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 Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:58 pm
When Ma had sent him out in an effort to get him to socialize (or, at least, off of her couch), even Arkie could have guessed she hadn't meant "wander to the park and mess around in the sandbox".
That, however, was where he'd ended up. School had just started, so there were thankfully no puzzled children there to wonder why the weird green man was reclined on his side, drawing pictures in the sand with the tip of one clawed finger with the concentration of a small child reading a very good book etched on his features.
To an onlooker, it may have appeared to be scrawlings of stick figures having epic battles and shooting off each other's limbs with crudely-drawn cannons while others stomped on their enemies from the back of dinosaurs that looked like blobs and...
....and that was exactly what it WAS, but in the process of creating such masterpieces, his mind's gears were also slowly grinding. He was trying to picture the future that existed beyond ten minutes from now - a rarity for him.
People always talked about That Guy who turned up at parties or bars who just sat in the corner not talking to anybody and not wanting to have anything to drink. Arkie had heckled and harassed many a That Guy in his day at countless parties. Now he tried to see himself becoming That Guy and...man, thinking of the future SUCKED if that was what it held.
His tail gave a lash, kicking up a fan of sand that wiped away several stick soldiers riding on what could best be described as sharp-toothed bowls of macaroni. Maybe he DID need to get his head on straight.
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:15 pm
"Addie. Addie, get back here. Adelaide Fox, you get over here right now!" Quinn's foot gave a little stomp, but her dark-skinned charge payed her no heed. Instead, Addie toddled across the playground, forehead creased with concentration. So singular was her mind, that she didn't even bother ripping off her clothes, as was her usual routine. Her fat little legs stomped awkwardly as she followed Gloo towards the sandbox. The little booger had gotten away from her once, she wasn't going to let him out of her sight again.
Quinn sighed and followed after. It was hard to be angry with her for very long, she was just too cute. All she had to do was look at her little fat legs and her little fat arms and her little fat rudder of a tail and she melted into a gooey pile. The biggest problem was, she had just gotten used to having a baby. A mostly immobile, well-behaved baby. And now, she had a toddler. A toddler that pressed her luck and her boundaries with every action.
"Addie, you stay where I can see you." At least the girl could be counted on for that much. Quinn maneuvered her stroller over to a bench and sat down, watching as Addie waddled after Gloo. She frowned a little when she noticed the green man in the sandbox, her mouth pressing together into a hard line. Weird guys alone on the playground always freaked her out. Hopefully, Addie would see him and decide to play somewhere else.
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:27 pm
He had been pondering the pressing dilemma of "What now?" .....which was maybe not as pressing as the growing desire to get up and go find a cheeseburger.
The scales in his head were toppled, however, by the sound of a female voice reverberating around the playground, accompanied by the stampede of small, heavy footsteps as something rapidly approached.
He stopped in mid-scrawl of what had been a UFO of epic proportions descending from the sky to lay waste to the stick battle below once and for all, to lift his gaze in time to see a small child tromping straight in his direction.
"Addie, you stay where I can see you!"
The name rang a rusty little bell somewhere in his head, but....nah it wasn't the same one, right? There were like, billions of Arkies and Addies in Gaia, right?
....even though he remained the only Arkie he'd ever met.
Besides, he remembered her being a lot smaller. .....and covered in goo.
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:38 pm
Addie giggled and picked Gloo up, triumphantly returning him to her hair. She babbled at him in her toddler tongue, reminding him not to run away from her. As she returned to standing, she wobbled a bit and then righted herself, her eyes finally catching on the green man in the sandbox. Instead of shying away, as Quinn had hoped, Addie trotted right up to him, looking him up and down before pointing to her head and announcing, "'NAIL!"
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:53 pm
Yep. Billions of Addies in Gaia.
....but only one of them might have made off with one of his snails at some point. And here he'd thought the other ones had just gotten tired of Fat Tony's bitching and ate him.
"Yeah?" he asked, moving to sit up, mindless of the fact he was dusty with sand. "Me too!" he grinned, reaching up to rifle through his own hair and--man, why were they never around when he WANTED one, but were always trying to crawl in his ears at night and--AHA!
With a flourish he produced a snail of his own....one that had probably seen unspeakable horrors in its days of using Arkanti as a host. It wriggled fruitlessly on the air a moment, and then seeming to realize it was getting nowhere fast as he clutched it, withdrew into its shell to avoid further indignities.
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:06 pm
Quinn sat forward as Arkie sat up to face her daughter. "Addie?" she called, trying not to let the stress she was feeling enter her voice. "Addie, why don't you play over here?"
Adelaide looked over her shoulder, exasperation plain on her face. "'nail, momma. Me 'nail, him 'nail. See?" She pointed a fat finger at Arkie's snail and smiled widely. Apparently, as far as Addie was concerned, if you could pull snails out of the dark recesses of your scalp, that made you not a creepy *****. Quinn sighed and walked over to the girl, taking a seat on the grass by the sandbox. "Yes, honey. Snail. SSSSSSnail."
Addie just shot her another look and plopped onto her bottom so she could remove her shoes. Then, she crawled into the sandbox, with only a little help from Quinn and sat down about a foot from Arkie. She pointed at herself and then at Gloo. "Addie. Gloooooo." Gloo's named trailed up an octave and ended in giggles.
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:39 pm
Laughter, maybe the first real laughter he'd produced in months, broke from him as she dissolved into giggles. She didn't SEEM to be a squalling poo-cannon, at least.
Actually....ACTUALLY....she looked a lot like Sati. Sort of. Now that she wasn't all mished and wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets.
"Man, last time I saw you, you were like..." he paused, and then tried to remember how small she'd been, holding his hands first two feet, then a foot, then half a foot apart....and then reconsidered and held them back at about a foot once more. "....THAT big."
It was weird. Really weird, to say the least. He'd seen all kinds of TV shows where some parent was reunited with their kid and they were all over them with hugs and kisses and 'oh my little baby's and he felt the desire to do none of that.
Seeing green scaly ears peeking out of the forest of black hair, however, made him keenly aware of the strange rounded ones he now sported...
Unconsciously a hand reached up to rub at one of them, confirming that yes, they were still human-like. And yes, they still hurt if he tugged on them.
And then, for the first time noticing Quinny, he threw himself across the sandbox in a bellyflop, not seeming to care about the scene he was making of himself. "Hi!" he greeted.
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 6:19 pm
"...last time I saw you..."
Last time he saw her? He knew her daughter? "You know Adelaide?" She didn't even react to the belly flop or the cascade of sand that accompanied it. She looked at him, really looked at him. And then she looked at Addie. The green's were the same. And the wide grins. And something in their eyes. And that flop, Addie did that every night before bed. "Are you... who are you?"
Addie laughed as a wave of sand sprinkled over her. She smacked her hands and flung little fists full at Arkie. Then, she did her own mini flop, rolling and laughing. Feeling brave, she let herself come to rest with her flank just brushing Arkie's. "We flop, Momma. We flop!"
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 7:51 pm
The look Arkie gave Quinny was reminiscent of a dog being told to sit and stay for the first time. The very definition of 'huh?'
"I'm Arkie!" he told her, this obviously answering EVERYTHING. As Addie settled in beside him, likewise making a mess of herself, he turned his head to watch. It was a little like looking in a mirror....one that made your reflection look a lot smaller and stranger.
"And Addie, she's my--"
...what did he say? She's my baby sounded dumb. She's my daughter was maybe a little better...
"Me an' Sati made her!" he settled for.
Brilliant
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 6:31 am
You could have served dinner on the plates Quinn's eyes became, but her surprise lasted only a second. Her thoughts had been leading her to this same conclusion, after all. It was just a tad unsettling to hear it said out loud. By a green man with a tail. Who's maturity level put him closer to Addie's brother, than her father. Not that she had a lot of room to talk.
She nodded, chewing her lower lip and motioned for Addie to come to her. The child paused momentarily, but then crawled over to Quinn, eyes wide. She knew that when Quinn was quiet, she meant business. She settled herself on the wooden rim of the sandbox and looked at Quinn gravely, "You ok, Momma?"
Her sweet little voice held so much concern that Quinn's mouth twitched up into a half smile and her eyes got a little shiny. "I'm fine, baby," she reassured, taking Adelaide's pudgy hand in her's. She thought for a moment about how to go about this. "You remember Sati? She comes to our house sometimes?"
Addie smiled, she knew the answer to this one. "Oh yes! Sati-momma nice!"
"You remember how I told you that Sati made you so that I could take care of you?"
Addie just nodded in response. This was getting a bit complicated and the sand was beginning to draw her attention.
Quinn rested a gentle finger under Addie's chin, drawing her attention back to focus. "This man is Arkie. He helped make you too."
Addie's look seemed to dissect Arkie on the spot. Her little face screwed up in concentration and she thought for a very long time. Finally, she looked up, first at Quinn and then back at Arkie. "Me 'nail. Ark 'nail. Is ok." She smiled reassuringly at Quinn and then went back to play, grabbing at Arkie's hand to make him play with her.
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:47 pm
When Quinny's tone had gone quiet and Addie had been called away, Arkie had felt himself flinch -- something he might not have done had it been a year or two ago.
It was only because in his time living with Sati he had become quite familiar by now with what it meant when a girl went quiet all of a sudden. It meant 'buckle up, chucklehound, here comes the drama train!'
But the yelling and the lecturing never happened. Just a very piercing look from Addie's direction and then everything seemed to be all right again.
....well!
Maybe they were right. Maybe babies DID diffuse any situation. Arkie began to wonder if maybe it might not be a good idea, from now on, to walk around with one strapped to his chest. Like some sort of anti-drama forcefield.
The snail in Arkie's grasp, forgotten and seeming to realize so, had crawled back out of its shell and was now beginning its slow journey up his wrist to eventually arrive back at the home he'd pulled it from as Addie tugged at his hand.
Pulling his knees beneath himself he half-sprawled, half-crawled in the direction he was being pulled, finding them both in the midst of what had once been the picture he had been working on.
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:06 pm
Quinn still hadn't decided how she felt about the whole situation. She knew that she hadn't exactly acquired Addie in anything remotely resembling a normal manner, but still, at least Sati had tried to contact her. Until just now, Quinn hadn't even known who Addie's father was, or if she even had one. She wasn't really all that versed in the in's and out's of the Fa'e after all. For all she knew, Addie was conceived by something other than the usual means.
Still, she could see he meant well. So, instead of going with logic, she went with instinct and stood up, brushing off her pants, to retrieve Addie's bucket and shovel from the stroller. She'd never really made friends with logic, anyway. Why start now?
"Here you go, " she said, proffering the sand implements. Addie took them with a grin and settled in the sand, resting her body gently against Arkie's.
"Ark-Ark, wanna build a castle?" She held the bucket and shovel out, enticing him to join her.
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 12:08 am
Castle? Arkie pondered it a moment. He'd never actually BUILT a sandcastle before, but he had become a pro at trashing them. Anyone wondering could just ask Kendall. The poor man had inhaled enough sand as a child to weigh down a hot air balloon due to the overzealous Fae's pouncing and destroying half-built castles of his.
"Sure!" he agreed, hunkering down beside her. He'd give it a try, anyway. And if the castle-building failed, he would, instead, show her the awesome sandshark impression he could do.
....come to think of it, failed castles be damned, he may show that off anyway.
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 11:04 am
Addie set the bucket between the two of them and then handed the shovel to Arkie, surprising even Quinn by this gesture of kindness. "You fill bucket, kay?" She demonstrated by picking up a handful of sand and dumping it the bucket.
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 5:17 am
"Kay!" Arkie replied agreeably enough, seeming less like her father and moreso like an overgrown child her own age. The epic stick mural, apparently, was forgotten as the blade of the plastic shovel dug into what had once been a couple of stick soldiers in favor of filling the pail she'd presented him with.
It had been FOREVER since he'd done something that was fun with no strings attached to it....or without Ma on the sidelines yelling at him to knock it off. And speaking of Karma, she probably would have rolled her eyes to see how perfectly at-home he and Addie both looked, rooting around in the sand and dirt together.
"So is she going to school and stuff yet?" he asked Quinny quite out of nowhere. And it seemed a very odd question coming from one who's knowledge of the classroom likely did not extend beyond Naughty Co-Eds.
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