It was a Thursday night and Victoria was bored. So she walked barefoot, and in one of her less "pretty" dresses, to the living room area. No one was around at the moment which gave the little blonde a prime opportunity to get on the piano and start playing some little tunes. Some she hummed to while others she sang soft little songs. Her boredom slowly went away as she lost herself in the music.

It was Thursday night and Jiri was a bat. So he flew barefoot--

wait what.

The bat promptly fell out of the air, and Jiri was hard-pressed to figure out where his panic ended and the animal's began. Bats were apparently pretty smart (he thought irrationally, as they plummeted towards the floor), because he hadn't felt this much emotion when he'd possessed dogs before (or maybe it was just the fact that they were going to hit in three two one--)

FLOOR.

(...Oww.)

The bat tittered a stream of chirps that Jiri was forced to interpret as exotic cursing at his parentage because when they reflected off the walls and couch and that succulent moth in the air that was getting away and they came back to his brain as a massive, crippling headache.

(Da f***, would be a lose interpretation of the bat's thoughts on this matter. Damn bipeds, damn big house, damn open window it had flown in through.)

Echolocation: not for novices. Tentatively, Jiri tried stretching his wings and flapping. Flight, go! Go? Yeah no he had no clue how that was supposed to work, especially starting from the ground. On the bright side, nothing seemed to be broken. A lot of things were ache-y, but none were sharp-stab-y.

Also, he was pretty sure this critter needed glasses. Maybe a flashlight. He could see, but it was like seeing when you wake up at 3AM and your eyes are covered in eye-goop and everything is dark fuzzy shapes. This was... not helpful. And when he thought of seeing better, one of those streams of chirps left his mouth again and with very little delay returned to his big wide ears and hit him across the frontal lobe with CHAIR WALL PIANO DOORWAY MOTH, which was like waking up at 3AM and your eyes are covered in eye-goop and your roommate has flipped on every light in the world and pointed them directly at your retinas. Everything was crystal clear and oww and maybe you'll adjust in a few minutes or maybe you'll be horribly blind for the rest of your life because that's what it feels like.

Chirp, he tentatively said. Just the one. Like squinting through fingers.

Chair leg five wing beats away West by South West, his brain returned.

Yeah. That was going to take some getting used to. For now, he should maybe... not be in the middle of the floor? He was pretty sure he was in the middle of the floor. Getting stepped on did not appeal to him (and the bat-brain concurred). Slowly, getting his little claws stuck in the fibers of the carpet far more often than he would later admit, Jiri worked his way under that West-by-South-West Chair. And there he huddled, really hoping he'd wake up soon, please, and occasionally chirping to himself.

So to recap: It was Thursday night and Jiri was a bored bat.

That is, until his hesitant chirps picked up on someone moving towards him. Unerringly, like they knew were he was, and he had a sudden moment of terror wondering if anyone in the Mansion had some sort of bat-eating mutation when suddenly--

The girl pulled the chair a little out, and sat down.

To his bat ears, the noises that came next where beautiful. He sat under the chair, enraptured, as notes followed each other. Sometimes her voice filled in a gap in harmony he hadn't known was there, and sometimes it left that void flitting through the air, a counterpart of silence.

Bat ears and bat brains were well suited to appreciating pleasant sounds.

Without even realizing it, he crawled a little closer, bit by bit, until he quite accidentally brushed against her leg. He realized it too late, and tried to scurrying back under the chair, but the claw on one of his wings was stuck in the carpet again and struggling didn't help and she was going to step on him, he knew she would--

The little brown bat lay cringing against the carpeting, waiting for the inevitable scream-and-stomp.

All was well in the living room as the musical notes from both the piano and Victoria’s voice filled the large area. She played songs her mother had taught her as well as making up her own slight variations. Adding new key strokes to give a new dimension of sound, Victoria made up some of her own words for new songs that resulted in a few giggles from time-to-time. She loved music whether it was listening to it or making her own, and if anyone was to happen to enjoy it as well then all the better.

Now she was smiling.

That is until something touched her leg. Eyebrows furled while the girl leaned over the side of the chair to see what had touched her and if it was still there.

To her surprise the unknown thing that touched her was still there. Amazingly there on the floor was a little brown bat. “Awww poor little nahkhiir!” Victoria carefully climbed out of the chair making sure it didn’t move and knelt down next to it. She examined the bat. This was the first time she had seen one this close and in person before. The little creature was cute with its little body and soft looking fur. It appeared to be stuck in the carpet though. “Hold on little one.” Carefully she cupped her left hand and placed it gently over the bat then with her right hand she tried to help get the bat’s claw free from the carpet threads.

It took just a few moments but the bat wiggled enough to free itself with Victoria’s help. She carefully held the bat cupped in her hands and sat up while looking the creature over to make sure it was ok. Lightly stroking the tip of her fingers over the bats head and back. “What are you doing in here? Did you get lost, or maybe you came in through an open window?” She pondered for a moment that it might be one of the students who had turned into the animal. Maybe that’s why she was talking to it?

The little brown bat held very still as the girl got up. Intellectually, Jiri knew from the size his anxious little chirps were bringing back that she must be a fellow teenager. But realistically, it was hard to think of her as anything but a looming giant that could crush him with a single misplaced foot.

The anxious chirping continued as she crouched over him. His wing was well and truly stuck, there was nowhere to go, he apologized fervently in his (their) head to the bat for getting it killed--

A warm hand landed gently on his back, and another worked patiently at untangling his claw. The bat's heart beat loudly in its chest as he worked to process this. So... not their impending death, then?

She lifted him up to eye level. The bat stayed still in her hands, tucking its wings neatly in against its sides after an experimental stretch of his newly freed wing to make sure everything still worked. Jiri was careful to keep his claws from poking at his skin.

A series of not unhappy chirps left him as she pet him. Jiri's large ears swiveled forward as she spoke.

>> “What are you doing in here? Did you get lost, or maybe you came in through an open window?”

The bat tilted its head in consideration. Could he pantomime I am a student possessing a bat? ...Yeah no, probably not. He'd try for something simpler.

The little bat gathered itself in her hand, using one wing to prop itself up into a vaguely sitting position. The other it stretched out towards the piano. Then it let out a series of little clicks, that tried (and mostly failed) to be musical.

I heard you playing, was the rough translation he was trying to get across, with a subtext of, oh hey by the way I'm a student not a bat, please continue to not maim me.

Watching the little creature was actually a bit fun. The bat seemed to accept being held and then pointed in the direction of the piano. “You were in the piano? Oh my! I’m sorry if I scared you. I just wanted to play some tunes because I was bored and missed playing music.”

Victoria gave another couple gentle fingertip brushes over the bats head before setting it down on the top of the piano. “I’m not really sure where you came from little bat, but I’d be happy to play you some songs. Hopefully you’ll like them and maybe I’ll make up one for you.”

With a sweet smile on her face Victoria began playing more songs on the piano. Some were strictly musical while a few others she sang to. Then she tried making a little song for the little bat. It came out a little awkward but ended up still being sweet and cute. “How was that nahkhiir? Did you like it?”

The bat fussily settled itself on the piano's top, much like a dog figuring out the most comfortable spot on a pillow. His human brain initially tried for sitting, but suffice it to say that a bat's tailbone was meant for being a tail, not to mention a part of its flight system, and was very much not adapted for sitting. Standing was out, too. After a great many moments, he finally figured out that a belly flop with his wings tucked next to him was the best way to go.

From there on out, things were simply divine. The girl played like the night itself, deep and all-encompassing, with sparks of light. The bats ears swiveled to catch each change in cadence, even as his eyes slipped shut without him even noticing.

The song she made for him was silly; as silly as anything could be, sung in her voice. It was like listening to an opera starlet preforming a children's CD. The little bat catch the tune and chirped along.

At some point, the chirping changed to humming.

It took a disorienting moment after that for Jiri to realize he was in his own bed again, and human, and also probably waking up his roommate with batty lyrics. Literally. Which meant that downstairs--

He vaulted off the bed, and out the door, whispering a quick sorry-didn't-mean-to-wake-you to Alex on his way out. On bare feet he thumped down the stairs (...as quietly as he could. People were sleeping.)

On the piano, the bat stared at the girl for a moment in terrified alarm, before wheeling off.

Not a minute later, a middle eastern teen in a tank top and batman boxers stumbled into the room, panting.

"That," Jiri gasped, "was awesome. You're really talented, you know? Why haven't I seen you around?"

It didn't occur to him that she wouldn't know who he was, now that he was rather distinctly bipedal. He obviously knew her.

When the bat scurried off the piano top it occurred to Victoria that perhaps it had other things to do. After all, the night doesn’t last forever.

Oh but if it did….her thoughts trailed off into imagining a world of eternal night. She could be up and about at the same time most other people would be. She could meet more people and make more friends. The fun they all could have would be amazing. If only…

Her thoughts were broken up when a boy started speaking. She looked to see who it was as she didn’t recognize the voice. To her surprise it was a boy in what could be called his pajama’s, but aren’t those boxers? It’s a boy in his underwear! Victoria immediately averted her eyes in embarrassment and blocked out the boy’s lower half with her right hand.

“Where’d you come from? I didn’t see you earlier. Were you listening to me? Why don’t you have pants on?”