Notes:

--Whee…thank you so much for reading on! And thank you for the nice comments too...I do so love comments X3

--And...yes, I forgot to mention the different types of quotes that I use in here...so I'll take the liberty to explain them now. ;

"Talktalktalk." "human" speech, normal talking

"Talktalktalk." private "dæmon-only" human-speech, when a human talks only to her/his own dæmon. I think I'll italicize it later, though...

Talktalktalk. dæmon speech

Talktalktalk. private "human-only" dæmon-speech, when a dæmon talks privately with her/his own human. :3

--...mmmhmm. ; I realize now (as I look back at the first chapter) that some of these don't match up to what I actually wrote, nor does it conform to what's written in this chapter...so now you have to kind of wonder why I bothered giving out a key in the first place; but when I actually start writing something new (there are a few chapters un-uploaded on my hard drive) then I'll start adhering to my rules. :P

--O dang. I just saw that for some reason my brackets – the ones that designate when a dæmon talks – aren't showing up on FFN for some reason. Gaaaaahhh why!

Faller

Chapter 2

"K'DROS!"

Really, it had all been an accident: an innocent, if childish and immature, accident coming from, yes – an innocent, if childish and immature sort of man. It was simple enough: a janitor for a prestigious academy, he had been locking up for the night and so then proceeded home, whistling idly and spinning the keys – on their bronze holder, a thick worn ring roughly the diameter of his wrist – on his index finger. The clang of the keys colliding commented his whistle, and he spun more quickly or slowly in accordance with the song: Winter's Fell, one that his sister had composed.

And then, during a particularly rapid note, he had spun so quickly that the keys flew off his finger and into the streets. They had bounced and clattered, and he had run after them, but only caught up with them when they had bounced and clattered straight into a water-drain.

"K'dros," he muttered again, bending down over the mesh and ignoring the street grime accumulated on its sides and within the edges of its design. It was composed of a tessellation of diamonds, broken only by a flourishing signature of the High: Micelta. The diamonds were small, but there was a large slit at one of the side large enough to accommodate the keys and their ring.

He sighed. "Ailnekyra," he whispered aloud, and a thrumming arose in his brow and his heart began to pulse erratically as her name was invoked.

Yes? she asked, her voice a quietly distant yet familial and trusting voice.

"I've dropped my keys into the drain," he said, putting on his spectacles for far-sight and trying in vain to look down. "Would you come and see if you could be of any help?"

Of course, she said with something of a minor chuckle. He leaned backward, straightening his back and making sure that he was clear of the drain; lifting his hands, he cupped them as a safeguard underneath his breast and sucked in air thinly through his teeth as a glow emerged from his chest.

His heart began to beat more swiftly now as its essence was taken away; the glow intensified, defying the dim sunlight in the luckily-desolate street. She was longer than his arm from fingertip to shoulder, which accounted for the difficulty he often had in summoning her, but now as the tip of her tail dripped forth and her entire frame hovered delicately in the air, he was glad that she was not a larger creature.

The glow receded, and with it her suspension; he caught her as she dropped, and she looked at him beadily and twisted herself around one arm, fore section raising to look at him and sample his scent with one delicate lick. Her hood stretched to either side of her head, stretching, but then she folded it back and swiftly curled herself up and around his neck to partake of his warmth.

"Welcome back," he told her amiably, smiling and running fingers over the ridges of her spine.

I was never gone, she replied simply and with her sleek elegance. Now that she had emerged from him, he felt again that emptiness in the hollow of his chest, but was comforted that at least she was near – the Parting was especially noticeable when they were not touching, though bearable.

Now, Ailnekyra started briskly, slipping off his neck and landed quite without pain onto the ground, you dropped your keys in the drain, you great idiot.

"I know that," he told her succinctly, not at all bothered by her insult, which was anyway meant in jest.

Take my tail, and let's see what we can do. Gingerly, he took her tail, and with a great caution that the cobra did not feel as she slithered in anticipation forward he placed her into the slit in the drain.

Goddess, don't let her fall, he prayed as he held her lower at her bidding.

Ah…it stinks down here, she told him with disgust. And I don't see anything. The drain goes down further, so they may have fallen there.

"K'dros," he cursed again, and Ailnekyra hissed at him warningly.

Let us not invoke things we would not like, she said, curling around his arm yet again but this time leaving trails of grime on his long-sleeved shift. We shall tomorrow call the Miceltanan and ask them to aid us, since it is late now and they will not be happy to see us to a trivial matter.

Ahh, how nice it is to be out and taste the air.

"I'll leave you out a bit, then, and you can walk with me when we go home."

She shook her regal head. You may be arrested for public Parting, which is a big matter. Better that we are Whole than Severed.

"You're right, of course," he agreed with a sigh. He was really one of those that enjoyed being Apart than Whole – though she was within him and therefore with him when they were Whole, he still felt a loneliness that he could not dispatch when he wandered solitary.

He held out his arm, and she coiled around so that her head and fore section was bunched near his hand; her head was erected expectantly, and he kissed her crest fleetingly before setting her against his chest. Her lovely frame became luminescent, the color of sunset's light, and as her weight drifted away she floated upward from his arm, individual sections of coil opening to avoid his arm and then closing again to form a whole when they had passed. She tilted her head at him, whispered a silent farewell, then pressed her muzzle over his heart and pushed through his skin, becoming just another fraction of his essence once more.

He looked with disgust at the water-drain. "I'll come back to you," he told it threateningly. The drain seemed quite unfazed as he walked briskly away.

His "home" was situated within the sixth district of Delhorn, on the sixteenth section and in the third rise. The streets here were narrow, more like alleyways, so it was impossible for vehicles to pass through – only those on foot. Dusk had scared away most of the activity, and the night was known for the dangers that could only pass when the sun was down; the sun was still a fourth up so he did not fear them, but still he hurried, if not because of the ominous silence.

Overhead, strung between rises, hung lines and lines of clothing that fluttered wetly, multicolored banners festooning the skies; nearly every window had a potted plant of some sort, and numbers engraved onto plaques of silver adorned the left of every front door. He had lived here since he was eighteen, his studies and Settling finished, relocated by Micelta to live on his own. Well, generally on his own.

There was another plaque, this one of silfa; he set his hand on it, and immediately it bubbled inward, as if he radiated some sort of force that caused it to recoil. In a moment, however, it stretched back outward as it recognized him, like a puppy; it engulfed his entire hand, strangely moist and dry at the same time, and finally withdrew and unlocked the knob for him when it had verified his identity.

"I'm home!" he called, walking in and making sure that the door closed behind him. Theirs was a spontaneous door; sometimes it stayed open of its own accord, even fighting against anyone who tried to close it.

"And just on time, my sir," a voice said, fluttering down the stairs like a playful breeze. His quarters was a small place, as he had requested of the Miceltanan, until he got a family of his own. If he got a family of his own. He doubted it; not only was he himself somewhat anti-social, but nowadays the Settled had been furred creatures, not the scaled of his Ailnekyra. Theories at the academy studying this strange trend had said nothing that seemed even remotely logical.

Now within the confines of his own home and out of the public, Ailnekyra withdrew again from his body and he strode directly into the kitchen while breezes played behind him.

"And your day today, my sir?"

"It was fine, thank you," he replied idly. "Though I did lose the academy keys in a water-drain."

"That's too bad, my sir," the voice whispered, sounding sincerely sympathetic, as it manifested beside him. Oddly enough, the spirit of his house always chose to manifest itself as the same thing, absorbing the pigment from things around it to display the gentle visage of a faerie with long ears, long, billowing hair, and a gown that was equally so. But instead of human legs coming from that gown, instead only a serpentine tail emerged, scaled and yet furred, with a fish-fin tail and flowing spines. He had thought he read something about it in a mythology, but no matter how he tried to place her form into a single name he only saw that she was pulled from several categories: western sidhe, southern sirens, and eastern dragons. That was only if she had received the idea for her form from those places at all. The spirit did not actually have a gender, either, but her face caused him to forever think of her as female, and she didn't seem to mind.

She appeared in full-form, usually lounging, watching him attentively. Her large, slanted eyes, at the moment the color of Ailnekyra's tawny scales, gazed at him now as she continued to speak with her distant, blowing voice. "I'm sorry that I cannot help."

"It's fine, Kaze," he told her, free to use her name in their own house. She smiled and caressed his cheek with her tail, mimicking his tan-white white complexion, which she looked at thoughtfully. Ailnekyra only watched in mild interest.

"News?"

"Ahh…" Kaze's expression contorted mildly, and she curled her tail about herself to prop her arm on her fin. "Nothing, really, my sir. Twenty-two more today Settled as furred creatures, and two today were condemned for public Parting" – Ailnekyra nudged him pointedly – "and then actually fighting, right there upon the streets."

"What were the Settled?" he asked curiously, beginning a cup of coffee. Kaze quickly dove down to take care of it for him, but he waved her off and she continued with a shrug.

"Why…it was a man with an arctic bear, and a woman with a bird," the spirit said contemplatively. She seemed to be always musing about one thing or another while she talked, her mind only half on what she was saying. She smiled. "It was actually a very interesting. Would you like me to tell you more about it, my sir?"

"Sure."

"Well, you see, it started in the third district of Tilaven," Kaze began. "The reporters said that the woman had been sweeping the front of her rise when the man had walked by, and she accidentally swept some on him. Well, he got very angry, and before the poor woman knew it he had Parted and there was his bear, looming up in her face. What could she do? Well, of course she Parted herself, but her Settled was so small it was hardly a fight…the bear could crush the little bird in his paws, I don't imagine what she planned to do with it.

"In any case, they began to fight, and – I don't lie – the woman was actually winning. Her little bird would fly up into the sky, and then it would dive down at the bear and the human with such speed…but then, you know, the bear finally got to the bird and smashed the poor thing down onto the ground. She began to scream, and attacked the bear herself, but then the bear smashed her down too and –"

That, Ailnekyra said, is horrible.

"Oh, yes, I know!" the spirit agreed, though she seemed rather excited about the whole thing. "Anyway, the screams woke up the rest of the district and they got the Miceltanan down there and…" The spirit sighed. "That woman is fine, apparently, but since she fought back and created a ruckus on the streets along with the man, they're both going to be Severed and their Settled taken away." The spirit shook her head. "Such a pity."

They deserved it, Ailnekyra said boredly, reclining on his shoulder. Public Parting without a reason, and then fighting…that is absolutely disgusting. Who do they think they are? Micelta? Miceltanan?

"I honestly have no idea," Kaze said, shaking her head even more. He poured his coffee into a mug and brought it to his lips, and the cobra and spirit watched him, having nothing else more to do. After a while he held it up to Ailnekyra, and she dipped her head into the mug and licked at the sides briefly.

"May I take that?" Kaze asked. He nodded, and she swiftly took the mug away and set it in the sink. As he and Ailnekyra strode away from the room as the spirit set the mug in the sink, then tapped the faucet and whirled her hands around in a circle pointedly. Some remainder of soapy water set in a small bowl beside the sink rose and twirled in a miniature, foamy cyclone which set itself inside the mug, and when it had finished Kaze waved it away and then allowed clean water to flow from the faucet. That completed, she set the now-clean mug to dry on a rack and floated after he and Ailnekyra.

"Is there anything else you would like to do, my sir?" Kaze asked helpfully. "I have cleaned the house today, and the laundry is finished, so there is no work. Would you only like to rest? Shall I bring the catalog? Would you like to order something?"

"No, thank you, Kaze. I think I'd only like to rest."

"That's very good," Kaze agreed as he moved towards his resting room and laid down on his bed. The spirit drew his covers up to him and proceeded to make all else comfortable, blowing air into his pillow and setting the lights in more tranquil intensity, opening a window and half-pulling back the curtain so it didn't flutter.

"It's fine," he said uneasily, knowing that she would go about "making things comfortable" all day if he allowed her to. It was his understanding that the spirit's previous housekeeper had been quite rude to her, and though he did not want her to believe him the same and discouraged her from doing such things, he just couldn't stop her without formally and with a name requesting it. "You may stop, Kaze."

"Yes, my sir," she said obediently. "Would you like anything when you awaken? I can buff your scales, my ma'am," Kaze offered, from nowhere procuring a cloth, which she waggled temptingly. "You look quite dirty."

I am fine, Ailnekyra said with some revulsion and indignity.

"Very well then," Kaze said finally. She placed her hands together and bowed, then un-manifested and blew away.

Sometimes I wonder, Ailnekyra murmured in their own mind. Curled twice around his arm, once around his neck, and in surplus loosed over his stomach, her head came to rest over his heart. He brushed a finger against her crest affectionately.

"Be nice to Kaze," he told her wearily. "She's only trying to help."

I did not ask for it, the cobra replied.