Avaron's home

When the girl presented her question, a heavy silence filled the room. Across Haruka's face was a remarkably neutral expression, painted over with drunken fatigue. His eyes hung half-open as he gazed at Ava as his ears folded down and away.

Tell me how you got your ears.

The demand echoed through his partially addled mind. It posed a sort of sick irony that someone would ask him how he got them, as if it were a hat at the clothing store or a new dog at the pound.While clearly unintentional, the phrasing of the question stung. With what little mental acuity he had left, he pondered over what to even answer with. It took several minutes of largely tangential thought to decide.

"Someone put them there. A doctor I think, they put me to sleep and I woke up like this."

Ava waited, it took him a while to answer, but she didn't mind. Despite the long day she really wasn't tired. She hugged her knees to her chest and listened to him breathe before he answered. His voice seemed to flow to her and his answer made her tense.

Someone put them there.

She thought about what to say to him. What could she say to him? Sorry? She rested her forehead on her knees and thought. "Does he like having them? I could easily remove them and bring his super hearing into his regular ears, though that would be harder to do than removing the tail. Though...the movement of his tail is remarkable...I don't know where I could put that in...his butt?" She thought blushing at the thought of his butt.

Clearing her throat, she whispers, "Do you like them?"

"I used to hate them, for a long time I did. I even tried cutting them off one time," he leaned his head down and grabbed the tip of his left ear, pulling on it gently to show the jagged scar stretching along around a third of the base. "I thought I wouldn't feel it, that it'd come right off and I'd get to go home for being damaged goods."

Haruka let go of his ear and sighed. "Evidently, that didn't work. Not only was it possibly the most painful thing I've ever felt in my entire life, they took me back to the doctor and he repaired it before it got too damaged."

"Nowadays I kinda like them, at this point I'd feel so weird not having them. It's a part of me now, and losing that would mean I wouldn't be whole anymore, as least to me I wouldn't."

Outside a figure wandered about the yard picking leaves from weeds and large-petaled flowers. There were some odd species making a home here Yuuma mostly recognized. They weren't poisonous so perhaps these hybrids would have a good taste! Yuuma looked in a dark window. The house didn't look especially occupied and he didn't think they would mind him eating a few bits here and there. Mother always said never take from the forest what it can't replace. Though some of these plants weren't well kept. Perhaps they were weeds here? The city folk were so peculiar about what flowers in a meadow were welcome.

He watched the sky cross legged on the grass in the backyard ignoring a lit room behind him crunching at a loose pile of leaves carefully pinched from healthy plants as to not stress them. The blue always seemed to go on forever until twilight pushed stars through.

Ava silently gasped at the sight of his ear. She was terribly sadden that something like this happened to him, but then Rodney hopped on her lap. "I guess in a way I am no better than the people who did that to you." She whispered. Her eyes teared up, a single tear rolling down and hitting the cat that was not twitching from the mysterious drop of a tear.

"I guess that means you could think about what you're doing in your lab. You know, with that cat-fish or whatever the fuck you were on about," Haruka rolled over to turn away from Avaron. Memories and alcohol were catching up to him, his consciousness and desire to speak quickly being whittled away. Though, at the sound of crunching, much too loudly to be that of an animal, one of his ears stood up and turned towards the sound, though it quickly folded back down.

"I think I hear someone out there, think you could go check it out and let me sleep?" His finishing statement carried an air of exasperation, but the amount of venom laced with the words may not have been intentional.

Yuuma liked the grass but here there were amenities like formed chairs. Most of the furniture he passed didn't smell like wood anymore or much of anything at all. A pity. Still the comfort was not something he got to try very often. His toned legs tensed from cross-legged to a crouch to gather his things. The randoseru to one side tethered quickly around his shoulders and waist rustling simple thatch against his robe. Settled he crouched to take a petal from the loose collection below him. The salty-sour taste of some cherry species was nice to some of the bitter wild trees in the forest.

In a crouch he stacked leaves together in neat piles palming them. It took a lot to keep him full but it was easier to find food from the forest than hunt. Two hands worth of verdant food to eat he turns to the house to quietly tap over with geta of rough twine-bound wood. On one leg Yuuma pushed a chair to face away from the house and toward the stars. He settled under them in front a darkened window and continued eating.

Ava sighed, Haru was still his drunk emotional self and she needed to step away. Mostly because she had nothing to say to him and the fact that someone was snooping outside made her worry. She threw Rodney gently on Haru, "Protect him, if you can even do that right." She said sounding harsher than she really wanted to be.

She tip toed out the room and to the back door, slowly opening it. "Hello....I know how to fight, so please, don't be of trouble." She whispered. Ava rolled her eyes at herself. She sounded so pathetic. Taking a few steps out she seeing nothing. "Huh..."

Yuuma didn't look over while munching the last of his meal while sitting in the dark. Hints of mossy pine smells were what largely gave him away. They were out of place against the concrete buildings. Feeling playful the calm voice has his smirk in it, "No need to fight for a seat to see the stars. Sunset has never run out of twinkles to pull from beyond the blue and there's plenty of carpeted seating. The food even grows on the walls."

One leg crossed as he wasn't the least planning to move in the dark he was quite comfortable in. There was certainly much less of it in the city than unlit forest but what was here felt blander, perhaps.

"You look for trouble out here with us forest creatures a lot?", he asked with feigned incredulity.