"Out of my way, mortals!" Kifo shouted as it came around a corner, its tail lashing out like a whip at random students who just happened to be in the corridor.
Annoying little pests, a mouse thought and rolled his eyes. Always so pushy and... annoying. He briefly cursed, making a mental note to look up a few synonyms of that word for later use.
"You!" the Warp-Aci snapped, hovering in front of his face. "You don't like me! I can tell!" It came closer and lowered its voice. "I can read it in your mind."
"No you can't," the mouse Incubus answered calmly. "You can see it in my face, you little... annoyance." The mental note got upgraded to an urgent task on his To-do List. "I, on the other hand, can make you forget your own name." He allowed himself a smirk. "Or I can just strip off your mental shields and let anybody prance through your mind, picking out whatever secrets your Mistress shared with you."
Kifo paled, or at least it did the closest thing a creature seemingly made out of pure darkness is capable of. "But... but... but I'd tell Fa'Lina that it was you who did it! Ha!"
"Not if I make you forget that part," the mouse said, letting his blue eyes glow softly. "That is, after all, my speciality..."
The Warp-Aci shuddered, but quickly recovered. "I shall forgive you this one time!" it shouted, trying to appear to be in control. The mouse just smirked and bowed. "And now, I shall take my leave!" Kifo announced and floated away.
The Incubus chuckled and shook his head. Memo to self: Set up anti-teleportation wards in my room. He briefly thought about other countermeasures, but eventually decided that one ward would be enough. Besides, Kifo's mostly bantering for the sake of doing it, just like I would never actually consider wiping his memory. I'm usually the prime suspect whenever somebody forgets something, anyway... so there's no need to live up to my reputation just for a few cheap laughs. He sighed and opened the door to his room.
"What the-" he started when he noticed another Incubus sitting on his bed. It was a dark grey fox with green hair, fiddling with a staff of some sort. "What are you doing in my room?" he snapped, his eyes doing a quick scan of his room to check if anything was missing. "How'd you get in here?" Kifo. Must've been that little prankster. Oh God, I hope this isn't yet another exotic dancer!
"Oh, hello!" the fox said and smiled. "My name it Kitzi. Kitzi Callempia." The fox got up, slowly walked over to the mouse... and hesitated. "Wait... the height's all wrong... how tall are you? Your voice sounds as if it came from further down..."
"If this is your idea of a smart joke about my size, I have to inform you that it's not funny," the mouse hissed.
"I apologize! I didn't mean to insult you!" Kitzi took a step back and held up his hands.
The smaller Cubi rolled his eyes. Sure, whatever. Rub it in and then say you didn't mean it. "You're lucky that I'm no fan of violence. Other mice in my position would have broken your kneecaps by now."
"...you're a mouse?" the fox asked with a surprised expression. "I've only heard of mice so far, my village had none..." He briefly bit his lower lip. "This is going to sound weird, but may I touch your face? It helps me to learn more ab-"
"Whoa there, STOP. " The mouse held up his hands. "We're not dating here, so I won't even discuss foreplay with you! You may look, but you may not touch, okay?"
Kitzi let out a deep sigh. "Right. Right. My mistake. I keep forgetting that I'm not in the village, where everybody knows of my situation... Let's try this again." He leaned down, giving the mouse a close-up look of his face. "Hi, my name is Kitzi. And I can't look."
"What do you mean-" the mouse muttered and blinked. His eyes aren't focusing on me, he suddenly noticed. After waving his hand before the fox's eyes a few times, he cursed. "My God... you're blind, aren't you?"
"Well... yes," the fox replied and smiled apologetically. "I guess that blind Cubi are kinda rare, right?"
Blind Cubi are kinda rare? I never even heard of a single one. The smaller Incubus nodded, staring straight into Kitzi's unfocused eyes. And people say that I'm creepy. "Yeah... I think rare is a good word," he finally whispered.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. Finally, Kitzi broke the silence. "Uhm, right... I think the whole blindness issue kinda killed your chance to introduce yourself..."
"Oh, right! I'm Dante!" the mouse said and held out his hand. When the fox didn't shake it, Dante mentally slapped himself and placed it into Kitzi's right hand.
"Ah, pleased to meet you!" the fox said, shaking the offered hand eagerly. "Uhm, I think I'm your new roommate...?"
Dante blinked. "Are you sure?" he asked and frowned.
"Well... no. I'm not sure of anything at this point. Kifo just told me that this was my room and left me here."
I knew it, Dante thought and groaned. "Okay, I think you've been set up. Kifo loves to do pranks like that. Never believe anything that Warp-Aci says until you've double-checked it." He tried to think of a plan. "You're new here, right?"
"Literally arrived five minutes ago, yes..." the fox replied, smiling apologetically. "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you with this..."
"No, no... it's okay, really. We just gotta find your room." Now what? If Fa'Lina didn't welcome him yet, I have to assume she's busy. But without her, finding his room will be a major pain. I can't possible let him try to open each door until one finally opens, and I- His train of thought came to a screeching halt when he noticed a letter on the table. "Hold on..." he muttered and picked it up. "Dear Dante... blah blah blah... hereby assign Kitzi as..." He raised an eyebrow. "...your new roomate. Signed, Fa'Lina. Well, damn. This is your room." He blinked in surprise. Why did she assign him to my room? Dante asked himself. I've been living alone ever since the tenth roommate left within a day.
"You... don't sound pleased..." Kitzi said slowly. "I... I'm sure I can just ask for another room if you're uncomfortable with this..."
Dante gave him a look. "You're worried that I'm uncomfortable?" he asked, failing to hide his surprise.
"I don't know... it's just that you don't sound overly thrilled by all of this..."
The mouse sighed. "It's not that," he told the fox. Might as well get it over with... "I'm a member of the Hadruroh Clan," he whispered and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the worst.
"That's a nice name..." Kitzi told him, making Dante blink.
"You... you're not angry or freaked out?" the mouse asked, briefly scanning the fox's emotions, but failing to detect any negative vibes.
Kitzi gave him a confused look. "Why should I be freaked out?"
Well, that hasn't happened before, Dante thought and raised an eyebrow. "You're not really up to date with Clan history, are you?" he asked carefully.
"Clan... that's the group Cubi live in, right?" Kitzi asked and chuckled nervously. "I'm sorry, the first time I'd heard of that word was yesterday, so I'm not really sure how-"
"Whoa, wait!" Dante interrupted him. "You're a Cubi... and you don't know about Clans? At all?"
"Nope, sorry. Grew up in a small village-"
"Filled with Cubi?"
"Errr, no. Filled with villagers." Kitzi shrugged. "From what I know, my parents adopted me. Or found me. Or something. They didn't really tell me."
He's an orphan. He doesn't know about my Clan. Dante smiled. This might work... as long as I don't tell him about-... no. No. He'll find it out sooner or later anyway, so I should tell him. He gritted his teeth. But then he'll leave. Number eleven!
"What's wrong with your Clan?" Kitzi suddenly asked.
Dante opened and closed his mouth. "It... it's a long story," he stammered, one hand nervously brushing through his light blue hair without touching his bat-like headwings. When he noticed Kitzi's expression, he let out a sigh. "My Clan's speciality is mindreading and, more to the point, erasing memories. And a few hundred years ago, my Clan decided to go all out." He rubbed his eyes with one hand, trying to keep his voice even. "They raided a village of Beings. Raped pretty much everybody in sight, killed a few and then they... they wiped them all clean. No memories of the event were left in their heads."
Kitzi shuddered and started to pace. "This... this can't... you're not serious... I mean..." he stammered and shook his head. Dante could feel the extreme levels of disgust and uneasiness in the younger Cubi and let out a sigh.
"It's the truth. And the other Clans somehow got wind of it. Nobody knows exactly how, but word got out, and it had a negative effect on the relationship with the other Clans."
"No kidding," Kitzi muttered. "I mean... we're talking about rape and murder!"
Dante blinked. "No. Many Clans were actually okay with that. They were just afraid that my Clan might try to mind-wipe other Clans, especially ones with worse shielding techniques."
"WHAT?" Kitzi yelled and clenched his fists.
"Easy, easy!" Dante hissed, carefully moving a few steps away. "You're obviously not up to date with our mentality, so let me expl-"
"Mentality?" Kitzi snapped. "It's a completely psycho mentality! What kind of sicko would be okay with this kind of insanity?"
Dante could feel something happening to Kitzi, but he wasn't sure what it was. Magic? Doubt it. But it does feel like some... raw ability coming to life. I should maybe try to get this under control before things spin out of control. "Kitzi, look. You should maybe try to see things from another perspective..."
"Another perspective? What other perspective is there when you're talking about RAPE AND MURDER?"
"I'm just saying that-WHOA!" Dante yelped, barely managing to dodge the tentacle that had lashed out at his head. He didn't have to take a look at Dante to know that the tentacle was coming out of the fox's wing. Wonderful! His wing tentacles chose the dumbest moment to show themselves!
"What's going on?" Kitzi asked loudly, unable to hide his concern. "Dante?"
"Kitzi, listen to me, you-" He stopped speaking when he noticed another tentacle forming. Not good, he told himself. Then he noticed that each of the tentacles ended in a small cobra head. Not good at all. "Kitzi, I-" Both heads swung in his direction and hissed quietly. Dante frowned. The heads... don't have eyes? He stared at one of the cobra heads, which was tasting the air with flicks of its tongue. Of course, they're as blind as Kitzi is! So all I have to do is stay quiet and hope that they can't pick up my scent from over there... and... and then what?
"Dante? What's that hissing sound?" Kitzi slowly turned around, apparently trying to locate the source of the noise. "Come on, that's not funny... say something!"
Dammit. He needs to calm down in order to make the tentacles stop, but he won't calm down because the tentacles don't stop. Dante rolled his eyes. Okay, think. You got a young Incubus who apparently has no control over his powers. As long as you stay quiet, you're relatively safe, but the longer you stay quiet, the more he freaks out. If only there was a way to-... oh, duh. He most likely can't filter or block emotions yet! He held out a hand and carefully set up a fake layer of emotions that he projected at Kitzi. I'm happy. I'm calm. Everything is peachy. No need to worry about anything. Don't you think so, Kitzi? You can feel it, can't you? You're a Cubi, you can sense my emotions. You can feel that I'm calm and happy. He smirked. And if I force-feed you enough of these emotions, I should be able to flood you...
Kitzi let out a long sigh. "Dante? Something is... happening... but... it's not too bad, I guess..." the fox whispered slowly, his tentacles retreating back into his wings until they were completely gone.
"Relax, Kitzi..." Dante said quietly and carefully approached the younger Incubus. "You're relaxed, aren't you?"
"Yeah... yeah, I guess so... what happened?"
Dante led Kitzi to the bed and let him sit down. "I assume you're not familiar with your powers yet, right?"
Kitzi shook his head. "I guess not... Well, I do know of the mindreading and the age parts... and I know I don't have to eat because of emotions or something like that..."
"Yeah, that are some of your powers," Dante told him and hopped onto the bed himself. "But there is more. One of our powers is the ability to shapeshift."
"Shapeshift? You mean, like, turning into other people and stuff?"
"Among other things, yes. The thing is that the key of this ability lies in our wings. All shapeshifting starts there."
The blind fox shook his head. "How is shapeshifting connected to the hissing?"
"Well... our wings can... how should I put it... they can grow tentacles."
There was a long pause. "Tentacles," Kitzi finally repeated.
"Tentacles. And some Cubi have tentacles ending in small animal heads."
Kitzo opened and closed his mouth. "Please tell me you ate some weird 'shrooms before coming here."
Dante chuckled. "Sorry, but that's the truth. The hissing you heard were your own tentacle heads. And they were acting on subconscious orders."
"What sort of animal makes such noises?"
"Cobra," Dante replied, keeping an eye on Kitzi's wings, just in case.
"So you're telling me that I accidentally summoned... cobra-headed tentacles? And they were doing what exactly?"
"They tried to attack me. Most likely because you were getting all worked up over the Clan history thing."
"My God," Kitzi whispered, burying his face in his hands. "This is so horribly messed up... I'm a monster!"
Dante tried to smile. "No, you're not. You just need to learn how to control these things. And that begins with controlling your emotions."
"Oh, joy," Kitzi muttered. "Here we go again with the emotions."
"Easy, easy. Just try to stay calm, and you'll be fine. The tentacle heads reflect your mood. So as long as you are calm, happy or neutral, they might not even show themselves." Most of the time, he silently added. "However, when you're highly irritated or angry, they will try to 'help' you."
"You got these things, too?"
"Wing tentacles?" Dante asked. "Every Cubi has those. Not everybody has tentacle heads, though. My tentacles, for example, don't have heads." He gave Kitzi a look. "There's a reason for that, too. Would you like to hear it?"
"Not now... I'm too busy feeling like a freak to pay attention to your story..."
"Well, if it makes you feel better: Right now, any Cubi in the Academy would be able to stop you if you went on an accidental berserker run."
Kitzi gave him a look with his empty eyes. "You're not very experienced in the 'make people feel better' field, are you?" he asked and smirked lightly.
"Yeah, sorry about that," Dante said and chuckled. "Few people come to me when they want to be comforted."
"Oh, right. The whole part where you rape and murder villagers."
The mouse gritted his teeth. "I don't," he hissed. "Those events happened before my birth. I'm a very easy-going and peaceful guy, actually." He rubbed his temples and sighed. "I wouldn't do stuff like that, but others would. Easily. And often."
"Don't you guys have... laws against that? I mean, against murder and rape and what-else-not-"
Dante rolled his eyes. "Right... right... this must sound weird to you since you grew up in a village filled with Beings. How should I put it? You, Kitzi are not a Being. Beings are not your equal. Keep that in mind. You're an Incubus, and that means that you out-everything most Beings. You live longer, you can read minds, you can shapeshift, you can do magic and you can eat emotions and souls." When he noticed Kitzi's shocked expression, he stopped. "Wait. Which part didn't you know?"
"...the soul-eating one..." Kitzi whispered.
"Oh. My bad... uhm..." Dante mentally slapped himself again. Great going! You're really good at making him feel comfortable! "But there is something important to keep in mind, Kitzi!"
"Like what?" Kitzi asked, wrapping his arms around himself.
"It's completely up to you if you use any of these powers. Nobody expects you to kill or harm people. You're here to learn and to train. You will be taught how to do all of these things, but nobody will order you to use your powers in a particular way."
Kitzi said nothing for a minute, going over the information. "So you're saying that some Cubi do these horrible things simply because they feel that Beings are not their equals? And these things are not against our laws, but some Cubi still frown upon them?"
"Basically, that's the way it goes, yeah." Dante smiled. Kid's pretty rational once he stops freaking out.
"And you have issues making friends because of something your Clan can do?"
Dante sighed. "Pretty much, yeah. Cubi who come here from their Clans know what my Clan did, and they were taught to stay away from Hadruroh Cubi because we can easily rush past most of the weaker mental barriers and make them forget their own name."
"And... you can do that, right?" Kitzi asked carefully.
"Many Cubi can do that," Dante corrected him. "My Clan just has much less trouble doing it. It's a talent."
Kitzi steepled his fingers. "But you, personally, wouldn't do that, right?"
A smile appeared on Dante's face. "No, I wouldn't..." he said happily.
"Then I think there's nothing that speaks against us giving this whole 'roommate' thing a chance, right?" Kitzi asked and returned the smile.
---
Author's Notes:
- First of all: Thanks to everyone who commented! I'll try not to disappoint! :)
- Also thanks to llearch for the beta-reading work!
- I love writing Kitzi's reactions to the various things we here take for granted (like the tentacle heads).
- I also love writing Kifo, but I think you noticed that one already :P