Catame blinked, waiting for him to do whatever he was going to do-- though he had to admit, drowning the urge to giggle, that the little blonde, green-furred head sticking out of the armor looked rather silly, even if her could see the rest of him still inside. But, as Tyrolean settled his helmet in his lap and watched Catame and Tantra with a nervous, expectant expression, Catame started to wonder if that was what he was going to do.

I think it was, Tantra admitted, peeking through his arms at the-- to her-- headless suit of armor. She wasn't really afraid, now that the "showing" hadn't been some kind of memory-spell or anything, since she knew Catame could see the "boy" inside, just shy, as usual.

So Catame just blinked again, looking between Tyrolean's helmet and his face, not entirely sure what to say. If it was, I don't think we're acting like he thinks we would.

The silence stretched for a few moments, and Catame very nearly blurted something just to break it-- he wasn't sure just what, but anything would have been better than silence-- when Tyrolean gave up waiting for some kind of reaction and said, hesitantly, "Don't you... you're not freaked? That I'm just...." Metal against metal clanked against metal, his gauntlet to his breastplate in mimicry of the little boy tapping his chest, looking timidly between Catame and Tantra again.

"You look the same as you did before, only without a helmet," Catame answered, a little puzzled. "Only now you look sillier, with your little head sticking out of the big armor stuff. It looks like it prolly would if I was poking my head out of a big armor like that."

"And I trust Cat," Tantra whispered shyly. "If he can see...." Her wings rustled in a dragonic shrug, then she buried her face in his chest again, embarrassed by even speaking. Catame scratched behind her ears while Tyrolean stared in what looked like amazement and shook his head.

"Even if you can see... doesn't change the fact there's... really nothing but this metal. Everyone else-- Nobody's ever been so... calm about it before."

"But you are there," Catame insisted. "Even if people can't see you, you're talking and moving around all that metal, so you have to be there." It made perfect sense, after all, unless Tyrolean was some kind of spirit that, for some reason, Catame alone of anyone who'd ever met Tyrolean could see. Which seemed very silly, indeed....

"Maybe it's because you're all magic-ish," Tantra suggested timidly, peeking at Tyrolean again. "Cat has really strong magic-sense...."

That was as good of an explanation as any, even though even with magic-sense "turned off", as it were, Catame could still see him... even so, Catame nodded. "Maybe. I dunno.... But is it bad that I can see you?" he asked, trying to be helpful despite feeling a little unhappy that Tyrolean seemed so unhappy with something Catame thought would have made him, in the same situation, ecstatic. "I mean, would you rather I didn't?" He didn't know how he could not see... but he supposed he could try, if Tyrolean really didn't want him to.

The question apparently caught Tyrolean off-guard. "I-- no, uh, well, it's just... no, no, it's not bad... but nobody...." He held up his hands and looked at them-- metal and "real"-- before looking back up, with a hint of a smile about him, though brief. "Nobody ever sees me... just the metal, and sometimes the magic... I'm just-- I'm just a soul, Catame."

Just a soul. Catame blinked, then released Tantra to lean forward, reach out, and touch one of the furry hands still outstretched from their examination-- and his fingers passed right through it, leaving Catame with a chill that tasted both magical and physical. He shivered involuntarily, thinking about his glib supposition that Tyrolean might be a spirit invisible to anyone but him. "That's... really weird," was all he could think of to say. "Are you dead?"

"No," Tyrolean said immediately, "I can't be dead. My body might be, but I'm not."

Catame relaxed, then. If Tyrolean wasn't dead, he wasn't seeing ghosts. It had to be something else. Maybe Daynoren or Novitas would know-- and even if they didn't, Aloia certainly would, so he'd just have to ask a few people. He settled back on his bench and Tantra put her head back in his lap; she was less reassured on the matter of spirits, but even if Tyrolean was dead, that didn't seem to bother her. "See?" he said with a smile. "You're talking and moving around, so you're not dead, and you're there. There'll be a reason why I can see you, we jus' don't know it yet."

Tyrolean broke into a wondering smile, and Catame couldn't help but smile back, further. "I'm glad you're not scared of me, Catame," the daemon-boy, spirit, whatever he was, said earnestly, putting his helmet back in place, enveloping but not hiding his face. "You, too, Tantra. It's a really nice change. However it is you can see me... you know, I wish more people could. Usually they get all stuck on the armor."

At that, Catame nodded. "I bet that happens a lot," he agreed sympathetically. "Maybe having somebody who can actually see you will help other people think that they can. Or something." For a moment, he thought he had something deep, something helpful-- but he lost the train of thought before he could explain further, blinking with a little disappointment. He hated when that happened....

The next question, though, was a logical one: "So what happened? To get you stuck in there, I mean."

Tyrolean shook his head with an expression of regret on his face. "Like I said, magic accident. It was a few years ago. Me and Kienn-- he's my big brother-- we were mage-apprentices, and we wanted to do something to impress our master. We found a spell that was supposed to bring this armor to life, and turn it into something called a golem, but...." He held up his hands in a shrug. "Didn't work right."

"Unless it was supposed to come to life by putting a soul inside it," Catame pointed out, then frowned. "But that'd be a pretty rotten spell, if it was supposed to do that and didn't warn the caster. What'd it do? Did it need more power so it tried to take you and your brother?" The last time he'd tried a spell to strong for him, it had been an uncomfortable experience, but it hadn't been that much too strong for him, and Kaur and the dragon-tutor had helped-- plus, it could draw on Tantra through their link, and she had plenty to spare.

That seemed to be exactly what happened, if Tyrolean's stunned and impressed expression was any judge-- or close to it, anyway. "Only me," he admitted, "Kienn wove the spell, but I was the power source for it. I don't cast very well, and Kienn has trouble holding onto magic energy, so we work together a lot. But somewhere, we messed up... and I've been like this ever since."

"I'm glad I've never messed up that bad," Catame said with another little shiver. It looked awfully cold inside all that metal.... "It sounds awful scary. How long've you been like that?"

"Eight years, maybe?" Tyrolean said, looking briefly skyward as he thought. The armor itself didn't move more than a hair, but Catame could see his eyes.

I wonder if he's even thinking about that-- that you can see him, so you can see his face and expressions, Tantra mused privately, much more relaxed now, and quite content to let the boys conversation flow on around her-- mostly, anyway, aside from her own private comment now and then. Catame sent her the sense of a shrug. He didn't know, but he didn't think it mattered. He wasn't about to be offended, like some people might have, just by an expression.

"Sometimes it feels like the accident was forever ago," Tyrolean continued pensively, looking back down at Catame again, "but sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday, too."

"Has anybody tried to get you out again?" Catame asked curiously.

Ty shook his head. "No one wants to try until they can figure what got me stuck in the first place. Me getting stuck was an accident as much as the spell going wrong was-- if our Master hadn't shown up and done whatever it was she did.... And besides... where would I go?" He spread his hands helplessly. "My real body... it's nothing but a skeleton, now."

"I guess that makes sense," Catame answered doubtfully. "But there should be a way to get you out of there, and into something better than a suit of armor... maybe it's just that nobody knows how to do it yet." He brightened a bit at that thought. "Humans're starting to get magic, too-- magic like dragons have, not just like daemons can use, like me-- maybe more people who can use it will make it so we can do more things. Maybe even my brother could figure out how to get you out, someday."

Tyrolean chuckled softly, a humoring little laugh, and Catame blushed a little. "That'd be nice," Tyrolean said, smiling. "I might be used to being like this, now, but it's still awfully boring. But that's part of why I'm here. Uh, the boringness is, that is."

That made Catame put aside his embarrassment at being laughed at, and tilt his head curiously. "Here, is? What, do you mean the dragons? Are you here to bond?" Tantra looked over at Tyrolean, as well, since that had at least a little something to do with her-- being bonded, and all.

"Well, maybe," Tyrolean admitted, ducking his head shyly and turning his ears back in mild embarrassment. "Mostly I'm here 'cause Kienn is... but I've been told, when you're bonded, you can share the other's senses, right?" He spread his hands in the double gesture once more. "I can move, and see, and hear... but that's pretty much it. I can't smell, or eat, or sleep, and my sense of touch is a joke...." He dropped his hands back into his lap, looking down at his toes with a sad expression, as Catame tried to imagine what that would be like. Himself, he was very sensitive: cold, heat, touch, sound, taste, anything. Trying to imagine being without all that was mind-boggling. "It's... kind of a selfish reason to want to bond... but it's the best chance I have of making my life less... empty."

"And a way to get a real friend, too, I bet," Catame added to Tyrolean's statement. "If somebody's bonded t'you, they've gotta know you're real and have feelings, too." He smiled a bright, friendly smile at Tyrolean's sad face. "Well, I don't think it's a selfish reason. It can't be any worse than my father and aunt sending me and Day to bond just so it'd look good for our family-- I'd think it's better, since you wanna be friends with a dragon, right?"

"And you're right," Tantra piped up quietly. "It takes a little work, but with a good bond, we can share senses, some... s'how I know you're there, because Cat sees you...."

Tyrolean nodded, agreeing, "Of course I want to be friends." Then he wrinkled his nose at a thought of his own, and voiced it, "And your dad and aunt sound like my whole family." He shook his head. "The whole thing with making a friend with a dragon might be why I want to be here, but it sure wasn't what got me and Kienn sent here."

It sounded so much like something Daynoren would have said that Catame had to giggle. "Sounds like what happened to us," he nodded. "Aunt Dana, she was so angry when Day didn't bond at first. I guess she didn't realize it was a choice, a friendship kinda thing, not something you can win or loose at. She's a little weird," he confided. "I hope your family isn't as strange as she is."

Tyrolean laughed, and Catame grinned. "Weeell," Tyrolean said, "they can have their weird moments... but that's mostly Mom's side of the family. It's kinda... complicated... but basically they're all 'We need to find something you're good at!' and since being mages ran us into this," he tapped his chest with the sound of metal on metal again, though this time he was smiling, "sending us here to take a chance with the dragons was what they all wanted to try next."

"That does sound like my aunt," Catame agreed, this time wrinkling his own nose at the thought. "I hope they leave you alone after you bond. Aunt Dana doesn't really leave us alone... we still have to go to dinner with her once a week-- and she keeps forgetting to invite Tantra!" He hugged her neck reflexively, and she purred at him.

"I don't really mind," she said softly, "she makes me uncomfortable, anyway...."

"It's still not very nice," Catame answered, but let his defensive thoughts go, and changed the subject, looking back at Tyrolean and seizing no a topic Tyrolean had opened up himself, a moment ago. "So, aside from that, are you good mages? There's a lot of magic-classes here, you know, maybe you can take some of them with me and Tantra-- or with Day and Novitas if you're really good."

"Well, we're pretty good, working together," Tyrolean admitted with a modest, yet at the same time proud, smile. "The spell didn't totally not work, you know. I had to carve a lot of runes inside all this," he motioned to the armor again, "so all the magic would stay put and keep it together!"

Catame had only rarely worked with runes, and hadn't really even seen all that many, so his eyes lit up at the thought of examining how Tyrolean's worked. He might not have been as much of a mage as his brother, but he still loved his practice. "Could-- maybe, could I see?" he asked hopefully, trying not to seem too forward but dying for a peek.

But Tyrolean not only didn't seem offended, he seemed quite helpful about it. "If you can look in here," he said, taking off his helmet again and pointing down the armor's neck-hole-- which looked odd, when Tyrolean-the-boy did it, pointing at his own throat-- "and look towards the inside of my back, that's where the biggest one I had to make is."

"If you really don't mind," Catame said diffidently, though he was already climbing to his feet, standing on tip-toe on the bench with Tantra acting as support for him. It really wasn't quite tall enough to be of much use to see inside the armor, though, especially not with Tyrolean himself in the way.

"Not at all!" Tyrolean replied cheerfully, dropping his hand and gauntlet. "If I need to lean back, or something, just say so."

Unfortunately, leaning back probably wouldn't have helped. "I don't think I'm tall enough," Catame sighed, a little frustrated, then added, with a bit more shyness, "and-- you're kind of in the way. You're not see-through, even if I can't touch you. I don't think I could see inside without being a lot closer, so I could, you know, look around you." And the thought of just climbing up onto Tyrolean's armor without permission just seemed... rude, if Tyrolean would even be okay with it with permission.

For a moment, Tyrolean looked at him in confusion, then his expression brightened and he exlaimed, "Oh! Wow, I thought you... saw, like, a ghost of me, or something. Wow. Well, I can't really move me, so... well, if I move over there and sit right beside that bench... you could put your hands on my shoulders, maybe, and lean over to peek around?" He giggled, and without the helmet for the sound to echo around in, it sounded completely normal. "Or just, tell me what I can to to make it easier for you to look."

"That might work," Catame agreed, and the armor clattered around while Tyrolean obligingly shifted closer-- and Tyrolean actually did shift, the armor still mimicking his motions. Watching him move around on mid-air was fascinating, but Catame still wasn't sure he'd be able to see in: he was a fairly small boy, after all. "Though you picked an awful big armor to get stuck in," he added, since the daemon-boy didn't seem at all self-conscious or uncomfortable about him looking inside "him", and admitted cheerfully as Tyrolean got settled again, "I might hafta climb on it to get a good look!"

"Go ahead and do what ya need to do," Tyrolean said with another giggle. Catame beamed at him a moment, then, with Tantra behind him to make sure he didn't fall, delicate wings spread wide, he made at least a token effort at peering inside without climbing, but it was not to be-- and actually, he was glad. Climbing on an animate suit of armor would be one interesting endeavor!

"No good," he told Tyrolean. "You're still in the way, and I think if I ask you to move, the armor will go with, and that won't help any, 'cuz then the metal'll be in the way." With that much warning, he put his hands on Tyrolean's armor's arm with the intent to scramble up, and drew them back again quickly. "You're so cold!" he exclaimed, mildly surprised.

Tyrolean laughed, but this time it was a light, surprised laugh at Catame's expense, rather than a humoring one, and it wasn't embarrassing. Catame grinned sheepishly back at him as he explained, "Well, sure. It is pretty cold out, and I am just a big ol' tin can. I'm not so bad when I'm inside where it's warm."

"That makes sense," Catame agreed, "I just didn't think about it." Tantra, greatly daring for her, reached tentatively around him with her claw-less left hand-paw to touch the chilled metal for herself, stroking Tyrolean's suit's side very lightly. Catame let her, because Tyrolean was smiling as if he didn't mind one bit, then he rubbed his hands together for get a little warmpth back into them, himself, and went back to the task at hand: getting up where he could see past Tyrolean himself to get at that rune!

Prepared for the cold this time, he grabbed onto the metal elbow and scrambled up onto the armor's large, rounded shoulder-plates. From that elevated vantage point he could just barely past Tyrolean's furry shoulders, to the faintly glowing rune inside-- but it was only a narrow slit of space between the metal collar and Tyrolean's back. "I think I can see it...." The thought of just looking through Tyrolean passed his mind, but it nearly made him shiver again to think of plunging his own head through someone, intangible or not, just to see a rune. Tyrolean just giggled lightly, watching him out of the corner of his eye, obviously trying to stay out of the way as much as he could without, well, moving.

Catame wriggled a little further up, trying to ignore the frozen feel of the armor, and tried to get as close a look as he could without actually "touching" Tyrolean himself. He leaned over Tyrolean carefully, peering down and trying to make out the rune itself. "It's glowing, just a little," he commented. "What 'xactly's it for? Just holding the magic?"

Before Tyrolean could answer, though, an outraged cry rang from across the courtyard: "What do you think you're doing?!"

Catame was so startled that he completely lost his balance-- but instead of falling backwards, and onto Tantra's quite breakable wings, he somehow managed to fall forwards. Which sent him toppling into Tyrolean, and since there was nothing solid there to break his fall, he fell through him, and right into the armor itself, through the wide neck-hole, with a squeak of fright and sudden chill. Tantra yelped and leapt back from Tyrolean-- then very nearly panicked as Catame disappeared, from what she could see.

I'm okay-- I just fell inside the armor! he hurried to reassure her, already shivering so hard his teeth were chattering. Not only was he inside half-frozen armor, but Tyrolean himself, for all he wasn't "there", was still cold, like a winter mist that wasn't quite snow.

"Catame!" Tyrolean yelped from outside-- or inside-- or something. It sounded very strange, hearing it from within the armor itself. Tantra, only barely reassured by the fact that he was still alive, fluttered around Tyrolean's feet, silent, but radiating panicked worry. Tyrolean made a belated grasp for Catame, then turned, crying to someone-- the one who had yelled?-- "Kiennhelphefell!!" That same voice as before cursed, and Tantra's vision told him that another green daemon, taller and skinnier and with a pair of glass lenses perched on his muzzle somehow, was running over the light snow towards them, Frux bounding in his wake and quickly overtaking him, apparently much to the daemon's disgruntlement.

"I'm okay," Catame managed through chattering teeth, hoping he could be loud and clear enough to be heard by everyone outside. "J-j-j-just cold!"

"Frux, get him out, get him out," Tantra wailed.

"Ty, what happened?" that stranger-daemon's voice asked, sounding a bit flustered and out of breath, from right outside the metal "can", as Tyrolean called it, he was trapped in. "Who are these-- people?"

"They're friends!" Tyrolean exclaimed, sounding panicky and waving his hands anxiously-- Catame could still see the daemon-boy, after all, even from inside the armor. It was a very weird point of view, looking up at Tyrolean from inside. "I was letting Catame see my heart-rune but he fell! Help him, please!"

Frux reared up onto his hind legs and braced his forepaws on the armor's shoulders, quite tall enough to crane his neck over and peer in at Catame. "Hey!" the stranger exclaimed, "get off my brother!"

"Shut up," Frux said casually. "I'm not hurting anything-- if anything is hurtable." While the second daemon sputtered, Frux looked back at Catame, who was shivering hard now. "Can you find something to grip in there?" the dragon suggested, but Catame already knew that the walls were too slick, and too cold, to get any kind of purchase on, so he shook his head.

"I'm sorry," Tyrolean whispered. Despite being so cold, Catame made an attempt to pat the other boy's seated knee. Of course, his hand went right through it, but the gesture was there. This time he didn't even feel the chill of "touching" the spirit, but that might just have been because he was already chilled.

"It's n-n-not yer f-f-f-fault," he forced out, trying to sound forgiving. It was just a big accident, right?

"I don't suppose the magic of the armor negates magic being used on something inside of it, does it?" Frux asked, sounding as calm and cool as he always did. "I don't see how else to get him out other than to levitate him. My arm won't reach far enough in, even if he could manage to hold on enough for me to pull him out, and I have the longest and strongest reach here."

"We've never had reason to try," the daemon outside said, sounding more than a bit annoyed. "You'd better be careful in there-- don't touch that heart-rune!"

"Shouldn't negate," Tyrolean murmured, "It's only groundwork... structure."

"Good," Frux said firmly, then paused, and a smirk entered his voice. "Then Daynoren can get him out."

"Daynoren can get who out of what?" a very familiar voice asked from some distance away. Catame stole another glance through Tantra's eyes-- she had stilled, finally, huddled on the ground beside Frux and biting her tongue to keep from whimpering, though now she perked as she followed Frux's gaze to the entrance to the complex and the bonded pair just striding out of it and into the snowy courtyard.

"D-d-d-Day!!" Catame exclaimed. He was certainly saved, now!

"What-- Catame?" Startled by the echoey voice apparently not attached to any body, Daynoren broke into a jog to cover the distance between himself and the grouping, Novitas on his heels.

"And who are you?" the older daemon grumbled.

"I might be asking you the same question," Day answered loftily, then demanded, "What in the world is going on? Where is my brother?"

"Inside my brother," the daemon snorted, and Daynoren gave him a very cool, skeptical look.

"Inside the suit of armor, Daynoren," Frux explained, settling back down onto all fours again and pointing at Tyrolean's breastplate, "Right about here."

"And you want us to get him out again," Novitas drawled with a smirk quite equal to Frux's. "Is that it?"

"Novitas!" Tantra yelped.

"Yes, that was rather uncalled for," Daynoren added, a bit of rebuke in his voice. "This is Catame stuck inside there. Cat, hold on, you'll be out in a moment."

"You be careful--" the daemon warned again, but Catame could already feel his brother's magic stirring and reaching for him, and he welcomed the magic with relief. It almost broke through the aching cold-- almost, but not quite, and even as Daynoren's spell carefully lifted him up, through Tyrolean's illusory body, he couldn't stop shivering.

Then he was descending rapidly into Daynoren's waiting arms, with Tantra crowding up close to make sure he was whole, hale, and still alive after that ordeal. "Gods above," he heard Day exclaim, "you're freezing!" His brother chaffed at his arms, as if trying to warm him up that way, though it didn't really do much good.

"I'm--I'm okay," he tried to say, still stuttering a little with his shivering. Tantra, all warm and furry, snuggled up against him, trying to help. "Tyrolean's j-j-j-just all m-metal." And metal was cold.

"I don't know what he was doing climbing around on him, anyway," the daemon snorted lightly.

"J-j-just looking," Catame answered in his own defense, a little hurt by whoever-this-was's rudeness.

"I invited him to look, Ki," Tyrolean said softly, but Catame heard him. "Don't be mad at him."

"You invited--?" the second daemon-- Ki? wait, hadn't Tyrolean said his brother's name was something like that?-- blurted, giving the suit of armor-- not Tyrolean himself, which said that not even his brother could see him-- a surprised look. Maybe Tyrolean didn't offer to let people look inside him very often....

"If you'll excuse us," Daynoren interrupted with his usual politeness, though not offering his usual charming smile, "we really should get Catame inside and warmed up. He doesn't take cold well."

Catame started a bit, though it was probably difficult to tell through his trembling, and looked over at Tyrolean, who had replaced his helmet, with a disappointed look. Before Day drew him away, like he certainly would do once given the chance, he held out a hand to try and touch something of the daemon-armor-boy, but he was too far away to reach. "I'll s-s-s-see you l-later?" he said, turning it into a hopeful question.

Tyrolean looked back at him, and the expression on his face until Catame's words registered made him want to run over and hug him, but Day would never let him go, and he really didn't need more cold metal on his skin, anyway. He looked so sad! Then a smile so bright that it made the sadness look like it had never existed replaced it, and Catame smiled back. And then giggled breathlessly as Tyrolean drew a smile across his visor and made a thumbs up sign. Maybe how he showed people who couldn't see him that he was smiling?

"Okay," the daemon-boy said.

Then Daynoren was ushering him away, towards the warmth of the bonding complex, with Frux trotting along one side of him and Novitas ambling along on his other side. Tantra stayed behind a moment, then, giving Tyrolean's visor another shy smile, patted his metal leg once with a claw-less forepaw. As if she felt she had been too bold, she then immediately turned and scampered after her bond and friends, disappearing inside.