Good Student Discount (Rinaaaa~)

[Anonymous]

The only noise in the hall came from far away. Echoes disturbed the air periodically, remnants of conversations in other places, but this corner of the ATC was, for the moment, deserted. The man in the hall made no sound at all, from voice nor shoes nor the wheels of the nondescript suitcase behind him.

He liked traveling like this, although he knew anyone who mattered could detect him by other means. He felt like the master of all he surveyed, his presence heralded only by startled looks on custodians' faces and the almost-imperceptible scent of blood. No human would pick up on it (at least, none but the one he wanted to see), but other things might. Not that he cared.

This time, Llewellyn had picked a classroom with a cleaning system. The last thing he wanted was to be yelled at for making a mess of a non-messproof room. He wasn't exactly sure what Nika would do when he saw what Llyn had brought him, but if he was anything like his trainer, it wouldn't be anything terribly neat. It certainly wouldn't be if it were me, he thought amusedly.

He entered the classroom and shut the door behind him, wheeling his suitcase somewhere inconspicuous. Then he took a seat atop one of the desks and called out to his student. Nika, darling, it's time for your lesson. His tone was mockingly sweet, his idea of how a mother would call her child. You should know how to find me by now.

[Anonymous]

Nika lifted his head from where it had been bent over his desk. He had been doing homework, not quite the homework his teachers had assigned him, but important homework none the less important. He had found a book about healthy relationships in the library. It was.....strange. Nika was having a hard time grasping most of it, it all seemed so silly and pointless. But he was getting some things out of it.

His eye was still bandaged, though the puffyness was gone. The shattered cheek was repaired enough that they let him out of the hospital wing, but he was on a liquid diet and no physical activity for a while. At least nothing that would potentially mess with his face.

Intram was calling him. The boy stood, closing his eye he felt out with his power. He felt a large number of people, their blood calling to him. Most of them he didn't know who they were. But Intram's, he knew his well. Nika licked his lips as he opened his eye again, heading for the door.

He wasn't sure where his mentor was, not being familiar with that part of the building, but it wasn't too hard to follow his scent. His hand pressed on the door's scanner and stepped into the room, "Sir? You called me?"

[Anonymous]

The Pilot grinned as he felt Nika approach. He hadn't seen his Candidate in a few days, and it had taken those few days to collect his gift for the boy. He supposed dear Nika would be as happy to see his trainer as Llewellyn was to see his protegé.

The door slid open, and Llewellyn greeted the Candidate. "Hello, Nika. I would like a progress report from you, and I have something..." his face slipped into a practiced, puzzled expression. "Did you get in a fight, pretty Nika?" He recalled giving Liv permission to fight Nika, but maybe he should have been more specific about the extent of the damage to be done.

He stood up fluidly from the desk and walked toward Nika, examining him. "Reconstructed," he murmured to himself, and stroked the uninjured side of Nika's face. "As I was saying, I brought the reward I promised." He paused, wondering what the boy's eye looked like, to merit such complete coverage. "May I remove your bandage? I bet the one who injured you suffered far worse."

[Anonymous]

There was something comforting about Llyn's presence. He started to forget that need he felt around others to try and fit in better. The envy of others easy interactions, their ability to form relationships slid away, replaced by the calm cold he struggled to hide from everyone else.

Nika blinked at Llyn's question. He had assumed someone would have told him that he had been in a fight. But he did suppose that Llyn wasn't officially his mentor, so they probably didn't alert him.

"One of the Pilots, sir. The red haired one." Nika didn't remember his name, nor did he really care. He watched Llyn with one pale, pretty eye, "I don't care if you remove the bandage. And I didn't think I was allowed to fight back against Pilots." He had been lucky to not get in a lot of trouble when he had tried to chew his last mentors wing off.

He tilted his head, focusing on the bag Llyn had been pulling behind him, silken black hair falling into his face, obscuring the bandages slightly, "What is the present sir?"

[Anonymous]

"Liv," Llewellyn replied, with a bit of a snarl in his voice. He hadn't figured Liv would go that far. The depression where his eye should have been under the bandage didn't look very healable at all, short of a bionic replacement. That irritated Llyn; he didn't like it when people twisted his meanings. They were twisted enough as it was.

He gently petted Nika's hair, on the unwounded side. "I'll show you shortly. You will love it, to be certain." He followed that with a grin most living people never saw. "I am proud of you for not fighting back... though a slightly more human reaction might have been to try and escape. Let me see what he did to you."

His thin fingers brushed Nika's hair out of the way and gently unpinned the bandage. It stuck a bit in places as he unraveled it, but he tried his best not to make it hurt. His face reverted to its impassive, maskless state as he let the bandages hang around Nika's neck and examined his eye... or the lack thereof. He silently contemplated the eye socket; it was like a wound that would never close, an exposed orifice. Oh, the things he'd done to eye sockets...

Pause. That's not what Nika is for. His hands remained suspended in midair for a second, and then dropped gracefully to his sides. "You're prettier that way, almost," he said calmly, turning his back to retrieve the suitcase and its contents. "Or at least I think so. Maybe you can wear your hair like mine now."

He rolled the suitcase over to Nika, and let it rest in front of him. "Rest assured that nothing was wasted in order for me to obtain this. Go ahead and open it, dear Nika."

[Anonymous]

Nika just shrugged, watching Llyn with his one eye, "Am I allowed to fight back?" He frowned, thinking that over, "Next time I should run away then?" Nika hadn't really seen the point in that, "Wouldn't he just chase me? And the longer the chase, the more excited the hunter becomes?"

He waited as Llyn unwound the bandage, hissing slightly when the bandage pulled at his skin. It hurt a little, but not so badly it bothered him too much. He kept his remaining eye on his almost mentor, face as expressionless as Llyn's.

"I'm not prettier this way. Not to normal people. And that makes things harder. People like pretty people better." He shrugged, "Would hiding it with my hair help do you think? Can you cut my hair?"

Then his attention turned to the suitcase, focusing on it, lips pulling back into small smile, "What did you bring?"

[Anonymous]

Every time Llewellyn interacted with Nika, it seemed, he was impressed. "Smart boy. Maybe not run, but... struggle a little." He paused, listening to the boy. "Of course I will cut your hair, if that is what you want. Eye patches tend to put people off, though you will have to wear one if you don't want a replacement..."

Nika's grin thrilled him even more. He looked, if not absolutely enthralled, at least a little interested in the contents of the suitcase. "What sort of thing do you think I would bring you, after you've been such a good student?" He stroked Nika's hair, making an attempt at pulling it over his lack of eye. "Surely you can feel it from here...

"I'll give you a hint," Llyn acquiesced, after watching Nika's expression. "It's in a big plastic container, and it's something that winds up in that suitcase on a regular basis anyway." The second one would probably throw the boy off a little, but that was okay. If it didn't, then Llyn would be all the more impressed with the boy's powers of deduction.

"You don't have to guess it before I give it to you, pretty Nika," the Pilot said calmly. "You can open it. You've earned it already."

[Anonymous]

Nika just shrugged, "I thought I had to do what the Pilots told me. And struggling didn't seem like it would help much." He tugged lightly at his hair again, "I don't really care about the cut. I just want to be able to blend in again." He raised his eye to meet Llyn's, "What is your opinion, sir?"

His attention was distracted by the suitcase and he felt a shiver run down his spine. There was blood there and he wanted it. The boy's face changed then, lighting up, a feral smile crossing his features, "I want it."

The boy didn't even pick up on the odd comment Llyn made, to focused on the treat inside. He quickly dropped to his knees and unzipped the bag, pulling the container out, cradling the tupperware to his chest, nuzzling it with his cheek, "It's mine? I don't have to do anything for it?"

[Anonymous]

"All I mean is, any other boy would have struggled a little. Not so much as to make him angry... just enough so it looks like you fear pain." He smiled and petted Nika's hair a little. "For what it's worth, though, I like that you don't."

Llyn shook his head when Nika asked. "It is yours, no strings attached. Of course, I'd like it if you showed me a bit of what your powers can do... I am supposed to teach you how to fight, and I assume that is the technique you will employ. If you don't want to, though, it's your prerogative. As I said, this belongs to you."

He smiled at how Nika expressed his desire for the blood, thinking of how reverently he had gazed at cuts of raw meat before his mother's cooks did their work on them, back when he was young and... probably somewhat cute, despite crooked teeth and black eyes like tar pits.

[Anonymous]

"I shall keep that in mind the next time my head is beat into a door." Nika actually gave a small smile, glancing up at Llyn. He kept the blood cuddled to his chest, his precious treasure.

Nika sat down on the floor, cross legged, carefully peeling back the lid of the container. The blood was cold inside, sleeping. There was nothing else right then for Nika. His world consisted of the blood in front of him. His hand came up, power flowing from him into the blood. It called to him, oh so quietly.

"Yes. So pretty." The blood started to move, slowly at first, Nika's power moving it. The blood started to move faster, long strands appearing, forming abstract shapes in the air. Beautiful. A large smile spread slowly over his face, strange and toothy, his eyes focused and intent on the blood, not even aware on Llyn anymore.