damned_institute | Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

After the couple glasses of water Leon managed to gulp down during breakfast, the mage felt immensely better. He was still a bit tired, but that was nothing a little lounging on one of the sofas wouldn't cure. Stretching his arms above his head, he couldn't help but wish he'd had the chance to grab one of his new doctor's coats before leaving his room that morning. Maybe they would have let him get away with wearing it. Maybe.

He grabbed an empty sofa, pulling out the journal he tried to keep on him at all times. It was nearly complete now. Just a couple more pages to go. It might not improve his spellcasting that much, but any improvement was better than none. It was getting to where it might be too dangerous for him to use spells at all, if it left him so worn out without even finishing a monster off.

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Keman blushed. "Ah...sorry. I was just trying to make conversation, I guess. But...from their mouths? That's really strange. How would one create the flammable material and the ignition required for that?" Special organ, maybe? Oh, wait. He was rambling again.

He took a deep breath. How was he going to say this? He hadn't told anyone yet, not even Shana, and here he was about to tell something so deeply personal to someone he'd only just met because of a couple of offhand comments about wings and a tail?

"...All right, this is going to sound really, really stupid, and I apologize. Brooklyn, have you noticed any other changes now that you're a two-legger...er...human, besides the obvious physical ones?"

"Other... changes..?" Brooklyn raised both eyebrows, trying to discern what Keman could possibly mean by that. "I'm not sure what you're getting at... I'm not as strong as I used to be, but that's a physical change too, isn't it? Um..." He scratched his head in thought. He wasn't thinking any differently, was he? Not as far as he could tell...

"My eyes still glow when I'm angry? That's not a change, though. That's something that stayed the same." The gargoyle frowned. "I... can't think of anything. I've only been here a couple days, though, if that helps." He could only hope nothing else had changed. Being stuck as a human was bad enough!

"Ah," Keman said, face falling. So he really was the only one. "Never mind, then. But...if you do start to notice...other things, could you please tell me?"

He was reasonably certain by this point that he had, in fact, fallen in love with a human female, and it was confusing the hell out of him. The expression itself was problematic. "Falling in love"? It felt more like he was caught in a particularly violent updraft than falling. He was having a hard time reconciling his newfound feelings for Orihime with the whole "SHE'S HUMAN AND I'M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HUMAN-SHAPED!" thing.

He gave Brooklyn a weak grin. "You're eyes glow? That's pretty...uh..." What was the colloquialism he'd heard bandied around lately? Oh, right. "...cool. Mine turn red when I get really angry, but I'm trying to avoid that whenever possible. If my eyes are red, it means I've lost control."

"Lost control?" Brooklyn didn't know if he should really ask about something Keman might be uncomfortable with, but the dragon had brought it up. What happened when a dragon 'lost control' anyway? Nothing good, probably. Best to turn the subject to something more light hearted.

"Well," he cleared his throat, then smiled. "When a gargoyle's eyes turn red, it usually means... they're a girl." There were some special cases, such as the clones. Their colorations were altered by whatever process they were created with, however, so it wasn't too surprising. In any normal situation a male gargoyle's eyes would glow white when angered and a female's would glow red.

Keman shrugged. "Well, we are large, carnivorous beasts. Take away higher thought, and what you've got left is raw animal instinct. That's basically what happens when a dragon goes feral. Temporary insanity, I guess. All I know is that it still happens to me here, even though the rest of me is two-legger. Most inconvenient."

Understatement of the year, that.

"Well, I'm glad I'm not a gargoyle, then," he said, laughing. "Otherwise that would raise a lot of questions I'd rather not have answered." Keman cocked his head to the side, thinking. "I'm still not sure that I know what a gargoyle is, honestly. I gathered a bit from the bulletin, but the idea's a foreign one. I-I mean, I don't mean to offend. I'm just curious."

"Huh." One could say that some gargoyles could go on rages - heck, Goliath had quite the temper himself - but they weren't necessarily uncontrollable. Not the way Keman was describing this, at least. He supposed it was a good thing he wasn't a dragon.

It was normal for others not to have heard of gargoyles, though the fact that this boy was supposedly a fantastical creature himself said something about the decline in population of their race. That, or there was that whole world issue... "A guess a gargoyle is like... a smaller, more humanoid dragon. We're usually a little bigger than humans - just a little." And not always, if one considered clan members like Lexington. "We come in all shapes and sizes, though. Depending on what region of the world we live in. Some are more animal-like than others..."

How did one really go about describing the gargoyle race anyways? "Well, long story short, we fly and turn to stone during the day. And protect people." Classy, Brooklyn. Real classy.

Keman nodded, trying to picture it in his head. "Do you walk on two legs or four?" he asked, curious. Brooklyn had already mentioned that they had wings and a tail...but what about the head crests? Were they related to the Kin at all, or had they evolved separately?

Did dragons even exist in Brooklyn's world?

"...You turn to stone?" Keman didn't sound all that surprised, actually. He could turn into stone too. "Every day? Why?" Some sort of odd nocturnal thing, then? "Can you shift into other forms as well, or is it just stone and flesh? I've never been stone before, but my mother has. It takes a lot of concentration and patience that I don't possess."

"We usually walk on two, but it depends on the gargoyle, really. One of my brothers often finds walking on all four more comfortable because of his wing design. Running is usually faster on all four depending on the terrain. Oh! And there are gargoyle 'dogs'... they always run on all fours, but they don't have wings." Well that was a bit more into the life of a gargoyle that he'd expected to explain already, but he supposed he shouldn't be surprised.

"Um... about the whole stone thing. It just kinda happens. Always has. I guess you could say we become statue versions of ourselves. It's how we sleep, and it heals all wounds. At night we break out of it again. It's not really something we have much choice over." And it left them more vulnerable, as they could simply be shattered. That wasn't something he was going to just point out if it wasn't necessary, however.

"Strange," Keman murmured, drawing it all up in his mind and wondering if he was right. Well, maybe he'd doodle it later and get Brooklyn tell him how accurate his mental portrait had been. He was absolutely fascinated by all this.

They turned to stone at daybreak, and used their dormant period to rest and heal their wounds. That was an interesting defense mechanism, but...as someone who could totally alter his genetic structure at will, Keman wasn't really one to talk. "I'm sorry I'm asking so many questions," he laughed. "I've just always been interested in how things work. Doesn't being stone make you vulnerable, though?"

But of course Keman had to go and ask about that anyway. What was he supposed to say? That their stone forms were super resilient and it wasn't worth trying to shatter them? No, he'd surely realize the truth. There weren't any gargoyles here at the moment anyway, and even if they did arrive they'd most likely be turned human just as he was.

"Yeah, it does," Brooklyn sighed. "That's why gargoyles often make deals with humans. One can protect while the other sleeps." That was usually the way it worked, anyway. Betrayal often ended up in catastrophe for both sides.

"Oh, that makes sense." Keman nodded and decided to leave it at that. Brooklyn didn't seem too comfortable with the current topic. On to something safer.

"How are you adjusting? To being human, I mean. It was a pretty big change for me, and I'm a shapeshifter. I've looked like this before. Can't imagine what it would be like for somebody who's not used to it..."

It was odd hearing about a shapeshifter that wasn't a Child of Oberon, and Brooklyn had to shove aside the desire to try and make some connection between dragons and the Third Race. Things were different here. It was that whole "multiple worlds" problem again, wasn't it?

"I'm used to having a tail." The gargoyle decided to focus on the current question and forget all other issues for now. "And wings. So my balance has been off, but I think I'm adjusting. Just have to remember not to try running on all fours, you know?" He chuckled.

Keman grinned, leaning back in his seat. "Oh, I know," he laughed. "A year ago, I ran away from home to look for my sister and wound up in a two-legger city. It was a little disconcerting, going from shifting into other animals into trying to pass myself off as an Elven Lord."

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Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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