Later in the evening, Griph had shown Kiv where he could sleep - when he did sleep - and given him a brief tour around his home. It was quite large, on the inside. Three floors at least, plus an observatory about fifty or so feet above ground. Though, on the outside, it looks like nothing more than a small cabin on the edge of an open field. Griph informed Kiv that it used to be a farm, but Griph had dumped that when he became able to drive to town and back in less than five minutes, giving him the ability to hold a steady office job.

Kiv sighed, lying in the grass outside and looking up at the stars, absently counting as many as he could. Though, after he had his two hundred, he gave it up. It was impossible to count all of them, so he did not even bother.

Closing his eyes and folding his hands behind his head, he tried to figure out how he could escape from Griph once more. He would need to get the Key away from the man, or else Griph would walk him right back here and Kiv would be stuck once again.

He opened his eyes as he heard the front door close, listening to Griph's light footsteps walking over. Kiv stared at the sky, not looking over to the man as he sat down in the grass beside him, tilting his head upwards towards the stars, his white attire seeming to shine in the light of the gibbous moon.

"Why?" Kiv asked him. A simple word, yet he knew Griph would understand. And he seemed to, because he sighed softly and lowered his head, looking at the ground in front of him.

"Why?" he returned, tilting his head towards Kiv. "Because I had to," he said. "You were dangerous to yourself and the world, Kiv. Somebody had to stem the flow of your power, keep you from hurting anybody. You had to be controlled." He paused, and seemed to be thinking as he raised his eyes back towards the heavens, watching the same sparkle of lights that Kiv saw, but not seeing the same thing.

"But it's caused more trouble than help," Kiv stated in an annoyed tone, looking over at Griph, not moving his head. It did not seem as if he moved his eyes at all.

"Kiv." Griph faltered, looking over to him, frowning. "Kiv, things never happen without a specific reason, no matter how big or how trivial. You are a weapon. You were born a weapon, and you will die a weapon. You are a tool to the rest of the world; you were meant to be like this. You power is so huge; somebody needs to keep it under control. You're dark, evil, and you are not even a real person-" Kiv sat bolt upright, growling, and turned to Griph.

"What do you mean, I'm evil? What do you mean I'm not even a real person?" He closed a fist, keeping himself from striking out at the man. "I have feelings, don't I? I have thoughts! I look like you or any other man on this planet! How can you say I'm evil when all I've done in my six hundred and more years of life is make and lose friends who don't live as long as I do? When I've just barely kept others from using me for their own evil ideas? How am I evil, when you are the one who keeps me tied to this Key of yours like a damned slave?" He rose to his feet, walking towards the house.

"Look at yourself, Kiv," he heard Griph say softly, and he stopped, shaking very slightly with anger. "You dress in black - perhaps only to suit your mood this week, but you do nonetheless. You killed your own family when you did not get what you wanted." Kiv hissed, turning to face Griph, who was now standing and looking at him with what the man thought were sympathetic eyes.

"Look at your eyes, Kiv," he continued, blinking his own clear blue ones. "Kiv, a lot of people say that the eyes are the windows into a being's soul. You do not have any eyes. They are blank, emotionless. They frighten me, personally. Either you have no soul, Kiv, or it's bitter and in the dark without a window to look through or get fresh air from."

Kiv stared at him. They both contrasted so deeply, though in the opposite way from what Kiv had originally suspected. Maybe he was the evil, soulless one.

"You know absolutely nothing," Kiv spat at him, and turned on his heel, walking through the door and slamming it behind him, leaving Griph outside looking forlorn and helpless to aid the younger boy.

--

Sitting in his temporary room in Griph's home, Kiv lay on his bed, head buried in the pillow, trying to calm himself down. How could Griph say that? Kiv was not evil, he was not without a soul. His eyes were just.

He had a bad temper.

Black matched his hair.

Why was he so evil? he wondered to himself. It fit, what Griph said. Everything fit. But he did not feel evil, not at the moment. Though he could remember distant times when he thought he did. When he blew up his home. And when Griph tried to teach him to control his power.

He had tried to blow up a bloody chapel, then. A house of God, whom he had believed in greatly back then. That was then, however; this was now. He had given up on religion entirely a long time ago, feeling it was all just a sham, something somebody thought up to make people believe what they wanted them to believe. Make people be good, or else threaten them with Hell.

Finding he was running out of breath with his pillow smothering his face, he turned onto his side and jumped as he saw Nolen bent over him and about to poke his shoulder. The Sharaen's face split into a grin, and he straightened up as Kiv sat up and swung h is legs over the side of the bed.

"Hey! You are not dead!" the other man exclaimed happily. "You were not moving, I thought you had smothered yourself or something." Kiv smiled slightly, standing, and gave Nolen a sudden hug, wrapping his arms around his neck. "Hey. Glad to see you too." Kiv laughed lightly, just glad to have a friend. Everywhere he had gone in the past week had been full of enemies and people who just wanted him around for his power. Nolen, however, was there for him, and he did not want him to leave him again.

"Are you okay?" he asked the alien, letting him go after a moment. Nolen smoothed out the front of his gray uniform, nodding.

"I am fine," he replied. "Haley's crew did not take well an attack on their consciousness. I took this off," he pointed to the circlet around his forehead, "and I gave them a blow to their mind that they are most likely still recovering from. It took me some time, but I found the Ganora'nito and brought it back with me. Then snuck inside here." He laughed. "Your friend Griph did not even see me; he thought he saw a dust bunny floating across the floor when I went by him." Kiv laughed, patting his friend on the arm.

"That's great," he said, nodding. "Terrific. Maybe you can help me."

"Anything," Nolen replied. "What can I do?"

"I need the Key back. Griph has it somewhere, but I don't know where. He might just have it in his pocket, but." He shrugged, and blinked as he noticed Nolen was looking across his shoulder to the door. Kiv turned to see Griph standing looking surprised in the doorway, frowning at Nolen, and he shoved a hand in his pocket.

Kiv suddenly felt a jolt of pain shoot up both arms, and he took two unwilling steps back from Nolen, pointing a finger at the Sharaen. His mind screamed, knowing he could not stop it, but knowing also that this was his friend and he was about to kill the man. His face was blank, emotionless as his soulless eyes, and Nolen glanced frantically back and forth between Kiv and Griph.

As Kiv's hand jerked an inch to one side, Nolen dropped to the ground, avoiding a narrow slash of fiery white light that burned a hole in the wall behind him. Nolen pulled his gun from its holster and pointed it waveringly at Kiv, eyes wide in terror and confusion. Kiv closed his fist, and opened it again with an unnatural white glow lighting up the tips of his fingers, and Nolen suddenly seemed to understand. He swung the gun around to Griph, firing two sharp blasts at the other man.

Griph fell against the wall, his arm and leg burning with holes in his flesh from the energy weapon Nolen had fired. Kiv fell to his knees on the ground, yelling just what his mind was screaming a fraction of a second before.

"LET ME GO! DON'T HURT HIM! NO! NO!" He started, cutting off abruptly, and he gazed around. His fingers still glowed unnaturally, and he blinked at them, turning his hands over and staring at his bracelets. The black jewel had changed; now it was a silvery white thing that seemed to move, and he felt differently than normal. He could feel power coursing through his body to his fingertips, and he could feel that he had control. Looking over at Griph, leaning on the wall, he took a deep breath to calm himself before standing shakily and walking over to the man.

He paused a moment before taking one more step to Griph, who was staring wildly at the Key in his hand, wondering why Kiv was no longer attacking the intruder. Kiv put a hand on Griph's shoulder and guided him down to sit on the ground, before closing his fist and extending a finger, holding his hand flat above Griph's injuries. Moving his hand in a pattern, he tried to remember exactly how it worked, concentrating on knitting up the wounds and not killing the man accidentally, which could very easily happen when you healed a person in this way. After a moment, his hand glowed a brilliant blue, and the burned holes in Griph's arm and leg closed up, sealing underneath the cloth of his garments as if they never were.

Kiv stared. It was not what he did that amazed him, but the fact that he could. Griph dropped the Key to the ground, fixated on Kiv's hand, eyes wide.

"How.?" he asked the air. Kiv shook his head, but smiled.

"You became distracted again, Griph Haile," Kiv stated, looking at the other man. He saw Nolen appear at his side out of the corners of his eyes, and his smiled broadened. "Thanks for your hospitality, Griph. I'll take my leave, now." Nolen picked up the Key and went to hand it to Kiv, but he refused it. "I don't need it," he said, and walked out of the room, with Nolen following behind, putting the Key in a box on his belt.