Twyla Ashby was tired. Very, very tired. It was the kind of tired that wasn't from lack of sleep but from sheer mental exhaustion. Sleep had been coming easier for some reason. Maybe because she'd been pushing herself extra hard in class lately and had even managed to bring her grades up to levels higher than they'd ever been back in Wisconsin. The only negative side effect--she was really tired. it was the middle of the school day and she was ready to be done.

It didn't help that the library was unusually calming during her free period. The soft noises and the dim-ish lights were making it the perfect place for a good nap. And a highly misplaced nap it was, seeing as she really needed to get the chapter she was reading done before class later that day. They were having a quiz or something and she was on an 'A' streak that she wanted to keep moving.

It was very hard to read about dead kings when your eyes refused to keep themselves on the page. I want a nap..." Her brown eyes focused on the window and she watched the rain (one of the lulling noises) trail down the pane in little rivers. I like that noise...maybe I should get up and walk around...that might help. So Twyla, on her own advice slowly stood up and like a zombie risen from the grave she began to slowly stumble around the aisles of the library, searching for brains or whatever it was that zombie girls searched for.

Walking about, it seemed, didn't accomplish much. A nap was coming on whether she wanted it to or not or whether she was sitting or standing and the girl fought her drooping eyelids, unaware of the direction she was walking. "Ow." The blond hit her hip on the sharp edge of a table but continued to half-sleepwalk around the large room.

The sound of pages quickly turning reached Carrick’s ears as dust flew from the pages of an old mythology book he was reading. Yes, he should have been in class but it was boring he had enough homeroom for the week and didn’t plan on going to anything else the rest of the day, he didn’t really see a point of having a class where he could do homework if he never stuck around his other classes long enough to get the homework. He was on the verge of failing all his classes except for biology for he found a subject he found even remotely similar to his everyday life. The mechanics and make up of birds.

Other than that he didn’t really care for school, he wasn’t in any fun electives either, music wasn’t until next term and Gym was waiting on next term as well. All he really had was a bunch of lame courses.

Opening the page to Gryphon’s Carrick smirked when he saw a supposedly fearsome picture of what he was supposed to look like when he shifted into his other form. He knew enough about his other body to know that they got the face messed up and the wings were all off, to some they wouldn’t notice much of a difference but it was just like him telling someone their face was different from how they had seen it.

A library was usually the last place he would hide out during classes but he decided that was why it would be such a perfect location, it was quite and vacant during class time and the hall monitors and everyone who was chasing him down for class wouldn’t bother looking for Carrick there because well… he wasn’t much of a book work to begin with.

Closing the book and opening another mythology book with information about his better half Carrick looked up to see a girl walk towards him in a sleepy haze one that didn’t allow her to see the table he was sitting at littered with books about mechanics of flight and anatomy of birds and a few mythology books.

”Be easier to see an oncoming stationary object if you kept your eyes open!” Carrick said calmly in his Irish accent as his tail swished behind him as he turned another page now interested in the properties his magical wings had in regards to the healing effects of the middle ages.

I am so tired. Zombie Twyla groaned a bit as she walked around. A moment after she hit the table with her hip she stopped her half-asleep trek in search of whatever it was her zombie body craved. A guy's voice with an accent was speaking. There was someone else in the library? This was unusual for that time of day seeing as most mansion students had class during her free period. The zombie girl stood there, swaying slightly as her sluggish brain tried to compute the meaning of the words and the appropriate response to them.

Did that make sense? probably. "Um, yeah." Any ideas about wit or intelligence died in her mind as her mouth expelled a knee-jerk response. Shaking her head at herself, Twyla turned around to try and mend the situation. The shaking cleared some of the cobwebs out of her brain, making it possible for her to take in the scene at the table. "Sorry." She muttered to the reading boy.

The boy was at a table covered in books. A quick glance revealed that the subjects of the books varied from birds to mythology. Another look at the boy revealed brown hair, two different colored eyes, wings, and a tail. Somehow, the reading boy seemed familiar from somewhere. It didn't seem like she'd just 'seen him around', but she couldn't quite place him. Twyla wracked her brain for a name. None was found inside of the filing system of her mind so she decided she'd seen him but never interacted with the him before.

Reading the title of his book she spouted: "There's a book by Carol Rose--'Giants, Monsters, and Dragons'...or something like that. I really liked the brief descriptions it gave, very useful for reference." It was like word vomit had to come up whenever Twyla was around books. She always seemed to find something to say about 'this author' or 'that title'. Maybe that made her a little weird? Hmmm....too tired to compute right now.

Looking away from the book and having his multicolored eyes resting on the blond woman Carrick smirked slightly and closed his book. ”Not interested in referencing anything really, only a little personal reading, and right now I have a very fixed focus.” Carrick said as he opened another book and opened to the page of a winged lion with golden wings and a large mane. It looked nothing like him but the caption under it read “Fearsome and elegant Gryphon” he smirked at the caption and shook his head slightly.

”Not exactly what I think when I see one, there shouldn’t be a mane, and I wanted to see when exactly they first supposedly appearing in history. There are so many it’s overwhelming but the biggest thing that gets me thinking is that none of them are described as the same. Different cultures have different Gryphon’s…” Carrick said has he ran a few fingers through his hair and set the book down. He knew what he looked like and he knew it wasn’t like this in fact almost all the descriptions didn’t sound like him. Some had ears others didn’t some had two sets of wings some didn’t have a tail, some had horse hoofs, others had talons and no paws for the hind legs… it was a jumbled mess and it was starting to irritate him.

Wondering if these were real creatures and perhaps his ancestors or rather mutants with similar mutations as his he opened another book and turned it to a picture of another Gryphon with a smooth head and no ears and no tail. Looking up to the girl and smiling he pointed to the chair across from him, ”You look tired, why don’t you sit down?”

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to be pushy or something. Sometimes things occur to me and I end up sharing them randomly." Twyla was slightly embarrassed about her sudden need of a moment ago to share her random book information. "I can relate, I do that sometimes too." Her bedroom floor was testament to the fact that Twyla Ashby liked to research. Currently it was littered with books on dreams and nightmares and how to overcome them and what certain things meant. Books were comforting for the blond, they made more sense than people. And she believed that it was always nice to have several books on a certain subject so you could compare them. She decided that maybe that was what the boy who she'd seen but never talked to was doing.

See one what? Yet another book was opened and examined by the boy at the table. She glanced at the page and read the caption. "Oooooh." Twyla said aloud, taking in the artist's rendering of the mythical creature. It made sense that he was studying winged beasts, seeing as he did have wings and a tail. Unnamed Boy probably had a second form that involved--

and then it hit her. She'd seen him that night in the park. Duh.

Her cheeks tinged a slight pink but she didn't mention her epiphany. "I think it's interesting how so many cultures have different versions of the same idea in folklore and mythology--that people from two totally different areas of the globe can think in such similar ways is kinda cool to think about." Was she making sense? The girl who was still fighting her tiredness couldn't tell if she was just babbling or actually forming coherent thoughts.

The offer to sit was...offered and Twyla only hesitated a moment before she sunk into the nearest chair. She really should have been finishing that reading...but there were more important things, like her tired eyes and body, to think about. "Thanks." She remembered that it might be polite if she offered thanks for the offering of a seat. "I'm Twyla, I think I've sen you around but I don't know your name." Honestly was usually a pretty good policy and in this case it seemed less awkward than just sitting down and trying not to fall asleep next to a nameless person. That always made her uncomfortable.

Looking up from the book that depicted how medieval times Gryphon eggs and talons, which were actually antlers from deer and ostrich eggs were worth a pretty penny. He couldn’t help but run his fingers through his hair about how stupid some people could be. He didn’t think it was possible for him to lay eggs after all he was a male second off he’d imagine Gryphon eggs would be far larger than Ostrich eggs, and his talons looked nothing like deer antlers, they were far more powerful.

Carrick smiled and nodded at the girl before she sat down, ”It makes me wonder if these stories are more than just stories like there was actually Gryphon’s flying around back in the day be too much of a coincidence for them not to have existed… bet it would be a sight to see…” said the winged shifter indulging in self gratification.

Nodding his head from the book he quickly glanced down on he reached out his hand to the blond woman with pink hair, ”Nice to meet you Twyla my name’s Carrick, and I might have seen you before, a lot of new faces, just moved here a month or two ago…”

Eyes trailing down to the book Carrick smiled and then let out a quick laugh, ”Oh I like this one…” he pointed to a caption of a picture that had a dragon breathing fire, a large Chimera with several heads and then a considerably smaller winged beast that was labeled a Gryphon. ”Ancient times three beasts of wonder fought for the skies. The Dragon who used breath of fire and immense strength, the Chimera who seemed invincible for it could see an attack coming from any direction, and then the Gryphon who was smaller than both but far smarter and quicker.”

Carrick’s tail twitched with excitement as he continued to read, ”The Gryphon wanting the skies for himself tricked the dragon to the depths of the ocean making his fire useless, then he dug under the Chimera who never thought of an attack from below. The Chimera and the dragon never recovered from their defeat and with that the skies belonged to the Gryphon.” Carrick smirked slightly as his tail twitched faster behind him, all he got out of this story was he was awesome and the skies was his birthright.

(OOC: If you want i can give you the links i am using for all the information)

Twyla nodded at the boy as vigorously as someone as tired as she was could. "I know exactly what you mean--there's a ton of things like that to make you wonder..." The girl trailed off, mentally cataloging all of the creatures: vampires, witches, faeries, that were present in more than one type of folklore. Cross over was so interesting in mythology.

"Nice to meet you too, Carrick." They shook hands. "People get lost in the shuffle around here, it's just so much to take in." It was especially easy not to meet many people when you spent all of your time doing something like homework in the library, gymnastics at the Y, and failing at sleeping in your room. Twyla knew she needed to get more socialized but some of her other priorities were getting in the way of her just sitting down and meeting people. There was just too much to do and not enough time to do it in.

Like, for example, History assignments...

The winged boy, Carrick, looked back to his book and then found an interesting passage. She leaned across the table to look at the picture of the three creatures. "He's just a little guy." Twyla exclaimed softly before mentally hushing herself to listen to the story that went along with the drawing. Pulling her eyes away from the page, she watched the boy's face and body language. Obviously he was enjoying the story and she couldn't help but smile at the excitement in his voice as he read on.

"Touché." The girl grinned appreciatively when it became apparent that the smaller griffin dominated the other creatures. "That's some vindication, right?" And because she was curious and because she just had to know if Carrick was the student she'd seen in the park she asked another question right away. "If it's not rude to ask, do you transform into one of those--" A long finger pointed to another picture of the winged beast. "a gryphon, I mean...?" If he didn't feel comfortable answering, that was fine. Twyla was just curious and didn't want to flat out ask him if he'd ever hung out in a park that was being ravaged by a giant clay monster. Now that would have been rude.


((OOC: Sure, it might be helpful and it sounds interesting. ))

Normally when someone called him little he took offense to it because he was well a runt… but he didn’t take offense when Twyla said it mainly because she was referring to the picture the Gryphon was in this picture small in comparison but he knew that there were other accounts where Gryphon’s carried off cattle for a light snack. If she directly called him small well, this meeting would become far from pleasant at least for him.

After Carrick finished reading the caption Carrick grinned and pushed the book towards her so she could get a better look of the picture. It was a fine picture and the likeness of his shifted form wasn’t that far off. ”Indeed…” Carrick said not hearing the word vindication used too often. The next question struck him as odd for a moment till he took another look at Twyla and narrowed his eyes on her face.

It was clear that she had met him before or at least glimpsed him shifting a shame he was usually careful when he shifted making sure there weren’t to many people around, his transformation was usually so ugly, a feat he didn’t care to share with anyone. ”Guilty!” Carrick said as his wings opened behind him and his tail swished about. She had called him out and discovered his fascination for the mythical beast in the books.

”Now the question I would be asking now is where and when did you see the other me?” just like when woman carried about how they first looked to someone Carrick always cared what people first thought of him in his shifted form. It was supposed to be a beast after all and he liked to know peoples reactions. If they thought he was scary then on occasion he would act like a scary beast other times he would act the part of a hatchling and be warm and cuddly, it also depended heavily on the situation. The Christmas incident for example, he didn’t want to come off as fearsome but he was in a fight and he was trying to protect Kat from a quick and almost certain splat on the pavement.

His eyes locked on Twyla’s as he moved another book closer to him reading to skim the pages and the passages of the captions and descriptions of his better half.

(OOC: Majority of the sites I used were found on Google, this one and this one was where I got the story from)

The book they were looking at was pushed closer to Twyla and she took a keener look at the picture. It was funny how all of the books at the table had different pictures in them. She mentally compared a few pictures before bringing her brown eyes up to face his narrowed gray and blue ones. Apparently she had been unintentionally rude or strange or something.

Maybe she hadn't noticed since she was so focused on her curiosity? She had that tendency sometimes.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the boy said 'guilty'. The wings behind him spread and she could hear his tail as it swished about. The girl seriously hoped she hadn't crossed some line and upset the boy. Twyla tried to read the answer in his face but she couldn't find it or wasn't looking for the right thing because she still couldn't tell if she'd been a jerk for asking. He asked her where she'd seen him in his other form and then looked in her eyes before looking down on yet another book from one of the piles on the table.

Onward, to the subject she'd been trying to avoid.

"I didn't see you very closely, if it was you I mean. Christmas Eve, in Central Park...?" It was more of a question than an answer and there was hesitance etched in the girl's features. "I was there." Doing stupid sh*t while simultaneously dragging one of my best friends down with me. Her mind added, but thankfully locked her lips before she ended up finishing the statement. Twyla really didn't need to go into detail about all of her screw-ups that night with someone she barely knew--she didn't go into them with anyone, not even the almost splattered best friend in question.

The winged boy let out a small chuckle, ”There were so many people there I couldn’t what was going on, more often than not on that night I was focused on one person, she for some reason needed to be saved more than anyone else.” looking down at the book Carrick smirked until his eyes read over a passage that made him very uncomfortable, ’Gryphon’s are very monogamous creatures, they only pick one mate in life and should said mate die they never mate again’ Carrick re read the passage again and again and then sighed shoving the book away from him hoping that was only in one book.

Trying to give off the sense that he wasn’t worried that was the case he quickly opened up the book and looked again for something contradicting to the information in the previous book, he didn’t know why but that information scared him greatly. His tail twitched behind him nervously as his wings tucked in behind him as winged boy possible.

”There aren’t many who can claim they are a Gryphon… if you want you can get a closer look…” Carrick said his voice wavering as he thought about the information he just learned. If what he just learned was true about his better half’s kind then he would be very careful with who he involves himself with. One mate was all he would get right so how would he know when the right one would come along?

His stomach dropped like it does when he was free falling hundreds of feet in the air he only had one shot… shaking his head he quickly turned away and looked out the window, ”Nice day to go flying….” he never worried about this before so why did it matter so much now? ”You think books are always accurate?” Carrick asked the girl as he pushed himself free from the library table and stood up and out of the chair.

He chuckled and Twyla didn't. "Yeah? I only saw you a few times. I was occupied too..." She trailed off and willed her mind to stop the barrage of self hate it was sending her way. You shouldn't have been there in the first place and you took Henri down with you. What if she had gotten hurt worse than she did? What if Gawain... Her mind didn't even finish the thought, just pushed the issue from her mind and back to the happenings at the table.

The mood in their section of the library changed when the winged boy started to get fidgety. What's with him? It must have been something he read. She tried to lean over to surreptitiously glance at the passage but her quick skim didn't enlighten her at all. He said something but Twyla couldn't quite make sense of it. "No, I'd think not..." Confusion crinkled her brow and worry found its way into the girl's brown eyes as they bore into the boy, trying to figure out what had made him so agitated.

After he started fidgeting, Carrick looked out the window and told her in a distracted tone that it was a nice day for flying. Was it something she'd said? Twyla highly doubted it after quick close re-examination of their conversation thus far. The only other thing that had gotten such emotional response was her slightly rude question about transformations and that had been a few minutes ago--it didn't make sense that those feelings would resurface now.

His next question pulled some of the puzzle pieces together.

He stood up abruptly after asking the blond if she thought books were always accurate. Standing up slowly as well she replied in a calm and slightly cheery tone. "No, books are subject to human imperfection and emotion. They're always biased and can present misinformation in a very persuasive way. I usually try to take everything I read with a grain of salt--sometimes you have to do research to prove something..." Now the confusion wormed its way into her tone. "Why do you ask?"

There were a lot of things one could read that could freak one out. What had this boy so spooked?

Small fists clenched together when it was clear that she was aware that he read something that he didn’t like what’s more she had already looked at the book so he figured she already read it. That or she could always read it later so there really wasn’t any need to hide what he discovered. He’d rather tell her than have her find out and assume it was something else. ”Good, cause I just read that my kind is highly monogamous one mate for life even if fate splits us apart…” Carrick said this like he wasn’t a mutant but rather something else he was a gryphon neither human nor mutant. He was human, mutant, and beast he didn’t belong to any one category.

A thought came into mind, even though his kind might be highly monogamous there was no other like him at least that he knew of. He smiled for a moment slightly happy then he thought of something else. A majority of personality traits sometimes are far more animalistic than one would expect from the boy. The consumption of birdseed for example or his stomach growling on occasion whenever he saw a raccoon or a pigeon both of which were good sources of nutrition when he was shifted in his beast from.

He sighed again feeling little to no hope at all over the situation. There would be one woman for him one that could use him how she would like and then when he would start feeling for her she would be taken away from him. This was his luck and it scared him. There was no way he would waste his one shot of happiness on someone who could just up and leave him.

The bell rang signaling it was time for his next class Carrick however didn’t move from his spot rather he was frozen for a moment contemplating his life and where it could lead, he had a tendency to overreact this situation was no different from anything else in his life sure it might have been a little more important but everything deserved some of his theatrics.

It was super-duper clear that Carrick related with his gryphon form even when he was in a more human form. He was worried about only have one 'mate' for the rest of his life? That wasn't something Twyla herself had thought about much--which made sense seeing as her concerns were (so far) in decidedly the humanoid mutant column. Sure, she wanted to get married (hopefully to one person) and be with her spouse for forever but she also wanted the ability to walk out on something that wasn't working quite right (and then get someone better for her). There was no proof that what that book said hadn't been total bull or that the winged boy didn't follow all the mythological 'norms', but still...the idea that he could only ever have one mate EVER was intense for Twyla to think about. She could only image what must have been going through his mind.

Before the blond could organize herself enough to find something to say that was helpful or comforting she watched the boy's face light up in a sudden smile. This was soon replaced by a sigh. She still had no idea what he was thinking and more confusion twisted her features.

"Well, obviously you haven't come across this idea before...so maybe...maybe this dude had no idea what he was talking about." She grasped for more fodder for her argument. Flipping the book closed she opened the inside cover. "I mean this was first printed in like, 1934--what did they know about gryphons anyway at that time?" As if answering her own question, the girl shrugged. A hesitant hand bridged half of the gap between them, as if it were trying to send comforting vibes through its fingertips. "And besides, I'm pretty sure that your mutation puts you in a unique category--at this point there's no limit to what's real and what's mythological." Maybe that didn't help much.

The bell rang, halting Twyla's words for a moment. She hadn't gotten that stupid reading done and she needed to get to class and ask someone else about it before the quiz. What are you doing? Go to class. Part of her brain urged. The rest of it remained calm and focused on the situation at hand.

"And even if it is true, it couldn't be that bad--I'm sure that if your brain or body or soul or whatever wants to be with just the one person then it'll be pretty picky about who she is, right? When you finally find that chick that's 'the one' she'll have to be totally awesome and perfect for you and all that. She'll be like, the shit." Decidedly not the most romantic terms ever used, but Twyla was working on instinct at this point and not eloquence. Her last statement was said in a bright, matter-of-fact tone--she'd read about stuff like that in books and if he was planning on taking some as truth she could used them to back up her attempt at a comforting argument.

Time was ticking away to get to class but the blond remained where she was, a small smile fixed on her face as she looked at the boy. Class could wait until she was sure that he wasn't totally messed up and still functioning properly after his bout of research. If it were her, she'd want him to stay so that is what she did.

((OOC: Hope you don't mind me making up a publishing date! ))

His attention returned back outside for a minute or two as he lost track of time, he was processing everything that was being said and he nodded his head slowly. ”Maybe your right, maybe your wrong… who knows they didn’t get the pictures right though so maybe they had some other information wrong as well.” he still thought on the subject though her comments about it possibly being wrong were comfort to him.

”The shit huh?” Carrick asked smirking slightly if that was true love was he figured he would know when the right woman came along, he defiantly haven’t met her yet and he had no intention to through his one shot away on someone who didn’t deserve it.

Looking over to Twyla who had a smile on her face then to the clock, ”You don’t have class do you?” Carrick asked curiously showing no intention he was going anywhere anytime soon as he sat down and opened another book and skimmed it to the descriptions about how great gryphon’s were.

The words of encouragement from the book caused him to look up slightly happier than before, ”Thanks… for being so nice…” Carrick said as he was about to offer Twyla the opportunity of a life time but wasn’t sure how the best way was to show his appreciation for her, ”There aren’t a lot of ways I can repay kindness, but there is one…” he paused and opened his wings and closed them behind him, ”Have you ever been… flying?”

Yes he was offering to take her flying, in his opinion the highest honor he could offer anyone. Especially to people he just met. There was only one other occasion where he took another member of the mansion flying, even if it wasn’t something he offered to her Katrina didn’t really give him much of a choice, it was either he swooped in and picked her up or she would have been crushed under a tree.

(OOC: Not a problem)

"Exactly." Twyla nodded vigorously as it seemed that at least a little bit of what she was saying was sinking in. "Like I said before, you're unique and your situation is never going to match perfectly with some old book anyway." Brown eyes rolled and she smiled a bright smile. It was slightly hard to fake contempt at a book, but the blond managed it and managed to make it sound natural, at least to her. "You never know what someone is capable of or what is true about them just by reading anyway--you'll figure it out." Because that's what everyone did, right? They figured out themselves--humans and mutants alike. Mutants just had a bit tougher time sorting out the kinks sometimes and this situation was a testament to that.

Another head nod and a smirk that mirrored the boy's own. "For sure." A cocky head movement went with the phrase, although through her accent and the way she moved her lips it came out sounding more like 'fur sherrr' with the o and u turned into more e like vowels. Twyla sincerely hoped this was true for Carrick, it would totally suck to realize that you were a monogamous being after you just...whatevered with some sucky excuse for a person.

"Actually I do...have class, I mean. I need to get my stuff and all that." She shrugged like it was no big deal that she was running out of precious hallway time. "Worst case scenario I'll sneak into the back, I can be very inconspicuous when I want to be." This time her smirk was broad as the girl relaxed so that her torso and most of her lower half was the same color as the library. She'd been standing in the same place for a while, so it didn't take much for her body to go camouflaged. As if I've ever been truant...at this school at least. Cue an internal eye roll. You're going to freak out when you're late, Miss Manners.

"Of course." Twyla replied to the thanks on instinct, her eyebrows and brown eyes crinkling in slight confusion as if it were strange that he was thanking her. He hadn't given her a reason not to be nice to him and that meant a lot in the blond's book. His next words really confused the girl but also sent a whirl of emotion inside her. Flying? Twyla had only ever been in a plane once, it was a small engine that a friend of her family used for surveying, and that was when she was very young. She'd been crammed in between one of her sisters and her mother and hadn't gotten to see much out of the windows. It was an experience that she could barely remember. Was he offering to take her flying? That had to be a big deal, being so close and all that. Excitement sparked in the girl's eyes for a moment as she thought about the prospect. "No, I can't say I have." She finally replied with a grin.