Roleplay City
Halflight => HALFLIGHT: Hiding In The Half Light => West Tower => Topic started by: Fell on May 08, 2007, 02:09:19 PM
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Kio knew the West Tower\'s reputation well, but that had never stopped him from visiting the place. Some of the other students liked to waste their time talking about it and spreading useless rumors, but the truth of it was that Kio only came here because it was quiet, and a little wild, and more or less devoid of people during the day. Anyone interested in that "extra training" wasn\'t going to be doing it during the day, so Kio could feel fine coming here, and not be constantly on the watch for a couple who was "otherwise engaged". Not that it was likely anyway.... People tended to be very, very loud when they were being intimate, so Kio would probably hear them long before he saw them.
But no one was here now - just as Kio had suspected. The white-haired boy made his way through the rubble, ducking through a hole in the wall of the building. It took him into the stairwell, which he began to swiftly climb. The gaps in the stairs didn\'t bother him much, either. Most of them he could jump across. Only on a couple did he need to use his chain to swing across on, but all of the actions were familiar ones.
It didn\'t take long for Kio to reach the top. He was barely breathing hard when he did, but it had been a good exercise nonetheless, if only in how to use your chain as a way to get across large gaps. You never knew when these things might come in handy.
Kio stepped out of a hole, and onto the roof. That was where the Ravens lived - a whole big flock of them. They all looked up when Kio walked into their territory, but none flew away. Several even hopped or flew over to him to chat. Kio grinned at his friends... Sometimes the avian ones were nicer to speak to than the human ones!
Kio offered a hand to the one that stayed behind - a bird with a name that, translated from Raven, meant "Gold". Kio began to make cawing, half-way whistling noises that sounded altogether more natural in his throat than they should have. And the oddest thing was, the bird was making them back. And they seemed to understand each other perfectly...
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Zane rushed through the rickety, raggedy ruins that indicated the West Tower. Whatever happened here had obviously been devastating. As he went as fast as his legs would take him, his eyes burned in the back and seemed to dry out. It was as if somebody were radiating his eyes with a campfire.
<> he heard in his head. <> <> <> <> <>.
The voices got louder as he went pressed on forward, hearing the thudding footsteps behind him grow lighter. That didn\'t mean he could stop running, though. His eyes burned with such intensity that he had to close them and open his mental sight. With a split-second difference, he now saw in a 360 degree sphere the thing around him, the things through the things around him. Just his luck too! Had he been running with his eyes burning, he would not have seen the staircase through the hole.
The discovery must have sent a sort of shock to a part of his mind, for he no longer heard the complaining disembodied voices telling him their life stories or what happened to the West Tower. Seeing through his mind\'s sight, he learned that there were things that would have stopped him from getting to the top of the tower. There were nails and darts that looked as if the tips had been poisoned, there were a few daggers, a baton, a worn pocket spellbook (he pocketed that), and what looked like a claw attachment for someone who wanted to make it look as if a jaguar came running through the place. He decided that he\'d have to archive that bit.
It then dawned upon him that he began to hear the thudding footsteps. He saw three of the original four pursuers gaining distance. That would not do well, he decided. He quietly sneaked up the stairs, stopping at a gap a few steps ahead--another thing he would have missed if his eyes were opened... He slowly lifted his eyelids and realized that when the voices stopped, their physical influence must have as well. The mental sight slowly went away as Zane foolhardily leaped across the gaps in the wooden stairs, picking up his slack with a slight telekinetic boost.
He wound up hitting his knees with the force rather than pushing them to propel him forward. He go to the other side okay, but he made a rather loud creaking noise and his knees still hurt. He was okay to walk the remaining stairs until he got to the very top (deciding to pull rather than push himself with his mental powers). He froze when he saw a white-haired neko-jin making cooing sounds to a bunch of ravens.
At that moment, Zane let the spell book he had just found fall from his pocket. He grinned, "Bad spell." That should have explained why he turned up there. He flipped through it, seeing the antiquated idioms of the verbal magic. "Bad book, now that I think about it..."
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In actuality, Kio had been listening to Zane, and four others, it sounded like, for several minutes before they even got to the tower. He and Gold had both listened, heads cocked, though only Kio had heard until the noisemakers had gotten much closer. The white-haired boy chuckled when he heard the loud creak, accompanied by a thump. He must have tried to jump, Kio thought, amused. It was impossible to make that jump without some sort of supernatural ability or aid, though - Kio wondered which it was, for whoever this boy might be.
He really was a boy, as Kio saw shortly afterwards. Kio and Gold had gotten into a minor argument over whether or not the boy had used an aid or a power to get over the large gap, which was why Zane found them whisting and cawing to each other. Kio looked over when Zane reached the roof, puzzled by why he suddenly dropped a book out of his pocket.
Spell? Kio thought, cocking his head to the other side, perfectly in time with Gold (who was perched comfortably on Kio\'s wrist.) Kio asked Gold. The black bird just did something he picked up from Kio and shook his head. By now, the rest of the flock had noticed the stranger as well. Many hopped farther down the roof, but some came closer, curious about this other human.
"What spell? You walked up," Kio said matter-of-fact-ly, though his smile belied any thoughts of a mean undertone. The white-haired boy didn\'t understand why Zane was pretending he\'d used a spell when he clearly hadn\'t.
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Zane frowned, for it was the perfect physical front as he raked his memory for possible answers that were either true or could not be verified. Even with his encyclopedia-like knowledge of modern and classical spellcraft (he had not studied the truly ancient stuff yet), he could not find any that didn\'t sound overly and overtly stupid.
"You see," he said, choosing to go with the overtly stupid as he rubbed his knee, "I\'m working on a way to shield spell detection." He realized he was the legendary slacker around the school so he had to go give an explanation, for everyone else worked hard in their studies and enjoyed what they did. "I figure that I can get my marks up by contributing something to this school... And since you had not sensed anything, I assume it\'s working... Though I could quiet my running and jumping a bit."
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Kio and Gold both cocked their heads to the other side, perfectly in time with eachother. He really does feel a need to lie, but why? the shifter thought curiously. "There\'s nothing wrong with having walked up, you know," Kio said, lightly joking. He didn\'t believe Zane, not when his ears had told him otherwise. One had to trust onesself over others, and Kio did exactly that.
"Why pretend, anyway? I walked up too," the white-haired boy went on, bobbing his wrist upwards a little bit when Gold tensed to take off. The crow had probably known that Kio would want to talk to this boy, and human-talk bored him. "Nothing interesting in it," Gold had often said as he preened. Kio supposed that, to a crow, talk of spells and lies really wasn\'t very useful.
Gold thus dispersed, Kio took a step towards Zane and offered a hand. "I\'m Kio," he said with a soft smile. "You?"
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Zane considered the other\'s words. No need to overcompensate when it wasn\'t needed. He shifted a bit when the bird took flight, though. It was more from his lying nerves than anything else.
He smiled somewhat guiltily, every bone in his fourteen year old body weighted down. He took the other boy\'s hand and shook it. "I\'m a walking liar; Zane... But I\'m not lying about that."
Now he understood the proverb: "One lie can ruin one thousand truths." He hoped that didn\'t apply in this case. He would hate to not be trusted by the fair-featured neko-jin after only one handshake.
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((Are you confusing Aiko and Kio? o.O))
Kio returned Zane\'s smile with a soft, calm one of his own. "You shouldn\'t lie when you don\'t need to, you know. It does you no good," the white-haired boy said kindly as he shook Zane\'s hand. Kio kept it in the back of his mind that he might be lying about his name, but it didn\'t really matter whether or not he was. One might consider Kio lying about it because Kio was only a nickname.
Still, they were slightly different circumstances.
Kio turned to face the newly-risen sun, its light turning his hair into white fire. "So what brings you up to the top of this tower?" the shifter asked quietly. His tone was friendly and curious; nothing more. It needn\'t be anything more. Kio was curious about Zane, though - he seemed different from all the other people here. Then again, he is, isn\'t he? the white-haired boy thought, remembering what he\'d heard about the other boy.
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Zane sighed. It wasn\'t like he made a career of lying or anything--quite the contrary--it was just his nature to protect his mental points of interests. It just so happened that this one was embarrassing. The truth would suffice though.
"Have you ever been ran out of your own bed? Room? House?" He waited for a second, but cut in before Kio could (or even would) respond. "Well, neither have I... Until about a half-hour ago. I\'m nearly certain that it has something to do with the grudge-duel I won about two days ago. Apparently pride is big around here."
He looked directly into the rising sun. A second later he averted his eyes slightly so he could stare at the point right at the side of it. This way he would not ruin his vision, but he could still stare at the magnificent Life-Fire. The sun reflected well in his orange eyes, making them look slightly more brown in its own brilliant orange hue. Zane could win at a lot of things, but he could never win against the Life-Fire that his eyes imitated.
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Kio thought back to his time at the Academy. No, he\'d never been run out of any of the above. He\'d held his own, actually. Zane wasn\'t looking for a reply, however. The other boy didn\'t even leave a pause for Kio to reply in. The shifter wasn\'t very bothered. It could be a lot more annoying than it was. Besides, Zane seemed to just want to get it out. Kio let him, patiently listening.
"Pride is important to some," Kio said warmly, smiling, "though I am sorry that you had to suffer the brunt of it. I would simply avoid grudge-duels in the future." Sometimes there were extenuating circumstances or very good reasons for them, but in general Kio had never seen one he considered good enough.
Kio cocked his head to the side, following Zane\'s eyes into the rising sun. The shifter blinked, slightly confused as to why someone would stare straight into it. "Why look right at it?" he asked curiously, turning his eyes to the surroundings. The ravens were pecking at something on the ground between here and the dormatories, but Kio disregarded that for now. He could go see what was so interesting later.
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Zane had to agree somewhat with the Kio. He was not one to run most of the time, but surprise will do that to one. He could only think back and see what he could have done instead. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty.
"That was only to get a fix on it," he said, staring still only to the side. "I love the sun and it\'s power. Most people call water the life force of earth, but when I feel the fire flowing through my veins as I power up--" he made sure to not lie by not saying exactly what he was powering up so it would sound like the equivalent of warming up, "--I can\'t think of anything but the sun."
"I don\'t look directly at it, if that was what you were thinking; just a bit to the side where it stays in my vision. Besides, if I ruin my eyes I\'m nearly certain there\'s a spell or something of the sort that can fix it."
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Power up? Kio thought, reflecting on those words. When Zane mentioned spells, the shifter just nodded. A mage of some sort, he guessed, though it can\'t have been too hard to tell. After all, Zane had walked up with a spellbook. "What kind of magic do you practice?" Kio asked curiously. He spoke very softly, always, it seemed. It was because his voice was loud in his ears even as soft as it was now. When you spent so much time in silence, even the little noises meant a lot.
Kio listened quietly when Zane explained exactly what he was doing with the sun. \'There\'s probably a spell to make it better\' didn\'t sound like a good reason to do anything. After all, what if there wasn\'t a spell? Magic was a useful tool, but relying on what could potentially be with it didn\'t seem like a good idea. It was too.... unreliable. Besides, why ruin your eyes in the first place.
It occurred to Kio that he still didn\'t know precisely why Zane had come up here, so he decided to ask again. "What brought you up here?" the shifter asked softly, walking to the edge of the broken tower. If he looked down, there was nothing below him. He wasn\'t afraid of getting pushed off the tower. Why fear the air, when you could fly?
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Zane realized that it would be pointless to lie to someone that obviously meant no harm. He closed his eyes and opened his mental sight to see a benevolent aura around him. Nothing about him seemed to mean Zane harm. "It isn\'t magic so much as a natural ability--I guess you call it psychic, though the formal name for it is psionics. It can pass for magic if done correctly, however."
He exhaled deeply. It felt good to get that much off of his chest. As if to demonstrate, he responded to Kio\'s musings with: "There may not be a spell to make it better, but considering the applications of some of my skills, it would be child\'s play to fix the problem--even though that is not a true reason to continue this bad (even if enjoyed rarely) habit. You\'ll help me with that, no?" he said with something of a playful smirk. "Perhaps I came up here to meet you?"
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Kio shrugged, seeming resigned in a friendly manner. "I can only help you if you want to stop. Unless you do, there isn\'t anything I can do," he retorted with a calm grin. Kio stretched, then seated himself, his legs hanging over the edge. The shifter considered the second part of Zane\'s claim - that he\'d come up here to meet him. Such a belief would also require a belief in fate, and that Kio didn\'t have. Luck, yes, but not predestination.
"I doubt you did. You seemed more surprised to see me than I you," Kio finally said, turning to look over his shoulder at the other boy. He cocked his head a little bit, turning back to the sunrise. You were probably running from those other people I heard, Kio reasoned, kicking his feet a little bit in the open air. You can probably hear my thoughts to boot. Well, that wouldn\'t be so bad. It would save me my breath, he continued in his own mind, looking up thoughtfully. Kio wondered if Zane really could read minds; he was almost sure he could, based on what he\'d said and the way he\'d answered unasked questions beforehand. It was a very interesting ability... Though, without control, it would be hellish.
Kio eyed the other boy again, then smiled softly. You seem fine, though...
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Zane\'s smirk became a grin--a wild, sloppy, badly composed grin. At least it was genuine. "Can do," he said. Looking at the sun wasn\'t exactly something he made a habit of.
"Ehh," Zane didnt know how to tell him that it was a joke--somewhat flirtatious in nature, but a joke nonetheless. "It was a joke," he said. The blunt and honest way seemed to work best with Kio. His grin faded into a socially acceptable smile to match his new acquaintance\'s. The smile was able to hide the fact that Kio\'s thoughts began to seep their way into his mind.
<<You were probably running from those other people I heard...>>
Zane quickly cut off the connection between their minds. He would not invade the other\'s mental privacy if he could help it. And he could definitely help it. But he did hear what he heard (as far as hearing thoughts went) and said: "Guilty. I was running to escape them and not get into another grudge duel--especially against all of them."
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Kio laughed a little bit; a light, friendly noise. "Well, that sounds like a perfectly good reason to me. There\'s no need to seek out fights, or even take them when they come to you," the shifter said with a grin. In truth, Kio wasn\'t this cool - he was just exhausted. He\'d meant to go to bed right after catching up with Gold, but then Zane had come along... At least it was entertaining. Kio was always happy to meet someone new. He just hoped he wouldn\'t put his foot in his mouth too badly.
"Why were they so mad in the first place?" Kio asked slowly yet suddenly. "You\'re not even in any of our houses... Right?" The shifter turned to Zane with a friendly smile. He didn\'t care how the other chose to live, so long as he lived well. Kio was proud to be an assassin in training, but that hardly meant everyone was, or wanted to be. Zane had clearly not wanted to be, but had done the best with what he\'d had. For that, Kio gave him respect. It was too bad, though... He probably would have been a great assassin.
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Zane only chuckled. At least someone was able to see the bigger picture. "I\'m housed in Purifico, but I am absolutely not a part of this school. No offense, but I am not a killer and I do not wish to become one. Why the headmaster of this place does not honor my letters telling him so, I do not understand."
He had been sending letters since before he even arrived to the doorstep some time ago about his status in relation to the academy. He never got anything back--he\'d never even seen the headmaster (or mistress as it were).
"At any rate those boys were mad--feral even--because two of them (the leaders of that bunch, I presume) created an impromptu-type battle against me (had it approved by some high apprentice, naturally) in the arena where I was to stay on one quarter of the entire field as they had full mobility...
"Had I not fought, I would have been made to do nasty chores and other such things. I did not have to win, just had to fight. I was not going to lose just to get out of it and have some nasty bruises so I won without taking a scratch." He demonstrated this with a hand gesture that was supposed to convey a slick escape.
"To end my tale, I suppose the boys got their friends and took to terrorizing me... Why are you here?"
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Kio tapped his lip. "I\'m not sure there is a headmaster..." he said, thinking back to his time here. No, no, he\'d never seen one... Rarely seen any of the high masters, either, and those were about as close as one got, he supposed. "Try the High Master of Purificio, perhaps. At least we can be fairly sure he exists," the shifter said, a bit of a laugh in his voice.
Ah, that kind of thing, Kio thought, nodding as he listened to Zane\'s story. "If you can escape a battle so easily, you probably could have gotten out of whatever chores they tried to shove on you too," he said, grinning. His expression turned serious afterwards, though, and he frowned a little. "Who was that high apprentice, though? I\'m sure that\'s not allowed," the white-haired boy said, brows knitting slightly in concern. After all, Zane might be able to manage such a slick escape, but many other students couldn\'t. If such grudge-battles were condoned, what would happen to the less-capable among them?
On the one hand, it would "cull the herd", as it were. The weaker ones would not be able to win, or perhaps even survive, the battles, and the stronger would gain respect and momentum. The flaw in that, though, was the variability of living organisms. Someone could be very weak when they first arrived, or perhaps even for several years afterwards, only to later turn out to be a very powerful assassin. To promote such "cullings" before everyone was on the same page was potentially very wasteful, and the curriculum itself got rid of everyone who really couldn\'t make it here anyway.
Kio shook himself lightly, remembering Zane\'s question. In answer, he gestured back to the ravens. "To visit them - Gold particularly, but all of the flock," the student said fondly. One raven hopped over, stretching its wings and cawing at him. Kio laughed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of a cookie. he said to the bird, who snatched it from him before taking off. Kio smiled at her as he flew; she was prickly, but one of Kio\'s favourites.
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(OOC: Ugh... grogginess hurts)
He made a small snicker. "It doesn\'t matter who I tell. I\'m not part of the house. As far as I can see it, it\'s like a small country being bossed by a HUGE country but refuses to assimilate." Then he sighed. Putting it that way, it was almost futile to continue his campaign. But he was not stubborn enough to stop.
"They\'re beautiful," Zane said, though kept his distance. He was more of a cat person than bird. He did not think they were unintelligent; quite the contrary. The thoughts he got from them were as sharp as a humans\'. It wasn\'t easy to see why such birds were regarded as intelligent.
I\'d best not agitate them, he thought. He was not going to be the one with a bunch of bruises and claw marks down his skin.
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Kio smiled, really smiled. It wasn\'t that his previous smiles had been fake, but just that this time, Zane had touched on something the shifter really cared about instead of something merely amusing or enjoyable. "Thank you," Kio said quietly, listening to the far-off noises made by his flockmates on the ground. He heard a distant cry of as another raven fluttered down to join the others, who were eating in... Almost a line...?
Kio\'s brow knit slightly. A line... Suggesting that the crumbs are in a line... Venorik? the white-haired boy wondered, his light blue-purple eyes wary. Kio hoped that it hadn\'t been, but he knew no one had... Except Zane, that was. "Did you carry bread or anything like it with you?" Kio asked, the question seeming a little bit sudden. Still, he would have to have come from the kitchens, and Kio had heard him running through the ruins of this tower, not from there.
It\'s a very odd gesture, if it was Venorik, Kio thought, puzzled as to what the point was. He didn\'t want to believe that it was Venorik\'s doing at all, let alone a purely malicious gesture, but... who knew? That was why he was asking Zane. Maybe he knew how they\'d gotten there.
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Zane smiled as well. Smiling was infectious, it seemed. He was only smiling because Kio smiled, he was sure — but was that not reason enough, was it? His thoughts simmered over that for a moment. Then something caught his ear.
"Did you carry bread or anything like it with you?"
"No," Zane answered, about to look into the sun but instead averting his eyes to the ravens who\'d began eating. "But it seems to me that these ravens would have devoured these crumbs a while ago..." More points to the birds on intellect. They knew how to conserve food for themselves. Excellent! He was really beginning to respect birds — ravens, more so.
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Kio\'s furrowed brow deepened. He only had one plausible suspect, and that was Venorik. A shame, the shifter thought, that he should turn out to be so like the stereotype. But then, stereotypes did exist for a reason... I shouldn\'t be so quick to trust, should I? Kio thought sadly. He wished that they could get along with each other, at least within the school.
"It seems as though there are many crumbs, though... And I don\'t think they\'ve been there long," Kio said suddenly. It was true that ravens didn\'t take more than they needed at any given time, though, and that, within the flock, they made sure everyone got some. In fact... The cry rang from the ground, and the raven that had called it had used a particular inflection to imply that those on the rooftop should come join them, if they wanted any. Kio smiled. "They do care for their own," he said, watching as most of the birds on the rooftop hopped over to the edge, then glided down to the trail.
Kio called to one of the birds as it flew off. The raven just cawed back a simple yes before continuing down to the ground. If those crumbs were oatmeal cookie crumbs, Kio would be nigh sure it was Venorik.
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Zane was never one to think something was odd about anyone--especially if it was someone he had just met. But Kio\'s sudden attention-shift really caused him to think that something might be up. Kio\'s distracted voice did not help calm Zane\'s suspicions; that, and the influx of mental activity (avian and otherwise).
"Who\'s Veronik?" Zane asked suddenly. He mentally chastised himself. While he could block thoughts from entering his mind consciously, they sometimes took him by surprise. During these times, his judgment of what he knows versus what surrounding people know is nulled and void. This was the life of a psion--having to be conscious every waking moment, having to see 360-degrees in every direction at any--no, every--given moment.
"Sorry," he said lowly.
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Kio was surprised at first, but immediately chided himself lightly. Psion, right, the shifter thought, smiling quietly at himself. In truth, Kio should have expected Zane to ask something sooner. I\'ll have to be more aware.
"He\'s someone I met earlier this morning," Kio said simply, sighing. "Someone who, it seems, is not very nice. I believe he just tried to get me in trouble. It\'s a shame," the white-haired boy continued, looking out towards the horizon. Kio\'s sharp ears caught the soft "sorry" that followed Zane\'s question as well, and he couldn\'t help but wonder why he sounded so... sincere, though that wasn\'t the right word, about it. Kio could assume, given the apology, that Zane hadn\'t meant to hear his thoughts - but he had, which made in an accident.
"Don\'t apologise for things you didn\'t mean to happen. It\'s part of being a psion, right?" Kio said, turning around to smile up at Zane. So long as Zane didn\'t try to break into his head, Kio wouldn\'t mind. No one could help who they were - it was like Kio\'s fascination with things that shone. It was a part of who he was, and deserved no apology. Though... It was nice of him, the shifter thought, his eyes softening as he looked at Zane. The guy really did seem nice - nice, and not at all cut out to be an assassin. I feel bad for him, that he\'s forced to be here, Kio thought, though it seemed Zane had adapted even to this fairly well.
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"Trouble, huh?" asked Zane softly. Kio was entirely too sweet to have enemies, Zane thought. Who could possibly wish ill on the soft-spoken (and quite cute, Zane added) white-haired boy before him? Obviously, this Veronik. That would not do. Zane made a note not to forget the name.
"I suppose it is," he answered. But such mistakes could be costly. He could trip up extremely badly one day and... The fact that he thought like that scared him. He was already thinking up applications that could possibly be used for killing-work, as he sometimes called it. But just as Kio mentioned, accidents happened.
Anything could be used for the killing arts, so if he started the line there then he was already an assassin. The ability to bend over backward could be considered an ability useful to assassins, swimming, climbing, navigating, mechanical savvy--he would certainly have to squash that mentality before it started, lest he become a vegetable.
"What are we going to do about this Veronik-character, then?"
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Kio could see that something was troubling his friend, and he wondered what it could be. The shifter cocked his head up towards Zane, his bluish eyes patiently asking the question so that his words wouldn\'t have to. "What is it?" they said, though their softness also allowed for Zane to elect not to answer. Such was the beauty of body language, and silence. Kio hoped that Zane would pick up on it, though it was rare to meet someone who wouldn\'t understand questions given through the eyes.
Do? Kio thought, somewhat surprised. "I... wasn\'t planning on doing anything," the white-haired boy responded thoughtfully. Kio was thinking both about himself and about Zane - himself, who despite being an assassin in training didn\'t want to do anything about the problem, and Zane, who despite being famous for his refusal to learn the art of killing was asking Kio what they (not he but they) should do about Venorik. It was a rather curious role-reversal, but one Kio found to be very endearing. "...Thank you," the shifter said, blinking up at Zane. It wasn\'t often anyone offered help in return, or showed they cared in such a way. Then again, Zane could be like Venorik - someone who looked okay but turned out to be quite the opposite. Kio regretted the fact that he would have to keep that thought in mind.
Kio turned back to the vista before him, just thinking for a couple of moments. Soon after, he spoke again. "What would you do?" he asked, truly curious as to what answer Zane would give. It was always telling, the answer to this sort of a question, even if it turned out to be a lie in the end. Another thing Kio regretted having to keep in mind.
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Zane exhaled softly, "I s\'pose it\'s not much," he said, letting his breaths carry his words as he went into thoughts of his own, "but if this guy was causing trouble for me, I would probably run - running is a form of self defense - until it got to a point where I was forced into confrontation."
He made a sound between a chuckle and a choked gag. "Of course, I\'m well-practiced in the art of retreat," he said, making it sound as if it were truly an art that was revered. "But that\'s just me," he finished lamely.
He leaned on the wall near the window, gazing over the grounds and avoiding staring at the sun with a conscious effort. The pull of the Life-Fire was great, but he decided that he would respect the thoughts of his new friend concerning his vision. He almost didnt even notice the ravens that were so close to him.
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Kio nodded. That was what he had expected, really. It made more sense that Zane would be more pacifistic. Still, the advice wasn\'t anything Kio really felt as though he had needed. Running from Venorik would be useless, as he doubted the other would deign to chase him. "I suppose I\'ll simply stay out of his way when I can, and leave him to his own when I can\'t," Kio responded, smiling softly. "I don\'t think it will come down to having to run. Venorik didn\'t seem the type - though," the shifter continued thoughtfully, "I\'ve certainly been wrong before..."
Kio sat in silent contemplation, Zane apparently doing the same beside him. The white-haired boy wondered whether Zane\'s current way of life bothered him, something he\'d been prompted to think due to the strange choking noise the other had made after admitting to be a master of retreat. "It is good, I think, to live peacefully," Kio finally said. It was something he thought it truth, too - it simply wasn\'t a way of life that he had open to him. A shame, but not something he lamented. "If you can do so... do." The shifter looked up at Zane, and smiled. He really did wish him the best.