damned_institute | Day 29: Sun Room

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Day 29: Sun Room

It was with some relief that Yuuhi awoke the next morning, in his own bed, sore and tired and achy. He would've slept more had they let him, his face down in the pillow, away from all the others and their questions and their concern. He didn't want to see them, but he managed a little smile when the nurse came in and didn't object when she lead him out into the open hallway that had been splattered with blood, plenty of it his, just last night.

The Chapel or the Sun Room? He felt he had good reason not to be terribly religious and had a feeling he wouldn't be very welcome there anyway. The Sun Room would be nice though. It was bright and cheery and he could always doodle or write notes on the community board if he'd nothing better to do. Besides, the nurse was kind enough to let him take a book with him.

He found a seat on one of the couches, far from the entrance and seated himself in the far corner, legs scrunched up against his chest so he only took up one of the cushions. He opened up where he'd left off, fingers carefully turning the worn pages of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.

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Keman grimaced as he sat. The bandages were pulling uncomfortably against his healing wounds. "I've been better," he admitted with a weak grin. "I'm not used to staying injured like this...but I can't heal myself here. It's kind of annoying."

Despite all that, he gave the boy a smile and held out his hand, as he had been taught. "Nice to meet you, Tamaki. I'm Keman. Thanks for taking care of Shana. It really means a lot."

"Oh, there's no need to thank me, really!" Tamaki took the other boy's hand and shook it enthusiastically. "It's what we do! There are so many horrible things that happen to people here... someone needs to help them!" He couldn't imagine having the capacity to help and not doing so!

"You can heal yourself? Really? With magic or with science?"

Keman smiled. "It's good, seeing people helping people. People don't do that enough."

And maybe that was the silver lining in the great, black Landel's cloud. For the most part, people seemed to be putting aside their differences and letting common decency take over when it was needed most. The humans here gave Keman a lot of hope for the humans back home.

"Oh, magic, I guess," he thought, blinking. "Or maybe an innate ability? I don't know. I can change my shape, you see. So all I have to do is just shift back into my natural form without the injuries, and I'm fine. I can't do that here, though."

"How fascinating!" Tamaki grinned broadly, clearly excited. "You can really change what you look like? Just like that? What sort of shapes can you change into?"

"Well...anything," Keman said, rather taken aback by Tamaki's enthusiasm. "Big small, male, female (though I don't like doing that very much...I can never get used to the...extra bits), human, animal. Even inanimate objects, theoretically. I've never actually done it before, though. It takes more patience than I possess to be a rock or a tree."

"Really?" Tamaki was staring with wide eyed fascination now. "That must be wonderful! Oh, I'd love to know what it feels like to be an animal! And you've... you've been a girl?" Now his tone was hushed, and he leaned forward a little bit, blushing.

"What was it like?"

Keman smiled. "Yeah. I'd...I'd offer to show you, but this place has pretty effectively blocked my powers." And that was probably for the best, because it would be kind of awkward if a large male dragon was suddenly sitting in the Sun Room.

He blushed too, remembering. He'd disguised himself as a tavern wench once, to get information.

Never again. The way all the male bondlings had been...grabbing at him...

"Well...I've only been female about two or three times. And I've only been a human female once. It was...strange. Really emotional. And the...breasts aren't as heavy as I thought they would be."

"Oh, yes, it does that to everyone." Tamaki nodded, dismissing that. It happened to everyone with magic or anything like that.

When Keman mentioned the 'B' word, Tamaki's flush deepened. This was horribly inappropriate to talk about! But... well, Keman had brought it up.

"Really? What...what were they like?"

"I'd noticed," Keman said with a little laugh. "Otherwise my sister would've already taken this place apart, brick by brick." Even if she wasn't actually Kin, Shana's abilities put his to shame...and they just kept getting more and more powerful by the day.

Or they had been before they came here, at least.

He was kind of confused by Tamaki's infatuation with "breasts"--they were just swollen mammary glands, after all--but he'd seen it before in other two-legger males. Breasts seemed to be an attractive feature to them. All Keman knew was that when he had been female, they'd just been kind of uncomfortable and gotten in the way a lot.

"Squishy," he said shrugging. "And running down stairs was painful."

"S...squishy?" Tamaki gulped, trying to imagine it. He didn't care about the running down stairs part. Breasts were something of a mystery to him. Oh, he'd seen pictures - some people thought it was funny to surprise him with pornography - but only fleetingly. The rest was all up to his own mind.

At least when it came to Ed, Tamaki had no surprises. He knew what Ed looked like under his clothes - they showered together, after all. But the female body was an enticing mystery he was almost ashamed to admit interest in.

Keman blinked. "Well, yes," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "They're just lumps of fat."

"But...but...." Tamaki could only sputter. They were the eternal symbol of female sensuality! Or something! Of course he supposed biologically that's what they were, but....

"But what? That's all they are."

Keman felt kind of bad. Tamaki looked like his whole world had just come crashing down around him...

"No, no, you don't understand!" Tamaki was still beat red, but he leaned forward, his voice hushed and strained. "They're so much more than that!"

"How so?" Keman asked, blissfully unaware that this was not the way a two-legger male in his late teens was supposed to talk about certain parts of female anatomy. "I mean, I know that they're for nursing infants and stuff..."

"They're...they're... you know!" Tamaki was clearly flustered as he waved his hand about, practically hissing his words. "They're....erotic!"

Keman blinked. "Oh," he said. "Oh, I suppose so. Never really thought about them that way..."

Two-leggers were needlessly complicated creatures.

"How...how could you not?" It was almost impossible! Tamaki tried not to think those kinds of thoughts, but they crept in on their own! But he couldn't see...

"Oh!" Oh, maybe Keman didn't like girls that way! Well, that would explain so much!

"They sort of lose their mystery after you've seen your sister change every day for sixteen years." That was true enough. Then he'd remember that she was the same creature whose soiled diapers he'd had to change.

"'Oh' what?"

"Oh. I don't have a sister." And besides, it wasn't proper to watch your sister undress! But of course, they came from a very different world. It wasn't fair to judge by his standards.

"Just....'oh'. About...you know. You. And...er...finding...er...things erotic. It's alright, really!"

Keman grinned lopsidedly. "I have two. Shana and Myre. Shana's amazing...we're very close. She's my best friend. Myre's..." His face fell slightly, remembering the humiliating defeat he had suffered at his younger sister's hands. "Myre's a lazy, spiteful little brat. So I guess I got both sides of it."

What was Tamaki trying to say? He was a very confusing fellow. "What about me?"

"Oh. I'm very sorry to hear that. But...she's still your sister. Sometimes family might act poorly, but they're still family." In Tamaki's mind, it was that simple. Family was family.

"Oh, you know. Some boys just don't...like that."

Keman's eyes grew distant, bitter. "She's not my sister anymore," he said softly. "She hasn't been for a long time." No, she was Lori's child now. None of the values that Alara had taught her brood had ever gotten through that thick skull, but everything that Lori and Rovy stood for...

"No, I don't know," he said, a tad impatiently. Then a thought struck him, and his eyes widened in surprise. "Unless...you think I prefer males."

The young dragon laughed, shaking his head. "I'm not human," he said simply. "This body isn't even my natural form. I don't mind it though." He grinned. "In fact, I rather like being a two-legger. But I've never been one permanently until I came to this place. I'm as attracted to females as any adolescent male. Just not necessarily human ones."

That wasn't entirely true. His growing attraction to some of the girls in the Institute was...unnerving, to say the least. Probably a side-effect of having his species switched on him.

"I prefer dragons."

"OH!" Tamaki was taken aback by that. He knew, of course, dragons were real in other places. But to talk to one? A real dragon? That was beyond proper description!

"Oh!" he repeated, finding words were currently failing him.

Keman laughed. He'd been getting that kind of reaction a lot lately. Though it was better than someone shouting "HE'S A DRAGON! LET'S KILL HIM FOR HIS SKIN!"

"Shana's not a dragon, though." He figured it would probably be a good idea to get that out of the way. "She's adopted."

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Day 29: Sun Room

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