Kai skipped happily around the grounds. It was spring, he was at a mansion with a beautiful garden and the sun was shining brightly. He felt so alive. The trees, the bushes, the vines! Everything was bursting forth with new life. There were small buds on the ends of every twig in sight. The plants were elated, and so Kai was too.

Perhaps he’d been around flowers grown in a green house too long, but the air seemed so much fresher here. And VINES! When was the last time he’d seen a good creeping vine? There just wasn’t a market for them in the inner city or a place to grow them in the green house.

He ran over to one of the walls. The vine there sang to him, inviting. She was several years old, well established on the wall, and strong. She called to him to reach out and climb with me.

Kai place a hand on one of her branches and they both hummed with happiness. His foot was next. Hand, hand, foot, foot, hand.

See what I see! she called.

Kai swung around to look out from the wall and scanned the view. He wasn’t very high up yet, but just high enough to see over some of the taller bushes. The garden swept out before him in planned plots and paths. It was orderly, yet still enticing and alive. Growing things added their own hint of chaos to balance the order.

Look with me!

He let her show him. His limbs became extensions of her branches. His hands and feet like leaves soaked in the sun. She observed everything from the ground to the top of the building, where the sun wasn’t blocked by anything else. On some level, Kai felt her lifting him up higher and higher, but didn’t care. He was ALIVE! And a part of something bigger. If he could have seen himself, he would have noticed that his eyes were clouding over, but with a green haze, not a white one. It was hard to tell when he ended and the branches began, they were so entwined. High above the ground, he surveyed the land with her. Feeling her pride. She had grown so tall!

Gently, Kai left her consciousness and returned to his own only to find that he was at the top of the mansion, stretched over open space and completely unable to move, as though he was the figurehead of some fine vessel. Except he wasn’t supposed to be there.

“Eeehhh. HELP?”

Stomach now full small critters his better half decided to snack on Carrick flew back to the mansion satisfied and slightly tired, was today a school day or was the weekend. He couldn’t remember but he knew that the weather and the skies were so beautiful he couldn’t pass them up by sitting inside all day. The skies called to him and as usual he answered it, how could he deny it after the winter months denied him the warmth of the sun? No there would be no indoors for him while the option of flight presented itself.

Fast approaching the mansion he lowered his altitude and scanned the grounds for familiar mutants he enjoyed for company. There weren’t a lot of them but the ones he did enjoy made his time at the mansion more entertaining. Koga the knight, Kat the damsel, Ruby the fox, Twyla the blonde, and then there was Lily the sliver flower. Then there were some of the others that he didn’t care much for like Shin the sock shredder, and a few others not worthy of major note.

Soaring over the mansion now Carrick heard a cry for help and followed the cry to the side of the mansion where vines traveled up the side of the wall. He eyed the vines while his wings flapping in the wind keeping him stationary as his tail swayed back and forth behind him. Climbing vines as his father pointed out were a breeding ground for rodents of all kinds mainly rats but seeing as this was the first time he noticed it he didn’t think the rats would have much luck breeding with a boy in the vines.

Carrick’s head tilted to the side as he looked to the boy who had no doubt cried out for help, ”You trying to reach the roof?” Carrick asked assuming that was the only reason he would try climbing the vines, ”You know there is a stairway up to the top right?” he asked again as he didn’t move much from his fixed location in midair.

He wouldn’t panic. He chose specifically not to panic. Heights? Not that scary. Ok, the fact that he was dangling several stories up and had no idea if, when the vine finally agreed to let go of him, he would plummet to his death or not. It would be rational to call for help though. Right? In a mansion full of mutants, surely someone could figure out how to get him down (without hurting the plant).

On wings of grace, his savior arrived. A winged boy appeared overhead, but asked him such silly questions as he hovered there.

>>”You trying to reach the roof? You know there is a stairway up to the top right?”

Hmm… I guess sarcastically saying that I was learning to fly is out. “I was thinking more like Jack and the Bean Stalk, actually,” he joked to keep his calm. “I just seemed to have become rather close friends with this vine and, well… I think I’m stuck.”

Kai looked to his wrists, one of the points of most steadfast stuck-ness. Was part of the plant actually growing into him? Realization dawned. It was growing out of him. Becoming entwined with the plant, he had unwittingly copied some of her genetic code when the two of them, as one conscious, decided to grow upwards. So now his four small branch-vines, one at the end of each limb, were woven in and out of her’s.

He wiggled them experimentally.

“Hey, I can grip the wall!” Indeed, there were tiny cracks in the bricks and their mortar that he could inch his feelers into. Feeling more confident now, he gripped the wall and asked the vine. Could you let go?

She reluctantly disentangled herself. Dig in deep young vine, so you don’t fall.

“Ok. I can hang here… now, how do I get down?” He glanced up at the winged boy, “Any ideas?”

”Beanstalk is a bit to short, you’re a few miles off from the closest cloud…” Carrick replied back his sarcastic comments on par with the boy who was locked onto the vine with fear of falling. Friends with a vine? Carrick wondered if he was nuttier than squirrel s*** or if it was part of his mutation to be friends with plants either was he couldn’t help but fail to contain a laugh.

Watching the boy become less and less panicked Carrick flew a tad closer to get a better look at the boy, he had some kind of vines growing from his body as he hung on the wall. Yep, previous thoughts of being friends with a vine due to a mutation confirmed, ”You could let go?” Carrick asked looking down and then smirked, ”Then again you don’t have wings do you?” Carrick flew above the kid with the green thumb and then landed on the roof above him.

”Well if you can’t jump then why not climb?” Carrick asked as his fingers laced the side of the roof his position making him look like a stone gargoyle with his legs bent and his body crouched over.

The thought crossed Carrick’s mind that if the boy was indeed really stuck he could always fly him down but until the boy asked for help or fell he didn’t really see any urgency at the moment, even if Carrick was screwing with the boy he had positioned himself to fly out to catch him if needed.

Hmm… Chicken-mutant-boy seems to have a sense of humor… though he also has a point. I could try climbing. “No… wings aren’t necessary. I can scale this wall like spiderman.” Maybe.

Kai sent his feelers out from his hands and left foot, a cautiously let go with his right. So far, so good. He dug in with his right foot and led with his hands now, starting to get a rhythm going. It was hard work! His muscles weren’t used to this kind of work, though he was no weakling. It was also annoying that the boy was hovering above… ok, not hovering, but standing above him, watching him.

Finally, FINALLY, he made it up and over the ledge.

“See, told ya!” he grinned, and prowled over to the door leading down off the roof. He pulled the door open, feeling confident. Except it didn’t open.

“Locked?!”

Carrick watched the kid scale the side of the wall slowly with mild interest. Carrick found the entire situation very entertaining. Even when he the kid made it to the door only to find it locked. ”Oh right forgot they locked it after that other jet kid came home late after hours and trued sneaking a girl into the mansion. The kid is about as sharp as a beach ball though, I would have just used my window…” Carrick said as he was laughing.

Jumping into the air and flapping his wings Carrick looked to the vine then back to the boy who used the vine. ”Looks like your S.O.L. unless you plan on jumping, or slinging a web…” Carrick said as he flew out from above the mansion. He was now flying in mid air looking back to the boy wondering what he would do next.

If it took him a bit longer than Carrick had patience for he could always swoop down and toss the grass boy off the edge. ”Name’s Carrick O’Conner…” Carrick said deciding to carry on the small talk. Mainly because he was becoming more and more entertained with the situation.

>> Looks like your S.O.L. unless you plan on jumping, or slinging a web…”

Ugh, this guy is obnoxious! He just keeps blahing. Kai needed to think. How do I get off the roof? The easy way would be to ask annoying-kid, who just introduced himself as Carrick O’Conner. That wasn’t really an option, though. So what were his options? Jump? Climb back down? What else could he use?

“I’m Kai. Johnson.” He answered, distracted.

Ah… There! Carrick’s mindless chatter actually helped, not that he would ever admit it. He had said something about a window- and how do people usually get in and out of windows? Trees.

“No, no web slinging.” He smiled ruthlessly, walked over to the edge, and hurled himself off.

”Gahhh!” Carrick gasped as the kid named Kai hurled himself off the building. He didn’t think much f it when he approached the ledge mainly because Carrick thought he was going to try and climb down. But jump off? That was just plain suicide well maybe not suicide but defiantly on par with a death wish.

Quickly reacting to the boy who jumped off the edge of the mansion Carrick shot down folding his wings into his body and his tail followed suit streaming behind him as Carrick fell towards Kai hands outstretched hoping to catch him before he splated on the ground. ”Congrats! You’re the first person to listen to me at the mansion!” Carrick said as his hands laced around the boys midsection.

Ground coming up fast Carrick opened his wings and his stomach and arms lurched forward with the downward motion as his wings forced himself back up to slow the fall. The wings made a snapping motion as they collided with the air. Carrick was only able to flap twice till he found himself directly in the falling path of a tree of some kind. He could tell trees apart but he knew of difficult landings when he saw them. Green didn’t always mean go for landing.

”Your fault!” Carrick said quickly as his legs first collided with the tallest branches of said tree. He let go of Kai and dropped him in the tree, the avian instincts taking over telling him to tuck into a ball and keep his wings from breaking. ”Caffler!” Carrick cursed as he hit a few branches and ended up getting stuck in the process trapping his wings behind his back and his legs from moving more than a few inches.

Stupidstupidstupid! Stupid idiot! Was one of Kai’s last coherent thoughts before he was navigating a maze of limbs and… limbs. Human and arbor.

After a calm walk over to the ledge and the initial leap, he had a brief second of free fall. The wind blew past his ears with a whistle and flowed around the rest of his body. It was a beautiful feeling, almost like floating. But faster, with more thrills and adrenaline. He knew full well two things. 1. The tree below would cushion him and deposit him safely on the ground and 2. Carrick would be eating his words. Plus two “cool” points for Kai. The one thing that he didn’t count on was the boy jumping after him. Apparently he was more aerodynamic, because he caught up and latched on before Kai even hit the tree.

It was all about the physics. He didn’t jump with any initial velocity, just let gravity do the work. Factoring in his mass, the acceleration due to gravity, the impulse of hitting branches and how much they would fall with him to slow him... It was still a difficult jump to make but Kai had nature coordinating with him.

>>”Congrats! You’re the first person to listen to me at the mansion! …Your fault!”

The branches tried to weave around him protectively, but there were already arms there. Plus his trajectory was totally off now. The branches that were going to give and slow his fall instead hit him and his “rescuer”, hard.

He crashed into the (also unforgiving) ground. Kai gasped for breath, his wind knocked out, but he vowed mentally to kick Carrick’s butt when he was able to inhale again.

He was stuck all but his arms were stuck his wings were sore and stretched out and he felt something sharp in one of them… no doubt a branch. He winced painfully as he tried to move his legs and had little luck, he was high up in the tree still so the drop without his wings would have done more harm than good. He felt trapped and that initial set of panic started to come over him. His breathing started to become heavy as he realized he was trapped with no way out.

He was having another panic attack, he was trapped and in an enclosed prison inches from freedom but could do nothing but struggle. His eyes welled up shut as his heart started to race, breathing was becoming more and more staggered as he started to hyperventilate. ”Get… Help!” Carrick said as he started to panic throwing his legs about trying to free them from the branches grasp.

His arms flailed about as they started bashing against the branches of the tree breaking some but only hurting his fingers and hands in the process. He had to get out of there, he couldn’t be stuck there, soon his entire body started to thrash about in hopes of freeing himself.

Kai gasped in a shaky breath and his lungs started working again. Above him, the tree and the Carrick protested their entanglement.

>>”Get…Help!” whined the winged boy, starting to panic and thrash about wildly like a fish.

He winced as he heard some of the smaller branches snap under Carrick’s flailing limbs. Kai rubbed his forehead and tried to calm the tree down. More importantly, he needed to make the wood more limber so it would bend instead of snapping. He was a spry maple, it should be easy, right?

Except Kai wasn’t used to making things happen like that. One time, he had been able to help a tree heal himself by accelerating the growth in that area. But trees knew how to grow. They didn’t know how to intentionally become less rigid. He couldn’t just ask the tree and hope that it would do as he asked. He’d have to wing it.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on relaxing his own body. In his mind’s eye he saw the branches as a web, but one that he could navigate. He moved along them quickly, breaking the rigid bonds and smoothing everything over. He worked quickly so that in a matter of a minute, the branches surrounding Carrick were the consistency of rubber.

“Now, to get him down…” he muttered to himself. “Carrick! Stop moving, I’ll get him to let you down.”

His struggling continued as the branches started to become less rigid around him, it was too late however his panic attack set in and he wasn’t really focusing on anything else around him, the voice of Kai didn’t really seem to reach him his sense were dulled as he continued to squirm his breaths were short and quick and his eyes were closed shut as he tried to get out of his panic stricken state.

The branches around him became weaker and not as sturdy as his body started to sink more and more till one arm was free. The struggling, it was working! Thought Carrick in his current panic state of mind. If he continued he would get out! The legs were the next then his arm until his wings thrashed back to where they belonged behind his back. He was free! And falling!

Hitting one or two branches before he didn’t feel any more branches he opened his eyes long enough to spot the ground quickly approaching, he quickly closed his eyes again and covered his face so he could land properly arms first. It wasn’t the first time he had a poor landing and it wouldn’t be his last. ”Open spaces, open spaces!” muttered Carrick as his body yelped out in pain with the promises of new bruises and scratches. His eyes still remained shut closed.

Carrick seemed to embrace the ground more than was usual for someone who had just fallen out of a tree. In a cowardly way, Kai thought. I told him that I’d get him down. Why didn’t he just listen? Just goes to show you, people who are cocky in one situation sing a different tune when they are in trouble. He looked over the other boy quickly. All of his limbs seemed to be splayed at the proper angles and there were no profusely bleeding cuts, so Kai decided he could chance a mocking remark.

“Well that was one of the least graceful landings that I’ve ever seen,” Kai chirped, adding mentally though it’s the only landing I’ve seen a flying boy complete. “I told you that he would let you down gently. What’s your deal anyway?”

He knew better than to offer a hand up or to ask if he was alright. His help would only be rejected, because, after all, the only way Carrick could redeem his pride now was to brush himself off and pretend nothing ever happened. Better to allow him to repair his manly façade. Or try to.

Slowly but surely his breathing was starting to become normal and controlled no longer sporadic and unpredictable. He was regaining control of his body from his fear and as such he was not the happiest person with the one called Kai who put him in the situation in the first place. ”… Haven’t seen to many landings then have you?” Carrick said as he lifted his wings up and down half way extended to make sure they were unharmed, sore at most like the rest of his body but he would get better with some sleep.

”It’s called falling with style.” Carrick said as he stretched his neck with his right hand then placed the left on the back of his right arm and pulled a tug from his right wing that drew closer so he could remove it. ”Birds don’t like being caged.” Carrick said hoping that would suffice as an answer. Despite appearances he wasn’t the most open with what scared him most in the world… except for cats… he made that known all the time.

”Sides I should be asking you the same thing, someone falls from a building I usually try and catch them…” he looked to Kai after brushing off his elbow and then frowned slightly as if he just thought of a confusing question, ”What do you mean he?”

Turning his attention to the tree Carrick could only assume that the boy could be talking about the tree seeing as it was the only thing that made any bit of sense. ”You talk to trees?” Carrick asked running a hand through his hair now, ”oh… must be off your nut Car…” Carrick muttered to himself.

(OOC: Off your nut: Crazy)

(OOC: Yay, idiot translations! Thankye!)

Carrick spouted some nonsense about birds and cages. Metaphoric blah that really meant that he panicked, then he turned it back to Kai.

>>“Sides I should be asking you the same thing, someone falls from a building I usually try and catch them… What do you mean he?” He regarded the tree with sudden interest (now devoid of terror) “You talk to trees? oh… must be off your nut Car…”

‘Off your nut…’?! Kai grimaced, but ignored the obvious and terrible pun. “Yes, me talking to a tree- who I knew would catch me, by the way- is much crazier than a boy with wings who is also afraid of falling.” His words were kind of harsh, but his eyes were amused. In spite of (or maybe because of) all the name-calling and yelling and bravado that Carrick put on, he reminded Kai a little bit of his brother. In a good way.

Kai offered his hand for the hand-grip-test that usually passed between two men when they met and were trying to decide if a friendship was possible between them. It was that time, now that neither of them were stuck in trees or vines or anything. And pleasantries to disguise the test… “Thanks for trying to save me, at least, Carrick. Glad to meet ya.”