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 Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 9:48 am
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 9:49 am
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 8:11 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:43 am
"-I swear, can't we just have one freaking day without some kind of drama?"
"Crow, c'mon, leave him alone. You saw how he was last night."
"LOOK. I know he's miserable, it's just-"
"He hates it here."
There was a loud angry sigh, and Crow kicked the door open to the room. She strode inside and looked around moodily for Ethan.
"Look, Kristof," she sputtered, using his real name in a very displeased tone of voice, "I know you're not in the best place emotionally right now, but could you please not take it out on someone who could blow....uh...what're you doing...?"
Ethan, leaning against the kitchen sink and looking out the window above it, was smoking a cigarette. He looked slowly up at Crow and took the butt out of his mouth.
"Smoking," he said nonchalantly, though there was a catch in his throat that indicated how badly he wanted to cough. Crow's eyebrows shot up and her face took on a deeply surprised expression.
"Let me reword. Why are you doing that?"
Ethan looked embarrassed for a second, but then shrugged it off and stuck the cigarette back in his mouth. Julian and Len exchanged slow looks, unsure what to say. Sadako merely muttered something possibly insulting.
"Because?" He offered lamely. Crow stared hard at him, momentarily at a loss for words.
"Well... could you, er, not?" She asked. Ethan blushed slightly and obediently threw the cigarette into the sink. After a moment's consideration he flushed it down the drain and turned the garbage disposal on.
"Sorry," he said quickly. There was silence for a few minutes between them all, interrupted when Ethan went into a coughing fit.
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 8:23 pm
Why Don't You Dance?
It was raining outside. Crow disliked rain - she hated being cooped up inside. She was curled up on the couch that served as Julian's bed, a mug of tea and book in hand. No matter how much she disliked the rain, though, she could recall with definite pleasure days like these. The days before things had gotten so...complicated. The days when she'd first adopted Lenore. Before We-Who-Watch. Before Jean Michel. Before...
Well, before a lot of things.
Flicking the page absently of her book, she settled into a short story by an Earther author. As in love as she was with everything with the strange place, she'd never quite gotten into their literature. Aside from history books, King and Rowling, anyway.
The story was a sad one. A man, alcoholic and alone, setting up the belongings of his wife out on the lawn as they had been in the house, mourning for what he'd lost. Crow grew absorbed in it, sipping her tea in thought. The story grew heavy with a strange sense of nostalgia as it went on - the man getting drunk with a young couple come to see why there was a 'bedroom' out on the lawn, and playing his old records for them to dance to.
"You look miserable, you know."
Crow looked up, startled. Julian had been watching her read. She was unaware of the sad expression that had spread on her face as she read - blushing slightly, she took another sip of tea and shrugged.
"It's just a book."
Julian got up off the chair opposite the couch, settling down next to her and throwing an arm over her shoulder. She smiled a bit and leaned close, sipping her tea again.
"I always look miserable. That's my normal face." She murmured, turning the page and half-reading it. Julian copied her smile, resting his head against hers and kissing her hair with brotherly affection.
"Loser."
"Dork."
Closing her eyes as well as the book for a moment, she leaned further into her brother's embrace and reached for his hand. He grasped it with familiar warmth, his hand enveloping hers.
"Dance with me."
Julian cracked an eye open and glanced down at her.
"What?" He asked, a slight laugh in his voice. Crow looked back up at him, completely serious.
"I mean it. Dance with me."
A look of mixed amusement and a trace of sadness played over Julian's face for a moment. He disentangled himself from her and slid off the couch, holding his hand out like a gentleman.
"You lead," he said. Crow put the tea mug and book aside, taking his hand and taking careful steps towards the middle of the room with him. The stereo was playing piano and percussion, a woman's voice sweet and harsh at the same time singing through the speakers. Crow twirled in her brother's arms, and he followed her lead obligingly.
"Why don't you ever dance?" She asked as she twirled again. Julian shrugged.
"I'm not very good at it, that's all." He replied, carefully copying her eloquent steps as she moved lightly across the floor. Crow laughed.
"Pfft. You have to suck at something, you know. Law of reality. You're so good at everything else, you have to suck at dancing to keep the order of reality in check," she said, back sweeping into a graceful arc with arms outstretched as they moved. Julian laughed, a real unfettered sound, and shook his head.
"Yup. That has to be it," he said, dipping her playfully. She snorted, then laughed out loud at the sound of it. The song on the stereo grew into dramatic crescendo, the woman's voice sounding joyous and mournful at the same time. Crow closed her eyes and listened with a happy look on her face.
"Good song to dance to," she murmured. Julian twirled her again before drawing her into a hug, an expression very close to hers on his face.
"Why don't you ever dance?" He asked, repeating her question.
"I'm not very good at it," she replied.
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Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:05 pm
There was a small package waiting for Lenore on her bed. It was hard to tell how it got there, since the doors had been closed the window was firmly shut Inside there was a shiny music box, neatly wrapped in a dark velvet cloth, and a note attached Package  Note As soon as I saw it I knew it was meant to you, since you enjoy music so much It's made of water, so you don't have to worry about breaking it. And don't worry about evaporation either The bird will dance according to the music and will protect the small treasures you put inside the box Hope you like it Signed, Your fellow air musician
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Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:23 pm
Music Box
"Len, what's that?"
"Huh?"
Len and the family bustled into the room, loaded down with groceries. Promptly dropping her bag and ignoring the distressed cracking of a dozen eggs, she scooted to her bed and picked up the little parcel. Looking up at the others in bemusement, she shrugged.
"I dunno... it's just here," she said, looking around suspiciously. Mysterious packages, like strangers, were rarely welcome in her life anymore. Running a finger over the plush wrapping, she blinked in surprise as she finally noticed the attached note. Reading it with foreboding, her face quite suddenly and rather alarmingly split into a beaming smile.
Crow, slightly taken aback, stuffed her grocery bags into Julian's already overladen arms. Ignoring the loud thud as he lost balance and fell over, buried in produce, she poked at Len's gift curiously.
"Well, are ya gonna open it?" She asked, trying to peek at the note.
Unwrapping her gift carefully, Lenore drew a sharp breath. The elegant neck of the crane peeped out from the cloth, small bubbles in its seemingly impossible solid-but-liquid form drifting around inside it.
"Oh..."
Carefully turning the little crank that jutted out of the side, Lenore watched in awe as the bird stretched its wings and danced in tune with the music. It was beautiful to watch.
Ethan, trying to help Julian out from under the mountain of groceries, paused to watch the object in amazement.
"Who gave it to you, Len?" He asked, eyes wide.
Lenore just smiled.
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Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:00 pm
Reserved for Aphrodite and Co. RP
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Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:07 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:42 pm
Julian entered the room on rather rubbery legs, running a hand over his throat unconsciously. Crow and Ethan watched this peculiar behavior in definite concern, but knew from experience anything Julian didn't want to share couldn't be weaseled out of him no matter how hard they tried. The nightmares that tormented him nearly every night were no where near calming down at all, and he certainly wasn't telling them what he dreamed. So, through frustrating experience, the glance the two shared behind his back was an unspoken agreement to just let the matter drop.
---
Julian couldn't get to sleep. Everytime he closed his eyes, he could hear the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He still scratched at his throat as though it was hurting him, unable to stop fidgeting and kicking at his blankets. He was slowly driving himself crazy.
What ELSE can be wrong with me? He thought bitterly to himself. He had long since come to the conclusion that the nightmares were some kind of retribution for the things he'd done during his...er, 'unwell' phase before the Marque, but this new bit of trouble had him perplexed. He wasn't quite sure if he liked it or not - there was a definite tone of...what was it... almost, wanting pain... he couldn't understand it.
Good freaking grief. If this is some kind of sick fetish... Gods. Liam'd never let me live it down.
The thought of the embarrassment Liam could put him through made him cringe. He scratched at his throat harder, imagining what would happen if Liam or Crow caught wind of what his mind was turning to.
"Ouch!"
Wincing, he grumbled slightly as he felt his nails break the skin on his throat. The tender skin stung as it healed, leaving a thin streak of blood as it closed up. Eyeing the blood under his nails, Julian suddenly realized how much calmer he felt at the sight of it. He touched his throat gingerly, dragging the nails across the skin. The thoughts he'd suffered earlier with Rabid seemed to flare back up, egging him on to draw blood again. He resisted, yanking his hand away and looking deeply startled.
This most certainly couldn't be good.
Oh, come on...
"You've gotta be kidding me." He hissed to himself. He knew he was unwell... but this....
Biting back a growl, Julian grabbed a pillow and pressed it tight against his face in miserable aggravation.
This definitely, definitely couldn't be good.
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:00 pm
Math Class
"But I don't wanna go."
"Len, for heaven's sake. It's just math class."
"I can count fine! What th' hell do I hafta go to class for?"
Crow let go of Len's hand and took her firmly by the shoulders, her expression caught between sympathy and sternness.
"And watch your language. Th' guy who teaches it's kind of a stick," she whispered, making Len smile with only slight grudging. Pushing her towards the door, she waved her daughter off.
"See you later."
Len watched as Crow turned to leave, fiddling with the strap of her bag. Sadako stuck her head out and gasped for air loudly, making Crow turn and head back over.
"Leeeen. No Sadako. Sorry." Crow said, seizing the doll. Ignoring the girl's angry protest and the sharp doll-teeth biting into her hand, Crow waved once more and left.
Len huffed and crossed her arms, looking sour, and went inside.
"Dammit."
Ike stumbled, pushed once again by Liam. He clung to the strap of his shoulder bag and whined.
"But, Liam! I don't want to go to class! It's ba'ah laveh!"
"Watch your mouth. You have to go."
"Whyyyy?!"
"Your mum will kill me if you don't, and otherwise you won't grow, alright? You wouldn't want to be a kid forever, would you?"
"Ah...no..."
"Good boy. Now go inside and learn something useful. Ahoj," Liam waved and disappeared around the corner.
"Dovidenia," Ike sighed sadly and turned toward the classroom, contemplating running for a moment. Quickly deciding that that was probably not the best idea, he entered the classroom.
Muttering Rijani curses under her breath nonstop, Len sat down at her desk and didn't bother to look up at who entered.
The teacher, a Siamese twin centaur-creature Lenore loathed already on principle, looked up at her stiffly.
"Pleased to meet you as well," he said.
His brother snorted, waving to Len and ignoring the look the speaker gave him.
Len blushed a slightly darker gray, getting up from her desk and curtsying.
"Sorry. Name's Lenore Adyamaur, sir. Uh. Sirs." She said politely, though it took every ounce of willpower not to grind her teeth.
The teacher nodded once, then turned to look at the new arrival.
"Come in, come in. Have a seat."
Len glanced up at her fellow prisoner of education, then squeaked and flew up out of her chair.
"Malachi!"
"Len!" Ike cried out and rushed to the girl and hugged her quickly.
"Have a seat, please," Naiblo said rather sternly.
"Uh...'kay," Ike murmured and looked to the teacher...teachers?...with surprise. He was certianly not expecting someone so...hard.
The boy chose a desk beside Len and sat down, removing his supplies from his backpack.
I don't like him.
Biting back a retort at Naiblo, Len hugged Malachi back before returning to her seat. Digging out her supplies, she edged her desk a little closer to Ike's hoping Naiblo wouldn't notice.
Clearing his throat, Naiblo turned to the blackboard and wrote his and Istrun's names.
"Welcome to Beginner Math," he said as he wrote. "My name is Naiblo Moonback. I'll be your teacher. My brother Istrun-" he pointed to his brother with the chalk- "is your science teacher. He won't be participating in this class."
Istrun waved again, grinning.
Finishing writing the his name and the name of the class, he began writing down the class' subjects.
"I assume you know at least a bit about mathematics, so we should jump right into it, then. Take out your notebooks and a pencil, please. In this class we will be covering division, multiplication, addition, subtraction, fractions, counting, geometry such as quadrilateral figures, areas..."
Ike couldn't keep his jaw from going momentarily slack. His family had gone to insane ends to help him learn basic math. Sure, he wasn't so great with the multiplication tables once it got to 11 and 12, but he didn't need any help with addition...
Kill him.
"Shut up," Ike said as he took out his notebook and a mechanical pencil.
"Excuse me?" Naiblo turned to Ike with an arched eyebrow.
"Uh...nothing, sir...mister...Moonback...sir..." Ike stammered, blushing slightly and scribbling down the subject names to keep himself occupied.
Naiblo waited a moment more before turning back to the board. He began scrawling a fair amount of basic math problems on the board in an almost sickeningly neat script.
"I'd like you to complete these problems to the best of your ability. I'd like to know how much you've been taught before beginning the lesson."
Ike sighed and rested his head on his hand, beginning to copy the problems down as they were written.
He really, really hated math.
Lenore scribbled down the problems with definite resentment. She could already tell this class was going to try her nerves. Eyeing a division problem, she decided that it could wait and started doodling.
Naiblo watched his students with arms crossed, waiting for them to finish. His eyes caught sight of a rather large doodle emerging on Lenore's paper and cleared his throat.
"Miss Adyamaur..."
Len looked up guitily and started working on the problem.
"Sorry sir." She said. Huh... okay... four divided by sixteen is...
Jeezum, Ike thought as he peered at the problems written on his paper, I didn't think you could divide little numbers by big numbers...
He copied the problem (which happened to be 6/12) over a few more times, as if hoping that it would somehow reveal the answer.
One half, William answered in annoyance, Six is one half of twelve, right? So you have a half of one in each group when you split six into twelve parts.
Ike nodded. That made sense. He scribbled down the answer and moved on to the easier problems.
"I'm done, Mr. Moonback."
"Well, just hold onto your work," Naiblo nodded, "Once Miss Adyamaur is finished, we will correct them together."
Ike nodded and began doodling random creatures on his work.
Unlike Malachi, Len didn't get to have any help with her work. Crow had taught her counting and Julian had tackled the basics of addition and subtraction, but beyond that she was a bit of a hopeless case. Blushing hotly when Ike finished before her, she looked hard at her paper and stared at the division problem. She had the sudden idea to take a quick glance at Ike's paper, just to get a nudge in the right direction, then shrugged it off. She didn't believe in cheating.
"Uh... um..."
Quickly moving onto the problems she figured scould solve, she wrote in whatever answer she thought up for the ones she couldn't and pushed her paper away.
"Done, sir," she said in a small voice.
Naiblo picked up the chalk and pointed to the first problem.
"Alright, then. Read me your answers and I'll put the correct one on the board. Seven times six is?"
Len shrank in her seat a bit.
"You go first, Bah," she said, looking down at her desk.
"Alright," Ike smiled to Len a bit sympathetically, "Forty-two."
Don't make me look like an idiot, Malachi.
"Good," Naiblo nodded and scrawled "42" beneath the problem, "Miss Adyamaur, what is nine minus 3?"
Relieved, Len glanced down at her paper.
"Six, sir."
"Good." He repeated, writing down the answer. "Five plus eight is?"
"Thirteen, sir," Ike sighed, bored out of his mind and only half paying attention.
"What about twelve times six?"
"Uh." Len paused, looking down at her paper. "It's... thirty...five..."
Naiblo shook his head and tapped the problem on the board with his chalk.
"Try again."
Len looked at the problem again.
"Oh, it's...it's eighteen." She said, adding the figures quickly.
Ike noticed his friend's confusion, if that's what it was, and immediately felt bad. How to tell her the answer without cheating? Ah!
He tore out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote twelve sixes on it. He then handed the paper to Len.
"Add them all up."
Naiblo looked down at the boy suspiciously and loomed over him.
"Would you like to teach this class yourself?"
"Uh...n..no, sir..."
Restraining the urge for the second time to talk back to Naiblo, Len did as Malachi said anyway.
"Seventy two, sir." She said, a slight edge to her voice. She smiled at Ike gratefully as she changed the answer on her paper.
Lips pursed slightly, Naiblo nodded and wrote the answer on the board.
"If you're having trouble Miss Adyamaur, feel free to ask me for help," he said with slight stiffness.
Ike smiled back at Len, but only quickly. It seemed quite possible that the teacher didn't much like smiling, and he didn't want to get scolded any more.
"Thirteen," Ike pointed to the board, wanting to cotinue as quickly as possible.
"Good, good," Naiblo said nonchalantly and scrawled the answer on the board, "I seems we should begin learning the basics of multiplication and division to keep everyone on the same level, hm?"
You could teach her.
"Shhhh..."
Lenore waited until both Naiblo and Istrun weren't looking before pulling a grotesque face, wagging her tongue and wrinkling her nose. Embarrassing her friends was not a way to get on her good side. Her face shifted back to normal as Naiblo looked up again, excusing her still-wrinkled nose as simply itchy as she rubbed her knuckles against it.
Certain he'd just missed something rude, Naiblo gazed at Len briefly before erasing the board and writing 'Multiplication' and 'Division' on the board.
"Alright. Miss Adyamaur, could you tell me the difference between multiplication and division?"
Len gulped.
"Um. Multiplication is...uh..." she looked down at the paper Ike gave her nervously. "It's when you take like, ah, y'know, take one number and add it up a bunch of times. Like...like four times nine, you take nine fours and add 'em up," she said, amazed that she'd managed to explain it at all.
"And division?"
"Um..."
Ike looked to his friend and, trying his best to explain division as best he could without speaking, tore another piece of paper out of his notebook, scrawled a big 2 on it, and tore it in half. He then wrote "1" on each slip of paper.
Division was...well...dividing, right?
Naiblo frowned at Malachi, brows knitting together.
"Mister Devreaux..." he began, looking a little irritated.
"Division is the opposite of multiplication," Len said quickly and clearly, trying to distract the teacher. "It's... it's like subtraction! You take a certain amount of a number and subtract it a lot of times by another number."
Naiblo turned his frown to Lenore, who cringed slightly.
"A bit...vague, but yes, you've got the gist of it." he said, writing a few sample problems of each on the board.
Ike cringed at the teacher's harsh tone and swept the paper pieces into his shoulder bag. He was trying to help...why was that so bad?
]Len sank in her seat, feeling horribly self-conscious and guilty. Not only was she bad at math, she'd gotten poor Ike in trouble.
"Hey, sir," she said to Naiblo, hardly believing her daring, "Malachi's just trying to help me."
Naiblo arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms.
"Pardon?"
Len took a deep breath. She refused to be intimidated by a guy who was half-horse.
"M'sorry. He's just trying to help is all. I'm not good at school," she said quickly. She felt heat rise in her face as she said it, but as much as she didn't want to admit it, it was true... she felt quite dumb at the moment.
Naiblo pursed his lips again but declined to comment, though it was clear he hadn't taken kindly to being talked back to. Though, she was catching on with the boys help, it seemed. He turned to the board and finished writing.
"Try your hand at these, then pass them up to me once you're done. And Miss Adyamaur," he added, looking stern, "you raise your hand if you wish to speak. Once class is done you can come up here and clean the board."
"Yes sir."
Ike began writing the problems down on his paper, planning to stay with Len once class was through. He could try and put his new powers to use...although that would probably also get him in trouble.
Oh well. Len was his best girl friend.
Scribbling down the problems, Len tackled them one at a time with resenting determination. It was a slow process, and more than once she had to erase a lot of work and start over. But she refused to ask for help - Ike had given her a head start, and she'd rather eat her eraser then ask that unpleasant teacher for help.
Six times six is...oh... dammit! Dammit! Okay....six plus six is twelve...
She really, really hated math right now.
Instrun couldn't help to interfeer at this point. He knew his brother well (they were together for over 20 years now) but he was starting to get on his nerves
"It's good for kids to help out eachother ya know"
"This is my class Instrun and they should learn how to solve problems alone" he replied without taking his eyes off his students
"If you taught them how..."
"Are you insinuating I don't know how to teach? Mind you I..."
"... went into college 2 years before any other student. I know, I was there remember?"
"But seriously Nai they're just kids and you haven't exactly told them the steps to solve the problems. You can't expect them to know everything"
Naiblo refused to reply, turning his head away from him brother in discomptempt
Taking that as a positive sign, Instrun addressed to Lenore, noticing the problem she was trying to solve
"I know a little trick to make multiplications easier. 6 is 5+1 right? Then just do 6x5 + 6x1. It's much easier to remember" he winked
Ike peered up at the teachers. Huh...he'd never thought of multiplication like that. Then again...you had to know how to multiply to do it that way.
He hadn't while learning.
Len looked up shyly at Istrun, then back down at the problem.
"Okay..."
Scribbling down the figures on the paper, she worked out the answer and looked back up. She'd actually figured it out.
Cool.
"Done, sir." She said, writing the number 36 with a flourish.
Ike peered over at Len's paper and grinned upon seeing her correct answer.
"Good job," Istrun smiled.
Naiblo simply snorted.
Feeling quite triumphant, Len handed Naiblo her paper. She mouthed a quick thank you to Istrun, smiling.
Naiblo accepted the paper and looked it over.
"Good, good... well then. Mister Devreaux, Miss Adyamaur, I believe that's enough for today. Your homework," he paused and took two fresh papers off the desk and handed them to his students, "is due next class. Nothing too hard, just a review of what we went over today. Class dismissed."
Lenore spraing up and grabbed Malachi's hand, ready to sprint from the room.
"Miss Adyamaur."
Oh. Right. Sagging slightly, Len went over to the blackboard and started to clean it off with the water bottle and rag Naiblo had pointed out to her. As the teachers left (Istrun she waved goodbye to, and Naiblo she made a very unpleasant face at when he turned away), she scrubbed away at the board.
"Well. Fun class, isn't it?" She asked Malachi wryly, sneezing a bit as she inhaled chalk dust.
]"Hm," Ike nodded and stole the water bottle from Len, wetting his own tail and beginning to scrub the board with it. It covered more space than one of those stupid rags.
"I really don't like that guy."
Len grinned and finished cleaning her part of the board.
"A real charmer, he is. I can see how learnin' stuff like multiplication'll be useful in real life, though." she said mildly. "Next time somebody attacks us we can just bore them to death."
Laughing to herself, she tossed the rag onto the teacher's desk, ignoring the puddle it began to form on Naiblo's papers.
"Thank you for helping me," she said, looking over at Ike shyly. There was a self-conscious grin on her face as she spoke. "I promise I won't get you in trouble again. I'll practice n' stuff."
Scooting back to her desk, she crumpled her homework as she shoved it into her bag.
"Wanna go outside and play?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:33 pm
Reserved for the Bergerac RP
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Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:59 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:52 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:41 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Reply
