Relieved to see she'd finally found the right room, Kalos padded across an ocean of carpet before she stopped an arm's length away from Chase's bed.

He was asleep.

That was fair. The sun sank down beneath the horizon many hours ago. Kalos had tried to go to bed too. But she'd been nervous about dinner and left early. Someone had cleaned up the food she had stuffed under her bed. She wasn't sure if she was in trouble so she hadn't left her room again at all... until now.

Now she danced back and forth on silent feet, unsure of what to do. Chase was safe, but he was going to be so mad at her. She had gotten too used to having food. And she tried to help herself after everyone else had gone to bed, but everything was sealed up good and tight and none of the things inside the boxes looked like the pictures on the front!

"Psssss." Kalos pat the bed to try to wake him in the most gentle way possible. If she woke him gently, he would be in a better mood. "Chaaaaaase. Please wake up."

Prior to coming to the Mansion, Chase had been a light sleeper. Having a healthy fear of his parents, of the other boys in the system, of people on the streets, necessitated keeping one ear tuned to the world around you. After coming under Gemma’s care and gaining his own, secure bedroom within the Mansion, Chase learned to be a solid sleeper. It was thus that Kalos found him, bundled in a pile of blankets and very much asleep, only his crown of two-tone hair and closed eyes visible.

The eyes slid open when the silhouette hissed quietly at him, patting his comforter. Ruling this to be a dream, the heavy lids slid shut again. Just a dream. It’ll go. Too tired t-

>> "Chaaaaaase. Please wake up."

Sleepy eyes blinked back open, and the blanket was pulled down from the shifter-child’s face. His eyes were watery with sleep, and Chase tried to rub the sleep from them.

“Kalos?” he rasped, slowly propping himself up on his elbow, “What are you- why-“ he looked towards the digital clock across the room, “It’s late… why aren’t you-“ *yawn* “-sleeping?”

His brain, bogged-down in a sleepy sludge, was struggling to understand how Kalos had arrived in his room.

Yes! It was her! Kalos put her hands together like a prayer and put her fingers on her chin.

"I came because none of the boxes have inside what is the picture on the outside. The inside is all hard and it crunches and I don't know what to do to make it like the picture." Once she'd opened her mouth, it just all came spilling out in a hushed whisper.

"They took away my secret food from my room." For some reason she didn't want to admit that she was hungry. Asking for help was alright, though.

"I came here because you are a helper." She continued softly, glancing at the thing that Chase glanced at which glowed against the darkness, but told her nothing. "I know the sun is down. But... I... Can you help? Please?"

>> "I came because none of the boxes have inside what is the picture on the outside. The inside is all hard and it crunches and I don't know what to do to make it like the picture."

“Boxes,” the human shifter reiterated groggily. What boxes? Was she unpacking her things? At this hour?? Chase rubbed his eyes, stifling a yawn.

>> "They took away my secret food from my room."

“You had secret food in boxes?” the boy’s confusion was deepening. He gave an even bigger yawn, stretching. It was bed time. And Kalos was looking through her boxes for a food stash. Chase knew a handful of students who stashed candies or sodas in their room—some bigger kids had mini-fridges. Maybe Kalos had been stashing food in her room, in boxes, but the grown-ups took it…?

Chase was kind-of getting it but not.

>> "I came here because you are a helper. I know the sun is down. But... I... Can you help? Please?"

“Can’t we look for your food in the morning?” the boy sighed, flopping back into his pillow, “When it’s light out? It’s so late right now…”

He. Was. Not. Listening!

Kalos stomped her foot, but not too hard, into the carpet and it made a dissatisfying fwuff. "No." She whined. "Not in the light. I can't sleep." She was feeling teary so she fwuffed her foot again until she realized it just wasn't going to work. He was too sleepy. She should not have come!

"You sleep." She whispered her defeat with despair. "I can do it." Except that she would rather have had help.

Little pink feet tiptoed back across an ocean of carpet.

She edged down the stairs, always cautious of the spots that she had learned would squeak.

On the floor outside the pantry sat 5 opened boxes of quick-prepare meals, lined up just so. Stuffed into hiding behind the fleet of boxes was an empty ziplock that looked like a bear had mauled it. The flaps were too hard to separate. It was easier to go in through the side. That had once contained almonds. Those almonds were now her only back up food reserve and they lived in the pocket of her flashy yellow skort.

Kalos looked at the little drawings on the back of one packages. She had discovered these hieroglyphics were instructions. She did not know where all of the things were, but she knew where some things were that kind of looked similar.

The little coral girl used the refrigerator handle as a foothold and clambered up onto the countertop. Standing on the counter she pulled a few plates out and sat them next to her. They were out of the way now, so she could reach into the back where she had seen the big glass bowls.

Glass had been a rarity. Someone like her would never be allowed to touch something like this back in Atlantis. It was too perfect.

The pictures said water went into it and then it went onto the stove.

She didn't even need Chase.

Chase made no indication of hearing Kalos's complaint, though the “I can't sleep” protest made something click in his mind. There had been a few times in the young shapeshifter's life when the hunger that gnawed at his stomach had been enough to cost him sleep. Chase's eyes slid open as Kalos resigned herself and retreated, the world swimming before his sleepy eyes.

She wanted his help.

Drowsiness tugged at his eyelids, and the shifter child nodded off for a few moments before jolting awake once again. The boy rolled from bed, his toes flexing against the carpet. Kalos was either in her bedroom, or in the kitchen. Chase roused himself to investigate.

Moments later, after a brief detour to his friend’s bedroom, a rather rumpled human-shifter stood in the entryway into the kitchen. It took a moment for the boy to register Kalos’s location. On the counter, retrieving something from the cabinets.

“What are you doing?” Chase mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His hair stuck out at odd angles, and the tile was cold beneath his feet. Maybe he should have put on socks or a robe. Instead he stood there in a short-too-big, his boxers, and a barefooted natural form. He was too tired to put effort into a shift.

“Don't fall,” the boy warned, padding to the fridge. If he was up, her might as well get drink.

She was very, veeeery focused on balancing the glass bowl and her heart was not at all prepared to have someone, even Chase, speak to her.

Kalos gasped and bumbled the bowl and, though she nearly dropped it, she was able to grab it by shucking the tips of her fingers and using her more dexterous blue tentacles to grab the glass and press it to her chest. Neither she nor the bowl fell, but one or two of her fingertips shattered against the ground. That was okay. She could grow more of those.

She took a moment to appreciate that she had not fallen and breathed a shaky breath before she replied to her grayish friend. He was the best Chase this moontime. She could no be mad at his gorgon face.

"You gave me a fright." She hissed. "I am getting bowl to make food." She turned and set the bowl down onto the countertop while she eased herself backwards ontop the ground, tippy-toes first. Once she was on the ground, Kalos edged the broken bits of coral aside with her foot and grabbed up the unbroken ones so she could keep her tentacles in check while she showed Chase the one box she'd opened that had pictures to go along with the instructions.

"See? I need a cook pot to go on top of this fire. The fire come out of the dials on this tove." She pointed at the range, proud to know what she did. She should only have to turn one and they'd get some fire. Kalos had made a study of that one day.

"Oh. But there is water first." That came out of the silver part on the other side of the kitchen. "I am right here. You can sleep."

Kalos scolded the groggy boy, which didn't seem to earn any outward reaction from him. He scratched his head, listening as she hotly explained that she was making food. Chase padded towards the cabinets for a mug…might as well make hot milk since he was awake. Would it be hot strawberry milk or hot chocolate milk?

He stood on his tiptoes, popping open a cabinet and fishing out a ceramic mug. Kalos proffered a box of macaroni and cheese, explaining the process. It was one of the only boxed dinners that Chase knew how to cook, but he let the younger girl school him.

“Sounds like you have it all figured out,” the boy agreed. He rose the cup to Kalos and said, “I'm just gonna get some warm milk, and then I'll get outta your way.”

And while drinking his milk, he'd sit on the counter and watch Kalos like a hawk, albeit a sleepy hawk. Make sure she didn't burn herself or burn down the kitchen. The boy shuffled to the fridge, squinting against the too-bright light of the open fridge. He fished out a gallon of milk and kicked the fridge shut. Now where… was… the Nesquik? Mug and milk were deposited on the counter.

Kalos was feeling quite accomplished. She slid the glass bowl toward herself and hefted it over to the silver part of the kitchen. It balanced on the edge and she turned on the water. The water did not reach the bowl so Kalos pulled open a drawer full of towels and used it to climb up and sit next to the silver basin.

She took a moment to splash in the water. It was clean and amazing. If it wasn't coming out so fast, she would not have splashed the counter tops and her yellow skort so badly. It was the water's fault for falling so fast.

After the bowl was full, Kalos shut off the water and grabbed the bowl. It turned out to be incredibly heavy with all that liquid, but that was okay. Kalos was strong.

She sliiiiiiid slowly down until there was nothing left to help her slide and Kalos was abruptly standing on her feet. The water jumped up out of the bowl and slapped her in the face!

Caught between offense and humiliation and anger Kalos stood wide-eyed for a moment, dripping.

If she threw the bowl, she would have no food. She would have to find a way to punish it later. For now she tried her best to hoist the heavy, slopping glass bowl onto the range so that she could make it boil.

Except. It was heavy. And it was moving side to side. It oscillated worse and worse!

"Ch-! Chase friend. Please help."

The shifter child hoisted himself up onto the counter, pushing himself up with one knee and then kneeling on the counter. If they had Nesquik it'd be on the top shelf of this cabinet, Chase was certain. He carefully swung one door open, then the other… oo! Right there! He could see the rounded plastic edges of the yellow the gleaming dimly in the half-light. Chase rose into a standing position, grasping the sought-after container.

The surface prickled with the indistinct wash of multiple signatures. Numerous people used this powder. Chase was sliding off of the counter when he heard the precarious splash of water and Kalos's cry for help. With one click glance, the boy haphazardly slid down.

“That's too much water!” Chase protested, moving to help Kalos, “And you need a pot, not a bowl. Here.”

The human-shifter tucked his arms under the bowl, the insides of his arms stinging as he took the bowl and upended it over the sink. The water rushed eagerly out. Chase bashfully rubbed the coral flush from the inside of his arms. Kalos's signature was already on the bowl.

The shifter child padded to the cabinet full of pots and pans, fishing out the appropriately sized one. This pot was offered to Kalos.

“This is what you need,” Chase declared, “You use pots on the stove. It heats better. And you don't need so much water.” Chase pointed to the edge of the pot, about halfway up. “About halfway full should be good. Fill it up to here.”

That said, Chase retrieved his Nesquik mix from the counter, setting it with the milk and the mug.

"No-! Uh-!" She let the bowl go and Chase dumped it out. All that water. Wasted! In mere moments he had fished something out of the cupboard that looked more like the picture on the box.

> “This is what you need,”

Kalos received the pot with both hands and went to bend down and look inside the cabinet with all the other pots. So that's where they were hiding! Chase even showed her where half of the way was.

"Thank you, helper." She whispered her words and covered a smile with her hand. She liked to see his gray face. Perhaps the middle of the night was the best time to be awake. Her errors, she went to fix. Yes. It stung to have the wrong things corrected. In the end it was better to be doing things right.

Kalos climbed up and filled the pot just so. With less water, it was a lot easier to climb down and push the pot onto the range. She used her fingers to push in the gas knob and turn it until it clicked then fwoosh, it caught fire... not under her pot, but she moved the pot over easily.

"Who has taught you these things, Chase?"

While Kalos filled the pot and set it over the flame, Chase busied himself with preparing his warm milk. He eyed his companion warily as she lit the stovetop. It ws just the two of them, which almost made Chase the adult. That meant he was responsible for Kalos. And, if his worldly twelve-year-old experience had taught him anything, it was that adults were wary of letting younger kids use the stove. Suddenly the flash of blue flame seemed dangerous!

But Kalos was able to nudge the pot in-place, and Chase tried to disguise his anxiousness as he poured milk into the mug.

>> "Who has taught you these things, Chase?"

What things? The little boy looked at his pink companion, his brow furrowed. How to cook? What a "pot" was? Some stuff he just knew, otherwise...

"My mom, I guess," Chase said, his deduction sounding more like a question, "And I'm in a cooking class, so I guess maybe Mr. Turner, too."

"Now we have to wait for the water to boil," Chase explained, "That will take a little while. Do you want some warm milk while we wait?"

A grown-up would make warm milk for themselves and for the kid-- actually, a grown-up would make coffee. But still! Chase had to look out for his friend.

"I like to mix in this chocolate-flavored stuff," Chase explained, popping the lid off of the powder, "So it almost doesn't even taste like milk."

Should Kalos express interest, the human-shifter would pad back towards the cabinet and retrieve another mug.

"Is Miss Terterner nice?" She glazed over the 'mom' part. Since she didn't have one, that option was not open for Kalos.

Hmm. The coral girl was having the troubles seeing into the pot.

How was she supposed to know when it was boiling if she couldn't see in? The solution was a simple one. Rather than drag a chair over, which may have been loud and cumbersome, Kalos pulled open a drawer and used it as a step to help her climb back up onto the countertop. She carefully set her opened box of hardened noodles on the far side of the counter and then sat herself right next to the range. She had the most excellent view of the pot, and she had the most excellent view of grey faced Chase as he moved around the kitchen.

"May I have some warm milk? I have been trying all the things." And so far, all the things were good. So many of them were sweet! Maybe that's why she had so many ants in her room and why they kept taking her hidden food stash.

Another bonus, Kalos found from sitting up this high, was that it was easy to reach the pot of wooden spoons! Kalos reached over the warming pot and its tiny bubble and grabbed a spoon for later stirring. There was a picture of a spoon on the box. She had to have a spoon for this to work.

"If you like the flavor of the chocolate-flavored, why don't you just eat the chocolate-flavored?" Why was milk even in this equation? Kalos was honestly puzzled. "We had goats for milking, but I see that all of your things come in plastics and the animals are not here."

"Not really!" the boy frankly announced, "He's kinda mean. But he knows what he's doing."

The truth from the mouth of babes. Kalos requested warm milk, and Chase padded back towards the cabinet, retrieving another mug for her. He poured the milk in to that mug, too, and retrieved a spoon to add the chocolate powder. Kalos was, all the while, being Kalos.

>> "If you like the flavor of the chocolate-flavored, why don't you just eat the chocolate-flavored? We had goats for milking, but I see that all of your things come in plastics and the animals are not here."

"Sometimes I eat the chocolate powder," Chase confessed, smiling, "But you can't just eat all the chocolate powder, you'll get sick. And the grown-ups don't like it."

He added a few more dollops of chocolate powder into the mugs of milk, stirring them into a fine chocolate milk mix. Inevitably there'd be clumps of powder at the bottom, but that was the best part.

"Besides, if you use milk, you get chocolate lumps at the bottom, and you can eat it with a spoon."

As the older friend, it was Chase's job to impart such wisdom upon Kalos. The two mugs were carried carefully towards the microwave, on the other side of the kitchen. Chase popped the door open and deposited the mugs inside, before dialing-in the time. Twice as many mugs meant twice as much time, right?

"There's no room for cows in the city," the boy remarked, walking over to the stove to peer into the pot of water. Bubbles were beginning to form, but it wasn't quite ready, "So people who live outside the city send milk in."

Miss Terterner was not nice. But he was still effective, Kalos assumed, since Chase knew some things about cooking. This was evidence that a person could be mean, and still correct. It was also the first time Kalos had heard of a 'Miss' being a 'he.' She had thought of those were gendered words. Kalos was trying her best to catch up on the changes to the English language, so this was an important thing to note, she figured.

Chase worked on making the coral girl a mug and she was happy to note that while the boy did things as the grown ups expected, he sometimes did not. He sometimes did things they expressly did not like, in fact, since he confessed to eating powdered chocolate rather than always blindly following their wishes. It was good to question authority. Blind following of rules was how she and her ilk had ended up as the lowest and least desirable caste.

"Can I have some powder?" She was trying to try everything, right? Kalos tried to play her request cool by stirring the barely bubbling pot next to her. It needed no stirring, but she had a spoon. Spoons were for stirring. "Just the powder. I promise to drink your chocolate cow milk too." Would he help her in this small rebellion? Or would CHase stick with what the grown ups wanted?

"There are animals here." Kalos noted. "There are many dogs and cats. And smaller creatures sometimes in the children's rooms. Insects, too. There is a child that can turn into an animal, I think. Can he turn into a cow for milking?"