[FIN] So-shi-yo-fo-bee-ya (Cadentau and Earako)

[CatCry]

Caden looked questioningly at the floor. On one hand, he was tired and would like very much to sit down. On the other hand, sitting on the dusty floor of some mouldy antique shop was beneath his dignity. Well, at least he wasn't hyperventiliating like that barmy old widow who hadn't been out of the house in years. Wolfie tried an excursion with this particular patient today, only to have her dash into the small dingy shop and start having a panicky fit, and it was Caden's bad luck to have been brought along for the treatment. He quickly learned that there were some people whose good graces you didn't want to be in, and if it meant he was going to have to come along on more therapy trips like this one, Mom's patients were definately people to avoid.  

[lithle]

It hadn't been easy to get to the antique shop. Not at all. It had taken every pout, every begging look, every sigh, for Earako to get her way. Da' had been dead set against it, and she'd almost been ready to give up before he'd finally parked the car outside. Not that he was going to come in, apparently. Dad was like that. So, father and dragon were in the car, and Earako was inside, promised one hour and one hour only before Da' came after her.

She was looking for lace. Or old clothes. Dresses, veils, hats. Things she could use as patterns for her own complex wardrobe. As she grew, she was beginning to grow away from the overly complex patterns she currently owned. She wanted to make something simple and elegant, something that stunned. Today, she'd opted for a dark blue velvet dress, edged with gray lace, and she'd pulled her hair back with blue ribbons. Her parasol was a matching blue, though closed now that she was inside. Her glasses, of course, stayed firmly in place.

It wasn't long before she spotted the boy. Different, on Gaia, did not always mean D-corp. But D-corp kids had a look about them, and the lion child definately had that. It was worth asking, anyway.

"Good afternoon."  

[CatCry]

He yawned out of boredom, exposing his canine teeth and curling his tongue as he did so, but a voice made him freeze mid-yawn. Caden ended it with a very wide-mouthed "Huh?" but he looked over the owner of the voice appraisingly. She had white skin and pale blonde hair, and what looked a bit like a pair of extra hands protruded from her shoulders. Her ears were enormous! Her clothing was dark and a little forboding, but she sounded kind enough. Definatly the type that liked little kids and cute things. Perfect.

He hid one hand behind his back and shuffled his foot on the floor as he waved shyly with is other hand and said in a small voice, "Hi."  

[lithle]

Shy kid? Earako was a little surprised by the boy's reaction, enough so that she took a step backwards, giving the young one some space. She didn't want to scare the child, after all. She could still remember what it was like to be little, and here she was, intimidating little kids. Terrible.

Set off her stride, she crouched in front of the boy, in an elegant, practiced sweep of skirts very like a curtsy. Maybe it'd be easier if they were at eye level with each other. "You're a lion, aren't you?" She asked, not needing to keep her voice soft because Earako always spoke in a delicate whisper. "Are you from D-corp?"

It wasn't that all her friends were from D-corp. There was Savius, and Jer'ain. But there was something comforting about shared experiance. And if the young boy was from D-corp, that meant he'd eventually go through the same classes and experiances as she had. It was something to talk about.  

[CatCry]

"Uh huh." Caden nodded, the movement of his head further fluffing his unruly hair. "Wha'd'er you?" he churred, trying to sound cheerful but mimicking her softness. Why was she backing away from him? He tilted his head curiously, for once out of reflex instead of careful "impression management" as Mom called it, which really meant acting a certain way on purpose so people will think of you a certain way Why she had to make things so complicated with funny words, he didn't know. In any case, the lionboy was far too lazy to learn them. Caden continued to stare, puzzled by her clothes. They were so dark, and flowery, and..dark. "Are you a so-shi-yo-fobe too?" he asked, realizing that her clothes reminded him of one of Mom's patients, who hadn't been out of her house in over 4 years.  

[lithle]

"I'm a vampire bat." Earako answered, glad that the boy was indeed a D-corp kid. She loved it when her instincts were right, it proved that what her Da' said about her having 'no sense of her surroundings' wasn't true. Just because she didn't think that everyone was dangerous... except, she almost did these days. At least, she didn't think people were safe, the way she used to.

The question confused her, as she'd never heard it before, and consiquently had no idea what it meant. Still, she had to say something, so she tried to think of something she was instead. "No. I'm an albino. That's why my skin so white, see?" There wasn't actually much skin too see. Her gloves reached her elbows, where her cuffs met them, and black stockings covered what bits of her legs her long dress might have exposed. Still, there was her face, complete with huge ears, and her white skin was clear enough, there. "And why the sun hurts me, too."  

[CatCry]

"Okay." he chirped, agreeing easily. What did white skin have to do with staying inside all day anyway? Wait? What if she just stayed inside all day because she had white skin instead of because of being so-shi-yo-fobe ((sociophobe: fear of interacting with other people)). Wait? She was a bat right? And bats turned into vampires and came out on Halloween right? And vampires could turn into wolves because wolves ate dead people in anceint Germany, right? A-hah! He giggled under his breath and his ears pricked upwards. Time to show off.

"Can you turn into a wolf?" Caden flicked his tail airily and continued. "'cause bats are vampires, and they come out at night on Halloween. Is that why the sun hurts white skin?"  

[lithle]

((*nods* I know. Earako, however, does not.))

Earako gave the little boy a confused look as he continued to prattle. Hadn't he heard her? Didn't she just say she was a vampire bat? Oh. He meant vampire. Earako covered her mouth when she giggled, not wanting to look like she was mocking the lion boy.

"Well not all bats are vampires, but I am a vampire bat." She spoke in that paced, careful way that people did when trying to explain thing to children. "But I'm not a vampire, like Dracula. That's different."

No use saying there were no vampires. This was Gaia, after all.

"So, no. I can't turn into a wolf. And the sun bothers me because white skin burns very easily. So I have to be careful."  

[CatCry]

((Sorry. Thought the non-spelling might have gotten in the way.))

"So you don't eat dead Germans?"

Obviously, Mom's explanation of vampire lore hadn't really gotten through. Caden considered asking if her heart sqeaked like a mouse and tried to run away when put on a plate, but if her heart was gone, she wouldn't be here, right? He reached up and scratched at the back of his fluffy head, perplexed.

"Why don'cha wear that smelly stuff? (sunscreen)" he questioned. A quick sniff told him that she was indeed not wearing copious amounts of sunscreen, which Mom always insisted that he do whenever they were going to spend the day outside, but Caden never really bothered as he didn't get burned anyway. "I don't need it 'cause I'm a lion!" Mraowr!" He tried to roar, but his lungs were still far too small and his voice too high pitched for it to come out lower than a cattish scream.  

[lithle]

Smelly stuff? Dead Germans? Once again, Earako was completely lost. What a very strange little boy. It didn't occur to her that he might mean sunscreen, instead she thought of perfume. Da' said she was too young for makeup and perfume, though she didn't think it was fair. She was plenty grown up. Certainly more grown up than the boy in front of her.

Which meant she wasn't going to admit that her Da didn't let her.

"No. I don't." She replied, with that same patient teacher tone she'd used before. "And I don't like it, so I don't wear it."

Hah. Pride intact. So there.

"Have you met your egg yet?" She asked, moving the conversation back to subjects they had in common. Though he looked a little young for that.  

[CatCry]

"I get an egg?" He flicked an ear and thought for a moment. "Can I eat it?" Because all eggs were for eating, of course, except for the ones in the aviary, which hatched into falcons and got trained...which was a lot of work. Especially at weaning time, when the chicks at Gramma and Grampa's house shreiked all the time and crashed into things and needed to be fed a few times a day but never wanted to sit still to eat and always ran away and then Gramma would make him help Grampa catch them. Oh darn. "I'm not going to have to take care of it, am I?" he whined. Woof was already trouble enough and all he had to do was water the thing once a week. Keeping an egg alive sounded much harder. Was he going to have to sit on it like a bird? Well, actually that didn't sound too bad if people would bring him food and let him sleep all the time, but sitting on an egg would be uncomfortable. They weren't soft, like pillows.  

[lithle]

Earako laughed a gentle sound, as hushed as her whispering voice. "No, you can't eat it." She answered, glancing over her shoulder to the parking lot. Vimber was in the car, so there would be no showing the little boy a dragon today. "It'll hatch into a dragon, and the dragon will be your friend and companion. I have a red dragon, named Vimber."

At the boy's other question, she shook her head. "D-corp takes care of the eggs for us," she explained.

"Once it hatches, you'll take the dragon home, though."  

[CatCry]

A dragon! While that sounded cool, it also sounded kinda bothersome. Something as fierce as a dragon probably wouldn't listen to him, but on the other hand, it might be nice to have a buddy to laze around with. Labrats were hardly satisfactory companions, no matter how Mom might disagree. Sure they were kinda cute, and fun to chase, but they were really too much work to bother with. Caden shrugged and decided to procrastinate on that train of thought. He would deal with it when he felt like it. For now, the dragon didn't seem like any sort of immediate threat.

"How come you got a dragon? You already has wings." he exclaimed, suddenly realizing what those funny appendages on her back were. They were funny and leathery looking, not like birds wings, but they were still wings, none the less. "Can you fly?" Okay, so it was a bit of a redundant question, but Caden was none to bright for his age and maybe not entirely capeble of remembering everything he said.  

[lithle]

Earako looked a bit surprised by the question. She'd never considered why she had a dragon. She was a d-corp kid. They all had dragons. That's why they were created! It was almost as if the boy were questioning why she existed. But an honest question deserved an honest answer, so she hesitated, formulating an answer before speaking.

"Well, I can fly. But not very fast, or far. And I'm not strong enough to carry another person." There, that all made sense, didn't it? This felt like a test in class. "My dragon is a red dragon, and she prefers dark places, and so do I. That's why I was assigned that type. When she gets bigger, she'll be able to carry more than one person, she'll be very strong, and she'll breathe fire. I can't do any of that."

There, was that satisfactory? She didn't want to be a bad example for the younger kids. "Also, she protects me sometimes."  

[CatCry]

Caden frowned, his ears drooping. What was so great about that? When he grew up, he was going to be big and strong and protect things too, but he couldn't fly. And who needed to breathe fire anyway? He thought it pretty pointless after blowtorches had been invented. "What kind of dragon will I get?" he asked, now genuinely curious. Or more specifically, what could a dragon do that he couldn't do? Er.. besides fly..but who would want to fly anyway?

His tail twitched as he realized that he seemed to have completely lost sight of his original objective, that being fluffs and petting from the older girl. A quick glance over at Mom reassured him that he had plenty of time. That crazy lady was backed into a corner between a table and rack of clothes, as Wolfie tried to coached her into using the paper bag. They weren't going to leave anytime soon.

"You're so smart!" he purred, taking a step closer to her. "Wut's your name?" He tilted his head upwards cutely and grinned at her.