AN: K, here's the next chapter for this story. I'm hoping to have the next chapters up for both my stories next week, but it's dependent on my muses being focused enough to give me what I need to write. Anyway R&R, my muses work better with influences.

EDIT: Sorry if this screws some people up, I had a little mishap with my first and second chapters. it's corrected now, so please enjoy.

EDIT: Changed somethings in here.

Tsuchi worked on homework for a couple hours, until he started to feel a bit burned out on it. He turned to his computer and pulled it out of sleep mode. He checked his messenger windows and saw that Alex was online. He knew that she didn’t know what his screen name was so he thought he’d test the waters see how she’d respond to him. He found that she was wary from the start, probably because she didn’t know who he was.

He had found that humans tended to be very distrustful of those they considered to be strangers. The Ryana knew no strangers. They viewed all as friends and only those that had broken their trust to be anything close to enemies. As she began to guess who he was, Yoru called everyone down to dinner so he quickly logged off and headed downstairs. He knew this wouldn’t go over well with Alex, but he was starving.

Yoru had been the mess expert on the ship and that hadn’t changed after the crash. Yoru had embraced the variety of food that they’d found and had set about systematically experimenting with everything. Tsuchi was glad to see that she’d fallen back on one of the crew’s known favorites, a dish called gumbo.

Tsuchi arrived at the table to find everyone already there and tucking into the meal. He grabbed a bowl and served himself before taking a seat. He ate a few bites before he turned to Yoru.

“Hey Tei, what’re fixing for dinner tomorrow?” He asked around a mouthful of gumbo.

“I was thinking of trying something new”, he responded. “I found some new stuff at the store that looked like it’d be good.”

Tsuchi looked at her nervously. “Uh, could we stick to something relatively normal? I have a friend coming over tomorrow and she might stay for dinner.”

Everyone, but Shiro, turned to look at Tsuchi in shock.

“She?” his sister looked dumbfounded.

“Has the cub finally grew up enough to catch the attention of a female?” Tei asked with a grin on his face.

“I don’t think we need a human to cubsit”, Yoru said with her usual blank face. “We’d have to explain too much to her before we’d feel safe leaving the two of the alone.”

“That’s not funny, guys.” Tsuchi glared at the others. “She’s just a girl I go to school with and she’s having a bit of trouble with one of her classes and I offered to help her with it.”

“I know the humans are big on community service, but isn’t this takin’ it a bit far?” Tei said, still grinning. “I don’t think she needs to make a charity case with a lost cause.”

“Cut it out guys.” Tsuchi said with an exasperated look on his face. “It’s not like I’m looking to mate with her, we don’t even know if that’s physically possible. We’re just going over class work together.”

The other members of the crew looked at each other and grinned at each other. Tsuchi noticed their grins and his face fell. He knew they weren’t going to leave him alone about this.

“Will you guys at least promise to behave while my friend’s over tomorrow?” He hoped that he could at least get the others to leave him alone while Alex was around, even if they would tease him mercilessly after she left. “Would that be too much to ask for?”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be so hard for us to do”, Tei responded still grinning. “We just think it’s fun to mess with you.”

“Guys, I think you should leave Chi-kun alone for the time being.” Shiro said in a quiet voice. “It’s important that we foster friendship with the humans while we are here.” Tsuchi was about ready to give Shiro a hug when a mischievous grin split his face and dashed his hopes of being saved. “After his friend leaves, then you may have your fun with him.”

Tsuchi collapsed back into his chair in defeat. He’d never be able to live in peace once Alex left, not after Shiro all but authorized them to mess with him after she left. His appetite gone, Tsuchi pushed his plate back and got up from the table. He walked back to his room, contemplating the idea of trying to keep Alex around all the time.

When he got back to his room, Tsuchi logged onto his computer and randomly surfed the web for a while before boredom set in. He got up from his computer and walked across his room to the corner where he’d set up his art supplies. After the crew had had a chance to settle in, Tsuchi had discovered that human culture was rich and bountiful with art. The first time he’d turned on a TV, the vast number of forms their art came in captivated him. He’d sat watching TV for hours, amazed at the variety of art forms they had. Once everything had been settled, Tsuchi went out and bought as many books as he could find and carry on every form of art that the humans had developed. He then spent hours pouring over the books absorbing everything he could on human art. If he had any weaknesses at all, his love of art was easily his biggest one. After he’d gone through all the books, he began collecting art supplies so that he could experiment with and master the different styles and media they had developed. Over the months, Tsuchi had gained skill with most of the medias, but many of the styles still eluded him. Of the styles he had managed to master, anime and manga styles were probably his favorite as well as the first that he’d gained proficiency with.

Tsuchi sat at his drawing table and grabbed a clean sheet of paper. He stared at the paper for several minutes before he grabbed a pencil and began drawing. He drew as if in a trance for the better part of a couple hours before he again became aware of his surroundings. He set his pencil down and looked at the picture. Even though it was done all in pencil the subject had a purely golden look to it, as if it could jump from the paper cast in the purest gold.

“You’ve improved quite a bit since we got here, Chi-kun.”

Tsuchi jumped and turned to see his sister standing about a foot behind him at an angle to look over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there, but he quickly hid the picture under his arm. He’d never been comfortable having others look at his work before he was ready to show it.

“Can I help you, Den-Chan?” he asked his voice weary. “If you’ve come to make fun of me again, I’m not in the mood.”

“Is that her?” his sister responded, dodging the question. “Is she the one that has captured the heart of my little brother?”

“No, it’s nothing.” Tsuchi looked down at his arm. “I was just doodling and that’s what came out.”

“It looks like you drew her as one of us.” There was a smile in her voice. “I’m intrigued now, baby bro. I really want to meet the human that has captured your artist’s wings.”

Tsuchi sighed. “You shall meet her tomorrow, as long as she doesn’t back out for some reason. And you guys had better not scare her away, this is the first contact any human has had with all of us together.”

“Don’t worry, cub”, Denkou placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “I’ll behave, and make sure the others do too.”

“Ok, I’ll hold ya to that.” Tsuchi smiled at his sister over his shoulder. “Now move out of the way. I want to mess around with this a bit before I turn in.”

His sister backed up giving him room to walk back over to his computer. He placed the picture on his scanner and waited for the image to appear on his screen. “Do you need anything else, or can I ask you to scram?”

Denkou laughed as she headed for the door. “Sweet dreams, Chi-kun, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Tsuchi waved to his sister and turned back to his screen, where the scan of his picture had appeared. He pulled the picture into his program for altering his pictures, and changed the picture’s background to black. He then set about giving the drawing itself golden skin with brown eyes. Even though he wouldn’t admit it to his sister, the drawing did bear a striking resemblance to Alex and what she might look like if she was one of them. The sad thing was that she wasn’t one of them. Tsuchi had a feeling that she would be one of the rare golden skinned Ryana.

Once he was done manipulating the drawing, Tsuchi opened an Internet window and popped over to a site called Deviant art where he posted all of the pictures he’d drawn since he’d come to Earth. Many of his pictures were popular simply because they still boasted a slight influence of Ryana art, others were popular because he just had the skill to make his drawings good. He had no doubt that he’d have many favorites on this drawing by the time he was done with his sleep cycle, so he uploaded the picture and turned in for the night.