[FIN] Strange Companions (Earako & Laial)

[lithle]

The playroom was empty, but Earako didn't mind much. Da' would be around to pick her up eventually, and until then, she'd entertain herself. It'd been a good day, but with perhaps too much running around. The little Albino bat was ready for some quiet time.

She'd already exhausted the promise of colouring, keeping her own flesh clean for once, out of respect less for her father and more for the fact he'd promised that he'd take her toy shopping if she would just stay white for a week. It seemed like a small price to pay, even if her skin seemed so terribly dull without anything on it. She really WANTED to give herself tattoos again. But as her Da' said, People in hell wanted ice water. She wondered why.

A small crash distracted her from her thoughts. The city of blocks she'd been busily constructing had suffered a minor earthquake. Oops. Reaching over, she began carefully reconstructing the bridge that had collapsed, humming softly to herself as she did. An observer might find the sound a bit strange, high pitched and breathy, but Earako liked to sing.  

[Tao Orii]

Laial happily walked down one of the hallways in D-Corp. He had just suceeded in his hardest mission, 'The Escape From Apartment #13', or in other words, sneak out of the house. He had always wanted to try it, and he suceeded on his first attempt! He was so good...

Besides, he had heard that there was a playroom somewhere in the D-Corp mansion, and he wanted to go there. He had heard that it was almost always empty, and that it had lots of cool toys! It might even have some DVDs or the video game he played at the fair!

Laial opened the door to the playroom; intent on finding out himself.  

[lithle]

There, the earthquake damage was officially repaired. Proud of her work, Earako allowed her humming to take on a triumphant rhythm, it sounded almost like marching music. Now, she could put in that forest she'd been planning. What was a city without a forest? Everyone loved trees. And maybe a cave too. Da' said bats lived in cave. He even called her room 'the cave' because she kept it so dark.

The opening of the door had no effect on her. Which isn't to say that she didn't notice it, Earako had exceptionally good hearing. She simply diregarded it, assuming it was somehow unrelated to what she was doing. Her Da' talked about that too, and said she had 'tunnel vision'. It meant that she could only see one thing at a time. Or something.

As the forest took shape, her humming began to go up in pitch, becoming higher and perhaps even uncomfortable. Not for her ears of course, she was attuned to high sounds but whether others would find it enjoyable... well... Earako had a very 'unique' definition of what was musical.  

[Tao Orii]

Laial watched the bat as she built with the blocks. He dismissed her and started to seach around for a DVD player or video game. Stopping when he heard this horrible screeching sound. His tentacles failed around wildly as his shoulders hunched over in an attempt to cover his ears. He shrunk his body, arms and legs into his shell, which stayed upright with the body sucked into it. His voice came out muffled, but plently loud.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! MAKE IT STOP!"  

[lithle]

Shocked by the unexpected loud words, Earako cut off her humming abruptly, whirling around and knocking over her block city with her wings as she did so. So that was who had come into the room while she'd been working. Did he have a shell? Wow... she'd never seen a kid with a shell before.

A bit taken aback by his yelling and his odd attitude, the albino bat pulled her wings up around her body, the motion quite obviously a defensive one. Oh... she wished her Da' was with her. The yelling boy might be dangerous. Or mean.

"Stop?" She asked. Her tone, always quiet and rather breathy, was barely more than a tremulous whisper, and her bright red eyes were wide, though mostly hidden behind her sunglasses.  

[Tao Orii]

As luck would have it, Laial stopped right before she asked. There was no screech, so no yelling. His ears ringing slightly, he crawled out of his shell to get a better look at what was screeching before. His eyes widened and his heart jolted when he saw her wings.

"Y-you're n-not a b-bird, a-are you?" he stuttered. He was terrified of birds. He heard that they ate shelled animals right out of their shell, pecking their insides out and swallowing them whole.  

[lithle]

A bird? Did she look like a bird? At the boy's question, Earako opened her wings and twisted a bit to look at them. Nope, no feathers. So at least that was cleared up. Turning her attention back to the shelled boy, she shook her head, frowning. "No' a bird. 'm a bat."

"You were yellin'. Why?" She hadn't liked that at all. And he'd made her knock down her block city, just after she'd fixed it. She'd worked really hard on it too. Earako hated being pulled away when she was fully focused on something, and even more than that, she hated starting over. Now she was going to have to do both at once. Because he'd yelled, and scared her.  

[Tao Orii]

"Oh. Alright then," Laial happily replied as he unfurled himself and stood back up. Hey, she said she was a bat. As far as he knew, bats ate insects. Not mollusks, which was what he was. Well, that's what Maji had said he HALF was. The other half was human.

Laial blinked at her question. Why? What kind of question was that? "Becau' something hurt my ears." He had yet to connect the screeching sound with the bat-girl, simply because he didn't see her mouth move. Or see little subtitles under her. Even though they didn't show subtitles for screaming.  

[lithle]

"I didn' hear anything." Earako responded, honestly confused by the boy. Maybe he didn't mean he'd heard something. Maybe somebody bit him. There could be... spiders in the room or something. Probably not. She hadn't seen any spiders. Wouldn't she have seen them? "You okay?"

Da' said you had to look out for people. He said that people needed people, and if you didn't give a damn, then no one would. He said it didn't matter about anything, just that you helped. So Earako did her best to forget how the boy had made her knock down her city, and be nice. All the same, she had yet to smile.  

[Tao Orii]

"You didn't?" Maybe he was hearing things. Like when he thought he heard people speaking the funny language in Mjai's FullMetal Alchemist DVDs. She had told him that if he watched DVDs too much, he would start to hear things. He hadn't believed her at the time, of course, but still...

"Mmm-hmm." Laial looked at the pile of blocks next to the bat. He sat down, that is, set his shell on the ground and tucked his legs into his shell. A tentecle poked on of the pieces. "Can I help?" It was obvious that she had had something built before he came.  

[lithle]

Following Laial's lead, Earako crouched beside the blocks, studing the crumbled ruins of her once city. The poor dead imaginary people, their homes and lives destroyed in one sweep of her wings. What a terrible fate...

"Nah." She responded, looking from Laial to the blocks. She didn't like starting things from the beginning twice. All her energy had already beens spent on the first city, so she didn't feel like simply recreating it. The people were all crushed anyway. "The city's all b'oken now. Could build somethin' else though."  

[Tao Orii]

Laial picked up some blocks with his tentecles and felt them while he was waiting for her response. They were mostly in different shapes and sizes, but he felt several of the same shape. A common shape was a simple...block. If he had known the word 'rectangle', he would have used that. There was also a long, straight circle. Again, the word 'cylinder' would have been a helpful addition to his vocabulary. The strangest one, however, was a block that had a semi-circle taken out of it. He fideted with that for a little bit.

Something else? Well, he supposed that would work... "Li' what?"  

[lithle]

((Kinda pulling things to a close, just 'cuz I'm drawing a blank.))

That was a good question... what else did Earako want to build. The bat child folded and refolded her wings, fingers a block and studying the ruins of what had been her beautiful city. The options were so numerous. Maybe a tower? Or a castle. Or a dragon. Or all three! "A castle?" She suggested, figuring they could add in the rest as they went.


"Earako?" Michael called out, walking into the playroom and spotting his daughter talking to a boy he hadn't seen before. Well, that wasn't an uncommon sight. It seemed there were always kids Michael hadn't seen. "Say goodbye. Time to head home, Kid."
 

[Tao Orii]

Laial nodded. A castle would work. Before he could even begin, however, he heard the door open. Snapping his head around, he saw it was...an adult! NO! He couldn't be spotted now! He quickly turned around. Maybe the adult wouldn't recognize him...or relize that he snuck out. Laial crossed his fingers, hoping the adult would just leave.  

[lithle]

"Da'!" Earako jumped to her feet, rushing across the room to throw herself into her fathers arms. Giggling as she was lifted up into the air and swung in a circle, she wrapped her arms around her Da's neck and twisted to peer at the boy who she'd been playing blocks with. He'd turned his back to them, which was kind of weird, but she wasn't going to say anything. "Bye!" She called out, and in her enthusiasm the high nature of her voice got just a little piercing. Not that she noticed.

Michael, for his part, frowned a bit at the boy's strange behavior. Well, whatever. He didn't have the time to go around worrying about everyone's children, and if someone else's kid was going to act funny, well, as long as it didn't bother his daughter... and she didn't seem bothered. "Did you have a good day at school, Beautiful?" He asked, ruffling her hair lightly.


((Thank you! I'll change the header to FIN))