Welcome to Gaia! ::

Earako made a point of being prompt and her arrival was as timely as could be asked. A few minutes before she'd been told to be present she walked through the door. There was an easy grace about her first steps into the classroom, but it seemed to leave her as soon as she spotted Kaydon. Her ever present suglasses made her hard to read at the best of times but as was often the case in classes these days, the utter expressionless mask she assumed did not help.

"Sir? My name is Earako. I believe you're expecting me."

Earako's handshake was little more than a light brush of fingers, she pulled her hand back as quickly as she was able and stepped back to place more than an arm's length of distance between herself and the teacher.

"A pleasure, sir." She responded, her voice, near a whisper, was devoid of any expression of pleasure or otherwise.

Earako sat in the chair nearest at hand, spreading her skirts carefully and sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She had near perfect posture, showing no signs of relaxing into her seat.

At the question, she looked at her hands, covered though they were by her long black gloves. "I know that I burn easily." She answered after a moment's hesitation. "Maybe it makes light hurt my eyes. Or maybe that's because I'm a bat."

She did not add that it made her ugly and pale and boring. That was probably evident just by looking at her.

While Earako was, in her own way, bright, that intelligence was limited to her areas of particular interest. When it came to subjects like genetics, she was well out of her usual comfort zone. Recessive genes were not something she remembered particularly.

"If it's the same as red hair, why aren't there more like me?" It was impossible to tell, by her voice or her posture, whether she was actually interested in the answer to her question. But she'd asked it, which was in itself unusual.

Melanin. Earako had never even heard that term before. Which showed just how much study she'd put into her particular genetic 'quirk'. But then, all she felt she needed to know was that she didn't like it and that there wasn't any way to fix it.

Or could it?

"I can't get some, can I?"

Got it in one. Earako's sunglasses, ever present, were indeed prescription. It was one more thing she'd figured might be a result of her bat DNA, instead of her albinism. Blind as a bat, right? But that wasn't the statement that had her interest.

Earako didn't shift at all, her expression failed to change in the slightest. And unless Kaydon somehow managed to change his gender, the chances of him getting so much as a slight smile out of her were slim. Still, mentally, she was engaged. If she wasn't, she wouldn't be talking.

"Other medical problems? What else is going to be wrong with me?" There was no hint of bitterness in her cool tone, however bitter she might actually feel.

As soon as the teacher's lecture drifted toward other genetic conditions, Earako was lost again. Her posture and expression remained almost entirely unchanged, though, so at least she wasn't yawning or staring out the window. She did manage to take note of 'OCA1' though she wasn't entirely sure what use that knowledge would have in the future. Maybe she'd look it up on the internet. Maybe there was a message board for hybrid bat OCA1s and she could make some friends.

Unlikely, wasn't it?

At the call for questions she studied the teacher a moment before shaking her head. No other questions. But she had learned something. And he hadn't tried to hurt her. It was better than she might have expected.