It had been a long time since the last ‘exploration’ of the Xavier grounds and it would seem that it was due for another exploring day. Now not that much had changed since the last time it was explored with the exception of more plants and perhaps a few new land marks, but it was still enough to mount another expedition. The young explorer, better known as Ruby Lupin was in her fox pup form and was exploring the vastness that was the Mansion grounds. The pup had made been exploring every nook and cranny of the entire Mansion, enjoying herself immensely as she did so.

The tiny kit stalked through the taller grass that had yet to be mowed because of the recent rainstorms prevented anyone from going out and mowing without getting electrocuted. Ruby herself would have gladly gone out at done it due to her abilities but her sister would have none of it, being the paranoid overprotective she wolf she was. Not that Ruby minded though, that was her big sister after all and if the wolf girl wasn’t so protective of her, she wouldn’t be Emerald and that’s what she loved about her big sis.

As Ruby’s small paws hit the recently rained on ground she started to realize how dirty she was getting. Her tiny paws were covered in a thick layer of mud and she was starting to get soaking wet from the moist ground. Ruby let out a tiny bark of dismay as she scurried over to a large flat rock and began trying to wipe her paws off on it. She continued to do this for a while, until the little fox saw a small white butterfly flutter in front of her face. Now all of her thoughts about keeping herself clean were thrown to the wind as she leap after the Butterfly, yipping after it enthusiastically. Running through mud, jumping off of rocks and climbing on benches, Ruby tried to do everything to catch up to the tricky butterfly until she eventually saw it land on a small daisy. The tiny foxling crept up to it, green eyes seemingly sparkling with absolute glee as she nudged the flower, sending it flying off again.

Once again the chase was on !

Despite the current season of winter or extremely late fall Carrick found fewer and fewer time to fly, it wasn’t that he was busy far from it, as the weather conditioned worsened so did the conditions of flying. Nothing upset him more to wake up after a long nights rest and run over to window only to see the sky dark with snow clouds and freezing temperatures. He could after all fly for so long when it was that cold, his wings after a while would tense up and more often than not he would get some sort of cold.

The weather today was however fine flying conditions, at least finer than the past few weeks. Pulling his window down and jumping through it Carrick extended his wings and let out a small scream of laughter as the wind and warm sun beat down on his forehead. Hair billowing in the wind Carrick flew low to the ground his wings fully outstretched as he pulled his skullcap over his head.

Rising high into the air over a patch of trees on the grounds Carrick stretched his hands outright as his tail flapped about uncontrolled behind him as the trees below him swayed with an oncoming wind that made Carrick lose control of his posture for a moment but quickly recovered it with a small stomach crunch and a tilting of the wings. Looking down onto the grounds of the mansion Carrick spotted a small dog like creature chasing something that was to small to see at the moment.

Forcing his body and wings down Carrick lowered himself quickly as his eyes started to focus on the chaser and the chased, Carrick found it slightly odd that a butterfly would be on the grounds during the given season but then again it was a school for mutants so it could be a side effect of a mutant’s mutation or a mutant itself. A fox was something else he found odd, he had never seen a fox on the grounds before, cause if he had he would have remembered their taste because his other self was partial to smaller mammals on the run. Something about the chase did it for him.

Flying low Carrick swooped down on the fox and butterfly and flew next to them his gaze fixed on both the fox and the butterfly, were they mutants? Or were they just to creatures misplaced and asked to be eaten, well the butterfly wouldn’t be much of a meal but the fox would be somewhat filling. Carrick’s stomach let out a small growl as he kept pace with them occasionally flying over them to see if they did anything interesting.

After about ten minutes more of chasing, the butterfly flew far to far away into the grey sky leaving its purser on the ground pouting. Young Ruby Lupin shifted back into her human form, contently sitting on the wet ground in her denim overalls and red t Shirt. A quick Milo second later Ruby then realized she had seen something up high in the sky when she had watched the butterfly fly away and she still didn’t know what it was.

Upon gazing back up Rubys green eyes caught sight of the flying boy and her eyes widened. It wasn’t that she was scared of him or anything like that, she was absolutely fascinated to any powers even slightly similar to hers or her sisters. The fact that the new person above her had a physical mutation as well made her in a way happy and also sad at the same time. Because she wasn’t alone and others had physical mutations too , but then the sadness came in and Ruby didn’t want ot think of how hard it was for him to live with what she dealt with when others saw her ears.

The wind started to pick up again and it blew the wind around Ruby, brown hair getting flung into her face. “Hi!” She called out to him loudly, waving him down. “Hey do you want to come down here and talk?” She called out

A sigh of disappointment and a sigh of relief escaped from Carrick as the fox below him shifted into a girl. He was disappointed he would go hungry; at least till he went into the kitchen in side of the mansion, but at the same time relived that he didn’t shift and let his beak do the talking. It was then and there that he would make sure to hunt off the mansion grounds if he was indeed looking for a meal other than conventional human food, less he accidentally consume a potential friend in the mansion.

As the wind blew about the young woman’s hair about her face Carrick drifted in the wind before he heard her voice call out to him. “Guess I owe her the courtesy of a hello seeing I was considering eating her a few minutes before hand.” tail wrapping around his leg and bending at the stomach Carrick dived towards the ground only to do a summersault in midair before landing on his feet, a trick he had learned at the circus.

”Guess I could fancy a talk.” Carrick said his words full of his Irish accent. Folding his wings behind him Carrick smiled to the girl and said, ”Good thing you shifted when you did, might have made a big mistake!” running his hands through his hair Carrick continued to smile and looked up slightly.

Like most of the mansion residents she was a few inches taller than him and like when he was meeting the other mutants he felt like the runt of the litter, which of course often forced him to be a smart ass. Looking up to the girls ears he let out a small whistle and pointed, ”Some ears you got there, what’s more is that bushy tail your carrying around behind your back, cute to say the least.” he let out a small chuckle and waved his tail off to the side so it could be visible, ”Got one me self.”

Extending his hand with a warm smile like his father had taught him to do when introducing himself to women Carrick cleared his throat and said, ”My name is Carrick O’Conner, nice to meet you.”

A large smile was plain to see on Ruby’s small face, green eyes filled with excitement. First thing she realized was she actually had quite a few inches on the boy, which made her smile grow more. At that moment she felt like yelling for the whole mansion that she was no longer the small fry of the mansion. Keen hearing, picked up on the accent rather quickly and Ruby smiled a little. She was told that her and her sister both have a sort of strange southern twang that sometimes came out when they spoke but nothing as noticeably as an Irish accent.

“Ruby Lupin,” Ruby took his hand and shook it with her small delicate little hand. Her own tail wagged a little at him. “Its nice to meet someone else with a tail besides me and my big sis.”

Ruby’s cheeks became a light pink due to the compliment he gave her. She always tended to blush when she was complimented. It was what her father had called. ‘The Lupin Curse.’ Where members of the family blushed when they were complimented and unfortunately young miss Lupin was also a bit of a blusher, especially someone close to her age complimenting her.

Watching the girl smile with big green eyes Carrick couldn’t help but notice her face had turned red when he mentioned her ears and tail being ‘cute’ playing off her face blushing and giving her delicate hand a quick shake Carrick removed his hand from hers and placed both on the back of his head as his wings opened and closed behind him quickly to adjust to the new positioning of his arms, while his tail swayed back and forth swaying with excitement, ”Ruby? Like the stone? Pretty” he said not really giving much thought to it again. It had become habit to compliment women of any age when they when he engaged them in conversation, a habit his father had drilled into him.

”Not a lot of people with tails, I noticed that the first day I was here, think other than you this cat lady named Sara had one, looked a bit like mine but mine was way cooler.” Carrick’s tail lifted and swayed in front of him long enough for one of his hands to shoot down and catch it, ”Her tail didn’t have the small bush at the end like mine” releasing his tail slightly Carrick let it drop behind him while his hands found themselves at his side, ”Not used to being one of the only ones with a tail, the circus had a ton of people with tails, made sense though, they attracted more of the ‘freak show’ mutants.”

Carrick let out a small laugh and extended his wings and then pointed to his left wing, ”Might have been the reason I fit in so well there, brought them a pretty penny I did.” he neglected to mention that it was more of his other form that brought in the audience than him but he didn’t think it was important to mention. Folding his wings back behind his back Carrick continued to talk, ”The worst part is I have to start classes on Monday…” he was no longer smiling when he mentioned this and his tail dropped down no longer reflecting his positive thoughts but it was now mirroring his negative ones.

Ruby’s blush stayed when she was told her name was pretty and it didn’t seem to want to go away anytime soon. Inwardly, she cursed her fathers ‘curse’ of blushing when complimented, despite the fact that people said it made her look cute. Upon the mention of Sara, the little fox girls ears perked up, making them both twitch. Once again Ruby had missed it when Sara had come to the mansion and now she was going to probably have to wait till much later to see her.

“Wait? Miss Sara was here? Dang, I missed her again, she’s an old friend of mine and I keep missing her!” Ruby sighed, trying to think of another way to contact Sara. The cat woman had been such a big help during the camps that she wanted to find a proper way to thank her.

The Circus had always been an object of curiosity for the young fox girl. On one hand she enjoyed the food as well as some of the game and entertainment; however she didn’t like how they weren’t very nice to animals. Now that she was hearing that they were using mutants as a freak show made her actually kind of mad. It wasn’t right for mutants to be persecuted because of the way they looked, in fact it wasn’t fair for anyone to be treated in such a manner. Ruby hid her anger well though behind the disarming smile on her face, but slight sparks shot off the end of her tail as it swished back and forth behind her. This was when Carrick mentioned school and how he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, this made the fox girl arch a brow.

‘Wait, so he’s perfectly okay with being in a freak show for people to laugh at him, but when it comes to school he’s dreading it. He’s a strange guy.’ Ruby thought, looking at him with that contemplating look on her face.

“What’s wrong with classes? Do you have any trouble in them?” Ruby asked with a curious tilt of the head, it was obvious in her voice that part of her didn’t believe anyone could not like school. Miss Lupin absolutely adored school and anyone who didn’t confused her to no end. What’s not to like? There were books, science experiments, Mathematical equations and all kinds of fun things to learn. Who wouldn’t want to learn all of those fun things?

Despite the fact that she was still blushing Carrick watched the tail behind Ruby spark and her eyebrows arched and a look that made him feel like kids who were trying to figure out his next move were watching him at through a zoo. ”Miss Sara?” he asked curiously his own head tilting to the side as he continued to follow the sparking tail behind her. ”I thought her name was just Sara or Cat…” he gave ruby a small grin and continued, ”Well when she was showing me around the mansion she said she lived here now, so I guess you’ll see her soon enough then.”

His nose scrunched up for a second as he had a sour look on his face, ”Only problem I have with them is I have to attend to them, and the classes I do attend are dull and boring.” one of the main reasons he came to America was to attend a private school for Mutants but Carrick wasn’t one for the fancy dress or the mandatory classes, which was why he ran away in the first place. ”Other than the classes themselves I love school, though I was happy to take a few months off when I joined the circus.”

Carrick continued to smile when he thought about the circus, in a way it was his never land, sure there were chores there but it was the most fun he had ever had. ”Most fun I have ever had in my life!” he said simply as scratching the back of his head and tugging on his flannel as a gust of wind brushed past him his wings closed tightly around his back so he wouldn’t be tempted to fly off mid conversation. ”You telling me you actually like school?” Carrick asked his tail swaying behind him.

The electricity sparking off her tail stopped, once Ruby realized what she was doing. She had forgotten about her abilities downside, if she kept to much electricity stored in her body for an extended period she would start letting some of it go in moments of emotion or just sporadically. A mental note was made that Sara now lived at the mansion, making Ruby eager to see her old friend again. With her blush subsiding Ruby managed to focus on what Carrick was saying. He actually sounded a good deal like her older sister when he talked about how classes were dull and boring.

“You sound like my big sister,” Ruby began, clearing her throat and attempting to imitate her sisters deep fluid voice.“ ‘Ruby classes are way to boring for me, I got better things to do like beating up bad guys and eating hamburgers.’ ”

It was at that moment Ruby realized that her big sisters voice was completely different than hers because her throat hurt a little bit from doing that imitation. Her own higher pitched cheerful sounding voice was a rather large contrast to her big sisters, Deep, fluid and smooth sounding one.

“Anyways, yes I like school, I love the learning, math problems, scientific equations and Science projects, I love science projects!” Ruby rattled on, absolutely gleeful. Ruby paused for a moment, trying her best ot calm herself down. She put her hand behind her head and gave a rather shy smile. “Sorry, I just really enjoy science. Im sure I can help make school fun for you, I can tutor you if you want. Or I don’t know maybe we could study or something an I can help keep you focused.”

Ruby's tail was now moving again like an eager puppies would upon getting pet. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with the eagerness to help her new friend. She was now adamant to say that if Carrick needed help she would give it.

The blood was subsiding from her face, which meant Carrick could fully look at it again with out placing a shadow of a grin on his face. Eyes now focused on Ruby’s expression when she mimicked her sister he couldn’t help but laugh, ”I like burgers one of the best parts about America, but I’m not of a fighter, my older brother is the fighter,” Carrick lifted his fingers to quote his father, ”I am the entertainer!” as he finished quoting his father he bent low into a bow and then rose with a sarcastic grin on his face.

”Sides I’m like a foot shorter than everyone I meet not a lot I could do to them…” his smile faded as he shrugged he didn’t like being smaller than everyone but time wishing was time wasted so all he could do was wait till he hit that final growth spurt that put him at an average height or one like his brothers that put him above average.

As Ruby started to ramble on about the joys of school it was obvious she was serious about it being enjoyable before he thought she was just kidding he blinked once then twice as she offered help to him her tail wagging happily behind her. Tilting his head slightly as he raised an eyebrow, ”Not sure if I’ll need a tutor when I try my grades aren’t that bad it’s just I find other stuff to do when I should be doing school work.” he said simply as he continued on, ”But studying might be fun if it is with someone else, even if it is a nerd.” Carrick said with a playful laugh following his teasing jab at Ruby.

Deciding to change the subject to something more interesting than school Carrick looked back to Ruby’s tail, ”So that tail sparking trick you were doing a second ago… was that part of your trick?” the trick he was referring to was of course was her mutation.

Green eyes focused on the young boy who told her she was a nerd. The fox girl was rather used to her elder sisters calling her that, so she viewed it as a term of endearment more than anything else. "Studying can be fun if you really enjoy the subject! And it can be even more fun with a friend.".”

It was at this point Ruby noticed her height in comparison to the boys. She was several inches taller than him and she couldn’t help but grin wildly at this realization. Finally, she was taller than someone! Maybe if she was lucky she could grow a few more inches and be taller than even more people.

With thoughts of her tiny height aside Ruby’s ears perked up a little on the mentioning of the tail sparking being part of her trick. “Trick? Oh you mean my Electricity powers, yeah that’s part of what I can do…I sometimes cant control them as well as I would like, but I’m learning!” Ruby looked happy about this, especially with that wide happy grin on her small face that seemed to light it up.

Carrick nodded his head slightly in agreement when Ruby restated what he had said. She was right if school did ever contain a subject he would be interested in he might enjoy it but alas all the classes on flying seemed to be booked up and there didn’t seem to be any opening anytime soon. ”Well when the school has a class I’m interested in I might change my study habits from none to some.” he said as he waved his hand side to side as another gust of wind brushed passed his face. Wings opening a little more Carrick felt the sky beckoning him.

Tail twitching low read for a jump Carrick extended his golden brown wings and flapped once then twice lifting himself into the air. From there he circled over Ruby his eyes on her while his wings kept turning. If he was in his gryphon form and she was a small defenseless animal this was where he would pounce and maul but this wasn’t the case. Carrick had no intention mauling Ruby, in fact the only thing he would like to do is continue to talk with her, after all she was a future class mate and now a friend.

”How do you control it?” he asked curiously as he continued circling her. Carrick doubted she controlled it like a separate limb the way he did his tail and wings was it something she just thought of? Or was it more of a thing that just happened? He didn’t know but was curious, curious and hungry.

Ruby was glad that Carrick may change his mind if there was a class he did like, but for now he seemed to be not liking his classes one bit. Ruby watched as the boy jumped up into the sky and began to fly around her in a circle like motion. Ruby looked at him with curious green eyes, slightly wondering what scientific equation she could use to figure out how his wings and body mass allowed him to fly. But this was neither here nor there, at the moment he seemed to be asking her about how she controlled her powers.

“Well I have to let out my Electrical energy every once and a while in order for me not to short circuit everything. Otherwise I just try to feel like the Electricity is flowing through me and that’s typically how I expel it from my body.” Ruby put her hand behind her head and grinned sheepishly. “It’s sorta hard to explain really. May I ask how you fly? Like is there anything special you have to do to do it besides flapping your wings?”

If he had ever managed to figure out how to shrug when he was flying Carrick would have done so at that moment. He took that sort of hard to explain as a really long story that he knew he wouldn’t have the attention span for, not that he wouldn’t try to listen in the first place he just didn’t want to disappoint her if her explanation became to lengthy. Circling her again Carrick looked to his wings and wondered, how did he fly, yes it was like most birds but he was far heavier than most birds.

”My uncle used to think that I was a telekinetic like my dad and brother when I was little but Da quickly proved him wrong, in reality I couldn’t lift things with my mind all I could do was control my wings and tail like you would an arm or a leg.” Carrick flew lower so Ruby could see his tail spasm around behind him for the example.

”No special tricks to fly here, all I have to do is flap my wings this way and that to get me some lift, upset my uncle a great deal. Said something like,” Carrick changed his voice into a deeper one, ”What a terrible way to end the line of the most powerful telekinetics in all of Ireland.”

Landing on the ground in front of Ruby Carrick laughed, ”Da wasn’t to happy when he said this at all, through him right off a cliff into some freezing water, he was glad I had wings when I had to pull him out.” Carrick grinned and the looked down to his stomach as it let out a loud rumble, ”Seeing as my potential meal shifted into a new friend, you care to kitchen and see what there is to eat?”

It did not take Ruby long to figure out that Carrick enjoyed talking a lot. In fact, it seemed like the boy was perfectly content to tell her his life story, not caring whether or not the fox girl wanted to hear it. Luckily though, Ruby was the kind of person who was fascinated with stories so she listened with open ears and occasionally nodded just to let him know she was listening. Ruby grinned when he offered to get food with her, though she found it creepy that the boy wanted to eat her earlier. However, she wouldn’t let it effect their potential friendship.

“I made Spaghetti for me and my sister last night, we have some left over if you want any.” Ruby told him, “It’s really good! It has meatballs, sauce and really good pasta in it. My Sister liked it but that’s not saying much, she just enjoys food. You can have some if you want!”

Ruby was absolutely ecstatic over the fact that she was once again making a new friend. He seemed so nice and maybe they could hang out more when the school year started. Maybe, she could even convince him that school wasn’t all that bad.