I like this chapter, is funny. Meva's like in shock or whatever, she's normally much more violent and temperamental when someone tries to hug her. And since she's part bird as well as mostly insane (in this chapter at least) being modest is really down low on her list of priorities. Like somewhere by brushing her hair and fixing tears in her clothes. Not really of the moment stuff.

Meva's POV:

"Meva, that hurt!" Alle protested, dusting herself off. I didn't answer, staring numbly at Beklop's door. Alex reached across me and tapped her should, gesturing up at me. She bit her lip and nodded. I could care less what they were muttering about, I just wanted to lie down and die. He straightened his shoulders and knocked on the creaky wooden door twice. "COMING!" a voice shouted, and the door slammed open to reveal a woman in her late twenties, black hair disheveled and what looked like a live rat clenched tightly in her fist. "Oh hey kiddies, are you lost, I can call your parents…MEVA!" She tackled me, hugging me tightly around the waist, and had it not been for my natural balance I would have fallen over. "Mmm." I said, waiting for her to let go.

The rat, sensing escape, squeaked and wiggled out of her hand, scampering across the concrete of the sidewalk. She cursed after it, then looked at me curiously. "Meva…are you okay?" I shrugged, not saying anything. Alle straightened her shoulders in an attempt to appear in control of the situation."After your call she freaked out, and we had her bring us here to…umm…ask for help?" she finished lamely, casting her eyes down at her shoes. Beklop raised an eyebrow. "Oh." She said, frowning a little. Her eyes moved past me to what I had already sensed. "Vampire!?" she squeaked, staring at Alucard. He bowed. "Sir Hellsing, my master, and their host, has sent me to help." He said charmingly, smirking at her. She flushed slightly, and then was all business.

"Well, do you know Meva very well?" she asked, gesturing to me. He frowned, cupping his chin and studying me. "I know she values her wings, and is several hundred years old." Beklop nodded affirmatively. "Good, you're expendable." She pulled me in her shop, and the stench of old blood, musty animals, and unwashed human hit our collective noses. Alle and Alex gagged, Alucard frowned slightly, and I remained expressionless. Beklop, immersed in the stink every day, didn't even notice. She tugged at my arm, leading me to her operating room. Unlike her shop, this was spotless, and the only scent in the air was medical liquids. She plunked a pair of glasses on her nose, and ushered Alle and Alex out. "This is between me and her." She said, pushing Alucard out as well.

He let her shove him, out, and then she pushed me down on her special examination table. I obligingly stretched out both wings, letting her clamp them down on the cold steel, not even flinching as she jarred freshly broken bone. "Meva…I meant what I said earlier. You may never…never fly again." I shrugged, ruffling my feathers a little. She cast me a worried glance, then ran a hand over the broken part of my wing. "Any pain?" she asked. I shrugged again. "Agonizing. Burning, agonizing pain." I said tonelessly, and she looked worried even more. "You can yelp if you want, I don't care, and neither does the vampire." She said soothingly, patting my shoulder. I flinched away from her touch. "I don't care. Is it possible to heal, or is it not?" I said, some emotion leaking into my voice.

She frowned, studying a clipboard she had just picked up. "Theoretically…yes. But…it's painful. Very painful. I would have to literally fuse it together with some kind of high-heat tool, and then it would be healed as a bone like you're used to. After plucking you, obviously." I blinked. Pain? What does pain matter to me? I reared upright, grabbing her shirt. "Fix me." I ordered her in a low, dangerous voice. "Fix me now." She gulped and nodded. I sighed and plucked a white barbed feather. Using it, I began to cut my shirt off, the better for her to examine my wing.

Alucard's POV:

After a while, I determined, that aside from the stench, there was nothing to harm the children here, and went in to see how Meva and the woman were doing. I raised my eyebrows when I saw Meva lying down on a steel table,her top cut off and discarded on the floor. The woman was humming to herself, yanking feathers out of the wing she had broken. She turned, catching sight of me, and let out a shriek of rage. "Out! Meva's not decent, you pervert!" I rolled my eyes, pointedly looking away from Meva's torso. Meva didn't even move.

The woman sighed, casting an apprehensive glance back at Meva, before returning to her task. I saw a tiny drop of blood clinging to the end of each feather, and Meva's blood-scent was in the air. Despite that, she didn't even twitch when the woman yanked out feather after feather. I leaned in closer, fascinated to find that although her larger feathers had been stripped, her skin had a fine covering of down, so light and fluffy that it obscured her actual bare skin completely. Tiny red spots dotted the downy feathers, signs of where larger feathers had been anchored.

Even as I watched, several of the feathers grew back in certain spots, ones with a lighter color of shaft than the ones not regenerating. Meva looked over her shoulder at them in annoyance, then started to turn around. The woman hurriedly pressed her back down, glaring at me. I took the hint and faced the wall, ignoring the two females behind me. My heightened hearing caught a few snicks and then a quiet breath of satisfaction, then risked turning back around to see little stubs instead of the full feathers, stubs that did not regenerate, and Meva once again face down on the table. A feather was floating down to the ground from her hand, and the discarded bits of her regenerating feathers littered the table.

Meva's POV:

I quickly changed my feathers so they could cut, then plucked one out, using it to trim the others. Since the shaft was still in the skin, it didn't regenerate, and the stubs were so small they wouldn't get in the way at all. I lay back down, resting my head on my folded arms as Beklop prepared to cut my wing open. I heard her call Alucard over, then whisper to him for a moment. She bent down as he walked around so he was standing right behind where my broken wing attached to my back. "The vampire's going to suck your blood right there, so you don't bleed and get blood all over the incision I made, okay?" she said softly, and I grunted, shrugging.

I felt his icy cold hand rest itself on my back, and then there was a slight sting of pain as he bit down, immediately followed by extreme drowsiness. I yawned, stretching under him just a little. There was another, more painful sting on my wing, and I bit my lip. But none of the annoying wet feeling I normally associated with blood followed, so I relaxed, waiting for her to start the procedure Then I tensed even more as a burning pain in my wing made itself known, searing my very bones. I tried to keep my back flat, to not arch and ruin her aim, but it was getting harder every second as she melted my bones back together, bit by bit. Then the cold sensation that was Alucard's hand moved slightly, rubbing my back in soothing motion, like a parent trying to calm a child down after a nightmare.

It was more shock than anything else that made me relax, and I would have turned to stare at him, but I couldn't move without undoing all of Beklop's efforts. I heard a murmur of approval, or something like it, escape him, then a sucking sound as he reattached his mouth to the wound on my wing. The pain was still there, but it was fading to a dull haze that covered every inch of mind and gnawed at my body ceaselessly. So I lay there and accepted it, waiting for Beklop to finish up. It must have been a very strange portrait we made, with Alucard leaning over my, mouth attached to the base of my wings, one hand planted firmly on my back, Beklop gradually drawing a white-hot implement across my wing, and me, lying there, wearing nothing at all above the waist, mutely accepting both ministrations with reluctance.

So several long hours passed by, hours when I could get no sleep, drowsy as blood loss was making me, because the constant burning pain from my wings. Eventually, I heard Beklop's voice break the silence. "We're done Meva. You should be just fine." I twisted, bringing my wing closer to my face for examination. There was a long red mark, bare of any of my down or skin, that would probably not leave all that big of a scar under all my feathers, and it hurt, but when I flexed my wing experimentally, it worked the way it was supposed to, albeit much more painfully. "Don't try flying for at least a week, if not two, and even then, you need to take it easy." Beklop said, dunking the now red-hot implement in water, as steam hissed and bubbled out. She left it there and began to wash her hands off.

I nodded, starting to sit up before I noticed Alucard was still in the room. I glared at him and quickly folded my wings so I was almost completely covered, and stuck my tongue out at him. He chuckled, shaking his head, and walked out. He actually walked out through the wall, but since I had seen weirder, I didn't even blink. Beklop walked into a different room, pulling out some of my old clothes. I raised my eyebrow as she helped me maneuver into them, wincing at the general tight fit. These had been made and worn when I had much smaller wings, and although my naturally thin and delicate frame meant that it fit almost everywhere else, even my rather small assets managed to feel squished, a fact I resented. This is ridiculous, it feels like I'm back in the age of corsets and petticoats. Honestly… I sighed to myself as I walked back out, to see Alle and Alex looking both guilty and dirty, a fact that set off alarm bells in my mind.

"What did you do?" I asked, towering over them and folding my arms. Alle gulped. "We…umm…we didn't mean too?" she said weakly, staring at the floorboards instead of my blazing eyes. Alex swallowed hard. "Yeah! It was…umm…it was an accident?" He too suddenly found the floorboards a lot more interesting than staring me down, studying them fiercely. I growled low in my throat, clenching my fists. Gods give me patience to deal with idiotic youngsters, please. I prayed silently, then sighed. "I won't hurt you young masters, just tell me what you did." I said wearily, and Alle scuffed her foot on the slightly rotten floorboards. "We kinda let a lot of rats out of their cages, and now they're all over the place. We tried catching them, but they were too fast." She said in an ashamed tone, and I rolled my eyes.

"Beklop won't even notice, she just traps them so she won't have to hunt them down later." I said, rubbing my aching forehead. Speak of the devil; I heard a crunch and a squeak coming from the lab room. Several more crunches followed, and then Beklop walked out, putting her glasses down on the table just inside the door and neatly snagging another rat by its tail. It squeaked and struggled, but she was accustomed to dealing with desperate rodents, and held on tightly. Nonchalantly, she brought it up to her mouth and bit the head off with another crunch, chewing on it thoughtfully. Alle gulped and Alex moved in front of her as a protective shield. She swallowed the head and said out of the corner of her mouth "You would think they've never seen anyone eat before." To me in an undertone.

I shrugged. "They probably haven't seen anyone eat live rat before." I said, wiggling my shoulder to ease the tight fit. She blinked. "Hmm. Oh well, not everyone has my tastes. Bye Meva, keep out of trouble, don't let me see you in another ten years." She said, pushing me and the children out the door gently. I sighed and shook my head. "She should be nicer to you!" Alle said indignantly, and Alex nodded. "Actually, she was being very nice. I was surprised she didn't offer you a rat." I said matter-of-factly, brushing myself off. "See, she's like one of the most loopy witches you'll find around, without her glasses, but when she puts them on she knows more about healing and animals than I do about my feathers." I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets and walking away, with Alle and Alex struggling to keep up. "Oh." He said slowly, scratching his head.

I went on. "And what she meant was, "don't come back to me again because every time you do you're horribly injured, so you should try to keep yourself from being badly injured for at least ten years." She takes the long view, just like me. She's over two hundred years old." I said with finality, and Alle giggled. Alucard came out of nowhere, walking beside me. "So can the Hellsings offer you employment?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at me. I frowned, thinking it over. "I guess so. Masters, should we?" They both looked at each other, then nodded. I shrugged "There it is then. Oh, do you have a room that is open to the outside, preferably on one of the higher floors?" I asked him, and he pursed his lips, thinking about it. "We may, but you will have to see it with me first." He said, putting one hand on my arm and smirking at me.

I glared at him, wondering what his motive was, other than messing with my head. I had long ago decided that my human aspects weren't exactly attractive, my eyes being the one thing that really popped, and most humans didn't correct my opinion. Rather, they enforced it. So I was of no interest to him in that respect, and furthermore he could probably go and find a more attractive female on his own. I shrugged, grudgingly accepting his hand, and letting him phase me and the children away, before leaving them at the doorstep and phasing me to the room I had asked for.

Alucard's POV:

When we had gotten to the room I had mentioned, Meva sneezed. Twice. I had forgotten to mention that it was full of dust, and sneezed as well. I rubbed my itchy nose, seeing her begin to pace around the room, measuring it for some as yet unknown purpose. She walked outside on the modest balcony, looking pleased. "I like it." She said decisively, turning around to face me and putting a hand on her hip. "Oh, by the way, there might be some weird noises coming from here as I settle in, that's just me moving stuff around." She said absently, measuring the balcony with long strides. I bowed to her. "As long as you disturb none of the human residents, make all the noise you please." I said, smirking up at her. She nodded, not looking at me, running a hand over the stone of the balcony's rail. I shrugged and phased away, wondering what she had meant by "weird noises".

Meva's POV:
I placed the last of the rocks carefully on the miniature palace walls, mimicking, down to the last stone, Master Richard's mansion at home. It was precisely placed on a wall of rock, with a tiny streamlet winding its way through the immaculate rock garden, all white sand and gray stone. It stopped abruptly right at the center of the balcony, and there was a space big enough for me to stand, wings three-quarters extended, and then another rock shelf started. This one went all the way back to the doors, and was another immaculately and precisely groomed stone garden, one with the tiny bonsai trees I had grown fond of in my time on the Asian coastline.

I stood on one leg, facing down, with my other leg and wings extended to their fullest, stretching out behind me. Ironically, in place of my wings my arms were stretched out for balance, whereas my wings were pointing away from my back like they were in a high breeze. My right leg was level with my waist, not one inch higher, not one inch lower. I was in the center of a flagstone design of yet another rock garden, one that was a mosaic pattern instead of the real thing. I took in a long, slow breath, and let it out. Be at peace with yourself. The old man who had taught me Taijiquan that would work for my unique…anatomy…in China's voice echoed through my head, and I silently thanked him. Taijiquan was an exercise the Chinese did every morning to stay youthful, but I found it much more useful as a meditative relaxing agent.

I spun slowly, pulling my leg back and stretching my wings out like I was laying on an invisible bed, arms pointing at the ground, the leg I had been standing on shifting positions with the other, and I laid back in the air, perfectly vertical to the ground, with my leg sticking out in front of my, also perfectly aligned with my body. I took in another deep breath, feeling my leg and back muscles ache from the effort of keeping that position. I slowly stood up in a normal position, inhaling and exhaling slowly. I bowed once to the rising sun, then walked back to my room, toweling myself off. It was totally worth the effort to drag all those stones and sand here and install it by magic. Now no matter how annoying all the humans are being, I can always unwind in the mornings.

I slung my towel on the shower rod and stepped in, letting the hot water ease the ache in my muscles, and wash off the light covering of sweat. I stepped out of the shower after a few minutes, turning the water off and quickly braiding my hair in a single braid, letting it fall down my back. I walked out into my bedroom again, ignoring the odd blanket of the bed, which was basically just my molted feathers all sown together, which was actually softer and warmer, or colder, if the situation demanded it, than any blanket I had ever seen or owned. I quickly put on my clothes, ready to face my first day at Hellsing.

Yes, I am going somewhere with all this Japanese/Chinese stuff. Narrative momentum, remember that. Let me slowly unravel it all, and then admire my horrible metaphor-stitching and telling me to re-knit the metaphor shirt. I will poke you with my metaphor knitting needles and then…..I was trying to make a point but now all I'm thinking about metaphors and knitting. Oh well. Review, Request, Rcomment, Auf Wedersien!