A First Time For Everything [Seven Xu]

[Palla]

Timestamp: 54th of Fall, 511 A.V. Location: Alvadas The last flitting rays of the fall sun were sinking well below the horizon. Captivating glimmers of color still pierced the sky, but if one stood around to watch long enough, these needles of hues would retract subtly. The curious city streets echoed as the little red critter waddled her way down them, her little claws clicking against the stone. Something was odd about this city she had wandered into, and she was eager to find a high place to observe it from. She was nervous, skittering and running around quickly to avoid any other sentient being. It was her first city, her first time being so close to anything other than the animals and plants in the wild. A little twitter noise escaped her as she rounded the corner, little black nose twitching. There, in the center of the street, a tall, thin tree. Without thinking twice about how the tree must have rooted and sprouted from the stone ground, she ran for the tree. With a clumsy leap that left her thick tail swinging out behind her, she clamped her little nails onto the trunk of the tree, and hobbled up it. There was something comforting that settled in her mind as she made her way to the tippy top. Using her tail for balance, she crossed out over a branch and plopped down with her furry paws dangling over the edge. With a sigh, she wished she hadn’t decided to come into the stupid city in the first place. So far everything was weird and complicated. She much preferred the comfort of the wide open wilderness. Something didn’t suit her here, and it was this clump of civilization called a city. As she dangled there, she looked around curiously, trying to pinpoint something of interest. So far things weren’t going so well. If nothing made this city worth wandering around, she would leave and give up on this idea all together. It seemed silly… She was an animal, after all, not one of those two legged people who worshipped and cooked and created things. She just wanted to see what they were like… She shared their form. What was she supposed to use it for?

[Seven Xu]

This particular corner of Alvadas had been inactive for the better part of a bell. Seven had found the oddity sprouting from the ground with its many thin, inviting boughs that lead straight up its skinny, rigid trunk. The halfblood had once been scorned by a similar tree, but tonight he’d managed to remain within the canopy of sparse golden leaves, laying across the thickest branch on his back and soaking up an unusual tranquility the City of Illusion had spared him.

“Damn you,” Seven cursed as a third apple splattered over a line of white knuckles with the noiseless splinter of his violet weave. It sent a shock of pain through his wrist and shattered the shield he’d wrapped around his hand. He’d tasked it to keep the apple from passing through, though after a few hits each time, the safeguard would wear into something brittle and useless and he would have to reconstruct it. Seven loosed his fist and shook the throbbing pain from his hand, turning the apple in the other to inspect the dent he’d made in it—when the tree moved.

Seven blinked. He sat up straight, gripped the limb he was sprawled across between his thighs, and squinted through the day’s dying light. Despite the Symenestra that swam through his veins, dusk was usually troublesome on those sour crimson pools. One pallid palm met with cool, rough bark as he leaned forward to inspect the rust-colored silhouette that had ascended his tree. Seven clicked his tongue in an attempt to get the thing’s attention, and then proffered the mutilated apple.

“Hi.”

Blond brows furrowed, forming a crease in the moon-pale skin between them. What was one to say to a stray animal? Seven stole a calculated glance at the cobblestone below, before it settled again on the muddied shape before him. What was it? It looked like a rodent. His mouth had remained a flat grey line; in his apprehension, Seven forgot how to smile.

[Palla]

As Palla made her way up the tree, she had failed to notice the milky white character. Her little nails gripped the limb again as she inched back. What a curious, ghastly being sat before her! Never had she seen something so pallid and unhealthy, with bloody red eyes and fair hair. Her beady rust-colored eyes surveyed him, slightly frightened. This demon of a creature perplexed her, and yet it hadn’t made any sort of movement to harm her. Maybe it wasn’t in its nature, and maybe it had no interest in harming her. Hi. Hi. Oh, hi, she wanted to reply. But the click was much more appealing. She clicked back, a twittering noise, followed by a little whistle of some sort. Maybe this being was as lost as she. Palla wanted to play with it. She sat up and waddled across the branch, outstretching greedy little paws for the apple. Carefully, she gripped it with her claws and nearly dropped it at first, but took it back to her end of the branch. Tiny sharp teeth bit through the crunchy skin and peeled a chunk off. It was warm and juicy, nice and tasty. Another chirp left her as she wrapped her tail around the branch for balance. Again, the little eyes met his strange red ones. She wanted to hear him click again.

[Seven Xu]

Seven donned a crooked smile at the beast’s reciprocated trill. “That’s quite a noise,” he remarked, reaching back to snag a second small apple from a well-hidden brown satchel suspended on a short branch in a crop of dying leaves. He tossed the speckled fruit into the air, artfully caught it, and wiped clean it across his collarbone before taking a bite. “I fear I’m ill-prepared to provide you with a response. I don’t know your language—hell, I’m not sure what you even are.” A nasal laugh accompanied the sentiment, and, after a pause, he clicked again. It seemed to please the—rodent?—nibbling away at an apple a body’s length away.

Rodents aren’t that big.

The flimsy bough rustled its leaves when Seven carefully shifted himself, swinging a leg over the branch to sit lengthwise, one hand carefully gripping the tree’s trunk while the other scrutinized the apple between his pale fingers. “So what brings you into the middle of a city this time of night?” He looked sidelong at the rusty beast, not waiting for—or expecting—a response. “I was working, and then I found this tree. Peculiar place for a tree.” Seven let his upper body fall against its thick rough trunk, cresting the edge to peer curiously at his silent companion. His free hand reached out, pockmarked by dark specks of bark and scrapes from a former ascent. “Here, come here.” Seven let his tongue click against the roof of his mouth again in hopes to accentuate the invite.

Maybe it’s some type of raccoon.

The albino canted his head, letting another short laugh sing through the last of the day’s dying light. “I don’t bite.”

[Palla]

Palla watched the snowy white man carefully. He didn’t appear to have any malicious intent, which pleased her and put her to ease a bit. He spoke to her like she was his own, in the Common Language. Her furry little head cocked from side to side as she listened, inspecting him carefully. Maybe these two legged creatures weren’t so bad, after all. But one could never be too careful. As he clicked his tongue back at her, she chirped loudly back, inserting a flutter of whistles and other noises. There was something about this man, even with his scary red eyes, that made her comfortable. If he had had any real intention of hurting her, he would have acted by now, wouldn’t he? As he questioned her, she thought about answering him. She wondered if he knew that she had the same two legs he did. She had two legs, and a head full of hair, round colored eyes, arms with digits. She wanted to show him, but she was afraid. Would he still like her if she wasn’t a fluffy animal? She liked him, she knew for sure. He was nice. That was the only way to put it. Nice. He hadn’t tried to kill her, or skin her, or stone her. He hadn’t fled when he realized she was sitting by him. And as he beckoned her to come closer, she scurried near his lap, where she placed two thick black paws. She leaned on his leg and craned her head to sniff at him, and then playfully batted at his chest with a paw. Again, she whistled at him. Her beady dark brown eyes inspected his crimson ones. Curious fellow, this one. She wanted to speak with him, and learn about the two-legged ones. But for now, she would take her time.

[Seven Xu]

A look of surprise painted itself across Seven’s features when the twittering creature settled on the narrow span of his thighs. His first instinct was to balk; but this feral mound of fur had done little but sound at him, and there was no immediate cause for concern. He made himself relax. A splay of fingers dove between thick clumps of red on his company’s back. “I would give you the rest of my apple, but I fear you’d find it bitter.” Halfblood venom had begun to ravage the white flesh of the fruit. Sugary brown littered deep grooves where his teeth had broken its skin. A frown punctuated a deeper thought. “Or worse.”

He took another bite. “You must belong to someone,” a hand groped along a furry neck, apprehensively giving it a scratch, “will they not be worried about you?” Seven could only imagine a child without a companion, wandering through ever-changing streets, vinegar tears stinging their eyes. He gave a nasal sigh, and met the beady eyes of the animal. Strange, it was, the thing looked at him so directly when he spoke. Another click resounded between pallid lips, and one finger traced the edge of a round ear. “I suppose I’ll never know that, will I?”

[Palla]

The sound that next seeped through Palla’s omnivorous teeth was a strange one. It was a cross between a twitter and a whistle, something that, if one listened closely enough, could be described as an animalistic giggle. Truth of the matter was, she was giggling, in her own little way. The pale, red-eyed creature before her appeared kind and interesting enough. She liked the way he spoke to her. She liked his clicking noises. She liked his voice. Perhaps all two-legged’s weren’t so dreadful after all. As the thin man ran his fingers through her fur, she arched her little back to greet the touch. Beady eyes blinked slowly as she opened her mouth to yawn, exposing the rows of tiny teeth. The tip of her nose twitched as she contemplated her next decision carefully. He seemed to think she was a pet of some sort. Something in her wanted to show him what she was, she wanted him to see her other set of skin. Palla realized that she acted tame, and yet she was simply intrigued by the sudden appearance of a kind two-legged being. This had been the closest she had ever been to such an interesting fellow. Maybe he wouldn’t be too shocked when he found out… Tentatively, she backed away from the man and balanced herself on her two back legs, sniffing at the air. With a solid breath, her form faded into a swirl of lights that, when dispersed, left behind only a mousy looking, red-headed young woman. She sat with her legs wrapped around the tree limb, completely nude, and gave her newest friend – friend? – a “Uhmmm.. Surprise?” look. Worried that he may be upset to find she was not simply just an animal, she wrung her hands nervously. ”I-I wanted to actually talk to you. I couldn’t keep leading you to believe I didn’t understand what you were saying… I h-hope you’re not, you know, angry…” A set of dark, rusty brown eyes searched his for some kind of sense as to what he was feeling or thinking. She continued, ”I don’t belong to anyone. I’m just here, you see, alone. I don’t have anyone or anything. I never have. This is my first city, and I, well, I like your tree.” Her face flushed red with embarrassment. She surely sounded like a fool.

[Seven Xu]

Two points of crimson swam wholly in the whites of Seven’s eyes as he made fleeting contact with the blushing, rambling face of the former raccoon-thing. “I—” his slack, drying lips traced a few more unintelligible syllables before he managed a weary titter of his own, “It isn’t my tree.”

Seven’s own tide of fleshy pink had ignited across the breadth of his pallid countenance as his outermost layer was shrugged off and gathered between his hands. The night was chilly, and the slender, gawky thing that had materialized before him hadn’t come with a stitch of clothing. He jerked the mass of body-warm black wool at her in an attempt to punctuate some urgency in his offering.

His eyes could not meet her.

The bough’s wealth of dried and rustling leaves sang through the crisp air again as the halfblood relinquished his jacket to a girl that he could only hope knew what to do with it. A smile blossomed from a moment of candid confusion and the words that sprang from it bordered on blithe accusation, “You’re a skinchanger.” What had he heard them called? Kennics? Cathvics? Skinchanger seemed to do justice to what he had just witnessed. Night bit through the remaining layers of his clothing, and he sought to console a goose prickling forearm with the scarred palm of his opposite hand.

“I can’t say I’m not surprised,” Seven’s blond brows had drifted skyward by the time he allowed himself to stare fully at the rodent-turned-woman. A set of free fingertips thumped a rhythm against the stocky branch at his thigh as he looked upon her newly-covered form; he was nothing if not a proper gentleman. “I cannot invite an animal to tea, but I can you,” he sucked in his bottom lip, chewing it against a sharp canine. Truth be told, he was not sure she even knew what tea was—was she a lucid human, or a chirping animal in a woman’s skin? She had a voice, she could understand; that was enough to assume even the lowest level of competence. “It will be warmer inside than in this tree. Come.”

Seven let himself slide freely from the tree, landing on hard cobblestone a fair distance below. The impact sent a staggering shock through the inexperienced acrobat’s willowy frame, but he forced himself to straighten, lest he crumpled wholly to the ground.

[Palla]

Palla watched her toes as she curled and uncurled them nervously. It wasn’t his tree? Well someone had to have planted it in the middle of the walk, thought she. As he passed his dark-colored jacket to her, she took it tentatively in her shaking hands. She looked at it strangely before realizing that his own pink-flushed face signaled his discomfort in the presence of a nude woman. Though she never fully understood what was so frowned upon in being exposed in one’s own set of skin, she obliged and wrapped the silly thing around her shoulders as he had. The article hug low on her body, her fingertips just barely breaking the hem of the sleeves. A skinchanger, he had called her. She smiled and giggled before saying, ”A Kelvic, but yes. My skins change. If you wanted to call me Skinchanger you certainly may, though I’m called Palla.” And then, as he spoke of this tea, and invited her to join him, she felt almost instantly at ease. In any case she asked, ”What’s a tea?” Her little head cocked to the side as she watched him drop to the ground. She dropped down beside him, less than stunned by fall, as she absorbed the shock by bending her knees as she fell. Little Palla looked the man over curiously, sniffing in his general direction. How peculiar! Never had one of these two-leggeds invited her to join them, or offered their clothing to cover her body. Maybe it was just something about nude humanoids. Not many had ever seen her second form, and those who did usually didn’t see it for long. She gripped the wooly material and wrapped it tight around her little frame as she followed him. She stepped with a little bounce in her every footfall. A cheery little thing, she was, and wasn’t afraid to show it one bit. ”What may I call you, if anything?” Locks of silky red hair fell to frame her delicate-featured face.

[Seven Xu]

Kelvic. Skinchangers were called Kelvics. Seven dipped his head in an animated nod, making a more hearted attempt at committing that word to long-term memory. Not that it was needed—he knew her name now. Palla. Palla the Kelvic. A row of ivory teeth released his cold lip and he tongued each syllable, rolling it over in his mouth as if to taste it. “It’s nice to meet you, Palla.” They passed a squat gathering of empty houses, and turned another corner in their seemingly aimless path. “You can call me Seven.”

A brusque wind whistled across blackened rooftops. Seven turned his attention towards the upturned bowl of slate above, noting a cloudy evening. His footsteps slowed to a halting shuffle, but for a moment, before he resumed his search.

“Tea is hot,” he explained, deeming that a most endearing quality as he lead the ginger-haired girl through winding paths of cobblestone and lamplight. Night bit at his fingertips and drove them into deep trouser pockets. “You uh, you drink it. It has lots of flavors, and just as many uses. Often people drink it in the company of others. It’s just,” his wits dove into a book written by a reckless and simple black-haired human with a coy smile, “it’s a fun thing to do.”

Alvadas was kind to him on this night; the Sun and Stars Tavern crested their next bend, a slim building pressed awkwardly between two much taller and more impressive. Its tattered door was ornamented with that familiar silvery handwriting that identified it as home. Seven dipped forward to press his shoulders against the ebony-stained entrance, allowing the lady to cross its threshold first. He smiled crookedly, another shadow of a shadow in an attempt to feign something other than his glaring social ineptitude. “Please, come in.”