Cacopheny was the last to arrive to the first bonding meeting, drifting in with Chiya and Ketvia trailing behind him like a protective guard. They settled themselves against the nearest wall while he paced slowly and nervously to the very edge of the candidate group. He wasn't within touching distance of any of them-- or leaping and swiping distance, either-- and he was ignoring them as completely as he could, focusing fiercely on Aloia, the one face he knew.

"Good afternoon, everyone," she was greeting the room at large in her particular warm manner, as if speaking to each of them individually. "Welcome to the first of three pre-bonding meetings. I know most of you have had the whole thing explained to you already, but for those of you who haven't, it's very simple." There was the hint of a chuckle in her voice. "Your job today is just to meet the dragonets. Mingle with them, talk to them, see what they're like. They should be arriving soon, actually. Are there any questions?" Not trusting himself to try and speak, sure he would say something horrible or, at the very least, completely mangle the words, Cacopheny shook his head, like many of the others there.

One of the humans had a question in some foreign tongue. Cacopheny didn't understand it, so he continued to ignore the him and his companions, arms folded tightly across his chest and his hands gripping his shoulders, keeping them from shaking. He felt... stared at, surrounded by so many people, standing all alone at the edge of the group-- but that was safer than being close enough to hurt anyone, and much, much better than being in the midst of a murmuring crowd of shadows. His own shadows were mercifully silent, but no one else's in the room were; none whispered loudly enough to be understood, but none murmured quietly enough to be comfortably ignored. It almost felt like being surrounded by rustling leaves or running water, only without the sensation of relaxation that both brought. Rather, he felt twitchy, and he wanted to shrink into one of the places of darkness around the room, where no one would see him.

Then, while he stared fixedly at Aloia, using her like a lifeline to keep him focused where he needed to be, something nudged his arm-- he could still feel it through two layers of thick fabric, and he jumped, twitching and shying to the side, eyes huge and teeth bared. Somehow, he kept his claws buried in fabric rather than lashing out. It was only then, prepared to growl or spit something foul at whoever had come up to touch him-- with a shadow that didn't warn him of their coming, even-- that he realized he knew that red, feline face.

"A-Aki-zja?" he rasped softly, confused. What was she doing here? And why in the world had she come up to him and touched him? The buzz of shadow-noises was getting louder, but he tried to ignore it.

Akija jumped a bit herself, but she recovered quickly, blinking up at him with confused innocence and canting her head to one side as a bird might. Then as he said her name, her wide grin returned to her face. "You remembered!" she squeed happily, somehow keeping her voice at a low conversational level even with the gleeful sound. "Good to see you! Didn't think I'd see you here, of all places!"

Cacopheny stared. She hadn't thought to see him? "I-- hat noht. Ssot to. Sssee you, eessser." He wasn't sure whether he was pleased, annoyed, or nervous that she was here, and had come to find him-- was that why she--? No, of course not.... "Vay arr yoo. Herre?" he whispered, voice harsh as he tried to keep the rest of the candidates from noticing the conversation. Not that he really thought his own rough, raspy voice and thick accent wouldn't catch attention....

Then, before Akija could speak, the whispering shadows quite suddenly got... louder, and they drowned out whatever her answer was. The dragonets had come, flooding through the hallway and into the room. Cacopheny was immediately distracted from the question he'd just asked the feline daemon, jerking up to stand straight for a split second, then hunching over again and giving a little, voiceless whimper. There were so many... and so loud.... He found himself backing slowly away from the oncoming rush of baby dragons, voices and shadows all babbling cheerfully, clutching at the fabric of his sleeves convulsively. How could Ketvia and Chiya think he could do this--

"Hey, hey, Coffee, what's wrong?"

Something brushed the fabric of his sleeve and he twitched back, but it broke the spell of fear and he blinked at Akija, relaxing faintly. "K-Koff-ee?" Her questions didn't even register, so distracting were the dragonet-shadows, and so confused was he by the strange... word that he didn't at all understand.

But-- dragonets-- He was supposed to be meeting them and talking with them-- it was all moving so quickly.... Three shadow-voices grew louder, more clear, and he again didn't have much choice but to switch attention from Akija to the dragons who were obviously approaching. Two red, one blue. His mind didn't want to bring up what breeds they were, it was too busy warring with terror, distaste, hope, anger, joy-- each and others to their own shadow. They, all three dragons, stopped short just a few lengths from him, and for a long moment, they stared and he stared back.

Then one red one leaned forward, something like a frown on his features, and his shadow hissing and spitting like some wild, angry cat. "You're Demon," he snorted. "What are you doing here?" He shrank back slightly from the red one's tone. Demon... yes, he was, wasn't he... he knew they wouldn't like him.

"Hsst!" the second red one hissed, poking the first with his wing. "He's here for the meeting, right?" Then he bared his teeth at Cacopheny, in a manner that looked awfully like a growl, but since his shadow, though nervous, wasn't growling-- it seemed, oddly, to be a little bit friendly-- Cacopheny had to guess he was smiling.

"Onlee. Haff," he grated, in weak protest to the first, unsure what to say to the second.

Then, as the first red one stepped back a bit, and after another period of silence, the last one, the blue one, broke it, peeking around his fellows: "Hello."

"... Hehllo."

"Yup, we're here for the meetin'!" Akija merrily chirped up, after Cacopheny had made his shy protest. "Hullo!" she greeted the kits in turn. "I’m Akija, nice ta meecha! An’ this is Cacopheny." She patted his arm, and though he didn't flinch away, this time, he did twitch a little, suppressing the urge to do so. He wasn't used to being touched....

"Hi!" the little red dragon-- Fire, his new language finally told him-- exclaimed to Akija, but his attention fixed right back on Cacopheny, and he sniffed at him, head thrust forward and neck stretched out, as if he didn't want to come any closer. His shadow was babbling excitedly, and Cacopheny couldn't make out a word. "You're-- half human, too, right?"

He shrugged a bit-- honestly, he wasn't sure, and no one had really seen fit to tell him, so.... "I... too noht noh," he admitted.

"Oh." The young Fire dragon seemed surprised by Caco's admittance, but he recovered quickly and grinned reassuringly. "Well, you know, you smell a bit like a human, so I'd be willing to bet that's your other half, huh?"

Pausing, Cacopheny shrugged faintly again, unsure. "I sssssssuppossss," he managed, hissing through his teeth without meaning to. He tried again: "I ssupposs."

What did people do in conversations... wasn't there something.... Oh. "Vat isss. Iss your. Name?" he asked haltingly, forcing the words out. Some of the shadows were murmuring, but not loud enough for him to understand them, so he tried to ignore them. It was bad enough having dragon-shadows without having to listen to them, too.

"Chario. Charionateran, actually, but that's really too much of a mouthful. Some people even just call me Char," the young fire informed Cacopheny, taking kind account of his thick accent. "It's easier to remember, really. And who, if you don't mind my asking, are you?" He leaned forward, curious how close he could get to the strange halfbreed.

"Tcha-- Tchar-ee-oo." He tasted the word carefully, then repeated it, a little better: "Tchario." He nodded, fairly content with his pronunciation. He still couldn't get that "ch" sort of sound, but that was all right. At least the rest sounded fairly normal, if a bit thick in the vowel.... "I am-- Aki-zja sait, moment ako. I vill. Onlee mangcle et. Say et rrrrong."

Though the little Fire looked a bit baffled by his accent, he worked his way through deciphering the words eventually. "Well, that's fine, you know. Not everyone sounds the same when they talk. I couldn't get a good Deep accent to save my life." He grinned. "Haven't been speaking the language long, or what?"

Cacopheny shook his head slightly, still clutching at his robe sleeves, but somewhat relaxed now that no one had hurt him or yelled at him, he hadn't hurt or yelled at anyone, and his shadows were still being mercifully quiet. "No... veeks, only. Two, ssree mehbee. Vass... b-poot eento my het by... Aye-del-yan. Ssome Airrrr. Drrakon. Et iss very sstrangtch. Noht like my vorts. My. Sssspeetch."

"Well, that explains it just fine!" Char exclaimed, leaning back with satisfaction and a grin. "Psinocists only put the word in. Accent comes later, ey?"

Nodding hesitantly with agreement, Cacopheny tried to suppress a little twitch at a loud shadow across the room, momentarily making itself known to him. He succeeded, mostly, but in the process went tense again. It was amazing his sleeves-- and the flesh beneath-- didn't have holes in it from his claws, but apparently he had that much self restraint. "I... yesss," he managed in response to the little dragon, but... he wasn't entirely sure what he was agreeing to, distracted enough by the perceived "shout". Even worse, he wasn't at all certain what he should be saying next-- and Akija was completely engrossed in whatever conversation she was having, so as to be no help at all. He hoped this Chario had something else to say....

Chario tilted his head, but seemed to, indeed, have more words of his own. "So, you're here with your daemon friend, huh? I think it's neat. Coming to a place full of dragons. Did you know that they're going to have daemon kits at the bonding ceremony, too?" he asked, leaning forward with an air of conspiracy.

"I-- no--" Confused a moment, Cacopheny tried to put his thoughts back into order and make sense of what all Chario had said. No, he was not here "with" her, really... but how to say he'd only just met her, once, a few days ago, without stumbling over himself too badly? Then, of course-- "Daemon? Vat too. Yoo mean? Daemon kitz?"

"Daemon what now?" Akija exclaimed, suddenly catching their conversation. Cacopheny jumped and hissed at her in surprise, but the dragons were already trying to explain.

"Yeah," Chario said. "They've got a couple of daemon eggs over there, in a nest. See the scaled daemon? She's taking care of them."

"She was there-- last bonding-- gene artisan," burst Onis, the Water dragon kit, stumbling over his own words in an attempt to help explain. "She came to watch, and then came this time with three daemon eggs she'd designed!"

It was just a bit much for Cacopheny to understand. He knew nothing about daemons-- except that, when Akija and her brother were concerned, their shadows were silent-- and he knew nothing about "eggs" or "gene artisans", much less what they had to do with daemon "kits". However, before he could so much as try to form a question, something else startled him even more, and he completely forgot what they had been talking about before.

Another shadow, a dragon's shadow, across the room. It screamed-- not with pain, he didn't think, or even anger. But it still screamed. Cacopheny yelped a curse in his native tongue and clapped his hands on his ears, scrambling back from the sound and tripping on his trailing robes, ending up falling into a sit and shuddering. It just went on and on, while the dragoness Novitas kept up her flight-spell and swooped around the room, and he could only vaguely tell that the shadow-shriek was one of joy; not that it mattered, it was still so loud and so... something that he couldn't identify. He squeezed his eyes shut, hands still against his ears as his own shadows came quite suddenly back to life, filling his ears with yet more racket, even as the dragon-shadow's own noise was fading into a more distant chatter.

Then Akija was next to him, hovering, not quite touching him. He could barely make out her words through the shadows': "Coffee, what is it?"

Coffee? COFFEE?

Oh, by Her claws, that's a good one.

Coffee! Can we call you that now?

"No, you can't, you can't, go away, oh, please, just be quiet," he moaned in his own tongue-- quite impossible for dragons and daemons alike to make sense of.

We're not going anywhere.

Shut up, mutt.

We'll do what we want.

We're tired of being quiet!

More voices. Chario, and the little blue one Akija had been talking to. He couldn't make out the latter's words, they were too fast and too muddied. Chario, however, had said, "Are you all right?"

"No," he muttered to himself, finding that he'd dug his claws into his scalp in his desperation to shut out that sound. He carefully detached them, and stared a moment at the hints of red on the sharp tips. "No, I am not all right," he sighed, still in demonic. But, for the rest, he coughed, "Yess, I-- ssink. Yess. Ssssssorrry."

"Well, um, good," Chario said with a tremulous smile.

"Some-shadow got a bit loud, huh?" Akija said, sounding sympathetic, and patted his knee. He was too worn and distracted to twitch away, or even marvel that she'd guessed right; he could only nod faintly.

"If you want," Onis squeaked, "I could get Lady Aloia just in case. She's a healer." He couldn't hear either of their shadows; his own were talking too loudly and too many at once.

"No, no," Cacopheny rasped to Onis. "Fine. I am. Fine."

"I should hope so," a familiar voice snapped. "Cacopheny, what happened?!" Ketvia, with Chiya in immediate tow, stood over him, her skin even redder from what Cacopheny could only guess to be anger. His shadows were still too loud for him to tell for sure. This was not how he wanted his first meeting with kits to go... distracted by shadows, tripping on his own clothes, nursemaided by his guardian dragons....

Like a fucking baby.

Bet they'll respect you now.

Bet they'll never want anything to do with you.

Bet they'll--

"Nossing," he muttered. At her snort, he clambered slowly to his feet and said louder, and somewhat irritably, "Nossing happent. I am. Fine."

"You didn't look fine," Chario insisted, sidling closer, but not quite touching him.

Chiya hung behind her partner, eyes on Cacopheny. Ketvia's eyes narrowed, looking between the youngling of her own species and Cacopheny, then-- as if in insight-- across the room to where Novitas had landed. "If this is getting too much for you," she began, but didn't get any farther.

"No," Cacopheny interupted. The shadows were laughing at him, and Chario, Akija, and Onis were probably laughing at him in their shadows, though he couldn't hear them past his own; Ketvia and Chiya were ready to take him away, and he actually felt embarrassed.

You crazy, stupid, wild mutt.

Can't even handle a little yelling, can ya?

A little magic?

Can't even handle a little talk without going mad.

"I don't think that--"

Again, the lady Fire didn't get to finish her thought. Stepping closer more quickly than he would have thought he could in the enveloping fabric of his new clothes, Cacopheny hissed softly in Ketvia's face, "I. Am not. A tchilt. I sssssay I am fine. Ssssso I am fine."

To her credit, Ketvia didn't even lean back to avoid his angry glare. She held up her hands, face expressionless, and said softly, "All right, have it your way. Just be careful, hey?" And she didn't mean careful as in, "don't hurt anyone"... he didn't think. So he backed down, stepping away from her as she stepped back from him. "Come on, Chiya, he's all right," she told her fellow dragoness, then turned on her heel and paced smartly away, the Light dragoness scurrying to follow, though looking a little less certain.

Cacopheny huffed, then rubbed at one temple with two fingers. All of this was giving him a headache... but damned if he'd give up and run away, like Ketvia would have had him do. "Sorrrrrry," he told the daemon and dragon kits again, trying to look less irritated and more affable. It wasn't an expression he was good at.

As if you're good at anything.

Shut up.

Akija smiled a bright smile at him. "S'okay! Jus' glad yer all right. Ya had us confused a moment." He tried to smile back, but he felt more like he was baring his teeth at them. This wasn't good, he had to relax again....

Oh yes, relax.

As if you were relaxed before.

As if you can really do something like this.

Talk to be people.

Be normal.

He couldn't even find enough skin anywhere but his face and hands, which were far too obvious for so public a place, to wordlessly tell the shadows to be quiet. He just had to endure....

Not even going to answer the girl, are you.

Nut.

"Ah... yesss. Confus't me a mohment, too," he admitted. "But vass. Ssat trakohn. Drakon." He pointed in the direction of Novitas. "Her zzhatow... zzhadow. It sscreem't. I ssink zzhe dit mazjic. Ssat vass et."

"Yuh," Akija said, mercifully agreeing with him and not disputing anything. "Somebody used magic, all right. Smelt it soon as it started. Pow'rful stuff."

"Her shadow screamed?" a new voice perked up, and Cacopheny literally jumped. Again. He wasn't used to not hearing people coming up to him! Stupid shadows! The voice had come from a dragon kit who looked a lot like Chiya: a Light. And the Light was saying more. "She was happy, yes, but...."

"Well, hullo," Akija was saying cheerfully, and took it upon herself to explain. "Yuh, shadows talk. 'Cophony can hear 'em."

What happened to Coffee?

I liked that one.

Since Akija was speaking, telling the new dragon and the other two what had happened, Cacopheny didn't have to. He buried his fingers in fabric again, clutching at his arms and wishing he could actually get to flesh through them, and watched the new one with a little suspicion. He didn't look like he was trying to offend... but how he took Akija's explanation would be telling, he figured. How many people would actually believe he heard shadows speaking, and how many would just assume he was mad?

"That's right," the Light told Akija politely-- politely! "Your kind can sense magic differently. But...." Then he took a few steps towards Cacopheny-- who had to steel himself against stepping away the same distance. "Are you all right, sir?"

Sir? Sir?!

SIR?!

If only She could see that!

The shadows were laughing. No one had ever, ever called Cacopheny "sir" before. He had called other people sir, or ma'am, or mistress or master, but there was no way he rated a "sir". Slaves and pets weren't "sir". It so contradicted everything he knew about himself that Cacopheny could do nothing but look flustered for a long, long moment.

Then Akija's snicker shook him out of it. "Hyee, called'im sir," she giggled under her breath. Though it didn't settle his thoughts and shadows about the "sir" comment, it at least brought back enough of his wit to respond, though even to his own ears he sounded pained.

"I-- I am fine. Yess. Pleass. Too not call me ssat. Pleass."

"Call you-- oh. Well, all right, then...." The little white and gold dragon looked a little baffled, but Cacopheny didn't know how to explain. Even if he did know how the right words, it probably wouldn't be wise to talk about Her here, to these dragons... they wouldn't understand. Not as if he did, either, but....

Oh, so you're going to let them be surprised when they find out?

When She comes for you?

When they hear us for the first time?

Oh, no, that would be bad, that would be very bad... he had to say, had to warn--

But he'd only opened his mouth to let the words spill out in their awkward way when Akija started speaking. He shut it again as she introduced him, and herself-- this time not mangling his name anywhere near as badly as she had in the past-- as if he could condemn her, since he mangled it even worse-- and then he didn't know what to say. So he just nodded to Aki's words and kept silent.

As it turned out, he had no chance to say anything, anyway. Aloia's voice cut across conversations all across the room, even though the clambering going on in Cacopheny's head. "Pardon me, but it's time for the dragonets to go. Please say your goodbyes." He wasn't sure whether it was relief, regret, annoyance, or something else entirely-- or all of the above-- that he felt at those words. All three kits said their goodbyes, and Cacopheny nodded to them-- even the one who put his paw in his mouth-- paw? hand? foot? what was the saying?

"Hope you feel better-- er, well," Chario had said. Cacopheny smiled a bit-- a real one this time, if faint, and not showing a great deal of fang. No offense taken.

And then they were gone, leaving en masse, and Cacopheny stood there, watching them.

Moron.

You ruined it, you know.

No one's going to want you.

Which is good, because you're ours.

We don't want to share.

Whatever his expression was, it prompted Ketvia, coming up beside him, to say, "There's always tomorrow night, hey?"

Chiya, on his other side, touched his hand, still clenched in his sleeves, and she said, "And then the night after that, too."

And they were right, of course. Maybe he'd do better tomorrow.

And maybe you won't.

Shut up.