Author: PlaidDragon
Pairings: bizarre form of 1+2+5, various
Warnings: Yaoi, chibi angst, WAFF, OC, POV, AU, sap, lots and lots of chibis
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its original characters do not belong to me.
The Chibi Problem Part 1
I have a problem. It's a chibi problem. It's similar to a rat problem or a mouse problem. I didn't know it at the time, but it all started the day I bought my darling little BabyDoll.
Some background first.
I know better than to buy animals from pet shops, but I still like to walk through and look at the little critters. The first thing I saw was a juvenile duo chibi nailed to the front of his enclosure, wings spread defensively, violet eyes big as saucers and thrumming like a generator. Even I, a non-chibi aficionado, could see that the poor little thing was terrified. I asked the clerk what was wrong with him and learned that he'd come in the day before and was having trouble adjusting. One thing I did know about duo chibis is that they're intensely social. I suggested he might be afraid alone in the enclosure. The clerk assured me that he would be fine.
Those gorgeous violet eyes said otherwise. I asked if I could hold him, and ended up in a room with the chibi clinging to my neck and hair like I was his only possible hope. His thrumming had eased off somewhat, now he was only slightly louder than a blender. He was such a cutie I wound up spending over an hour with him. When I had to leave, he wouldn't let go of my shirt. He began to shiver and cry, making a soft little "oooooiii" when the clerk took him back.
Watching the clerk trying to cram him back into that cage, a sudden rush of outrage blew the breaker on the sensible part of my brain. Without conscious thought (that's always a great excuse; I was insane! I didn't know what I was doing! Hey, works for murderers and politicians all the time), and after forking over the next month's rent, I walked out of the shop with a chibi on my shoulder and a starter kit and instruction pamphlet in a bag.
I think the little doll hypnotized me.
I picked up a skinny book on the care and feeding of domestic chibis and we muddled through somehow. I really got into the little critters. For a while I went to shows and conventions, acted silly and fatuous over the gorgeous little guys, and even got compliments on how well behaved BabyDoll is. Some of the serious chibers said I'd really lucked out; that even though I'd gotten BabyDoll from a shop, he had an impressive pedigree, excellent conformation and a great medical clearance. Sometimes, they told me, you COULD get a beautiful chibi from a shop. Made me feel better about my naïveté. And more than a few wanted to breed to him, but I didn't like that idea. He just seemed awfully young to be mothering chibits of his own.
One thing that bothered me was the almost universal insistence that you shouldn't allow a domestic chibi to interact with the wild ones. The only reason I could find had something to do with the wild chibis' mating behavior. The chibers were pretty vague on the specifics. They did tell me that the Holy Grail of chibers was a fertile mating between chibis of the same type. Chibis, it seems, will not mate with another of their own type. You can't breed a heero to a heero or a trowa to a trowa, etc. They just won't do it. The heeros and wufeis especially will try to kill each other.
I filed that odd information away in a corner of the old central processor and mostly forgot about it, until the gundam took up residence in my yard.
~*~
You see, I live on the side of a hill in beautiful downtown Nowhere. Running up, down and across said hill are chasms (okay, small ones), canyons, trees, bushes, underbrush, you get the idea. Along about October people on the hill get really careful about where they drop their matches and cigarette butts.
The animals that live wild on the hill are grateful for this care. They show their gratitude by leaving gifts of fertilizer and weed-killer and by serenading the human residents when all is quiet and the stars are at their zenith.
We manage to live in fairly peaceful coexistence.
Or we did, until a gundam of feral chibis arrived and began nesting in the tall eucalyptus trees at the summit of the hill and the smaller scrub oaks.
My first encounter of the feral chibi kind came about when I was awakened at zero-dark-thirty by something screeching "omae o korosu" right outside the window. BabyDoll was huddled under the blankets next to my feet, tiny little needle claws digging into my calf and thrumming like crazy.
The feral's call must have terrified him. BabyDoll is a 90% indoor chibi. Sometimes he escapes and sometimes he goes out with me, but he never goes further than the back patio alone.
I was trying to pry him off me without losing a hunk of flesh in the process, when the feral called again, louder. Something slammed against the screen, and I sat up and pushed aside the verticals to find a wild heero-type chibi hanging from my window screen, white wings spread wide like a huge angry pigeon.
It wasn't looking at me, though; it had its beady little blue eyes riveted on BabyDoll, who had crawled out and was now tucked under my chin on the pillow, just inches from the screen.
I grabbed a magazine and thumped the screen as the feral "omae o korosu"ed again. It let go and fluttered back to sit on the fence, about 12 feet away. After a couple of minutes of staring, it made a show of ignoring us and began cleaning its little beam cannon.
Wonderful. Just what the hill needed. An impressively armed hostile heero-type. I looked down to find BabyDoll sitting on the windowsill, fluffing his bangs and flexing his leathery wings.
Ah, shit.
~*~
That's how I came to have a heero-chibi in my back yard. So what, you say? How much trouble can one chibi cause? Weeeell.... Where shall I start?
How about the slashed seat cushions? The hiding amongst the philodendrons and spider plants to leap at my ankles? The kamikaze attacks on the cats? Or my favorite: the presentation of a skewered rat for BabyDoll's dining pleasure.
You betcha we had a talk about that one!
You never have just one chibi reconnoitering an area. Where one goes, the whole gundam will soon follow.
Within a week, I had a yard filled with heeros, wufeis, quatres, trowas and wild duos. Only the heeros and wufeis are a real problem (although upwards of 50 of the little guys are a royal pain, no matter which type they are), because of their high aggression level.
The trowas are fairly quiet and like to hide most of the time. The quatres are pretty cute, running here and there helping others besides their mates. A mini-g of quatres sometimes gathers at midmorning by the fountain, chattering happily among themselves while their mates proudly guard the chibits.
The wild duos are high strung and capricious, much like my domestic duo. They are always moving, always teasing and taunting the adult heeros and wufeis. They seem much more respectful toward the trowas and quatres and can often be found guarding the juvenile chibis. One of their calls (they seem to have several; they're the most vocal of the species) is a long rising "oooooiii". In the middle of the night, it can sound like a Siamese cat, a screaming woman or an angry peacock.
I figured out pretty quickly which were the alphas of the different types. The heero that had nailed himself to my screen was definitely the alpha. The alpha quatre was a particularly lovely and sociable little thing. It's hard to picture gold over pink and tan plumage as being butch, but he could be a real hardass when he needed to be. The wufei was always on the fence, back to the house, but you could tell he was listening intently to everything and sneaking peeks at what we were doing inside. The trowa had the most unnerving thousand-yard stare I've ever seen, but he seemed to know exactly where his mate and their chibits were every moment. The alpha duo had some visible battle scars along with his imperious air. That didn't stop him from teasing the others of the gundam, though.
I found a book at the library on feral chibis, but it raised more questions than it answered, so I decided I'd just have to learn by observation.
BabyDoll was curious about his wild cousins, but I didn't allow him outside with them. After seeing some of their more combative games, I figured they'd make chopped chibi of my sweet little thing if they ever got hold of him. But he sat on the sill and they hung around outside engaging in their usual behaviors, sometimes calling to him or sidling up to the screen to chatter or glare or thrum. The wild duos and the quatres were especially social. I got used to it after a couple of weeks, even the strutting look-at-me stunts of the alpha heero and the alpha wufei. It was kind of cute, that they were trying to attract BabyDoll's interest.
One day I heard some rather loud rumblings and went to check on my baby, only to find him nose to nose (the screen between them) with the alpha duo. I held my breath and waited, ready to snatch my BabyDoll away if the duo turned aggressive.
He cradled his scythe in the crook of one arm, other hand on his hip, as he examined BabyDoll from head to foot. He spread his impressive black wings and snapped his burnished braid over his shoulder in a cute display of mine-is-bigger-than-yours and BabyDoll responded with courteous awe. Then it was BabyDoll's turn. He made a pirouette and lifted his sable wings to full span. His cinnamon braid he stroked tenderly and brushed the end of it under his chin winsomely. BabyDoll doesn't have a scythe. The experts are divided on the wisdom of allowing a domestic duo to keep a scythe, but I decided against it because I also have cats and didn't want to find a disemboweled fur on my bed.
BabyDoll must have passed inspection anyway. The wild duo nodded his approval and grinned at BabyDoll, who blushed and preened prettily. He thrummed his pleasure and the alpha answered with a shattering "oooooiii", before leaping into the air to cruise leisurely away.
After that, it was take-a-number-to-talk-to-BabyDoll time. The lesser duos swarmed around the window making a godawful racket with their manic vocalizing. The other types gathered at the edges, as if afraid to try to break through the wall of duos. That went on for a few days.
Something absolutely adorable happened during all that. During a lull in the duos, a solemn trowa wormed his way through the gundam to show BabyDoll his newly hatched quatre chibit. BabyDoll and the trowa touched hands against the screen and cooed warmly at each other. The chibit imitated its parent, tiny hand against the screen to share BabyDoll's warmth. It was one of those Kodak moments.
After all that, I decided to let BabyDoll visit more closely with them. We began spending some time each day on the patio. I didn't let him run loose; he wore his harness and a leash. Visiting was one thing, letting my precious go soaring off with the ferals was another thing entirely.
At that point, the competition between the alpha heero and the alpha wufei shifted into high gear. The wufei threw himself into kicks and leaps and spins, all the while brandishing his katana in what I thought was a pretty obvious way. The heero countered by carpet-bombing the yard and picking off snails and mice with his buster rifle. BabyDoll pretended to ignore them both. The alpha duo sat on the fence, his wufei mate tucked contentedly under his arm, and catcalled at the pair until they both turned on him. He grabbed his mate and leaped into the air, his cry of "shiiiniiigamiii" trailing raucously behind as they soared away.
Pretty damn cute.
As spring drew near, the wufeis and duos began their warm weather molt, discarding their heavy winter plumage for a sleeker, fresher look. Quatres and trowas don't seem to molt at all and heeros are naturally lean and mean, regardless of the season.
And the mating rituals began. And I discovered, to my surprise, that the wild chibis apparently mated for life. The books I'd read and the chibers I'd talked to had never mentioned that fact.
They also never mentioned the volume at which they carried on or the fact that it went on most of the night. The alphas that had an interest in BabyDoll escalated again. I stopped taking him outside for a few days, afraid that he might get hurt.
On the third day, the combative pair appeared together at the slider to glare at me. Apparently, they were unhappy at losing their audience.
And this would concern me, how? I asked them. (Oh, yeah; I talk to chibis. I also talk to my cats, neighborhood dogs and any other animal, bird or reptile I encounter.) They replied with grumbles of "omae o korosu" and "injustice!"
So I did what the books and breeders say to never EVER do. I opened the screen and invited them in, providing they checked their weapons at the door. They both looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but I was firm and with BabyDoll bouncing excitedly behind me, they grudgingly complied.
The wufei turned over his katana, a pouch of plastique, a bag of hand grenades and a canister of fireworks. And a 9mm automatic, after the heero poked him in the ribs. He glared at the heero and he began emptying his pockets, or wherever he kept his stuff.
The heero laid down a beam cannon, a buster rifle, an AK-47, a 9mm, a .44 Magnum long barrel, blasting caps, dynamite, fuses, plastique, a Bowie knife, a machete, a taser and a flare gun. On the patio, the alpha duo lounged on the table watching and laughing.
Is that it? I asked the steely-eyed chibi. No tanks, rocket launchers or 50 cals in your shorts? His eyes narrowed in outrage, but he produced those items, plus a claymore longer than he was tall.
Boy, you plan for everything, don't you? I said in admiration.
The heero gave me a look that suggested that anyone who didn't was an idiot.
Okay, then; you guys can play for a while, I told them. But no fighting and keep your little grubbies to yourselves.
I kept an eye on them, but they played nicely. BabyDoll brought out all his toys and pretties and the ferals examined them closely, but their attention always came back to BabyDoll. When I called time, they left quietly after replacing their respective armories.
The next morning, I found wildflowers and a dead gopher next to my car, tokens of appreciation from the alphas, I surmised.
I had a brief talk that night with the gundam, led by the alphas, and explained to them that I didn't think BabyDoll was old enough to breed, and that I'd like them to tone down the mating displays. The trowa and quatre only looked at me. The heero and wufei glared. The alpha duo hissed at the pair and cuffed them both, pulling them into a huddle that sounded like they were being read out. When the huddle broke, the alpha duo shooed them all away and gave me a soft "shiiiniiigamiii" before igniting his scythe and launching into the air.
The displays ended as new pairs were formed. Nests began to appear. Chibits began to hatch. Social interaction to the max.
BabyDoll was welcomed cautiously by new parents when they began to show off their babies. The wufeis were most cautious, the heeros watched him like a hawk, but the duos, quatres, and trowas were friendlier. BabyDoll joined the duos in their chibit-sitting and seemed delighted to cuddle and play with the babies and juveniles.
His alpha suitors were never far away and they continued to show off and bring gifts.
And all was sunshine and lollipops in my back yard.
TBC...
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