>> "H-how did you turn b-back?"

“Click,” Calley answered, with a brief flash of his usual grin. “The way my shifting works, I’m stuck in each new form until I learn to control it. Sometimes takes hours, sometimes takes days. Once I’ve got it down, there’s kind of a click—like everything in me fits again. Then I can shift back just by thinking about it, and I can use that form whenever I want. Until then, though,” his sandwich hand was creeping closer to his eat-hole again, “I’m just stuck.”

He took a bite. Any chewing that happened was quick: the important thing was to swallow, and get the cucumber chunks into his stomach before his esophagus had a chance to rally a gag reflex. Calley washed the taste down with a gulp of water, then recapped the bottle. He looked a little paler for his efforts.

“What about you? How does it feel when you shift, and when you shift back? How long have your shifts been lasting?”

Ah. She knew Kaitlyn. Well. That was... it was good to see her in one piece, really. His current angst aside, Calley really did appreciate a healthy lack of explosions in his life.

>> "I j-just wish I knew how it w-worked."

“We’ll figure this out. No prob.” The older shifter said, chancing another unappetizing bite.

"I d-don't think I have a c-click," Amber replied thoughtfully. She still wasn't completely comfortable in the two forms she had but she knew she could shift back and forth regardless of that. After all, here she was in human form with no apparent dinosaur characteristics or tendencies. She knew it had something to do with being comfortable and calm, but beyond that had no ideas at all.

Calley really was looking a bit on the pale side and Amber was pretty sure he didn't have the same skin condition she did and not only because he was sitting happily in a beam of sunlight. She wondered what he had been through hat bothered him so much but was too nervous to ask about it.

"It f-feels horribly p-painful when I shift," Amber replied with a shudder. Her last shift had been better, at least she hadn't screamed that time. "It's j-ust as bad when I shift b-back." Did that mean she had failed somehow? Maybe it wasn't supposed to be painful but she didn't exactly have anything to compare it to. "It doesn't h-hurt once I'm finished sh-shifting though." That was good, right?

At least Calley seemed hopeful that this was something they could work through. "I-if you n-need to t-talk about whatever's b-bother you, maybe I c-can help?" It took a lot of effort to ask the question, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Calley gave a sympathetic wince. “Some shifters do feel pain when they change, I hear. That’s probably normal for you. It might go away when you get more experience, but probably... you’ll just get better at dealing with it.” For him, shifting never came with pain unless he’d done something very, very wrong. Said pain didn’t go away after the shift was complete: it was just starting. That was generally the sign he had to fix things quickly, or else.

They were down to less than one s-stutter per word: clearly, the girl was starting to get relaxed around him. Starting to get too relaxed, apparently. Her next question managed to make his skin nearly the same shade as hers.

“Thanks. But yeah. You can’t help.” That sounded harsher coming out of his mouth than he’d meant it to. The brown-haired man shifted uncomfortably on the concrete, his gaze turning out over the rooftops again. “Thanks, though. Really. It’s just—it’s like the pain you get when you change. It’s something no one can help with.”

Would the pain stop, when this change in him was complete?
Was that what had happened to Aura?

The young man swallowed convulsively. Those cucumbery bites had enjoyed their stay in his stomach, but they were looking to check out. Onwards and upwards. He took another drink of his water, and recapped the bottle.

"So," he said, turning back to her with a sickly smile. "What do you think triggers your mutation? And what do you think triggers the change back? Do you get tired from staying in a form too long?"

So apparently Amber was just one of the lucky ones when it came to pain accompanying her shifting. It made sense in a twisted sort of way. After all of the good things that had recently happened in her life there needed to be some kind of countermeasure. At least the pain only lasted for the brief time when she was actually shifting. Really, it could be a lot worse.

"Oh. I h-hope you feel b-better then," Amber offered lamely. If Calley wasn't willing to accept her help then there wasn't much more she could do. After all, she wasn't about to pry even if she was still a bit worried. Whatever was bothering him, talking about it would probably make him feel better but there was no way to force him to open up. She'd probably just end up alienating the older shape shifter if she tried.

"I think f-fear triggers it," Amber answered the question. That much she had figured out, based on her very short history with it. Every time she had transformed it had been because she was in some way afraid or at least very nervous. "I d-don't know why I ch-change back. It j-just happens. But I d-don't get tired while shifted at l-least n-no more than usual." It didn't even occur to her that she could be in a form for 'too long'.

"Wh-what happens if you're in a f-form for t-too long?" That seemed like an important piece of information. Amber remembered reading some old Animorphs books when she was a kid and if the Animorphs stayed in an animal form for too long they got stuck in it. That coudln't possibly happen to her, could it?

Heh. The girl seemed a bit worried over that ‘too long in a form’ concept. As a fellow Animorphs reader in the past, he suddenly found himself on a similar train of thought to the black-eyed girl. A grin twitched on his lips. “From what I’ve heard, some shifters get tired from staying in their non-human forms. For you and me, I think it’s just the shifting itself that tires us.”

“Are you sure it’s just fear that triggers your change?” Because that would kind of suck. “For some people, it’s any really strong emotion—fear or anger, or even getting really excited. I think it’s something to do with strong emotions focusing your mind more. Not sure.” His color was returning: he decided to enjoy that state for awhile. He put the sandwich back on his knee.

“For me, I started changing while I slept—it’s like my animal forms are what my mutation wants me to be, so if I sleep in human form, I tended to lose control and change. I still do.” Most recently: the lobster shift. “For you, maybe it’s the other way—your body wants you to be human, mostly, and just switches as a fight-or-flight thing. Did the shifts back happen after you’d calmed down?” Just a guess. An educated one.

So, Amber got a point taken away from her for having shifts that were painful, but she got a point given to her for not having an apparent limit to how long she could remain shifted. All things considered, she could deal with a minute of pain if it meant she could remain a dinosaur for, well, pretty much as long as she wanted to. Plus, it wasn't like she could turn into just any old thing, she could turn into dinosaurs. DINOSAURS! Although she wasn't sure just how many points that was worth, she was certain it must be worth quite a few and even managed a smile in Calley's direction.

"So far its been f-fear," Amber answered, thinking back to the few times she had actually shifted. "B-but I haven't had m-much opportunity to experiment." Of course she'd tried to shift on her own in safe places, but she certainly hadn't thought of trying to force her mind towards strong emotions. She filed that little bit of advice away for future use. Future use that would hopefully involve being safely in her room where if she changed she woudln't be the potential target of an angry mob in the middle of the city.

"I ch-changed back when I c-calmed down," Amber agreed, trying to suppress a giggle at the image of waking up as a cat or a mouse. Now that would certainly be a little disorienting. "And I th-think I c-can be in the sun without w-worry when sh-shifted. My skin doesn't s-seem to burn." She'd only been shifted once in the middle of the day while outside but it ony took one time to be fairly certain of that little fact.

Calley gave a nod. “If your skin doesn’t burn in dino form, you might be like me. Some shifters, especially the single-shifters, turn into things that are them—just them looking a little differently. Me, I turn into other animals. Everything I’ve got is an animal I’ve seen. If you’re somehow copying dinosaurs like I copy animals, then when you shift, you’re literally wearing a different skin—you wouldn’t burn unless the dino you changed into had some problem with sunlight, too.”

“There’s something you’ve been forgetting to tell me, though,” he said, his blue eyes narrowing down seriously. “Something important. Very vital. What’s your name?”

She’d clearly cheated to learn his. Calley approved of such cheating, but the point remained: she had him at a disadvantage, here.

"I-it feels almost n-natural to ch-change shape," Amber replied thoughtfully, recalling the very few times it had actually happened. She had some problems with control due to the unfamiliarity of the forms but that was getting better and beyond that it just felt...right. She didn't really have any other way of describing it. Yes it was super cool to change into dinosaurs, but it went beyond that, somehow. She wasn't really sure how to put it into words. "It f-feels like me." Well, that was a pretty awful description, now wasn't it.

Amber blinked in confusion at the very serious tone in Calley's voice before smiling when she realized that she really hadn't introduced herself properly yet. "M-my name's Amber."

"D-do you know a-anything about the Mansion?" Amber asked, changing the topic entirely. So far she had only met Koga from the Mansion and, given that she fully intended to have Abyss let her go to school there, she figured she may as well see if anyone else had experience with it.

Calley gave a nod to her comment that it ‘felt like her’ when she shifted; he understood completely. She was talking to the boy whose own body preferred to shift when he wasn’t paying attention to it, after all. To the animal shifter whose only real limitation on forms seemed to be that he couldn’t collect other humans. There were clearly some things his body wanted him to be, and some things it didn’t.

“Amber, huh?” He grinned. “Is that your code name, or did your parents really name you that? Or, err, your guardians—or however that system works. Not that it’s a bad name. It’s just... ironic, don’t you think? Isn’t amber what they used in Jurassic Park to resurrect the dinosaurs?”

He hazarded another bite of sandwich. His stomach fought him less, this time. Talking with Amber was a good distraction.

“The Mansion’s a good place. Good people. It’s like normal school, with super powers. And they frown on casual murderers.” Not that he was still taking snipes at her dear ‘sister,’ or anything.

Not that those snipes cut two ways. Bleh. Sandwich back on knee, for now.

"M-my real name," Amber replied with a shy smile. She certainly did understand the irony of that. "M-my birth parents g-gave it to me b-before sending me away." It was the one thing they had left her with, a name. Who knew, maybe they were mutants too and had known something about her before she had even had a cause to know about it. Maybe they could turn into dinosaurs too or summon dinosaurs or something equally fantastic. Most likely she would never know.

Amber frowned at Calley's comment about casual murders. "I w-would never murder someone," she stated definitively. Why would he even think she could be capable of such a thing? In fact, it hurt just a little that he felt the need to warn her. If it came down to it she would certainly defend herself (just as soon as she learned how) but she'd never actually kill anyone.

"Wh-why would you th-think I'd m-murder someone?" Amber knew Aura had killed before, but that was different, that was self defense and the defense of others. And when she was in the forest she was in some kind of war zone and it was different for soldiers, wasn't it? The whole life and death situation thing?

Calley’s blue eyes looked at her coolly. They were both sitting: it wasn’t much of a height difference. It didn’t take a true height difference to look down on someone.

“Why wouldn’t you murder someone?” He asked quietly. “It’s easy. Knife goes in, knife goes out.” He flashed a thin smile. “Or maybe claws and teeth, for you. Do it right, and they’ll scream as much as you want them to: they’ll beg, they’ll tell you truth, they’ll tell you lies. You can do it fast or slow. You can hide the body, or you can leave it out there for the world to see. You can even say it was self-defense, or you were defending someone else; or you were preemptively defending someone, or yourself. You can do it only to bad people, if you want: kill off all the bad ones, and everyone left must be good, right? Especially you. So good of you to try and save everyone.”

He uncapped his water bottle, but didn’t trust himself to navigate it up to his lips. His hands were too busy shaking, and his mouth was too busy smiling.

“They’re just animals, anyway. Isn’t that what your sister says?”

Fifteen. She was older than Katrina. She seemed a lot younger. Was he that young, at fifteen? Hard to tell. He’d spent the whole year catting; playing at being something he was, and something he wasn’t. Hiding from his problems hadn’t really helped anything. It hadn’t made him as dirty as trying to fix things, though.

Maybe it was better for everyone if Calley didn’t try to be good. He just did it wrong, anyway.

Amber gaped at Calley as he went off in rather detailed description about the ins and outs of killing. Maybe she had completely misread the man, having assumed that he was a relatively good person with a few problems. Was he actually a cold blooded killer who was so dangerous that he really shouldn't be associated with? Maybe it had been a mistake to come to him.

But the one thing that struck Amber was just how bitter his words seemed to be. There was something there, something Calley wasn't saying that she was pretty certain that Calley wasn't about to say. What was it? Or maybe it had something to do with her sister. Amber knew that Aura was a killer, but only in the most dire of circumstances, surely?

"Humans aren't a-animals!" Just because humans weren't able to do some of the things mutants did, didn't make them animals. "S-sometimes they're d-dangerous and s-some of them h-hate mutants b-but they're not animals." Confusion in her voice. Why had Calley started acting like this? Was it something she had said or did that pushed him over the edge?"

"Sh-should I l-leave?" Amber just didn't know how to deal with the situation. One minute Calley was all, well if not exactly friendly then at least having a civil conversation, and the next he was virtually ranting about killing and human animals. It just didn't make sense.

>> "Humans aren't a-animals! S-sometimes they're d-dangerous and s-some of them h-hate mutants b-but they're not animals."

Calley leaned back against the vent, still staring down at her, but with a hint of approval. “Good. Remember that—some of your new family will try telling you otherwise.”

>> "Sh-should I l-leave?"

“If you want.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug, no longer meeting her gaze. He took another drink of water. As for the sandwich... he was thoroughly done with his attempts to eat, for now.

“Hey—don’t kill anyone. Okay? Not even in self-defense, if you can help it. There’s a lot of ways to stop someone from hurting you that don’t involve killing them. Killing people... nothing good comes of it. No matter what people might tell you.”

That was another thing that her new family might try teaching her otherwise.

Amber was so very confused. First Calley had been ranting (or at least something that seemed very much like ranting) about killing people and then he seemed to be approving of the fact that she didn't think of humans as animals. Maybe the young man was mentally unstable or something.

Amber stood up, deciding that leaving was, probably, the best idea for now. Maybe later, when Calley was feeling better, they might continue their conversation. Unless his present unstableness was an all the time thing in which case, maybe not. "Th-thank you for s-speaking to me," she told the shifter, politely. Just because she was beginning to suspect that he had a few mental problems to deal with didn't mean she shouldn't be polite.

"I won't k-kill anyone," Amber agreed. She honestly couldn't think of a reason why she would ever want to kill anyone. Even in self defense she was pretty sure there were other ways of dealing with the situation. Like running and hiding. She turned and prepared to make her way back down into Sanctuary proper.