A Fallen HomeKin

PART XVII

Light poured onto the moss before him, illuminating the play room in vibrant golden light. Fralith stared out one of the many windows in the play room's far wall, watching the sun dip towards the hidden horizon. SillyBirds and black birds wheeled in the sky, their calls muffled by the ClearStone and uninterrupted by beeping.

How long had he been here? Days? Weeks? Months? The streets and sleepless nights of the time before this place seemed so far away, like a nightmare fading from memory. If only the other, real nightmares would fade, too. Huffing, he turned from the window and eyed Tim.

The flame-haired man was looking at him again, BodyTalk all wrong. His shoulders were stiff, wrinkles in his forehead, squinted eyes, tilted brows, and hands stilled. Something was wrong. Something was bothering Tim. Something about him.

Fralith pushed away from the window and cocked his head. What could be wrong? Everything was okay. Sort of. Okay as they were going to be for now. "Beep?" He pointed at Tim with all his fingers stuck together and raised his eyebrows. "...You Beep?"

"What?"Tim blinked hard and moved, shifting into a more relaxed position. "Eh? Oh, ehem, yes. I'm okay, Brave Bud."

He narrowed his eyes. That didn't look or sound like an admission of not feeling okay. He huffed again and walked over, plopping down beside Tim and gently head butting his shoulder. "You beep."

Tim's lips twitched into a smile and he put an arm around him, lifting a hand to push away his floppy hair. "No, in fact I am not beeping. I'm mooing." He made a deep 'mooo' sound.

Huh? "'Mooo'?" Fralith mimicked, looking up at him. What does that mean?

Chuckling, Tim tapped his nose. "Yes, moo. That's the sound a cow makes — not that I think you know what a cow is, Mysterious M'boy." Still chuckling, he turned to the rectangle of white-yellow leaf on the floor in front of them. "Here, I'll show you a cow." Picking up a MetalQuill, Tim started to sketch.

Fralith watched, head tilted, as the lines started to take shape into...into...a four-legged, roundish animal with spots and a thin tail that had a brushy bit at the end. Why was Tim drawing this creature? Was it a... what was the word? Moo? Was this creature called a Moo?

"Cow." Tim said, tapping the creature and the word he wrote beside it. "Cow. Coooow. This is a cow. It goes moo."

Cow. Cow. Cow. Moo. Cow. CowMoo. It's a CowMoo. He nodded and mouthed the word. They were drawing and naming creatures. Plucking the MetalQuill out of Tim's hand, he pulled the white-yellow leaf towards him and started to draw a hinchilla.

He started with the head, shaping the lines to form the rectangle-ish, blocky head, flat nose, large, caring eyes, and the small ears at the top. From there he shaped the body, adding long strokes parallel to each other to indicate thick, fluffy fur, and added the stubby, large legs that ended in hands of sorts. Last, he drew the tail arching gracefully behind the hinchilla, giving it extra fluff at the end.

After he'd finished with the outline, he went back and shaded the inked hinchilla, paying attention to how the fur fell and where the body curved. When he was done, he labeled it hinchilla and sat back. It...looked like a hinchilla, though it was much, much too small and its legs were not quite right. Hinchillas were huge creatures; their new-born babies towering over humans easily.

"What...what is this?" Tim tapped the hinchilla with his forefinger.

"Hinchilla," Fralith supplied, furrowing his brows in concentration as he worked with his tongue to separate the sounds. It was surprisingly difficult— words weren't meant to be spoken so enunciated and pronounced. "Hin-chil-ah. Hinchilla. Hiinchilllaa."