Day 29: Courtyard

[deathbymidget]

Hiei easily grew sick of the same walls--not to mention the same idiots always within those walls--and while not perfect, the chance to go outside was better than lingering in the boundaries of that damned prison. So when the chance came, the demon was quick to leap on it, heading outside almost quick enough to make a nurse wonder if he was

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[heraldric]

It was starting to get colder in the shade now, and though Leon had tried to get back to napping after Dias had left, he found his efforts futile. Yawning, he got to his feet and dusted off a few errant strands of grass from when he'd pulled them up a while before. Maybe he could find a place in the last remains of sun to nap some more before they were called in for dinner.

As he made his way back to the path, he caught sight of another boy about his age and paused. He hadn't really been looking for more company, and it didn't seem like this boy was either, but there weren't many other kids his age in the institute overall... wouldn't it be best if he got to know some of them? Despite the fact that he considered himself intellectually superior than many who were older than he was, he could still use some non-adult company. At least the boy was reading.

"Hey," he began, sitting next to Ritsuka with a smile. He noticed the bandages, but figured they were left over injuries from the night before. "Sorry to bother you, but... I'm Leon. How's it going?"

[forgot_it_all]

While he'd expected someone to find him, he hadn't thought it would be a kid near his age. Ritsuka glanced up from the pages of Dante's Inferno and gave the kid settling in next to him a wary look. He disliked most people his age because they were stupid or wanted to talk about inane things like Morning Musume or whatever else it was kids liked, but this one didn't seem so bad. He just hoped he wasn't proven wrong.

"...hey," he responded after a moment. Leon seemed sleepy, as if he'd just woken from a nap, so he couldn't have just had a visitor. Most of the patients who had that unpleasant experience were far more downtrodden or agitated. After giving Leon a good once over, the twelve-year old went back to his book to mark the page before partially closing it to give Leon his attention. "Aoyagi Ritsuka. It's been better. How about you?"

[heraldric]

"Same, I guess. But that seems to be the way this place is. Well... today hasn't been so bad." Leon peered over at Ritsuka's book, checking the title but not recognizing it any more than the ones he'd picked out himself. "I should have grabbed a book this morning," he muttered. "I wanted to get a start on them. I didn't even get my journal!" And at this rate he was never going to finish the damn thing. His spells might work just a little better if he could...

"Have any friends here? From your world, I mean." It seemed to be the topic of the day with Leon, so he went on with it. A lot of people weren't as lucky as he had been.

[forgot_it_all]

So he was a reader, too? That made Leon a little more tolerable than any of the other kids he'd run into. It seemed that this place gathered people who differed from the norm. While that hypothesis was a bit unnerving, it did make the daytimes a little more tolerable. The risk of Ritsuka meeting morons like he did at school was much lower, helping to alleviate some of his everyday stress.

"What books have you been reading?" he asked, trying to steer away from the topic of the Institute. It was just too depressing and annoying. "You could always ask your nurse to bring you your journal, unless you don't want them reading it."

Ritsuka had left his in his room today, hiding it away since he talked about his camera in it. The last thing he needed was for his nurse to find the recently gained prize. He looked down at the book in his hands, nearly finished save for a twenty to thirty pages. He'd have that done by tonight, perhaps even at the beginning of dinner if Tamaki wasn't particularly talkative tonight. "If I finish this, you can have it later. It's not particularly interesting unless you enjoy reading about the ancient concept of hell, though."

Then out of nowhere, Leon asked about friends and Ritsuka faltered. Of all the people he wanted to and didn't want to remember at the moment, it was Soubi. Ritsuka still hadn't gotten any advice on the topic, and he hadn't seen the man today either. An entire day Soubi-free and Ritsuka was feeling anxious rather than relieved. "...yeah, I have one. What about you?"

[heraldric]

"Well... I haven't actually gotten to read any of them yet," Leon admitted with a frown. It was a real shame, too. Some of them looked really interesting. "Big brother and I raided the library the other night. I've got War and Peace, Gulliver's Travels, aaaannnd... Frankenstein? To name a few." There were a couple more than that, but it probably wasn't important to list them all. "I was hoping to find a bit more non-fiction, but they probably don't want us knowing too much about the world we're in right now, huh?"

The young mage smiled again as Ritsuka mentioned that he did have someone there. "That's good! Not everyone does. Some people are completely alone. I've got three others from my world, so I guess I'm lucky. ...Or we're all unlucky, which is more likely..." It wasn't right to wish others into this environment, but it wasn't any fun not to have anyone you knew, either. "Claude, Ashton and Dias. Have you met any of them?"

[forgot_it_all]

Big brother? Something about that term struck Ritsuka as odd, but he couldn't place it right away. Leon was lucky to have his brother here, and it reminded Ritsuka of the one he had lost. "Your brother is here? And Gulliver's Travels is interesting. War and Peace was just long. I mean, it's a good book still, just...really long." He sighed slightly and turned the book over in his hands. "I would prefer it if they gave us some philosophy or history, but their choice of books says something."

He hadn't really spoken to anybody about his theories on Landel's and where it existed, mostly because he thought it would bore everyone. People were more interested in escaping than learning about this place and everyone seemed convinced it was all a lie. Certainly, they weren't supposed to be here and things were very, very wrong, but there had to be a reason behind it. Perhaps they had been brought here to replace real people, and those people had been sent in their places. Or worse, they had simply disappeared. He didn't really feel like dumping all that onto Leon though and scratched at the bandage on his cheek absently.

"But yeah, I suppose they don't. We're likely in America by the looks of the place and the prevalence of English without an accent."

Ritsuka shrugged slightly and looked away. "Having them here only means you have to worry about them disappearing. My brother used to be here, but he was taken before my friend showed up." He realized only after he finished speaking that he had probably said a bad thing. "But you know, with so many of your friends here, I'm sure you can keep each other safe."

When Leon finally mentioned his friends, Ritsuka blinked as things finally clicked in his brain. Suddenly perking up, he turned his full attention to Leon and set the book down. "Oh! You're Ashton's friend! The one who lost their ears when they came here, right? I lost mine, too."

[heraldric]

"Well, he's not technically my brother," as much as Leon wished he was. "I just kinda call him that." The boy had a tendency to call anyone he was close to in that way a big brother or big sister. He didn't like the way Ritsuka went on to talk about others disappearing. If Claude went and vanished on him he didn't know what he'd do. Ashton, or even Dias - what if they went missing and never came back?

He had begun to grow pale with the thought, until Ritsuka brought up his ears. If there was anything that would pull him out of a state of doom and gloom and into just ranting it was the subject of his ears. Immediately his hands went to the ones he had now, ugly and human. "They took your ears too?" he asked, wide eyed. "That's terrible! Are you Felpool also? Are you from Expel? These human ears are terrible!"

[forgot_it_all]

Ritsuka was glad to get off the topic of family, considering he'd lost his brother and just seen his mother. The cookies she'd given him were still in his pocket and he wondered if he'd like them if he tried them. Something told him he wouldn't, but he'd cherish them all the same. Now that they were on the topic of ears, Ritsuka felt like he and Leon should be on the same page.

And yet, they weren't.

"Felpool? No, I'm from Earth. ...and I've always had human ears, but they took my cat ears from me," he said slowly, his confusion evident. Maybe this is what Ashton meant by they were similar, but not quite. "So you only had the other ears? They changed them completely when you came here?"

[heraldric]

"There are people with cat ears on earth?" Leon asked incredulously. "Claude never mentioned that..." The again, with all the multiple worlds this place seemed to take people from, perhaps one included an earth that had people with feline ears? But to have those ears and human ears... "You had four ears?!" The young mage was at once leaning closer, as though he could pick out where the other pair of ears had been sitting on Ritsuka's head.

"Could you hear from both of them at the same time? Could you listen from two directions at once? Wouldn't loud noises absolutely deafen you? Did they make hats and earmuffs to cover both pairs? What was it like?" At this point, answering the other boy's last question would have been rather pointless.

[forgot_it_all]

"Yeah, in my world, everyone is born with cats and they--" Ritsuka stopped himself before he said anything more embarrassing and turned a light shade of pink. It sounded so weird to only have cat ears, like something was missing. It sounded like the manga that people read, it was just so out there. Imagine, someone only having one set of ears! Leon's reaction wasn't exactly what he was expecting, however, and Ritsuka moved back when the boy leaned in, staring at his head. "Uh, yeah, we have four, but as you grow older, the cat set comes off."

That seemed like a good explanation. 'When you got older' sounded heaps better than 'when you became an adult, now let me explain that one.' Ritsuka was tired of the looks he got when people found out he had lost his ears at the age of twelve. It felt weird and he hated how they all looked at him with pity.

And then the barrage of questions started and Ritsuka could only stare at Leon. He wouldn't have thought of any of those questions, but it did show what sort of person Leon was. His curiosity was something Ritsuka could understand, even if it was a little weird.

"Um, yeah, I could hear out of both. Listening to two directions at once was a pain so not really. Loud noises hurt, but maybe I'm used to a different level of noises? The cat set didn't hear extremely well, so they weren't very sensitive," he said, trying to answer each question the best he could. Ritsuka remembered learning human anatomy a little in class, and the one time he was bored and read a textbook, but he couldn't explain the exact hows and whys. "And the other pair kept themselves warm since they were covered with fur. ...I sort of miss having them. But what about you? You seriously only had one pair? What about a tail?"

[heraldric]

They came off?? Leon had a disturbing mental image of his cat ears simply falling off of his head, and his hands flew to his scalp for just an instant as he tried to force himself to believe that wasn't what happened. The answers to his questions soon drew his attention away from this though, and he sat listening with his mouth forming an intrigued 'o'.

"Only the one pair? Of course I only have one pair of ears! That's normal!" Leon smiled wryly. "But like I said - I'm Felpool. It means I've inherited from genes from some more feline humanoids in my ancestry. It's different for everyone. I didn't get a tail, but some have." He wouldn't have minded a tail, to be honest. It would have been terrifically unique... not that he would have had it here either.

[forgot_it_all]

"Huh...if you had only one pair where I came from, people would be worried about you." The kid didn't seem bad, but it was so weird to think of someone with just one pair of ears. Of course, he only had one pair right now, but the idea of having just cat ears was so...odd. What would Leon do when they fell off? Did they keep them forever? Ritsuka couldn't exactly ask these questions though, not without opening himself up for to a more uncomfortable conversation.

"Huh, this Felpool place sounds interesting. Does everyone there get some sort of feline part? Everyone in my world has ears and a tail and we lose them when we grow up and look just like everyone else here." He paused and glanced up at the sky as he thought about something. Leon and the others were supposed to be from the future, weren't they? "Maybe my world is really really far in the past for yours."

[heraldric]

"Race," Leon corrected. "Not place. And I'm not sure... the original feline-like humanoids had more than just the ears and tail. They were more like... real cat people. They interbred with humans and their genes still show up in their descendants every now and then, though sometimes it's just something as simple as pointed canines." The boy pointed at his own teeth, which were pretty normal by most standards. "The original race has long since died out, possibly just from lack of pure blooded members."

The young mage gave the concept some thought, leaning back in his seat. "I suppose there's always the possibility that some members of your world found their way to ours in the past, but the way you look just doesn't seem to match up with archaeological data."

[forgot_it_all]

Real cat people? Those things existed? Ritsuka couldn't hide his surprise at the thought that such a race could have existed in any point in time. He and Leon were so similiar and yet so different that it was hard to remember that their worlds might be completely different and the ears could just be a strange coincidence. He had wished there were someone else here who could understand just how violated he felt without his ears, and now he'd found one. Even if they weren't the same, the feeling of loss was something they shared at least.

To a certain extent at least. Pointed canines, people born with and without tails, these were things Ritsuka was still struggling to comprehend. It had been weird enough hearing that not everyone was born with cat features. It was like everything he'd read, everything he had learned in school and through books had been wrong. Sitting back against the tree again, Ritsuka winced when one of his souveniers from his mother rapped against the trunk.

"So you're into reading and archaeology? I'd say that it seemed too old for your age, but that'd be the pot calling the kettle black. What else do you like to do?" He glanced over at Leon and his mind wandered back to the subject of ears. He wondered what Leon would look like with just cat ears. He imagined they would be placed the same as his had been, but...no human ears. As he looked over, he caught sight of a familiar blond staring in his direction and he quickly looked away. If Soubi came over, things could get complicated. He was glad to see the man was alright, but if he asked questions about his injuries or did anything weird, Leon might end up like the rest of the patients here - on the anti-Soubi side. "...does having a human set bother you?"

[heraldric]

The young mage couldn't help the bit of pride that came to his voice as Ritsuka asked about his hobbies. "Well, I'm an expert in the Heraldry Arts. I... guess you could simply refer to it as magic. I study it and practice it, though," he frowned, expression pained, "it's... very difficult to use it here." The subject was quickly changed. "I've also been studying up on machines! There aren't many of them on Expel, but other planets seem to be far ahead in terms of technology." He was a scientist, when it all came down to it, like his parents.

"And yes!" Leon grabbed at his ears again automatically. "I mean... I don't want to be insulting. I'm just so unused to them, and I was very much attached to my unusual ears."

[forgot_it_all]

"Magic?" How many magic users were there here? It was something of a strange idea to think that magic existed everywhere, but after experiencing a few days of this place, he was more inclined to believe such claims. Ritsuka frowned when Leon seemed upset and wondered if it was because of what everyone else had been saying - this place eliminated or dampened almost any sort of special skill. Without any other Fighter units, Ritsuka couldn't confirm his own loss, but something felt off and that was enough for him. When the other boy mentioned machines, however, he brightened a little - curiosity getting the best of him. Leon and Alfons might get along well. "I have a friend who's into machines, too. Maybe you two could talk about it sometime. His name is Alfons." He paused and then added, "And I have a digital camera now, if you're interested in taking a look at it."

Leon grabbed his ears and Ritsuka gave him the shadow of a smile. "You don't need to apologize - I don't think it's an insult. I was attached to my ears, too. I heard someone else here was changed, too, so maybe there's a way--"

Before Ritsuka could finish that thought, the intercom went off and the nurses began to bustle about. He hated this part of the day, when the nurses ripped people apart and shoved them off to their different rooms. It meant he lost track of people and, as usual, when he turned to look for Soubi, he couldn't find him. His own nurse came up quickly and began to lead him off, so he glanced to Leon and said, "I'm in M35. If you ever need anything, my roommate runs a clinic at night. Talk to you later."