously. "What are these?" "And that brings me to why I'm here," Shiro murmured with a sigh, an anxious look in his eyes. "No attention span to speak of, and his common sense wouldn't fit on the head of a pin. He always means well, it's just... ...He forgets," he finally concluded, scrubbing at his left eye with the heel of his hand. He'd finally gotten used to not being able to use his right eye. "I was hoping maybe you could suggest something, a pixa, maybe, like other feien have. A guide and a protector, something to keep him out of trouble when I'm not around." Trio winced as Shiro described the problem, drawing the demon aside a ways. "He's really that bad, Shiro?" she asked softly, casting a worried look back toward the small feien. Aileron, meanwhile, drew Koralu over toward a group of rambunctious puppies. "These are called Pixapets. Trio and I sell them." He paused, then added ruefully, "And keep some ourselves. They're good companions." One of the pixapets looked up, seeing a new face. Her eyes lit up, and she pounced Koralu, doing her best to get to his face to lick him avidly. "I count my blessings that he's alive at all, Trio. I honestly thought I'd killed him. When the heat didn't help, I just about gave up hope. All I can do now is try to figure out how to help him the best I can." Shiromaru sighed, looking back at Koralu, then smiled fondly as he watched the tiny creature. Once the pup had pounced at him, Koralu'd sat down hard with a giggle, letting the pixa lick at his face. He reached up, petting her, then started to ask a question but ended up sputtering with laughter instead as one well-placed tongueswipe from the pup got part of his mouth. Wiping his face off, Koralu finally echoed, "Pixapets?" He hadn't seen Shiro's mini-horde yet, apparently. "That's what Trio calls them," Aileron nodded, watching the play fondly. His own pets never treated him that way anymore, and while it often grew tiresome after a day or two of constant play, at the same time, he loved it. Sitting down beside Koralu, he reached out, catching the little greyscale pup and drawing her off of the feien so that Koralu could catch his breath. "They make good companions for us because they're so small, and they're very smart," he explained, ruffling the girl's ears. "And because they can communicate with us, so we don't have to guess how they're feeling." Trio watched the two for a moment, then lay a hand on Shiro's arm, nodding. "Trust Aileron," she advised quietly. "Somehow, he always manages to pick out a good pet for new feien." Koralu leaned in and wound his arms around the pixapup, obviously intent on cuddling her as long as he could. "Could I have one? Would that be okay? They're really pretty!" He was particularly enamoured of the pup that had pounced him, it seemed. "I have no doubts," Shiromaru murmured, though the hand at his arm made him relax a little, shoulders settling. The puppy yipped at Aileron, immediately twisting out of his arms to pounce Koralu once more. She smothered him in sloppy puppy-kisses, the wet licks almost drowning him. Aileron watched for a moment more, then snickered, drawing his legs up and leaning against them as he considered. "I think she'll be almost offended if you DON'T take her home. You've made a new friend." Trio hesitated, glancing around the shop and nodding to Levon, who stood unobtrusively in a corner. She chewed her lower lip a few moments, then curled her arm around Shiro's, drawing the demon toward the back room. "Come on. You need some space. And Aileron and Levon will protect your feien. Even from himself. Promise." "But I..." Shiro let himself be pulled away, glancing back anxiously over his shoulder at Koralu. He hadn't been separated from the fairy for more than a minute or two since Koralu had slipped out of his bloom. Kora, for his own part, didn't really seem to notice, too intent was he on the pup that had, by that point, knocked him flat onto his back. He couldn't stop giggling, and only managed to quell it when a thought popped into his head. "Everyone has names. What's her name?" "She doesn't have one yet. Dogs and cats have different ways of identifying themselves to each other, so names are really for the others around them - humans, demons, feien. So that we can call them something," Aileron explained, gathering a patchwork cat onto his lap and petting him. "When you take her home, you'll have to name her, so that she knows what you want her to be called." "Trust me," Trio assured Shiro, tucking him back into the small back room he'd first seen while carrying a small, curled-up, shivering bloom. "You need a bit of a break, I think. You look like you're about to crack!" "Oh... I'll have Shiro help me find a name," Koralu decided, then hugged the pixapup close, positively beaming. "So I get to keep her? Shiro said he wanted to find a friend for me, but I didn't know what he was talking about." Shiromaru followed after Trio with a soft sigh, letting his wings vanish so they wouldn't knock anything over in the room. "I'm not about to crack," he insisted, though his expression said otherwise. He certainly wasn't getting much sleep, from the look of things. "These are the friends all the feien I know of come here for," Aileron assured him. "What do you think, pretty girl? Like to go home with Koralu?" The pup yipped again, smothering Koralu with kisses once more while Aileron laughed. Trio snorted goodnaturedly. "Liar," she said, moving to start a coffee pot. "Instant coffee, or tea?" " Coffee," Shiro crooned, gaze fixing on the pot like an addict desperate for a fix. The little husky pup snuggled happily into Koralu's lap while he cuddled her, refusing to let go. It was a good distraction to keep him in the here-and-now. "I like her," Kora announced, as if that wasn't already plainly obvious to the entire room. "I'm glad you'll come home with me," he added to the pixapup, and was rewarded with another face-drenching lick. "I know your sister, Koralu," Aileron said suddenly, still grinning widely as he watched the two. "She was hoping to meet you sometime." Trio nodded, watching as the still-clear liquid poured into the carafe. When it was done, she added instant coffee to a mug, then poured the water over it. "Sugar or milk?" "Black and bitter," Shiro declared, fairly purring. Even if it was instant, it was coffee. Koralu blinked up at Aileron in confusion, head tilting to the side slightly. "Sister? I have a sister? Who's that?" "Her name is Xathriel," Aileron said. "She seems very nice, but she doesn't like touch much," he warned carefully. "I thought maybe if Trio could convince Shiro, we could introduce you two tomorrow." "Here you go," Trio said, passing the coffee over and moving to sit beside Shiro. "Now, wanna talk?" Koralu murmured the name to himself a few times, then nodded softly, playing with the ears of the pixapup in his lap. "Xathriel. Sister. I want to go and meet her. Does she look like I do?" he asked after a moment, curiously, as he glanced down at his arms. Shiro didn't respond for a few moments, too busy draining part of his mug, but once he'd gotten a decent caffeine shot, he set the mug down on the table again. "...What's there to talk about, though?" "Well, you're obviously worried about him," Trio pointed out, curling up in her chair and wrapping her arms around her legs. "I can offer you the same advice I gave Envy." "Tomorrow," Aileron nodded, grinning. "She looks a bit like you - she's bald too, and much the same color, though her markings are different." "Any advice would be appreciated," Shiro murmured, staring down into his mug, his hands curled around it. "It's a lack thereof that got me into this mess, after all, since I didn't ask before doing anything..." Koralu beamed happily, cuddling his pixapup, who'd started to doze off in his arms. "Xathriel. Sister. Looks like me," he echoed, pleased. "Tomorrow. I'll ask Shiro." He paused, then peered up at the other feien curiously. "What's your name...?" Apparently he'd forgotten. "Get him a guardian," Trio said promptly. "One bigger than a breadbox, if you can manage it. A zurui, a pard... something." Her eyes softened. "It'll keep you from worrying so much, and give him someone to be friends with." Aileron blinked, staring at Koralu strangely. "I'm... Aileron. I told you earlier." Is my name really that difficult to remember?"Aileron, that's right." Koralu paused for a moment, then nodded decisively before dismissing the matter entirely, unaware of how odd it really was. Shiro considered that for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. "Another zurui or a pard, I could handle that. I'd ask Murasaki, but he's impossible to pull away from Konxin -- and Aixi, now. He's fixated on the two of them. And Hun Min and Koumyou are off doing their own things, I didn't want to bother them... I'll see about getting a pard or another zurui." "I know some people," Trio said quietly, nodding. "Lemme ask around and see what I can find out." "Koralu," Aileron said slowly, wondering if he was just being a bit too vain. "What's your bonded's name?" Shiromaru sagged a little in relief, shooting Trio a grateful smile. "Thank you so much. I don't really 'know people,' as it were, so I'd have no idea who to talk to about it." "...Shiro," Koralu returned after a moment's hesitation. "I know. He told me." About twenty times. Okay, so I'm just being a... what was it Trio calls me? A peacock, right, Aileron nodded, smiling and relaxing. "Good," he told Koralu. He started to pause, then blinked, face slowly lighting up with an idea. "I think I know someone else you should meet." Trio nodded. "I've made some good friends in my time. A little wheeling and dealing, and we should have you a good guardian for Koralu." "As long as they can remember the things he forgets -- which is everything -- and keep him out of trouble, I don't really care just what sort of creature it is," Shiro decided with a sigh, then drained the rest of his coffee. "Oh? Who?" Kora peered up at Aileron curiously, head canted slightly to the side -- a habit picked up from his bond, apparently. "An old friend of mine," Aileron said, and as he continued, his smile grew wider and wider. Xathriel may or may not love the idea, but with what he'd just seen of Koralu's playful nature... Aileron was pretty certain that the boy would like him... "His name is Tosten. I think you'd like him," he added, tilting his head to one side. "He's fun." "More than one might be better, if your sanity's at stake," Trio said quietly, her brows knitting together in worry. "Rather like Dal and Ailis work together." Shiromaru nodded softly, then paused and looked up at Trio. "But my sanity's not at stake. This just... it's like taking care of a perpetual toddler, is all." Koralu's smile grew as Aileron's did, the other feien's mood proving infectious. "What's he like? He big like you, or small like me? And Xathriel?" "He's kind of in between you and I," Aileron said, chuckling. "But he's an adult. He's got a playful streak." His head tilted to one side as he tried to figure out how to describe Tosten. Giving up, he moved on to Xathriel. "Xathriel's young and smaller, like you." "Shiro, you ARE aware that I can exaggerate things, right? And that I like to tease?" Trio asked pointedly. Koralu giggled, absently petting the dozing pixapup in his arms. "So he's bigger than me but smaller than you? I'm glad Xathriel's small like me. But I don't mind bigger too. Shiro's bigger, after all." Shiromaru stared at Trio for a long moment, then blushed and ducked his head, hiding behind his bangs. "Sorry. I'm just so tired... I'm not catching things as I should be. Sorry about that." "You need sleep, Shiro," Trio said firmly, reaching out to pat his hand. Curling up in her seat, she examined him. "Do you want to stay with me some night? My pets can keep an eye on Koralu to make sure he's okay, and you can get some honest to goodness sleep!" "True. I'm fairly tall for a feien, actually," Aileron offered, rising and reaching out for a cheerio. He handed one to Koralu, then grabbed one for himself to eat. "What are these?" Koralu asked curiously, then nibbled lightly at the cheerio to taste it. "It's good! It doesn't taste anything like the fruit I've had." The offer was met with a hopeful look as Shiro turned his gaze back to Trio again. "Oh, that would be wonderful. That really would. It'd be so nice to get a real night's sleep for once." Trio took one look at Shiro and rose, reaching out to help him up. "Go get your pets. You're staying at the Menagerie tonight. Maybe tomorrow night, too. Got it?" she instructed him firmly. "They're called Cheerios. Trio eats them for dinner sometimes," Aileron explained. "It's a meal we can share." "I'll go get them," Shiro agreed easily, rising with Trio's help. "I can stay tomorrow too. I'll just bring Saki, Konxin and Aixi, if that's okay with you? Hun Min can take care of the others while we're gone. Should I leave Kora here while I go get them?" Cheerios. Okay. Koralu happily munched through part of the piece of cereal, then offered a handful to the pup in his arms, who'd only just woken back up again. "Shiro doesn't eat cheerios. I should ask him if we could get some." "That's fine. Aileron, Levon, and I can guard him. I may ask Dalreidan to keep an extra close eye on him tonight, just in case. If anyone can be counted on, Dal can," Trio assured Shiro. Aileron laughed. "Trio tries to find food that I can handle pieces of without too much work or preparation." Shiro nodded, then slipped out of the room and back to the feiens, blinking as he watched Koralu feeding the pup the cheerio bits. The feien beamed as Shiromaru walked out, waving the cheerio piece about happily. "Shiro! Can we get these! They're not raspberries, but they're really good!" Laughing softly, Shiromaru stepped over to the table, offering Koralu a smile. "Of course. I'll pick up some more so you can pick through them and decide which ones you like. I'll be back soon, I need to go get Murasaki, Konxin and Aixi, since we're going to be sleeping here tonight. Aileron, Trio and the others will be keeping an eye on you while I'm gone, okay?" "Okay!" Koralu agreed cheerfully, then was thoroughly sidetracked again by the pixapup. Shiro sighed softly, then glanced up at Trio. "I won't be long. Give me about half an hour, maybe?" "That's fine, Shiro," Trio assured him. "Take all the time you need. I think Aileron's made a friend." Grinning widely down at Koralu, she nodded. "We're going to enjoy the company, I think." Aileron grinned, moving to start caring for the pixapets as Koralu continued to play with his new little puppy.
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Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:56 am
Reserved for Shiro, Youko, Envy, Koralu, Xathriel, Yeande and Shalafi.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2004 3:29 am
"Aight, kiddo, this is what we're gonna do," Shiromaru informed Koralu as the two settled down at the kitchen table -- well, the demon at the table and the feien on the table -- with a box full of rounded square cards. "This game is called 'Memory' and with it, we're going to improve your memory. What we do -- Kora. Kora, eyes up here. Focus on me. -- is lay these cards out face-down on the table in a grid. Once we do, we turn over two cards at a time, trying to find cards that match each other. If the ones we turn over -- Kora. Eyes. -- match, we take them out of the grid. If they don't, we turn them back over and try again. You need to remember which cards are where. Savvy?" Pause. "Kora! Eyes!"
Koralu blinked up at Shiromaru, then took a moment to remember what was going on before nodding. "Grid. Matching cards. Matching pairs come out of the grid." It was something Shiromaru had drilled into Koralu's head until it managed to sink most of the way past all the fuzziness that Koralu dealt with every day -- anytime he was asked if he understood something, he had to repeat what the information was to prove he understood it. He forgot a lot of the time and had to have everything repeated constantly before he latched onto everything, but lately, it'd gotten a bit easier. Sometimes Shiro only had to repeat things a few times instead of five or six. It was distressingly slow progress... but dammit, it was progress.
Shiromaru nodded in satisfaction, then took the cover off the box and smiled as several susuwatari wandered out, each of them carrying sugar stars over to Koralu. How the feien stayed thin was a mystery to the demon. While the soot sprites were busy plying Koralu with sugar, Shiro took advantage of the moment to lay the grid out in front of him, each of the brilliantly colored shapes face-down on the table, watching as Kilinda padded over and sniffed at them curiously. "Kora, put the soot sprite down," he finally called as the fairy played with one of the fuzzy poofs, and Koralu trotted over, finally releasing the susuwatari as he peered curiously at the cards.
"We're matching the cards," Koralu announced, pleased with himself; and, without further instruction, decided to get started. The first set was a no-go, same with the next, and the third. By the fourth, Shiro had had to call Koralu's attention back to what he was doing with a sharp "Kora. Cards," and the feien returned his attention to the card he was holding. By that point, Shiromaru had seen several pairs come up, but the increasingly agitated fairy hadn't made the mental connections necessary to catch the ones Shiro had seen.
That happened on the tenth try, when the demon had about given up hope.
Koralu turned over a card of a bright red star and stared at it, standing on it, then turned around and stared at the rest of the grid. Then, very slowly, walked over to a card on the opposite end of the grid and turned it over.
It was a red star.
Shiromaru had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from making a sound, though his eyes stung suspiciously before he blinked tears away. Right. It could have been a fluke. The next two pairs weren't matches, but the thirteenth pair turned over two green squares, and the fourteenth yielded yellow circles.
It was enough, then. Shiro was content with his minor miracle.
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Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:52 am
At the Old Gum Tree Café Shiromaru was seriously starting to wonder if he hadn't made a horrible, horrible mistake. It wasn't so much that Koralu was behaving badly, really, and it wasn't so much that the crowd around them was altogether particularly thick. No, it was more that Koralu was horribly, horribly distractable, and the demon had had to save his poor feien from death-by-boiling-coffee more than once when Koralu had flown over an open carafe and had gotten distracted by the smell, thus condemning Shiromaru to repeated heart attacks. By now, he had given up and was subjecting the feien to yet another round of 'Memory' in an attempt to keep him from flying off while Shiromaru was on his fifth cup of espresso. Love the caffeine. Worship the caffeine. "I still don't know why the hell it was so important I come along..." Talon growled sitting, half-enveloped in his white wings and idly sliding a sugar cube back and forth between his hands across the tabletop. "Because," Karma sighed from where she sat at a corner booth in the cafe with her three bonded feien "I'm tired of acting like we're all strangers that only see each other when there's some sort of disaster. There's no reason we can't play family once in awhile." "Feh." the earth feien pouted. The foxcoon didn't put much stock into his bad mood...she HAD roused him out of a nap to drag him along, after all. Globin was currently in the breast pocket of her jacket and refusing to come out, seeming petrified of being in public. The only one who seemed to actually be enjoying the outing whatsoever was Kookaberra. She had politely greeted the waitress who had seated them (and given them a rather odd look), had happily read off everything on the menu, and was currently examining her reflection in the napkin dispenser. "Can you at least try and be in a good mood for your daughter?" Karma sighed. "I know you're cranky, Talon." She watched as the sugar cube he'd been shifting back and forth between his hands was placed on the end of a spoon handle and out of the way. "I promised her we were going to go see Tahki today after I napped. Not sit in some rathole in the middle of nowhere." he grumbled. "She wants to meet her -real- family and these delays aren't helping." "I'm sure one more day won't hurt, and besides, the people here are just as much Berra's family as you ar--" "Miss Karma!" Berra declared, flitting across the table and moving to land. "Did you know that the napkins have mirrors on them?" Even as she said so, she landed on the opposite end of the spoon. Her weight, slight as it was, effectively turned the utensil into a little catapult, rocketing the sugar cube across the restaurant where it clattered on a mark unseen somewhere nearby. "....oops." Berra winced apologetically, looking in the direction it had gone as Karma shook her head and sighed, making a mental note not to take her feien into public for a good long while after this miersable attempt. The sugar cube, naturally, soared through the air and landed with a solid 'thwock' against one of Koralu's wings, whereupon it bounced off the feien and nailed Shiro in the forehead. With a quiet cry of surprise, the demon rubbed at his forehead, looking around for the perpetrator of the assault. When he found it -- or what according to the trajectory of the cube, was closest to it -- he blinked, then smiled faintly. Well. To say hello or not to say hello? Or -- "Kora! Not the coffee!" The last thing he needed was a senile feien with a caffeine addiction! Groaning, Shiro stood, scooping Koralu out of the glass of water the red fairy'd just fallen into. "You're going to make my hair turn white, child. Come on, let's go say hello, shall we?" With dripping feien sitting, sodden, in one hand, Shiromaru walked over to where Karma sat. Karma looked up to see someone from a nearby table approaching and instantly sank into her seat a bit, her ears wilting in embarrassment. No doubt they were coming to inquire about the little sugar missile that had just accosted them. "....are we in trouble?" Berra asked, putting her hands behind her back apologetically. Talon, percieving a threat, got up from where he was sitting and drew Berra close to him, eyeing the approaching demon with suspicion. "I hope not." Karma groaned, taking a breath and attempting to soften her expression, ready to apologize profusely for her fairies. As Shiro drew near, the foxcoon brought up her crimson eyes and managed an awkward smile. "....I-I'm really sorry about that." she said. "Berra--she's just a kid. She didn't mean to..." Aheh... oh dear, and leave it to one of HER feien to annoy the only demon patron in the entire establishment... how quaint. "Hey, no worries! It just startled us, that's all. Actually, I'm rather glad you did," Shiro added in Berra's direction with a warm smile, then paused to catch Koralu when the feien decided to follow another carafe. Okay, note to self, child is senile AND obsessive. "Koralu doesn't know many other feien but Aileron, Yeande, Shalafi and Xathriel, so ... I thought I'd at least come introduce us. Koralu, say hello." Attention duly sidetracked by the others in front of him, Kora peered at all and sundry before waving and offering a cheerful 'Hello,' legs kicking from where he sat in Shiro's hand again. Berra especially got a bright smile -- she was more his size, and a little less intimidating all around. "We can go, of course, we just wanted to say hi, is all," Shiromaru continued after a moment, pleased that Kora was actually paying attention. At least for the moment. At this, Karma noticeably relaxed. Oh thank god...it was a friendly approach. She had just been going over in her head the fact that finances weren't going to allow her to pay anyone's dry cleaning bills and her feien didn't exactly have an allowance to take it out of. "Oh, no! You don't have to go." she said, motioning at the empty seat across from herself. "These three need to socialize a bit themselves." she said, eyeing Talon who was still clutching Berra protectively and then Globin who had poked slightly out of her pocket to examine the current company. Talon narrowed his eyes a bit, still clearly distrustful, but Berra brightened, readily waving at the new feien and smiling. "Hi!" she greeted, clearly excited at the prospect of meeting someone new. "Talon, quit." Karma sighed. "You let her go off to a pool party by herself yesterday afternoon, but you're not going to let her say hi?" Talonfaust seemed to consider this, looking down at Berra grudgingly as she cast a pleading look back at him that begged him to let her go make friends. Sighing, he slowly released her, watching as she bounded forward to properly meet Koralu, his wings poised in such a way that suggested if there was one wrong move made, he would be ready to lunge forward and rescue her. Chuckling softly, Shiromaru settled into the proffered seat, lowering one hand to the table to let Koralu walk right off it and onto the table itself, heading over to meet Berra, his wings buzzing a little. "I'm Koralu," the feien explains, as though Shiro hadn't just announced that moments ago. What was he supposed to say here...? Wait, yes, that's right. "It's nice to meet you." He paused, then, and glanced back at Shiromaru, who nodded softly with a smile. "There. ...Thank you for letting us join you. He doesn't have many friends," the demon murmured, watching his feien with a fond little smile. "I don't think many people could handle him, really. Even Aileron doesn't really know what to do with him most of the time." Shiro cast a glance at Talon, then looked back to Karma and blinked. "Oh! I'm Shiromaru, I don't think I mentioned that." "Karma." she greeted the demon, offering a handshake and watching both Berra and Talon out of the corner of her eye, just in case. "And I really don't mind, trust me. I don't get to meet other bonds very often, usually their feien just show up at my home for one reason or another that has to do with one of these three." she chuckled. Kookaberra met Koralu halfway and stopped in front of him, looking him over briefly before smiling. She'd never seen a feien with insect wings before, how interesting! "Hello Koralu!" she twittered in her voice that almost never seemed to be anything other than pleased about something. "My name is Berra, its nice to meet you too!" Shiromaru took Karma's hand, shaking it once, firmly, before letting her hand go. "I'm a friend of Schuldig, Shinobu, Youko, Envy and Trio, if you know them," he explained, leaning back in his chair. "They're the only bonds I really know, myself. Aside from you, now," he added with a grin. "My house is kind of out of the way, not many people end up there. Or feien, for that matter. Not that I blame them, it's chaos central, honestly..." Koralu reached for a sugar cube, then offered it to Kookaberra with a smile. "You lost one," he explained simply, then blinked and looked up as someone walked by with another tray of interesting-smelling drinks. Automatically, Shiro reached a hand out to block the feien from flying off. "Focus, Kora," the demon cautioned, and Koralu obediently turned his attention back to Berra. Karma paused a moment, watching as Shiro blocked her feien from following the waitress and admonished him. Something clearly was amiss with Koralu aside from the fact he didn't have any friends...the brief but knowing look that she and Talon exchanged confirmed that her eldest feien felt the same. Deciding not to say anything of it, she continued the conversation where it had left off. "I know Youko, Envy, and Trio, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the other two." The foxcoon smiled. "But looks like we already have something in common in the people we know, that's a good start." She was starting to ease up a bit more as they lapsed into conversation. Berra meanwhile, held the sugar cube she'd been given and smiled. He must have thought it was the one she'd accidentally sent over to their table. "Thank you, Koralu." she said cheerily enough and set it back in its bowl. "Are you a new feien too?" she asked, rocking on her heels a bit. Koralu nodded slightly, then walked over to the sugar bowl, inspecting it. "Yes, I only came out a little while ago. I don't remember how long, but... it doesn't seem to be a very long time." He paused, then, and in a complete subject change, noted, "Susuwatari like sugar stars. They give me some all the time. But they're not like these, they're stars." Shiromaru blinked at Koralu, a bit surprised -- normally the feien didn't bother with actual conversations, or at least much of them. "Interesting..." Right, Karma was talking. "Yeah," he agreed, grinning again as his attention focused back on the foxcoon. "There is that. I'm glad to see the world's a little smaller than I imagined it to be." Karma smiled in reply, though her eyes kept flickering down to Berra and Koralu, clearly interested in the interaction. Her two males were so reclusive that it was very seldom she got to sit in on any of their conversations for more than a moment. Koralu seemed nice enough and Berra had nothing to hide...in fact, the two younglings didn't even seem to notice them. "Feien are wonderful, aren't they?" Karma murmured. "I didn't know what I was getting myself into when Em delivered my first flower, now I can't even remember what life was like without them." Talon, in response, rolled his eyes but said nothing. "Sugar stars?" Berra asked, clearly intrigued as she likewise walked over to look at the sugar, trying to envision the cubes in star shapes. "The susu--sus--" she faltered with the word, unfamiliar with it and finding her tongue tripped over itself every time she tried to say it. "They must be very nice!" she settled on at last. Shiromaru grinned at that, easily -- for a demon, he was certainly easygoing. "They are. Even if I swear this one's going to put me in my grave early. It's not his fault, though," he murmured after a moment, chin in hand as he watched the oblivious pair. "And I wouldn't change him for the world." "Susuwatari!" Koralu explained, cheerfully, and measured out a ball about an inch across. "They're about this big. And puffy. And..." He tried to think of another adjective for the soot sprites, and failed miserably. "Well, they're puffy." He picked up another sugar cube, inspecting it, then absently licked it. Not that he needed any more sugar. "And..." He trailed off, there, forgetting the line of questioning until Shiro reminded him with a gentle, 'sugar stars.' Koralu blinked at that, then brightened. "Sugar stars. They're like sugar, only in stars and colored." "He certainly is adorable..." Karma agreed. "Though, there -are- others, I would change." At this, she looked down at Globin who was still sheepishly tucked in her pocket. "Come out here, you. Nobody's going to hurt you." she sighed, venturing a hand into her pocket and carefully fishing the blood feien out. He clung to her fingers like a panicky drowner, but didn't protest as he was seated on her shoulder, goggling at Shiro through wide crimson eyes. "He's a little neurotic." She explained. "I've been trying to socialize him a bit. And THIS one..." she said, pointing down at Talon. "...looks constantly like he was given a lemon-flavored swirly." Talon snorted at this and, at that, decided he was going to ignore the rest of the conversation as he redirected his attention to Berra and Koralu. Well...at the very least, this one wasn't as hyperactive and boisterous as the juveniles he'd grown up with. He likewise didn't seem manipulative, nasty, or otherwise like he could hurt Berra. As his inner watchdog smoothed its hackles just slightly, he relaxed his tensed wings a bit against his shoulders. "Susuwatari..." Kookaberra said slowly and carefully, realizing she would probably not remember it...but, at least she'd been able to say it. She giggled a bit and fanned her wings once. "I didn't know sugar came in colors!" she chirped as she approached, picking up a sugar cube of her own and trying to envision it as a color other than white. "Do you have any other friends?" she inquired innocently. She, herself, still hadn't met many people and was rather curious of them. Shiromaru's grin gentled when Globin appeared, and he offered the blood feien a little wave. "Hello there. Trust me, I'm not going to hurt you." His only visible eye, the left one, warmed as he watched Globin. Talon got a nod, however, though he didn't try to pull the white feien into any more conversation, knowing Talonfaust's attention was on the children. Koralu blinked up at Berra, head canted to the side curiously. "No? I don't think so..." It was, oddly, a question, as if he were uncertain. He paused, then, and glanced at Kookaberra. "What's your name?" ...Well that was odd. Globin fidgeted, his wings twitching on his back and looking as though he was trying hard not to hide himself in them, but he nodded and offered a strained smile. "H-Hello." he said in a soft voice that was gentle and almost-melodic. "You wouldn't think it the way he keeps hiding, but I promise you he's a sweetheart." Karma smirked, watching Globin's pale cheeks flush with a bit of blush. Kookaberra cocked her head questioningly, but willingly gave her name again. "Berra." she said, smiling. Maybe he hadn't heard her the first time...she didn't pick up on the fact something might be amiss with Kora and was unbothered by his absent nature. "Its all right, I don't have many friends yet either." "Berra," Koralu echoed, then nodded quickly before sitting down with a sugarcube in hand, absently waving it about a bit. It was really rather ungainly, this odd form. Not as easy to hold as a star. "Okay. Berra. I'll remember." Well, no, he wouldn't, but he thought he would. "Why don't you have many friends?" Shiro just shook his head slightly, then murmured to Karma, "He's never really talked like this to anyone before. He keeps drifting off, usually. He's not... quite... all there. And he's rather sorely lacking in anything resembling common sense..." He sighed again, then brightened with another smile for Globin. "Well, you don't need to hide around me." Pause. "Unless you want to." "I don't...mean to hide." Globin fidgeted. "I just---" he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Its crowded here. And it makes me very nervous." "Globin, dear, there are MAYBE eight people in this entire diner." Karma sighed, though she did it with a hint of good nature. "If that's crowded to you, you ought to be glad you're not going to the convention with me this weekend." She then turned her attention back to Shiro and furrowed her brow a bit. "That's too bad...about Kora, I mean. At least he seems happy. That's got to win him points with the others, right?" Berra watched as Koru investigated the cube, seeming amused. "Its ok to forget now and then. We all do it. Like this morning? Daddy forgot he left the water running in the sink and--" "Berra..." Talon piped up, a hint of warning in his voice as his daughter turned and looked at him with wide innocent eyes. "But you did, daddy." She insisted, having no clue what her father was upset about. "And there were bubbles all over the sink and all over the floor and then Miss Karma said a lot of bad words while she cleaned it up." As Karma tried to stifle laughter at her elder feien's embarrassment, Berra then returned her attention to Koralu. "I suppose I don't have many friends because I'm still new." she shrugged a bit good-naturedly. "I got to meet Yeande and Shalafi and they were nice...and there lots of feien at the party yesterday, but I don't know that I have any real friends yet." She settled her wings a bit more comfortably against her back. "Oh well, we have plenty of time to make some, right?" she grinned. "Oooh my. Conventions... I've been to one, once. I've never seen that many Stormtroopers and Klingons in the same place at the same time before. It was a sea of them," Shiromaru offered Karmawards, head tilted to the side a bit as he remembered, then blinked at the next question. "Well... he's a sweetheart. He can be really excitable, especially if there's someone freaking out around him, so I try to keep everyone as calm as possible around him or he'll work himself into a panicked frenzy. But he always means well, and he really is a sweetheart... People like him well enough, I guess, he's just a bit odd to deal with. Takes some fine handling. It's... actually my fault." At that, Shiromaru paused and took a cup of coffee as the waitress offered it, drinking the black and bitter brew without even flinching before continuing. "I messed up on his bloom. I was so excited and so curious that I wanted to do some tests, but I really messed up on them, so by the time I was done, his bloom was shaking constantly." He sighed, then, and ran a hand over his visible eye. "At least he's alive, and safe, and I have a chance to try to make things better. I'm really pleased, he's responding well to Berra. But then again, I don't think anyone would respond badly to her, she's such a sweetie," he added, irrepressable grin broadening. "What do lots of bubbles do?" Koralu asked, fascinated by the thought. "Did they fill up the entire room and get everywhere? Because that would be really pretty." Not to mention horrible to clean up, but the boy suffered magpie syndrome. "I'll be your friend." Karma winced a bit as Shiro discussed what had happened to the bloom. "Wel," she offered. "he's very lucky, you're right. But not so much because he survived, but because he ended up with a bond who's willing to work with him, stress and all." She smiled. "I can count at least a hand's-worth of bonds I've met who wouldn't have the patience to deal with that." She sighed a little, leaning back a bit as the waitress took her empty glass and went to refill it with more Pepsi. "Everybody wants happy and perfect fairies, but those are few and far between. Even when you take good care of your bloom, they still have issues, just like people." She sat up straight again. "For example, Talonfaust's bloom absolutely loved being in the dark, in a pan of soil. He thrived there...he couldn't have been happier. When he came out, he was standoffish, nasty, and didn't trust a soul. So I wouldn't beat yourself up over it too badly." "Lots of bubbles make a big mess, actually." Berra started to explain. "They make the floor all slippery so that nobody can walk on it and--" she trailed off at Koralu's last statement. "I--really? You want to be my friend...??" she asked, sounding excited at the prospect. "I'd love to be your friend, Koralu! Thank you!" she said, beaming and looking like it was all she could do to keep from throwing her arms around the other juvenile and give him an immense hug. But... no, no, that wasn't polite. She didn't even know if Kora -liked- hugs, after all. What if she scared him? Kookaberra's excitement, naturally, spiked Koralu's own, and as Berra smiled, Kora's own grin broadened, wings buzzing merrily. "Friends," he decided again, as if that settled the entire matter. "Yes. Sugar cube?" He offered another one to her, completely forgetting that he'd given her another one before. Shiromaru blushed faintly at Karma's words, and he looked down at the table, rubbing the fingertips of one hand over the knuckles of the other. "Koralu's teaching me patience, at the very least," he murmured with a faint little laugh. "And plenty of it. And that doesn't make any sense to me. If people are going to bond, why don't they live up to their end of the responsibility? Feien are living creatures with minds of their own." He paused, then sighed. "Anyway, 'perfect' feien would just be boring. People are far more interesting with some... personality quirks." Berra took the cube, stifling another bout of giggles. Apparantly Koralu forgot a little more than others did, but that was all right. He wasn't hurting anything and she was sure he didn't mean it. It wasn't as though people really -enjoyed- forgetting, after all. "Thank you!" she said again, just as she had the first time he'd given her one. "Some bonds aren't as committed as they claim to be when they show up asking for a bloom." Karma sighed, shaking her head. "Its delivered to them, it doesn't end up being quite the dream child they'd hoped for, they stop paying attention to it, and the poor thing starves because they're denying the energy it needs from them as their bondmate to keep living." She smiled as the waitress set a fresh glass of soda in front of her and then went on speaking. "If you watch the shop, now and again, you'll see a gemstone displayed in the window that used to be a fairy and was killed because its bond neglected it. Its sad business." "It's their responsibility -- " Visibly, Shiromaru made himself pause, take a deep breath and calm down, closing his eye. "...Sorry to get angry. It's just... that's a very sad state of affairs, is all." He took a moment to calm himself down lest he get embarressingly angry in front of Karma, then drank slowly from his coffee mug. Kookaberra was giggling. Most people just looked at him oddly, but apparently Berra didn't mind him. That made Koralu quite pleased. Smiling happily, he licked a bit of sugar off his palm, then considered. There was something he and Shiro had been doing just a bit ago... Oh! "Do you play Memory?" The only game he knew. "That's all right." Karma said, nodding. "It makes me angry too. Thankfully, none of the ones who've passed on have been friends of ours, but it bothers me knowing they were probably friends of someone's. And none of those owners even show up to try and buy back their feien's gemstone, which gives you an idea of how much they really 'cared' in the first place." She let out a breath. She was ranting...it was just a subject that irked her, that's all. "You hate it, yet you certainly were quick to buy me one of the stones in question so its bond COULDN'T get it back..." Talon muttered. "No, Talon, don't even." she said sternly. "The gemstone I bought for you belonged to an ancient feien who had no bond, otherwise I wouldn't have touched it and you know it." "I've never played Memory, no." Berra said, shaking her head, her pigtails wisping about her face and shoulders a bit. "But maybe you could teach me and we could play together?" she suggested, setting the cube of sugar back in the dish again. "That would be fun!" Shiro blinked, then, attention duly diverted. "Gemstones? Dead feien? You can buy those? But that's like buying corpses! What do you do with them?" Seems someone wasn't up on fairy afterlife. The red feien stood up, then looked around at the different tables. They'd come from... oooh, coffee. Wait, Memory. "We left our game over there," Koralu explained, pointing in the direction of the table they'd been sitting at, where the cards still remained, face-down. The foxcoon closed her eyes, trying to remember the explanation Em had given her the day she'd bought the gemstone she'd put in Talon's care. "When feien die, they become gemstones." She began. "The bondmate of that feien might have that stone set into a pendant or a ring in remembrance, but if they choose not to or if they were recovered from neglected homes, other feien can purchase those stones from the shop. There's some sort of magic that allows feien to merge with gemstones. It makes them one with whoever it once was and they take on whatever traits that particular feien used to have." "For example." she pointed to the conversing juveniles. "If Berra were, for whatever reason, to die..." the unfinished statement immediately earned her a glare from Talonfaust. "and Kora decided that he would like to merge with her, Kora might end up with her wings on top of his own, black hair, and yellow eyes. It would lend him whatever strengths and talents Berra had as well and make him much stronger. That's why gemstones are never in the shop very long. The other feien snap them up. Its their own way of paying respect and recycling, I suppose" Berra looked in the direction Koralu pointed, her ears perking. "All the way over there?" she asked. Maybe they should go over there and play since it seemed like Karma and Shiro were having a talk of their own? No, leaving without asking wasn't a good idea, she decided. "I'll see if maybe they can bring it here." she assured the maroon feien as she padded up to the conversing bondmates and cleared her throat, waiting politely until she was acknowledged. The explanation left Shiromaru, quite frankly, speechless -- though not from disgust. He seemed about to ask a question, but then Kookaberra walked up, and he paused instead to look down at the feien and offer a smile, waiting for her to speak instead. "Uhm...Mister...?" she realized she'd not caught Shiromaru's name and blushed apologetically. "Koralu and I were wondering if maybe you could bring the Memory game over for us to play? Or maybe we could go over there so we don't interrupt you two?" she smiled sweetly, awaiting an answer, her eyes flicking back and forth between Karma and Shiro's faces. "Shiromaru," the demon offered quickly, "though Shiro will do." He paused, then, and blinked, glancing over at the card game left on the other table. "Gah! I forgot it! No, don't worry, I'll go pick it up and bring it over. I'll be right back. Berra, could you keep an eye on Koralu for me?" he asked, then grinned and stood, walking across the room to pick up the card pieces. Koralu watched him go, then half-flew over to stand by Kookaberra, wings buzzing again until he settled back on the table. "I remember where the red star is," he offered, watching as Shiromaru carefully picked the cards up in precise order. "Really?" Berra asked, her brows raising as she turned her head from watching Shiro go to retrieve the game. She didn't exactly know what he was talking about, but assumed that this was an important part of the game. "Good! Maybe you can help me remember too." she said, her wings giving a small flutter. She hoped it would be easy to understand...she didn't want to offend her new friend by not knowing how to play his game. "....what are they playing again?" Globin asked softly. He'd detached himself from the conversation as soon as they'd started talking about death and gemstones, the topic of which repulsed him, but now he was listening again. "Memory." Karma told him quietly, so that Berra wouldn't hear. She didn't want to steal Kora's thunder about teaching her how to play. "They have a set of cards they lay face down and they try to make matches by remembering where the two like cards are." "Ah..." the blood feien said, though he looked a little perplexed. Then again, he never played games much. The only board games he'd ever played were with Merri and those hardly ever followed the rules and ended up just being an excuse to dissolve into more flamboyant attempts at Shakespeare. Koralu nodded quickly at Kookaberra's question. "You have to remember where the cards are. And match them. Red star with red star, blue... circle?" "With blue circle," Shiromaru continued as he returned with box and cards, replacing the cards in the reverse order he'd picked them up in, so the thick cardboard pieces would be in proper order. "Blue circle," Koralu continued, pleased. "There's lots of cards. You can only pick two up at a time, and you're supposed to remember where they are and match them." As an example, he walked over and picked up one card, which held his favorite card -- the red star -- and paced over to another one, turning it over with a foot. When it revealed an orange rectangle, he grumbled and turned it back over before replacing his star card. "Oh...!" Berra exclaimed, feeling excitement well in her chest. That didn't sound too hard at all. In fact, she was pretty sure she understood now and moved forward to try as well, making sure she had it right. "So...I turn this one over..." she began, taking a card from the bottom row to reveal a yellow square. "Then I just need to find the other square, right?" "Right, Berra, but you only get one chance before its Kora's turn again." Karma nodded. Delighted she'd understood it much easier than she thought she would, Berra then pondered over the cards, wondering where the other square might be. Maybe....this one? She reached out and turned one of the cards on the top row over, revealing an orange rectangle like the one Kora had uncovered a moment ago. "Oops!" she smirked. "Guess not." Saying so, she replaced the cards side-down and stepped back. "Okay, your turn again." she said to Koralu. Shiromaru watched with a fond smile as the two juvenile feien played, then shot Karma a grateful look. "I hope I'm not assuming when I ask this, but... do you think it'd be possible for Koralu and Kookaberra to meet again soon? It's the first time I've really seen him this aware, and I'd like to see it happen again. She could be really good for him, I think." Koralu watched as the cards were unveiled, then shook his head slightly before hopping over to another one, completely forgetting about the matching orange rectangle to the one Berra'd just discovered. The card he picked up was a purple triangle, which he carried over to another card at the other end of the grid. When it revealed a pink flower, he shook his head again, turning the cards back over. "No match," he announced unnecessarily, echoing Shiro's habit. "You're not assuming at all." Karma smiled back. "I think it would be good for her too. The only person she has to talk to right now who isn't directly related to her is Globin. So, if you'd like to set something up for the two of them, my schedule is pretty open..." She shifted a hand into her jacket pocket, finding a pen and reached out to pluck a napkin from the holder as she wrote her phone number and address on it. "I'm kind of a nightowl so you only have to worry about waking me up if you call mid-morning to afternoon. Otherwise I should be awake and kicking." She slid the napkin across the table to the demon on the other side. Berra waited her turn and then ventured out among the cards again, turning one over. Pink flower! Oooh, she'd just SEEN Koru turn over a pink flower. It was...over there somewhere. She couldn't remember quite where. The little earth feien reached out turning over the card she thought was right and felt a little disappointed to reveal the other red star instead. If she'd lifted one card to the lift, she would have had the match. "Darn. Maybe next time." she chuckled, turning them both back over and stepping aside. "My schedule is just about always open," Shiromaru returned, even as he took the phone number and very carefully folded the paper, putting it in his pocket. "But we tend towards night owlage in my household, too, so it won't be a problem. Mornings are of the devil." So says the demon. Red star. Koralu immediately zeroed in on it, picking it up and turning over the other red star with his toe. When the match came up, he beamed brilliantly up at Berra, hefting both cards up and trotting over to drop them to the side of the grid. "Match!" Karma's ears perked. "Oh good then, maybe we'll be seeing more of each other than I thought." she smiled. "Most of my friends are on a daytime schedule so I see them maybe an hour a night if I'm lucky." She repocketed her pen as she spoke. "I have a convention to go to this weekend, but afterward, I'm game for whenever. We could meet someplace like this again, you could bring Koralu over to my place, I could bring Berra to yours...anything is fine." "Yay!!" Berra cheered, clapping her hands for Koralu and bouncing on her heels. "You're better at this game than I am." she chuckled, eyeing the cards again. "I think he gets another turn since he matched, Berra." Karma told the young feien, making her stay where she was and nod agreeably, waiting for Kora to go again. The two cards that Koralu turned over next, however, weren't matches at all -- a purple pair of wavy lines and an orange sun. "Not so good," he informed Kookaberra as he turned the cards back over, almost forlornly. "I forget a lot." And there's another understatement for the record books. Shiromaru watched the pair for a moment, smiling faintly, then glanced up at Karma again. "If you don't mind chaos, you can bring them over to my place. The dollhouse room is fairly quiet, however, and that's where all the pixas live. Everyone knows to try and leave that room alone." "Rampaging flans," Koralu added, almost airily. The foxcoon quirked a brow at Kora's addition to Shiro's statement, opened her mouth to say something, and laughed instead. "Oh gods, and here I thought Youko's house was a circus...!" She covered her mouth, catching the rest of her giggles and then cleared her throat. "I'm sorry..." she said, "not many can claim to have that, though." Berra looked briefly up at her bondmate as she laughed, grinned that the foxcoon wasn't quite as sour as she was before Shiro had come over and then looked down at the cards again ponderously. She decided to try the pink flower match again. She'd almost had it last time, after all. She walked back to where the first was, turning it over and gratified to see it was still where she'd thought it was and then approached the same area as before. Now that the red star was gone, she tried the next card over from the void that had been left. And....yes! "Pink flower!" she declared happily, beaming a moment before doing as Kora had done, picking both up and taking them off of the board to place aside. "Well," Shiromaru explained, sheepishly, "I do have two flans, and they're both a little 'round the twist. Plus four Juusanshi, I don't remember how many pixapets -- not as many as Youko -- a Zurui, a gryphlet, a typo devil -- " "Bane of your life," Koralu chimed in. " -- two Nereids, an Alchemoomba, other three demons, um... I'm forgetting people, I swear I am." Shiro rubbed at the back of his head, trying to think. "No more little people. Just me," Koralu added after a moment, sadly, then was thoroughly distracted by Kookaberra's match. "Pink flower!" he sing-songed after her, then almost stepped onto the grid again before Shiromaru warned him. "Berra's turn again, Kora." "Sounds like you have your own little zoo going." Karma pointed out. "A lot like me. Too many animals to keep track of and it doesn't help when half of them are independant creatures I hardly ever see. I never know if they've run away or if they're just off tending to their own business until one of them drops by and asks to be fed..." she shrugged a bit. "I guess its their business. Can't expect every pet sold in Gaia to be dependant on their owner." Berra moved forward to take her turn again, but looked over at Koralu as she did so. "You don't forget as much as you think, Kora." she pointed out, turning over a square to reveal an orange rectangle. She knew she'd found its mate the first turn she'd taken, but had no idea where it had gotten to now. "Not if you can remember the typo devil and that there's no other little people." She turned over a card and revealed a yellow square and blinked. That was the same incorrect match she'd made last time with two different cards. What were the odds? "At least I'm good at not being good at this game." she laughed, stepping off of the grid after she'd turned the cards back over. "Maybe," Koralu murmured, distantly, and stepped onto the grid, just peering down the various cards as he tried to remember what was where. Silently, Shiromaru watched him -- the feien was reaching his current limit of attention, Shiro knew. By this point, Kora had usually lapsed back into his absentminded daydreaming, and it had to be Kookaberra's influence that was keeping the feien in the here-and-now for this long. "Kora," Shiromaru said quietly. "Focus." The soft words brought Koralu's attention back, then nodded and wandered to another card. It was the yellow square that matched the one Kookaberra had turned over. He stood there with it in his hands for long moments, then walked slowly over to the other yellow square and turned it over before smiling happily. "Match!" Shiromaru let out a long sigh, then beamed up at Karma. "This really is the best he's done in ages. Normally, I can't keep him focused and remembering anything at all, so this is amazing." Karma's ringed tail flicked beneath the table a bit with intrigue. "Maybe he just needs to be around more kids his age?" she suggested. "Doesn't seem like he wouldn't get along with them -- I mean, if enough of them could excuse Talon's rotten behavior enough to make friends with him, you'd think having to remind Kora of their name every so often wouldn't be bad..." Kookaberra clapped again. She didn't know why it was he thought his memory was so bad...he really was doing a lot better at this than she was. Then again, she guessed he probably had more experience with it. Talonfaust watched the game coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. His suspicion toward Kora was dwindling as he honestly seemed to pose no threat whatsoever to Berra. And she DID need friends, he reminded himself. That was one of the big things he'd promised himself -- he wouldn't make her grow up the way he'd forced himself to. "You should have him play video games." The white feien spoke up to no one in particular. "They make you focus for hours, but they're constantly changing so they're hard to walk away from. It would work on at least the 'getting him to sit in one place doing one thing for longer than five minutes' aspect." "Yeah no kidding." Karma said. "Too bad hours perched in front of Resident Evil with Meka hasn't improved YOU any..." she smirked. Shiromaru leaned back in his chair, his gloved arms folding under his chest, though his bare fingers tapped against his upper arms. "Maybe. It's just that he's, well... senile. Like he has -- what was it -- alzheimer's or something, that he was born with it. Video games might help, though, you're right. Plus the bright colors are attention-keepers." He paused, then, and eyeballed the white feien. "Though no Resident Evil for Kora. He's so impressionable, he might think it was real life and fly screaming down the hall, and I really don't need that... What do you suggest, though?" Koralu watched his bond for a moment, then nudged at the game again, flipping over two random cards. When they came up as no match, his wings drooped, then buzzed quickly, the red blurring. "You could start him off small...I think I have a copy of Yoshi's Story and my old N64 if you'd like to borrow it." Karma suggested. "That game's so colorful, it makes my eyes want to turn themselves inside-out. And its about as kid-friendly as you can get without being condcending with Barney's Hide & Seek or something." She chuckled a bit at this. Berra looked to Kora, her brows shooting up in concern at the sound of his wings buzzing. "Its okay." she assured him, not exercizing her earlier good sense not to hug people without asking and putting her arms around Kora's neck, giving him a brief and warm hug before stepping away again. "Its just a game. Don't get mad at yourself." Talon's eye twitched as he watched, but he said nothing to this. Shiromaru brightened at the offer, smiling hopefully. "Oh, I'd like that a lot. Yoshi's Story, yeah, I think that'd be good for him. I just have to be really careful what he watches... but I can't see why anything in Yoshi would be bad for him. Koralu just stared as Berra hugged him, wings buzzing again, his arms lifting but not encircling the other feien. As she stepped away, his head cocked to the side slightly. "...What was that?" "There really isn't anything scary in that game. Some of the bosses are a little strange, but they're more strange in the 'ha ha, look at that weirdo' way than in the Resident Evil way. And there's puzzle-solving in it...Kora could just plow through the game if he wanted, but if he wants to go back and play it over again to get a better ending, he can collect fruits and unlock hidden yoshis. I used to have a blast with it." "Despite the fact you bought it for -me-." Talon grumbled, still watching the two juveniles. "Yes, I bought it for you when you were a kid and you, as I recall, refused to have anything to do with it once you realized it was about little singing lizards." Karma rolled her eyes. Heckling back and forth, apparantly, was a usual occurrance between these two. "That....was a hug!" Berra said, smiling, though she looked a little perplexed. "Haven't you ever gotten hugged before, Kora?" she asked. "People do it to show they like their friends....or to make someone feel better." "A hug?" Koralu echoed, blinking. "I've never gotten one. Sometimes Shiro holds me close when I'm upset, but I'd never gotten a hug before... what am I supposed to do when I'm hugged?" Shiromaru glanced down at Kora, then grinned before looking up at Karma and Talon. "Wow, but you two sound like Koumyou and Hun Min. They're constantly at each other. Which is amusing, because they're best of friends." Now if he could only get Koumyou, Hun Min, Tariki and Iroke to get along in the same room for more than two minutes, he'd classify that a miracle. "Puzzles and stuff like that shouldn't be too hard for Koralu, as long as he remembers what he needs to remember. He's not really unintelligent, thankfully." "Hun Min and who..?" Talon asked, perking his ears, though he didn't look entirely interested. "Talon, shush." the foxcoon sighed, directing a stern look at him for a moment before looking back to Shiro. "All right, well, I'll pack it up and bring it over when I bring Berra over in that case." she smiled. "And there's little hintboxes you can hit throughout all the levels that tell you what you're supposed to do in case he forgets." "Isn't it getting late?" Talon complained, shooting a dark glance at the window at the equally-dark sky outside. "I'll -tell- you when its getting late." Karma said with forced patience, like a mother dragging tantrumy three-year-old through the mall. "Just settle." "Uhm..." Berra thought about this for a minute. "Well...nothing, I guess. I mean, you could give a hug back if you want, but you really don't have to do anything." she said with a shrug and a smile. Never been hugged? Poor Kora...! Berra had found that she loved hugs, both giving and recieving. "Hun Min, Koumyou, Tariki and Iroke. They're all Juusanshi. They're housemates, and they're good friends of mine. Hun Min's a tiger, Tariki's a rooster, Iroke's a green dragon and Koumyou's a white dragon." Shiromaru snickered softly as he watched the group, resting his chin in his hand, elbow on the table near the Memory grid which had apparently been abandoned. By Koralu, anyway. "Can I have another hug, then?" Kora asked, hopefully. "I want to hug back. It was nice." A new thing he liked! Well, since it was Kookaberra that showed it to him, he wasn't scared of it "Tiger, Rooster, and two dragons? That's an interesting combination..." Karma remarked. "Its interesting who ends up being best friends when you think about it." Saying so, her eye wandered down to Kora and Kookaberra. "Sure!" Berra chirped, stepping forward and readily giving Kora another hug. Talon narrowed his eyes a bit and then winced as Karma tapped him lightly between the wings with the tip of one finger. "Be nice..." she warned. "This is as nice as I get, given the circumstances." he countered. Koralu beamed and hugged Kookaberra back, holding onto the hug for several moments. Hugs were nice. He definitely liked hugs. After a heartbeat or two, he let go, then smiled brightly up Berra again. "Thank you!" Ooh, but it was getting late. Shiromaru glanced up at the windows, then sighed softly. "I should probably start heading back soon. I've had Koralu out for quite a while, and I need to feed the ravening horde before they come hunt me down. I'll give you a call next week and we can see about getting these two together again soon, will that work for you?" "Should work fine." she nodded, watching as Talon, hearing the prospect of leaving soon, flitted up onto Karma's shoulder. Globin, cringing a bit, unintrusively slid off of the other shoulder and redeposited himself in her pocket. "That'll give me enough time to recover from the convention and get some sleep so I'm not crabby. Always a plus." she grinned. "It was good meeting you, Shiromaru. I hope we get to see more of you and Kora very soon." "You're welcome!" Berra smiled as they let go of each other. Hugs were definitely high on her own list of favorites...whether they were with friends, family, or even just her picking up and cuddling one of the pixas. They had the same effect on her that a warm shower had on someone who was weary -- they made everything bad melt away. Looking up, she saw that it looked like Karma and Shiro were starting to wrap things up. "So soon...?" she asked, looking up at Karma with a bit of disappointment. "Shiro and Koralu have to go." Karma nodded. "You'll get to see them again soon, don't worry, and we have to get home too before your father has himself a conniption." In spite of herself, Berra dissolved into giggles as Talon rolled his eyes at Karma, wondering if she was capable of NOT making every attempt possible to piss him off. Shiromaru gathered up the Memory cards and put them away in their box, then set everything inside the bookbag he'd taken to carrying around, setting it around his shoulder. "It was very good to meet you, Karma, and Talon, Globin and Kookaberra." He grinned down at the feien, then reached down to offer Koralu a step up onto his hand. "Next time you feel like launching a sugar cube our way, Kookaberra," the demon added with a broadening grin, "feel free." That done, he straightened, a hand cupped to guard Koralu as the feien clung to his shirt. "Take care, and I'll see you soon!" He slipped outside with a wave over his shoulder for the others, Koralu a tiny red blur against his shoulder, waving as well, then the demon willed his wings into existance and took off flying.
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Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:52 am
Koralu's first visit to the shop... 9/24/04 Rhia and Ava Rhia crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, content to remain silent and simply watch over Ava. She didn't really like socializing, and it was probably apparent in her annoyed expression. Her spade tipped tail came up and coiled in her lap, while her wings relaxed a little. She tilted her neck to the left, then to the right, listening to the soft cracking noises it made as she watched Ava. The poor thing looked pretty freaked out.Ava stood frozen to the spot, her emerald eyes wide and locked on the newest feien. She whirled around and looked back at Raphael, then over to Koralu again, looking utterly baffled. Two feiens? Two at once? Was it possible to talk to both of them at one time? They didn't look like they knew each other... she had never been engaged in a three-way conversation before.
She slowly sank to her knees on the table, her hand still on her head, covering the black and white cowlick. What should she say? She had no clue, she'd never met another feien before... of course she was only four days old, but still, what did feien talk about? She looked to Raphael, then back to Koralu, torn between the two. She should say something, she knew it, but it was a little unsettling to find more than one feien here at the shop. Maybe she shouldn't have come... Irisa Well, it was back to the Feien shop for Irisa to take a break from her research. Jaes dropped her off, but he seldom came into the shop, himself. He said that if she screamed, he'd come running over though.
Why Irisa would scream, she didn't know. Unless Jaes meant that there were actually things in the shop that would try to hurt her? Hmm. Course, she had yet to meet an evil Feien (really, if even a vampire Feien wasn't evil, Irisa wasn't sure what could be, but she supposed it was good to keep an open mind, regardless).
So Irisa flew into the shop and happily greeted the other Feien.
"Hello, everyone! My name's Irisa. I'm kind of new here. It's very nice to meet all of you, though."
At that moment, Irisa noticed that the Feien with the green eyes, markings the same red color as her sister, and wings the same type and white color as her wings (well, half the color since she was dual colored) seemed... rather troubled.
"Er... is something wrong?" Irisa blinked. Avangelyne Ava visibly jolted as a third feien arrived, asking her a question. She stood and turned to the newcomer, her hand lowering from her head and her cowlick springing back up. She swallowed, cleared her throat, then swallowed again and tried to look calm.
"No, no..." She cleared her throat again, getting rid of the slight tremor it held. "I'm fine. It's my first time to the shop, that's all."
She gave Rhia a glance, and felt a familiar stab of annoyance at the smirk her bond wore on her dark lips. She was enjoying the little feiens discomfort! Unbelievable, simply unbelievable. Well, Rhia wouldn't be able to hold this over her head, she'd show the demon!
"My name is Avangelyne, Ava for short." She gave the dual colored feien a small smile. "What's your name?" Irisa "Oh, my name is Irisa. It's very nice to meet you, Ava." Irisa calmly but cheerfully remarked with a smile of her own. ""So you're new? I'm pretty new, myself. This is only my second shop visit, actually. There weren't this many Feien in the shop at that time, though."
Irisa shrugged slightly as she looked at Ava. Something seemed to click. She tilted her head and peered at Avangelyne attentively. Green eyes, familiar red markings, same wing color, and a Feien that was probably rather new...
The pieces of the puzzle were coming together somewhat quickly in her mind, but then the other part of her mind that payed attention to reality whallopped her, making her realize that she was probably giving Ava some rather strange stares. So she quickly stopped and regained her more normal less task-minded composure. Raphael and Magiale Magiale turned away from Rhia and moved towards Ava, concerned. “My, are you alright?” She asked. Raphael climbed down from Magiale’s shoulder, clear evidence that he was not comfortable with flying in front of others. He really didn’t want to say anything or bother anyone, but he wanted to be nice at least. He moved away from the group Magiale was being all concerned over and instead walked over to Koralu, politeness turning to curiosity as he noticed the Feien’s distracted glances. “Hello…” He started, hoping to catch the feien’s attention. Avangelyne Ava blinked her wide eyes at Irisa as the other feien studied her. She clasped her hands in front of her and shifted her weight to one foot, feeling rather uncomfortable with the silent assessment the two-tone feien was conducting of her. She felt her cheeks grow slightly warm, and the feeling spread down her neck and along her face.
Great, she was blushing.
"Y-yes, I'm new," She said quietly, not entirely sure what else to say. "I've never seen any other feien before, this is my first time. It's a little... overwhelming, I didn't expect there to be so many. And we all look so different..."
She looked back over to Raphael, then to Koralu, her eyes lingering on him a bit longer than the others. He had no hair at all, and his wings were very odd. He was... really pretty, she realized suddenly. She averted her gaze from him and looked back at the girl that was with Raphael, her eyes blinking rapidly. She watched Raphael for a moment before looking back up at Mag, "Yes... yes, I'm fine." Irisa Avangelyne seemed... nervous. Irisa couldn't blame her, really, after that stare-down she accidentally gave the other Feien. But it didn't seem like Avangelyne cared too much for talking.
Which... was actually sort of like Irisa, herself, really. She did enjoy making friends, and especially around Nero became really talkative, but usually she tried not to waste words or time talking unless it was to get something accomplished.
Still, all the similarities made her feel that she had a bond with Ava. Not the kind of magical bond that she had with her bond, Jaes, but... another type of bond. An emotional one, maybe.
"Yea, I know how it is." Irisa remarked, a bit more softly, glancing off to the side. "Already, I've seen all sorts of different colored Feien, and even one that had a vampirical look, which was really unique."
She sincerely smiled a bit at Ava.
"They really do look so different." she added. "I think with so many Feien, I could watch and research them all for hours on end."
...hey, maybe that could be one of her other research projects. But... Irisa didn't want to research Avangelyne to her face any more. She was being rude enough already. Although speaking of which,
"Well, actually, besides the dual-tone, we're pretty similar, though. I mean, you have green eyes just like I do. And white wings like I do. And the same wing type!" she commented, trying to cheer Avangelyne up by reducing the intimidation factor of... well, everything. ""In fact, it's almost like we're related."
..............so much for reducing the intimidation factor.
"Which... we may very well be." Irisa blinked. Avangelyne Ava blinked at Irisa's words, her first thought was to laugh at the idea of a relation, but she stopped herself. Oh boy, Rhia was rubbing off on her it seemed. She spared her 'bond' another glance and was a little pleased to see that she seemed to be deep in thought and no longer paying attention.
"We don't look that much alike," She said as she turned back to Irisa, trying hard to sound polite. "I mean, your wings and eyes are two different colors. And your markings are different than mine. But I do have siblings, I think, though I've never met any of them. Naturally, this is my first time out of the house, seeing as I'm only four days old."
She realized she was babbling and shut her mouth, feeling the familiar and yet annoying blush creep onto her cheeks again. Why couldn't she just be calm? It was so aggravating...
"My bond is trying to get in touch with Neko, her friend. Neko knows the bonds to my mother and father, and to my siblings I believe, she's supposed to try and arrange for us all to meet soon." Ava was careful to keep her voice even, uninterested, though deep down she was hoping it happened someday. Jaes Four days old? Wow, Ava was extremely young. Four days was... well, younger than Irisa, although Irisa herself was only a couple of weeks old (time felt like it passed slowly for Irisa, though. But maybe that was because she made careful care not to waste any of it).
"Yea, that's true about the markings." Irisa nodded matter-of-factly. "They just... reminded me of my own sister a bit."
Was Ava sure about this? Well, Irisa wasn't going to go all a**l-attentive staring on her again.
"Come to think of it, my bond never knew my siblings' bonds, so you're probably right." the young feien added, before smiling. "Well, I hope you enjoy your meeting with your family, Ava. It was really... nice when I got to meet my father and my sister." Avangelyne "You haven't met your mother yet?" Ava queried, overcoming the initial unease at meeting new feien. They all seemed rather nice... or at least the two she had met so far. Her eyes strayed over to Raphael and Koralu for a moment before she looked back at Irisa.
A frown crinkled her features slightly as she looked the other feien over. They were pretty much the same height... in fact they seemed to be exactly the same height. And one of Irisa's wings was the same color as her own, and one of Irisa's eyes. But then again, that didn't mean anything did it? Irisa had different markings, her colors were black and white, not... red. Her hair was really spiky too, and once again Ava felt a wave of humiliation at the spike of hair that stuck up on her head like a toothpick. The other feien had just said she had met her sister and father, they lived together? Maybe..?
"What is your father's name?" Ava asked abruptly, her tone slightly harsh even though she hadn't meant it to be. Irisa Irisa was surprised and a bit taken aback, but only very slightly. As someone who wanted to probe for information all the time, herself, she could understand the need for abrupt questions. It was just that... well, Irisa herself normally would at least try to cover up the abruptness.
Still, she had to admit that Ava's method was far more efficient. In fact, it might have saved a lot of time if Irisa herself was more abrupt from the start, too. Then they both could get to the bottom of whether their similarities meant something or not (Irisa did have to wonder how much hairspray Ava used for her hair, though. Irisa herself... guiltily neglected her own hair for other things).
"My father's name is Talonfaust." Irisa replied matter-of-factly, before adding, "And my mother's name is Tahki. But... yes, I haven't met my mother yet." Avangelyne Ava blinked a few times, feeling another wave of humiliation as Irisa's gaze went to her cowlick. She reached up and flattened it against her head, but then thought better of doing that and lowered her hand again; the spike of hair instantly popping back into the air. She cleared her throat and shifted her weight again, her hands still clasped tightly in front of her.
Her head snapped up and her shoulders went rigid as Irisa told her the names of her parents. Tahki... and Talonfaust? They were related! This feien, the one who had little similarities and so many differences... this was her sister! It struck Ava hard, but oddly not too deeply. After the surprise wore off, she didn't look at Irisa any differently. She was still just a feien, a stranger more or less. She held no special place in Ava's life... or heart.
"My parents are named Tahki and Talonfaust as well, Rhia told me." She said, her voice lacking anything even remotely akin to emotion. "I guess you were right, we are related." Irisa Irisa didn't know much about hair care products. Her fairy godmother supposedly had a lot, as did one of her bond's daughters (the one that was out so often that Irisa had yet to even really meet her). Irisa herself, however, as stated, tended to not spend time on something like hair, because it was time better off spent on her research.
Still, she knew that uncombed hair tended to spike out like her's. She wasn't sure if it was the same case with Ava's, or if Ava herself used some special hair gel for that effect.
But she didn't have much time to think about it because Ava just confirmed that they really were sisters!
"You... too?" Irisa blinked, before smiling. "Oh, I'm really happy to meet you, sister!"
She constrained herself to mere happiness on the outside, but deep down, Irisa was ecstatic. She found another one of her siblings!
...was this where they were supposed to hug? But... both in the case of Berra and her father, they were the ones to hug Irisa, first. And although Irisa hugged them back, in general, they had to hug her first for a reason. Besides the amount of emotion necessary to keep from being too cold, Irisa... did tend to keep to herself beyond the bare politeness etiquette, after all, although her emotions did come out every once in a while.
Irisa was still smiling, but she could sense an... awkwardness. Speaking of cold... hmm, maybe Ava was the pure cold sibling? Ava herself did seem rather detached, even by Irisa's standards. Avangelyne Ava glanced over at Koralu as he headed towards her and Irisa. She was still intrigued by his wings, and the fact that he had no hair. Plus his markings were very different from her own, just like Raphael's were so different. It was kind of fun, seeing all the different feien, even if it wasn't that many. Kind of fun, but also kind of unnerving.
She gave Koralu a hesitant smile before nodding her head once to Irisa. The smile faltered a second later as she studied the two-tone feien. She seemed to be... almost waiting for something. Her expression was a little confused, but happy at the same time. This caused Ava to frown slightly, her wings drooping. Was she supposed to do something now? She didn't really know what to do when one met a relative. She felt a little awkward, and from the air around them both, it seemed Irisa felt the same way. Maybe she was waiting for Ava to say something? Call her sister perhaps? Though they technically were sisters, it seemed a little too... inexact to call Irisa that just yet, they didn't really know each other after all, weren't names like that reserved for people you knew and loved?
"It's... it's nice to meet you too, Irisa." Ava smiled, a little unsure if this was the proper reply or not. Irisa seemed very nice, and she didn't want to upset her, but the poor feien didn't know what else to say. Irisa "Yea..." Irisa toe'd. So... okay, now what? Introductions were finished, and... Irisa was never the one to hug first, and it didn't seem like Ava was, either.
And maybe... that was okay? Ava probably liked to keep to herself just like Irisa did. It was easy for Irisa to see how the two were related.
What kind of family things were two sisters like that supposed to do, anyways? Come to think of it, as much as Irisa was looking for her family and was so happy to meet them all and everything, she never did take into consideration what they were supposed to actually DO as a family, even if they didn't have to stay relatively near their bonds.
But time was being wasted. Irisa decided to press onwards with a new conversation topic.
"Oh yea, that's a very unique hairstyle you have, Ava." she commented, deciding to follow Ava's lead and stick to a name-basis. "I... kind of neglect my hair, myself, but I imagine a lot of work must be put into keeping your hair like that. It's very distinguished, I have to say."
Come to think of it, Irisa felt kind of bad. Here she lived in a household where every girl spent so much time maintaining a good hairstyle except her. But... she always had other things to do with her time. Ava's hair seemed nice enough, though. Koralu Koralu blinked at Ava as she gave him a smile, then offered one in return, and simply sat down atop the table to listen to the other two feien talk. Only, really, 'listening' wasn't quite the proper word. 'Distractedly catching snatches of words' was perhaps more accurate. Avangelyne and Rhiannon At first Ava turned almost beet red at the comment on her hair, absolutely mortified that someone actually said something about it. Then the memories of Rhia's teasing came into her mind, and she unclasped her hands, curling them into fists.
"You think I make my hair do this?" She said, her voice slightly louder than it had been a moment ago. She reached up and slapped her hand over the spike of hair, angry because of her hair being this way, humiliated because Irisa had mentioned it, and humiliated that she was angry all at once. "I don't want my hair this way, it's just the way it is. It's not my fault it sticks up like that, I don't want it to but I can't get it to stay down!"
Ava blinked a few times and relaxed, her hand dropping from head. Her face flushed once again and she looked down at the floor, her fingers twiddling with one another, "I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get upset. It's just... well, I don't really like my hair, and Rhia has teased me about it, so I don't like it being mentioned. I'm sorry."
She looked back up at Irisa and suddenly felt something grip her gut. It was an unpleasant feeling, and she knew right away what it was. She glanced over at Koralu and felt - once again - embarrassed, this time by her outburst. "I hope you can forgive me, Irisa, I don't want you to not like me. I'm usually not like that."At the mention of her name, Rhia opened one eye and one of her large ears lifted slightly. She turned her gaze towards her feien, a small smile playing across her lips, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she went back to her thoughts, content to allow Ava time to get to know the other two. Irisa The other feien's sudden outburst was even more surprising than the previous abrupt questioning, and a slightly frightened Irisa cringed a bit, before actively forcing herself to compose herself again as Ava apologized. "Ah..." Irisa tried to gather her bearings. With the amount that Ava kept on surprising her, she realized that she really didn't know Ava very well at all. Which... was logical, given that they've generally just met. Irisa for some reason forgot that. Come to think of it, that probably was because she got caught up in the fact that they were sisters. ...hmm, you really can realize and learn a lot just by getting out into the world and meeting other people. Still, facts were facts. "It's okay." Irisa finally but sincerely smiled. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt that way about your hair. I won't mention it again, then. And... yea, that's okay. I wouldn't be a very good sister if I couldn't accept a sincere apology!" She nodded cheerfully, hoping that she didn't hurt Ava too much. "Although... er, well, we can drop the subject if you want, but..." Irisa remarked curiously. "Couldn't you just... cut it off with some scissors if it's that bad? Not that I know where you can find feien-sized scissors, but... something like that maybe could work." Avangelyne Ava blinked and frowned for a moment, contemplating Irisa's comment. Could she just go and lop it off if she wanted to? Of course she could, why couldn't she? But did she really want to cut her hair so it was a different style, change it from what she was born (figuratively speaking) with to something else..?
Well, the fact of the matter was, she didn't want to cut it. It was her hair, the hair she had been 'born' with. No matter how much she disliked it, deep down she did like it to a degree, simply because of the fact that it was hers. She didn't know her parents, or her siblings aside from one, she wanted to stay as much herself as she could. She was pretty much alone right now, but at least she could look in the mirror everyday and see the same face, right?
Ava smiled to herself as she realized trying to explain that to Irisa would prove completely futile. It was a sort of paradox she thought, and it wouldn't make any inkling of sense outside her own mind.
"No," She said after a moment, smiling at her... sister. "I don't think I'll cut it. Besides, it may turn out even uglier than it is now if I do that."
She turned her attention to Koralu for a moment, her green eyes sparkling. "Hello, I don't believe we've been properly introduced. My name is Avangelyne, Ava for short." Irisa "Ah, okay." Irisa nodded in agreement. Not a specific agreement, but a general agreement. Whatever her sister wished, since it was her hair, after all.
Truthfully, Irisa thought it wasn't a bad decision. Like she said, the look really was quite distinguished. If there was ever a way for her sister's looks to stand out in Irisa's mind, that would be it. Her wing style, eye color, coloring, and markings were all either similar to Irisa or to her sister or to her father from what she could tell, but that hair was unique only to Ava.
Irisa joined Ava in turning her attention to the other Feien in the shop. "Oh, sorry about that. And I'm Irisa. What's your name?" Koralu Koralu blinked as his attention was brought back to the here-and-now by Avangelyne's gaze, then blinked again as she spoke. "Ava?" he echoed, then stood up with a smile. "Ava. Nice to meet you." He paused, then added as an afterthought, "I'm Koralu." Shiromaru glanced up as another feien introduced itself to Kora, then smiled slightly and sank into a chair. Okay, maybe this wasn't going to go as badly as he thought... Irisa "Hello, Koralu." Irisa politely greeted. "It's nice to meet you, too. Are you also new?" Avangelyne Ava took a step back and glanced between the two feien, not exactly sure how to talk to them both at one time. Her eyes landed on Koralu and she smiled again, bigger this time, "I like your wings... and your markings."
She blinked a few times and glanced at Irisa again, voicing the thought that had popped into her mind, but not really at either of the feien present with her, "I wonder how many feien there are..." Koralu Koralu looked from Irisa to Ava and back again, trying to figure out who he should focus on first. Irisa gets a smile after a moment, then a nod. "Yes. I've not been around for very long." And back to Ava again. "Thank you...?" It's more question than response, and he glanced up at Shiromaru, relieved when he saw a soft nod of encouragement. "I like yours, too." Irisa Out of the corner of her eye, Irisa saw her sister's glance. Irisa generally was careful to pay attention to everything around her, even when also focussing on a single task.
...she wasn't that good at it yet, though. She didn't decipher what her sister's look could mean until she looked at Koralu more directly, again. He really did have exotic wings and markings. And no hair!
Memories of Ava talking to her earlier of how there were so many feien that were so different came back to Irisa's mind. Avangelyne Ava silently beamed as Koralu stated he liked her markings as well. She wasn't too sure about them, they didn't seem to be special in any way, but hearing someone else say they were good made her feel a lot better. She smiled to him and nodded her head once, "Thank you."
She shot a glance at Irisa and her brow furrowed slightly as she noticed the feien was deep in thought. Well, that was no surprise, she liked to do a lot of thinking too. Maybe Irisa was trying to think of something to say? Ava herself found she was at a loss for words, she had no clue what to talk about.
She shifted her weight to one foot, then the other, before coming up with something to keep the three occupied for a minute or two longer, "How many feien have you each met so far?" Irisa "Oh." Irisa's train of thought was broken by Ava's question. But she was actually happy about that. Having something to talk about was akin to having something to do. "Hmm... let's see. So far, in the shop I've met a nice Feien named Nero, who was very kind and helpful. He has a very exotic blue and red color scheme. I've also met Ruya at a beach party, and she has fangs, which is extremely unique. I've met our sister, Kookaberra, who's sweet, and our father, Talonfaust, who's... fatherly."
Irisa paused, unable to think of a better description than fatherly. This inability to know her father better made her sigh a bit.
"I wish I could know them all better, but time seems to be a limited commodity. There were a LOT of feien at that beach party, though." Avangelyne "Kookaberra," Ava murmured thoughtfully, her brow creasing slightly. Ava perked up a bit when she heard Irisa mention that she had met their father, and she snapped her eyes to the dual colored feien. "You met Talonfaust? What was he like, can you tell more about him? You haven't met Tahki yet... that's a shame, I'm not sure if I'm ever going to meet them, and I think I'd like to find out what they're like..."
Ava smiled and flushed slightly, realizing she was once again prattling on. She shifted her wings and hugged herself lightly, shaking her head a bit and causing the spike of hair to wave back and forth, "I'm sorry, again, I'm not normally this talkative, ask Rhia. It's just... I haven't met very many feien, you, Raphael and Koralu being the first three. The only three, I get a little lonely now and then, even though I'm only a couple days old."
She averted her eyes from Irisa, focusing on a spot somewhere near the other feien's feet. She hadn't meant to tell Irisa that, it seemed kind of foolish to tell a stranger what you thought. But she had to remind herself that even though they didn't really know each other, they were related... so it was okay for her to tell her sister certain things. She hadn't even opened up to Rhia about how she truly felt about some things, so it was no surprise that she did the same with Irisa. Maybe the feeling of needing to keep things to herself would wear off once she got to know more feien... Irisa Irisa couldn't help but laugh a little, if only slightly. And very softly.
"Oh, that's okay." she replied to the other feien. "At home, I usually just stick to reading books or magic studies, myself, except when my fairy godmother drags me out for some exercise. But for some reason, I find myself a lot more talkative around other feien, too."
Irisa shrugged cheerfully.
"I guess it'd be a waste to not actually talk to other feien while you're around them. And already, I've found that there are a lot of nice feien, so you can really learn a lot and find people who can help you with tasks and everything." she nodded. "A feien named Nero helped me a lot with figuring out who my parents were, for example."
Nero... the first feien she met. He said he'd help her more if she could. Well, she already found her parents so she didn't need any more help regarding that, but it'd be nice to see him again. And in the future, all the other friends she met. As well as her family, of course. Irisa wondered how often feien bumped into each other in normal life. Well, at any rate...
"Oh yea, our father's really... caring. I wish I had more time to be with him." Irisa sighed, before adding, "From what Kookaberra tells me, he's at odds with another feien in his house, but neither of us know what that's about. All we know is that he's really kind and wants to look after us."
It was just... hard for him to look after his own children when they all lived in separate houses. Avangelyne Ava licked her lips and her wings fidgeted for a moment as she opened her mouth to speak. She shut it before saying anything, not exactly sure what she wanted to say. She wanted to know more about her parents, but since Irisa hadn't met Tahki she wouldn't learn anything about her. Irisa said she only met with Talon very briefly, so she didn't know a whole lot about him either.
Caring. And he wanted to look after them. Ava felt a jolt of pain running through her body at that thought. Someone who actually cared for her and looked after her...? That sounded very nice... something that she definitely wanted.
"I have to meet Talonfaust," She stated, more to herself than to Irisa. She looked up at the dual colored feien a moment later, her emerald eyes showing the first spark of genuine interest and hopefulness since she arrived here. "Maybe... maybe if you see him again, you can tell him that I need to meet him? Maybe he can talk to Tahki as well, that way we could meet them both someday..."
She abruptly whirled away from Irisa, flapping her wings and taking flight a second later - though it took her a moment to stay up in the air. She turned around to face her friend for a moment, and then flitted down in front of her, but didn't land. She smiled - a wide, beaming smile - and took Irisa's hand, shaking it vigorously up and down.
"Thank you, it was nice meeting you. I hope we're able to meet again, but I should go for now." She released Irisa’s hand just as suddenly as she had grabbed it and whirled around, flying off towards her bond. She turned slightly and gave Irisa a final wave, "Please tell Talon about me if you see him again. Take care, and goodbye for now!"
Ava landed on Rhia's shoulder, causing the demoness's large ear to flick back and forth. She reached up and gently tugged on one of the many silver hoops in her bond's ear, "I'm ready to go home now."Rhia sat up straight and adjusted her sunglasses, glancing over at the other feien before nodding to Ava. "Alright, had enough socializing, did you?"
She grinned as Ava's face flushed lightly and she mumbled something. Rising from the chair, she bowed rather elegantly to those in the shop, her jewelry twinkling and her tail swaying.
"We'll be back." She purred silkily before turning and heading out of the shop, her wings stretching themselves as she stepped out the door. Irisa Irisa nodded, and watched and waved as Ava flew out the door.
"Goodbye, sister..." she tapered off as she warmly smiled. Life was really great.
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Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:45 am
Painstakingly, by hopping on the keys, Koralu wonder wat shes doing? SHe. The girl. I remember her. pigtails red star. There's a red star in my room now. Red stars are my favarite. Shiro bot me a red star nitelite for my room. I dont like the dark. scary things re there. like the It trails off there, then picks up again several spaces down, where Shiromaru Kora's learning how to type -- well, sort of. He knows how to (mostly) spell words and get his point across, however wandering of a point that may be. He's still afraid of the dark, poor child, not that I blame him after what I did to his bloom, so I found this little red star-shaped nightlight and plugged it into the one big socket in his room. It lights up his end of the miniatures house quite nicely, I'm pleased. Kilinda and the others pile on his bed at night, it's so cute. I had to make him a new, bigger bed, because he was being crowded off his by pixas. A dog, two cats, two mice... and one of Yuyi and Roofshadow's new litter has taken a shine to him as well, so I think that makes six companions now. Honestly... He's been missing Kookaberra, even though he can't remember her name. He just keeps asking for 'her'. 'Where is she?' I get asked that a lot. He's discovered paints, however, but his favorite thing in the world to do -- today, anyway -- is use the nontoxic paints I got him on the little wooden animals I've been carving lately. I have about five lining my desk now in all sorts of ... interesting ... shades. I'm surprised, though. I was expecting smatterings of paint everywhere, but these are actually well-done, even if it's amateurish. And oddly-colored. For instance, the bright green kitten with orange stripes... But he can focus on these for a while, and he loves doing it. Maybe I should buy him some paints from the feien shop, the brushes would surely be easier to handle than the makeshift ones he's been using... ...In fact, I think I'll do that.
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Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 5:29 pm
Quote: Progress with Koralu is slow but steady -- we've graduated from a small set of Memory cards to a larger layout, and he's slowly getting better at remembering things. He's by no means good at it, but... progress is progress, and I'll take what I can get. I need to speak to Karma and see if Kookaberra's around, or swing by Trio's or... hell, brave the shop and the feien there. Maybe they won't be quite so overwhelming to Koralu by this point, he's getting a bit better in areas with more than a few people, though he still can't be in them long. Too much input, I guess, just too much going on, too much to process, just... too much. My desk is now covered in the painted figures he likes to work on so much. There's a wooden unicorn with big orange splotches on it that sits atop my computer and stares at me. It's... kinda cute, actually. He's getting better, there's some pieces he's done that are surprisingly good. He's got a knack for it. Of course, my desk is also now covered in tiny paint footprints and handprints from him scampering across it. Oh. And glitter. Did I mention the glitter? His wings, arms and legs are absolutely covered in glitter and I canNOT get it off of him. There's even one huge splotch of it over his left eye and no matter what I try it's just not coming off. I'm just grateful it hasn't gotten into his eye. Maybe Trio will know what to do. There is glitter in my KEYBOARD from this child. Sigh.
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:47 pm
Quote: The holidays with Koralu were... interesting, to say the least. He wasn't expecting the loud noises, the random carollers, the visitors... but he liked the tree. That, he liked. I kept having to hunt through it for him. See, there's this ornament Naomi bought that's an open present box, just tiny, with the top open. Kora thought it was perfect, apparently, and took it over, so I'd often find him sleeping inside it, curled up. I think I should get him a tree for the dollhouse next year. He got several presents -- more paints, more paper, and a wooden rocking horse that's the perfect size for him. Unpainted, so that means he can paint it however he wants. It's currently white at the moment, but the tail's an electric blue, and the mane's getting the same treatment. I think he was debating neon green for the eyes, but he got distracted and wandered off. Again. He's doing... better. He's still excitable as always, and gullible, and just not all there, but he seems to finally... I don't know. Be settling in. He has about half the names of the household memorized, which is no small feat, and I'm proud of him. ...Even if I still can't get the glitter off him.
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Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:12 am
((RP between Berra and Kora will go here when finished~))
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