With power to the facility cut, Xero's once familiar lab was bathed in the crimson of the emergency auxiliary lights. The otherwise sterile surfaces now seemed covered in illusory arterial gore and inky shadow. Eschewing the lab coat that was all the clothing the ringel cared to wear in most cases, he huddled in a hastily emptied incubator capsule. It was cramped and painful but when armed assassins had started kicking doors in and shooting people, beggars became even less picky choosers. How had it come to this? Days ago, the albino ringel had been living the high life in Vandyr's casino district. He was well fed, spoiled for choice of jewelry atop the latest body modifications, always supplied with aphrodisiacs or narcotics, and was never short on bedmates.

Letting out a hiss under his breath and holding the all but useless knife he'd taken as a last resort, he resolved to stop lying to himself at least. Guilt and a burning behind the eyes threatening to herald tears flooded Xero. He knew exactly how it came to this. How long had he looked the other way and justified it with his admitted low importance? Working for charismatic gangsters who would skin you alive if it brought them a moment of enjoyment was the only way someone with his debts could afford medical training and the lucrative career he'd made doing biomodification. His parents had already given him everything just to survive a crushing congenital condition that had seen him trapped in that damned hospital isolation ward back when they could afford to live in the upper city. Xero's paws ran through his silken fur now all askew. It was a masterpiece of splicing and grafting that had seen him born a sickly female to actualize as a ringel man who had mastered his biology. A full skinchange as laypeople called it. It was such opulent biology too. The white fur. The geometric designs dancing across his body. The rosy eyes that were far more precise than what came stock. He'd paid for this freedom with a blind eye to the horrific things the seedier scientists than he were doing day and night.

The knife he clutched shook as he bit back the urge to yelp when another distant scream was silenced by a gunshot ringing out. He hadn't run the experiments upstairs. He didn't even know what they for until years spent working at the facility. When he did learn the awful truth, he'd kept his own counsel on the matter reluctantly. Who would he have turned them into with such a corrupt government anyway? And why would a rival gang trust a snitch if Xero outed himself as one? Of course that was before the krakun gotten word of illicit gene tech and highly illegal cloning going on. Their paranoia around such things was as white hot as the brutal methods they used to quell such research. Xero cursed his weakness and lashed his tail furiously within the tight confines of the incubator. This was in part his fault, even if that part was willful ignorance and a stilled tongue. The only solace that kept his vision from blurring with the pathetic sob he was only just holding back was the knowledge that at least some of the children were being smuggled off world to safety with the help of Zigzag.

There were perils to trusting pirates too but in that moment of chill and terror as kill squads roamed the facility, the albino would have done anything to see that woman's menacing and confident smile. He wasn't sure he'd ever get that chance even if she kept her word to smuggle him out too. Say she did manage to get Xero off of Vandyr, what then? He'd be at her mercy out there in the void. There was predatory hunger behind Zigzag's motherly demeanor, that was certain. As the massacre unfolding around him made abundantly clear, everything has a price...
---

From Rick Griffin's and Greg Luterman's Hayven Celestia book series, Xero is a member of the hedonistic lemur-like species, the ringel. Xero is a character originally made for the semi-official HC roleplaying game group. He's a geneticist who works as a body modder, splicing and weaving the flesh of customers in ever more ambitious ways. All of his stats are dumped into things relating to intelligence, agility, and sociability. Despite working for gangsters for years, he is personable and curious individual. He has terrible separation anxiety and has an addiction to chemical intoxicants when the closeness and sensations of laying with others is unavailable. Thanks to Ren for doing this piece for me when Rick's official adoptables easily soared over my price range. He's such a cute, neurotic little silly with very cosmopolitan fur.

Hayven Celestia ©️ rickgriffin
Art ©️ Ren Pinefur
Character ©️  kitkabbit