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Name: Jenys Garrison
Age: 20
Preference: What?

Physical Description: Blonde hair cut long, kept combed back slick from the front. Stands at 5'7", lean build. Hazel eyes.

History: Had a brief encounter with death at an early age when a sickness befell him, leaving his widowed mother beside herself with worry.

Unknown to Jenys, he had someone who loved him fiercely besides his own mother. An aspiring young thespian named Marco Galante, the opposite of the frail misfit himself, had fallen in love with the clueless Jenys and did not wish to tell him. One day an unknown assailant sought to hurt the one Marco held dearest to him. In the skirmish the attacker lost his bearing, swearing with near intoxicating anger in the middle of a dizzying drop near a water plant. Marco could only watch in horror as the man fell to his death down an unenclosed pit being dug for the newest treatment tank. Marco was not imprisoned, the man killed himself in his own negligence and so Marco was free to go on with his life. Riddled with guilt, Marco left after graduation to persue his acting, forever drowning his sorrows with his work. To this day, Jenys hasn't a clue as to what happened and why Marco left town.


OOC Notes:
- Rascir isn't consciously aware of his purpose, I plan on him coming to the realisation of it as he matures.
- I am planning on incorporating Marco's return into the story.

Jenys lay in his new apartment, lying on an old but comfortable bed and looking out the window. His little bunting in a cage that was never closed or locked currently had taken to using bits of Jenys' fallen strands of hair and making a little nest of sorts with it. The little creature was so unbirdlike to Jenys that he didn't seem to associate it with his fears these past few days since it'd picked him.

Snow was falling like silent bits of thought, clinging to the window sill, the branches of dormant trees, and filling the cracking stone birdbath in the open patch of lawn below. He was reminded again of visiting the theatre on snowy days, staying warm and watching the college thespians learn their lines.

============

"I could kill you in a single strike, Daniel! Give me one reason not to!"

"How could you and still mark yourself as human instead of a monster!? Wasn't it bad enough it was your own negligence that killed Lious?"

"Don't you DARE accuse me!"

In this scene Marco gripped his co-star by the lapel and draw him to his face. Though it had only been a practice preformance, several of those watching along with Jenys watched intently as the two played their parts beautifully. It was as though there were no audience at all and the fourth wall enclosed them. Marco looked vicious, Donavon looked confused and surprised.

"Tell me AGAIN, Daniel," Marco shook him. "Tell me again who was it who said 'Nooo, we could cut a few corners, we can slip past them and no one will suspect she's with us.'? Because I'll be DAMNED before I let you even fathom saying it was me! She was the daughter of the GENERAL, damn you, of course they'd ask questions."

Marco almost flung him aside, his co-star in turn acted startled slowly turning to tension and fear as words sank into everyone's mind.

"Stop!" said the professor from near the footlights. "That was excellent Donavon, and you Marco! If your performances tonight are any mark of your talents, you'll have them all in chilling silence with tomorrow night's show."

It was a play written ten years ago about the World War by a very famous playwright who had submitted the script to the professor at the beginning of the year. It had never seen the stage until now and everyone was anxious to how it would sit with the audience on opening night.

It was the last play Marco would perform before he graduated and inevitably would leave Jenys friendless and alone once more.

=================

Jenys sighed and felt loneliness flood him. The little bunting, as though sensing his sorrow, began singing.

Jenys stared, eye to eye with a strange little person by the bed. Hazel eyes searched vivid green-teal ones, both as large as saucers. He saw the hair, the little yellow bow, those little vestigial looking wings...

He blinked. "Bird?" he forced logic into his head, though his heart was in his throat.

"Rascir," the little boy whispered, pointing to himself with a little finger. "Donni," he pointed to his little stuffed cat.

Without another word the child crawled into bed alongside him, Jenys could only give him room and stare. His eyes searched the room, the little bunting was nowhere to be seen and only he and the child were in his room. Outside a layer of thick snow was on the ground.

"I-I don't understand," he tried to explain to the little boy, who had made himself comfortable and snuggling into Jenys' side. "Where did you come from?"

But there was no answer, Rascir had already fallen asleep. Jenys hands had been above his head as to not touch the little boy, but it was obvious he couldn't keep them there the rest of the early morning. Gently, slowly he laid down on arm opposite the boy. Then the other began to fall, stopping an inch from the little boy's head. Jenys ventured touching his hair, as vividly colored as it was it didn't look dyed! He let his fingers slide down the little lock of hair that held the yellow bow. What an oddly dressed child, violet and baby blue clothing and those little cherub wings that looked like something out of old Renaissance paintings.

"I must be dreaming," he said to himself. That must be it, if I can let this all pass I'll wake up and it'll be morning again, he reasoned. "Maybe you're an angel, albeit a little one," Jenys went on softly to Rascir, who was too asleep to even hear him.

Jenys stroked his hair as he, too, drifted into sleep. In the haze of a man in mid-slumber sounds remembered are so real in one's mind that it sounds as though it was actually being played. Little bells playing over and over, a little boy's voice singing the same chorus...

" Whose child is this who lay to rest,
On Mary's lap is sleeee-ping...? "

The sound of a stirring audience all about, visions of large stained glass windows and rows of church goers, all eyes on Jenys and another boy playing the bells.

" Whose child is this who lay to rest,
On Mary's lap is sleeee-ping...? "

In the audience, he remembered so clearly now, his mother. His father! How long he stared now in his dreams at his father - a handsome built man with well kept blonde hair, beard and moustache, those intense hazel eyes.

In his sleep, Jenys wept.

Jenys sat on the edge of his bed, he had been toweling his hair until Rascir had volunteered to do it for him. He sat there in his sweatpants and bare chest letting the little creature sing something it had made up on its own, trying to make sense of what it was singing. Rascir was so amused at how passive Jenys was, he never said "no" to anything he asked for. He never attempted to force Rascir to do things he didn't want to - he merely asked and said "please".

Maybe Jenys was a toy, mused Rascir, but something within his happy little mind of soft clouds, blue skies, and sunlit mornings of glitting snow had left a little black bird-shaped shadow. What was this? What was this Jenys was seeing? It looked so... familiar.

----

Elsewhere from the serene morning scene of Jenys and Rascir was the strange double-vision in Marco Galante's eyes. In the limosine, with his agent to his left, his "girlfriend" to his right smiling at him expectantly, and across him a producer that his agent had invited out for brunch over business talk.

"Marco?" the female voice cut through. "Marco, honey?"

"Are you okay?" the agent inquired, putting a hand to his shoulder. "Did you not get enough rest?"

"Now now, don't rush him, there's plenty of time to discuss this over some hot coffee and good food," said the laidback producer.

Marco slipped out of his daze, smiling automatically at the producer. He knew how to act, and so with everything he did he put on the face that needed to be seen. Marco did like this producer, even the director had been just as laidback, but why did the producer himself show up and not the director or the casting agent? Everything he saw was split into two extremes with no happy medium, he felt painted into a corner that he couldn't escape from. And should he escape where would it lead him? A career he had worked so hard for would rush down the drain in an instant.

Inside he sighed, outside he was all business. Those intense, masculine eyes held their position on the moment though his mind was running him to threads inside. He felt empty... what was the one thing that kept him stable when all this madness went about in his mind?

"Jenys..." he blurted, almost in a mutter to himself.

"Who?" said the girlfriend, blinking.

----

"Mar-co..." blurted Rascir, scrubbing at Jeny's hair.

"What?" said Jenys, blinking.

Jenys had strange dreams as he had finally fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion. He'd caught a dreadful cold and sent little Rascir to fend for himself while Jenys stayed in his apartment to rest.

His dreams were riddled with odd visions, strange blurred images that dreams are made of, muted colors and sounds... But somewhere off in the recesses of this frontal chaos of his mind something in the background stabbed through like godrays through the clouds.

... and he's my friend, and so I sing like this and this, I've got little wings, but can I flap them? Yes! I can, but can I fly?...

In the real world, what he heard was Rascir's singing as he played outside the apartment complex in the snow. Somehow it struck through the cold concrete walls and the chill of winter air, soothing Jenys' tormented mind. Jenys heaved a sigh in his sleep as the tainted visions dissipated. The droplets of song dripped merrily atop each bad dream, dissipating it into nothingness. The haphazard notes tickled each inner demon and tamed them.