Welcome to Gaia! ::

"It's really rather simple, I fear. This is a part of you, you need to accept. You are Ai, but even now.... there are two distinct sides to your nature... Somehow you need to merge the two into one. You have come close a few times, but whenever you do, you panic... and so... here you sit, trying to force yourself into a single mode, a familiar mode. True you have been struggling to make that side of you a little more like that which you truly are, but I don't think you can. That is... until you recognize and truly accept both sides of you." says Bez reaching up and touching his cheek.

"You need to accept it fully, here..." he says tapping Ai's head. "And here." he adds moving his hand to his chest. "Kero and I disagree on how you need to do this. He says it needs to be a physical acceptance as well as an emoitonal one. I merely believe that when you acknowledge the truth within, the other will follow. I will leave the path you chose up to you. His might be the shorter detour, but detours have tendencies to take people places they do not need to go."

Ai blushes deeply as the fur on his hand grows thick, then the fingers shrink. "I... I'm trying to accept it... really I am."

"Then don't fight it. Just let it happen. I will love you, Ai, no matter the shape you walk in... remember that." says Bez reaching up to scratch the great white head as it comes down to lick his nose. "But fie... whatever have you been eating?"

Ai bats at Bez's head and growls. "Ever try to brush yer teeth with paws... ain't going to happen." she grumbles curling up in the chair and flicking Kero with her tail. "Though some parsley at dinner might help."

"I have tons of it growing back home, but it's a bit out of the season for it here." laughs Bez, pushing himself to his feet. "It grows like a weed on the island."

"Island?" purrs Ai with a question in her voice.

Bez nods. "Someday I'll take you there, but not now... you have other things to do. And iffin you will excuse me, I have dishes to finish. Thanks for cleansing my shoulder, Kero. I'll get someone with hands to bandage it off after I'm done. A little air might do it good, dry it out a bit."

"Sorry...." mutter Ai defensively. "I was going to tend to it, but..."

Bez reaches down and touches her head. "It's alright. I don't mind. And you stay put... you might find walking on that paw a bit awkward. Take it easy... rest, I'll find someone, don't worry."

Thyrion grumbles a bit, a hissing popping sound, making Bez laugh.

Hopian looks up with a chuckle. "If he fusses too much I can do it. I've doctored Kero up enough."

Bez gives him a funny look. "You... wouldn't you have the same trouble as Ai?"

"Sheesh... this is a house full of shape shifters...." grumbles Bez shaking his head. "And you, Lovely Lady... do you follow suit?"

Bez sighs with relief. "That is well and good. The majority of our kind have two forms, true, but we rarely use them both unless necessary. Ai seems to have made a study of it. She has many. I was sent here in this shape and pretty much avoided my true one until recently. It hurt too much to take it. Reminded me of..."

"Hush." growls Ai swishing her tail angrily. "Home is where the heart is, or so I've been told. Your home is here now... with us."

Ai closes her eyes with a soft burbly grumble and ignores him. That is something she refuses to accept, no matter how true it might be. In her heart and in her mind Bez had made a promise never to leave again and she was determined to make him keep it.

But Bez' eyes are shadowed at his words, for he sees the truth in the statement and nods slightly in return. "The future is not mine to see, so I'll simply take each day one at a time." he says outloud heading to the kitchen.

Bez goes to scrub up a used pan from lunch and shrugs, flinching slightly as he does. "It's only the truth. I cannot read the future and fortunately neither can he to any given degree. He gets premonitions, feelings... not fact. If I am forced to leave, trust me, it won't be for something trivial."