Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I think they're lovely..." said a quiet voice from over his book as he wandered past.

Cullen looked particularly well-dressed, despite their surroundings. He hid back behind the book he held aloft in front of his face. It was a green canvas-backed book on botany. Some of the words were a little much to chew through, but he thought he might ask the doctor if he knew what any of them meant later on.

He stood on a slat of old tin and board, covering a very large pothole (thought it may have been an old bomb crater) and gazing over the black and white images of his book, wishing they could've been in color and sighing to himself.

"Hmmm..." Cullen didn't look at him, flipping back a few pages in his book. "Maybe it's growing pains, that would make them hurt. If you're half plant, maybe you're not getting enough sun..."

Cullen couldn't help himself, little theories started ticking over in his head. It didn't seem to bother him that the other boy was made of plant and flesh, afterall he himself had a tail and stubby ears he couldn't hide.

"My name's Cullen," he ventured, peeking over his book with his large ruby eyes.

"Pleased to meet you, Kisuke," Cullen gave a little bow before turning the book around and holding it up to show him. "It's a book on botany, see?"

He pointed to various diagrams, drawings of cross-sections and little descriptions of each written in some sort of script.

"I think they'd just bud and grow back if you cut them off," he pondered, putting a finger to his lips. "Maybe you could keep yourself pruned with some pinking shears... but... wouldn't it hurt to cut them off? Hmmm... maybe it grows like hair...."

He scratched the top of his mop of white hair, tipped in little icy bands of aqua in thought. Again the ideas were climbing into his mind and he went quiet again to sort them through.

"Hmmm...? Oh!" Cullen came back down to earth, eyes lighting up and blushing. "Pardon me, I'm reading up on it because I want to grow plants on the roof of my house."

"I wanted to keep them in a glass greenhouse, see..." Cullen pulled out a slip of newsprint he'd used to draw out a greenhouse with a bit of charcoal. "That way it's all contained. At least, I think that's good enough... I haven't asked anyone, I don't know who'd know for sure."

He started to feel shy about it suddenly, perhaps he hadn't thought it all out enough? It made him feel uncomfortable to have a plan that didn't fall on solid foundations.

"Y-You do!?" Cullen looked relieved and surprised. "You will!?" His large ruby eyes glistened with excitement and he smiled at Kisuke. "I've composed a list of items I'd need to build it over my house, where it would get the best sun..."

He pulled out a battered old notepad from one of his pockets with a list of things scribbled on. Many pages were torn out or written in someone else's handwriting, but it was easy to see which sheets were his own.

"I came out this way to look for some bits of wood, it's the glass that's going to be tricky," he noted.

Cullen smiled at him, placing his books under his arm with resolution.

"Alright, but we'll need some tools, too," Cullen admitted, rubbing at the nonexistant stubble on his chin. He'd seen older men do this, maybe it was the mark of an intellectual?

"Or at least something we can make a hammer with, we'll also need a few nails and a few crates..." he looked around at the piles of junk everywhere. Ideas for more contraptions in the future filled his mind.

If he couldn't leave the city, he'd try his hardest to make it a better place.