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 Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:05 pm
Yeande reached out then, clasping Talon's hand in her own. "I'm sorry," she said again, glancing to him. For once, there was no hint of her normal 'attitude' present there. "I should have come to you when this started, and I didn't even think. I didn't want to stress you out after all of this, and I really thought that this urge would just go away."
So much for it just going away. Now, she had a mother-to-be living in their houses, Talon didn't know about it yet, the baby WAS coming, and he had not a clue. And judging from his reactions, she didn't want to be the one to tell him.
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:26 pm
Talon's hand remained lax in her grasp for a long moment before his fingers tightened around her own in a squeeze. He still didn't appear to be at-all happy with the situation, but he didn't want to give her the impression that he planned on running out on her due to it.
He was itching to ask her about details...the when's, the where's, the how's...but the more he thought about it, the more he decided he might not like to hear the answers to them. And that he wouldn't be able to keep his cool once he did.
This is HER project, let HER deal with it the vindictive little snake living in his brain hissed. And he could, he supposed. The two-house arrangement would make it easy for him to settle full responsibility of a second child onto her shoulders.
But then how the hell did you explain a situation like that? "We have two kids but one belongs to my wife. Oh no, we're not divorced, I just told her SHE has to raise the second one because I didn't want it." There was just no way to say that without him sounding like an a*****e.
Which is exactly what he was trying to AVOID. He mused that his wife really had missed her calling in politics. She knew exactly how to present her side of things in such a way that if you disagreed or were against it, you looked like a jerk to everybody around you.
"I'm sorry too." he said in a voice that was atonal as he leaned forward kissing Yeande briefly on the lips and Zhane quickly on the forehead before rising off of the edge of the bed. "...but I think I need to go for a little while."
Its not like he would have been the first man to leave for the evening to drive aimlessly around the city cursing and screaming at nothing in particular. Better that nameless pedestrians got the brunt of his wrath anyway...he didn't give a blue ******** what they thought of him. He DID give a blue ******** about what Yeande and Zhane thought of him, however, and that's exactly why he wanted to spare them the outburst.
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:32 pm
Nodding, Yeande curled back on the bed, wrapped around Zhane as she petted his hair gently. "Alright," she said, watching him get to his feet. He's not leaving me, her mind whispered soothingly. He's upset, he needs to cool down, YOU'D do the same thing if you were really angry. Just let him go and do what he needs to do.
Still, there was always that little bitty voice in the back of her mind that told her this time she'd stepped over the line. "I love you," she whispered, looking up to him hesitantly. She wanted to remind him of that. Often. Yeande attached herself to very few people in life, and she couldn't imagine what she'd do without him. Occasionally, she even managed to drop her pride enough to say it.
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:53 pm
"I love you too." he told her as he crossed the room to let himself out.
"Buh bye Da-yee!!" Zhane called brightly after him, waving enthusiastically. The response was a sullen and brief flex of fingers from his father over his shoulder before he moved out of sight. His footsteps receded through the house and then the closing of the front door punctuated his departure.
From Youko's front yard, he crossed immediately over to Karma's driveway where he pulled open the door of the Honda and climbed inside, patting down his pockets for the keys. He got them into the ignition on the third try and then sat there, staring at the steering wheel with terrible fixation as though he'd never seen one before.
"DAMN IT!!" he spat suddenly, bringing both fists down on it, clipping the horn with one of them as the car made a tinny-sounding blat. His world brought back into focus with anger, he gave the keys an angry twist and gunned the engine. Thank god he'd filled the car up yesterday, he felt like he had at least a couple of hours' worth of road to cover.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:02 pm
"I thought Yeande was taking Zhane tonight." Karma said, quirking a brow as she passed by the nursery to find Talon perched in the rocking chair as Zhane played quietly on the floor with various toys of his while wearing his pajamas.
"She was. I changed my mind." Talon muttered.
"YOU changed your mind?" the foxcoon inquired, quirking a brow. "Since when do you wear the pants in your family?"
"I don't." the ijiuo growled irritatedly. "Not by a long shot, apparantly."
"The cow says MOOOOOOOOO" the Speak N Say reported in its slightly garbled voice as Zhane pulled the lever.
"Uh huh." Karma folded her arms over her chest. "And what's that supposed to mean, exactly?"
"None of your business, that's what it means." Talon shot back.
"Listen to the kitty cat! MEEEEOOOOOWWWW" the Speak N Say quipped.
"Answer me something, Talon. If I were to call Youko's right now, am I likely to find that Yeande is in bed and you, in a tizz, went over there and pulled Zhane out of his crib and brought him back here without clearing it first? I'm just asking because I want to be ready for that panicked two AM call if that's the case."
"That ISN'T the case. She knows he's here." he grumped. "And that water has been running for the last hour or so in the bathroom, I'd go check and see what your 'son' is up to." he spat the word out with great distaste as Karma's ears laid back and she immediately abandoned the doorway of the nursery to storm down the hallway.
"ARKIE!!" she bellowed. Talon shook his head and idly reached over the edge of the rocker for one of the books that sat in a neat stack on the dresser. Zhane was still too young to appreciate bedtime stories, but they were well-prepared when he was old enough at least...the selection spanned from Beatrix Potter to Dr. Suess along with a bunch of one-shots he'd never heard of. Come to think of it, he'd never heard of most of the popular ones until he became a father either. Never having been a child himself, he'd missed out on a great deal of what people in his age appearance had grown up with.
After driving around for the better part of three hours, yelling every curse he could think of and thoroughly beating the hell out of the poor steering wheel, he'd finally expended most of his anger and returned home. He'd gone back to Youko's with the intention of trying to discuss things, but had decided that he still wasn't ready. Yeande had decided that, all things considered, she wasn't feeling very well and wondered if Talon would take Zhane back with him for the night. He'd agreed.
And now here they were. Zhane was all wound up, Talon was all wound up for entirely different reasons, and neither of them were going to bed anytime soon, apparantly.
"The rooster goes COCKADOODLEDOOOOOOOO"
Talon made a mental note that from now on, none of Zhane's toys were allowed to talk. Especially if they made annoying noises along with said talking.
His eyes wandered to the small radio sitting at the back of the dresser's top. When Zhane had still been a newborn, he had brought it in here to try and keep himself sane with music played softly during the more sleepless nights. It was like trying to recall some sort of strange fever dream, sitting there in this room in the pitch darkness with Zhane cradled against his chest as his arm tingled with pins and needles from being held in the same position for an hour. Somewhere amid the thick grainy smell of formula and battling the weights that had been attached to his eyelids, the disembodied and slightly-nasal voice of Meatloaf was singing about how two out of three ain't bad.
Maybe he HAD gone crazy for a little bit there....if not, it had certainly been the perfect setting for it.
"The dog says BOWWOWOWOWOWOW"
"OwwowWOW!" Zhane mimicked, grinning and clearly pleased with himself. "Dug, day-ee! Dug!"
In Zhane-ese he was saying "Look father, a dog!"
"Yup. Dog." Talon agreed, deciding that the Speak N Say was quickly about to become the Throw N Thud if it didn't stop making noise. Reaching out for the radio, he clicked it on and was greeted with static as he searched for a station that was coming in clearly.
"-nd are you really trying to tell me that you're HAPPY with the way this relationship is going for you??" an angry-sounding voice filtered out of the radio making Zhane pause in mid-pull of the Speak N Say's lever to goggle up at first his father and then at the direction of the noise.
"Uhh...well, you know, Ace, I can't just divorce her cuz she gets me PO'ed sometimes." the caller said, sounding like he was on a cel phone with a bad connection.
"Look, do me a favor and never have children. Do you hear me? NEVER. Thank you for the call, Steve. Phone number, one-eight hundred, five-five-five, two-one-two-six. Tonight's topic is "My life sucks". Go ahead and call us, we're ready to hear your story. We're going on....line....THREE with Erica. How you doin', babe?"
"Hi, Ace! Umm....well, first of all, long time listener first time caller..."
Talon rolled his eyes and reached for the dial again, twisting it slowly to the end of the station dial and then back toward the program he'd passed. He wasn't much of a fan of talk radio, but apparantly that was all he was getting tonight thanks to the bad reception on other stations.
"--ee times divorced."
"In how many years, Erica?"
"Umm...five actually."
"THREE times divorced in FIVE years?? Wow."
"Yeah, the first one I divorced because he was cheating on me. The second one divorced me because I was cheating on him, and I had my third divorce when I got pregnant and he just...did NOT want children. At all."
"So you have a kid, then?"
"Yeah. He's six months old. And I can't apply for financial aid because I don't qualify so we live with my mom right now..."
Zhane abandoned the Speak N Say in favor of one of his plush toys...a pink cat with slightly-nappy fur and a little wind-up key in his back that, when twisted, played "What A Wonderful World" As he fussed with the key, twisting it with some difficulty between his fingers, Talon's hand stole to his pocket, finding his cel phone and running his finger over the plastic shell of it idly. At length, he pulled it out of his pocket and dialed the 800 number. When was he going to get a chance like this again?
It hadn't even rung once when the line was picked up. "Ace McDowell show." a bored-sounding voice reported.
"I'm calling about tonight's topic." Talon told him, not really sure what he was supposed to say as he crossed the room and hooked the door shut with his foot.
"About 'My Life Sucks'? Okay, and what's your name?"
"Talon."
"Hold please." The dialog of the show suddenly filtered through the phone at him as he went into the queue. Zhane had abandoned the kitty and was now half-crawling, half-toddling over to where his father sat, pulling himself into a stand with the aid of Talon's pantleg.
"Iss mumuh?" he asked, reaching for the phone.
"No, its not your mother." Talon told him, digging a book out of the pile and handing it to him. "Here, go look at this for a little while, okay?" he said, handing Zhane Pat The Bunny. The little boy examined the book intensely, turned it upside down, and then fumbled the pages open to investigate the interactive pictures. Oooh....fuzzy! He plumped down on his backside to further investigate the book as his father continued to wait on hold.
"Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Erica. Phone number, one-eight hundred, five-five-five, two-one-two-six. For those of you just tuning in, tonight's topic is "My life sucks". As some of you may or may not know, I just signed the paperwork for my second divorce tonight and I thought it would do me some good to hear about all the people who had it worse than me. We're ready to listen. Let's go back to the phones here...line one, Talon. Hello?"
"Hello." Talon said, caught a bit offguard.
"And is that your real name? Talon? I know some of our callers make up psuedonyms, but you could try a little harder..."
"That IS my name." the ijiuo replied, narrowing his eyes.
"Well buddy, you don't need to tell me why YOUR life sucks. That must have been murder going through school with a name like a caveman."
"And your real name is Ace?"
"Anyway, go ahead. Tell us your story. There's other people on hold and we need to cut to a break soon."
"Well first of all, I never had a childhood. Or parents."
"So you were adopted?"
"No I live with someone I have no attachment to whatsoever who keeps me around so she can feel like an intellectual giant by treating me like a kid. So I put up with this because its all you CAN do, I mean its either that or you go and huddle on the streets. I deal with this for awhile and I ended up meeting my soulmate in the house next door. I mean, it was just like something clicked. One minute we're sizing each other up from opposite sides of the yard, the next minute we're hitting it off in every way possible."
"And GETTING it off too, right?" Ace goaded.
"I'm getting to that. So before we can get too involved, I get dragged off to the doctor to make sure that I'm...okay, you know? He tells me I'm shooting blanks. No sperm count whatsoever. And I'm all-too-happy to hear this because *I* sure as hell don't want kids..."
"DAYEE!! Ist bunny!" Zhane proclaimed, holding up the book to show him a large visage of a smiling white bunny.
"Sounds like it didn't quite happen that way." Ace offered, sounding like he was doing his damnnest not to laugh.
"No, it didn't." Talon growled. "So we have at it for a few months, thinking everything is fine and then suddenly she starts getting sick and having the mood swings and she's goddamn pregnant. So, of course, this is all MY fault, you know, because I'm supposed to know exactly what my genitals are doing at all times."
"Oh, of course! Don't you know? Guys are supposed to be like...like psychics or something when it comes to that!"
"Yeah, well, I'm not The Great Jizzini so I can't help you there." he muttered. Ace finally lost it and exploded into laughter.
"Sorry...sorry go on."
"So we have a son now. We got married, but she still lives in her own place and I still live in mine. Still right next door to each other."
"Why in god's name do you do that?"
"Convenience, I guess. Maybe laziness." he scratched at the back of his neck. "That and we can't afford our own place. She stays at home and I work tech support for this crappy hole-in-the-wall company with idiots for customers."
"So, wait a second...I keep interrupting, I know. Is it really as bad as they say? I mean, do you get the whole CD-ROM being a cupholder and crap like that?"
"Don't EVEN get me started." the ijiuo snarled. "God dammit, Ace, I've told people to open Windows and they put me on hold to literally go open their living room window. I had this panicked old lady on the phone who called because her computer found a virus and she'd taken the whole godforsaken thing apart and wanted to know which part she ought to spray with Raid first. I even had this moron call in who wanted to know where he was supposed to put the coffee in his computer when it wouldn't load Java applets.
I mean, really. REALLY. Why is it so hard for people to do a little goddamn research before they bring a computer home? I mean, I'd really like to think that people this moronic don't just happen to have nine hundred dollars burning a hole in their pocket at any given time and decide on a whim one day to bring home an entire home computer system that they have no idea how to use. Does the government give grants for stupidity now? They must! Because these people don't contribute anything of value to society! How can they when they're on the phone all goddamn day calling ME up asking me to help them find their "Any" key?!? Swear to Christ, as soon as they get off the phone after wasting three valuable hours of MY life, they probably call up the Charmins Customer Support hotline to ask them to talk them through wiping their own a**!"
He paused, panting, and heard only silence on the other end. Perhaps he'd gone overboard and they'd hung up on him....Talon supposed he didn't blame Ace. Talk radio really wasn't the place for vehement ranting of quite that degree. Especially not ranting of that degree that had been building on itself for the last few weeks. Talon turned to see Zhane staring up at him wide-eyed and slack-jawed, seeming to be in a frightened state of awe at his father's outburst. Sighing, Talon reached out for him.
"Not you, Zhane." he told him gently, touseling the boy's golden-and-raven hair. "Just work. Daddy HATES his job, and--" it was then that he heard a muffled sound from both the phone and the radio on the dresser. The sound was followed by a gasp and then more laughter. Ace hadn't hung up on him, Ace had been in hysterics.
"Holy...!" the man gasped, taking a deep breath and then exhaling a loud bray of laughter. "Okay, yeah, we get the point....someone doesn't like his job very much. Talon, tell you what, we're going to put you on hold for a second. I want you to talk to Producer Chris."
"I didn't mea--" but he was already on hold once more. To make matters worse, Zhane's lip was trembling as he pondered bursting into tears over Talon's outburst whether it had been directed at him or not Great...
"Hey, you still there, man?" a younger voice asked suddenly.
"Yeah...." he grunted, scooping his son into his lap to try and stave off a crying fit before one started.
"Listen, that was some pretty funny stuff. That was all just off-the-cuff, right?"
"Pretty much." came the answer as he groped for something on the dresser to capture Zhane's attention with, finding one of the dragon suncatchers and holding it in front of him. It worked, for the moment anyway. The young child's eyes widened with interest at the pewter dragon clutching the large blue globe and he stared at it in wonderment. "My carpool gets to hear about it all of the time..."
"You live in the Barton area, right?"
"Thereabouts..."
"Think you can come by the studio tomorrow at about four?"
One raven brow arched in suspicion. "What is this, exactly?"
"Just want to ask you a few questions, that's all. Will I see you then?"
"....not if you don't give me directions." the Ijiuo relented. He was off tomorrow anyway. A quick exchange of information later, and the cel phone was off and back in his pocket. On the radio, Ace's show continued with the next caller as though it had never been interrupted.
NOW what was going to happen? In his lap, Zhane gave a small yawn and abandoned his scrutiny of the suncatcher to lean heavily against Talon's chest as he began to nod off. Yeah...that probably wasn't a bad idea. Lifting his son carefully, Talon carried him to the crib and deposited him gently inside. After the blankets had been situated and the light had been turned off, he slunk off to bed as well. God only knew what tomorrow was going to involve, but whatever it was, he wanted to be prepared.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:03 pm
Dear Diary,
Zhane is starting to speak. Its nothing terribly coherant yet, but he's mimicking what he hears and he understands what certain words mean and how to properly use them provided you can translate what he's saying. Karma's starting to ride my case about getting him out of diapers, but I think its a bit soon. He can barely walk as it is, let alone make a mad run for the bathroom at three in the morning.
Maybe when he's steadier on his legs we'll talk about it more seriously. I think he's already developing at an alarmingly-fast rate. I can't say I really remember what the twins were like when they were his age, but I'd almost swear they weren't this quick. Its nice, but its frightening as well. I'm not sure I'm ready for the day he's as tall as I am.
But then it might be because he's the only constant I've been able to hold onto lately.
Where do I even begin on what's been going on? I suppose I could break it up into a nice easy-to-follow timeline that will, no doubt, aid me later on when I'm attempting to look back and laugh, as they all keep saying I will someday.
Somehow I don't think I'll find it any funnier then.
Here it is:
--Had surgery as we all know. It went well, I healed up according to plan, I'm thinking everything is going to be fine now.
--Yeande starts avoiding me and Zhane starts spending more time with me. Not good. This means one of two things: she's pissed at me or she's hiding something from me.
--Oh gee, look at that. It turns out to be the latter. Upset I had the surgery, she says. Wants another kid, she says. BEEN IN CONTACT WITH AN ADOPTION AGENCY, SHE SAYS
--I lose my s**t and spend the night driving around to calm myself. Come home late, Yeande hands Zhane back off to me and I call a talk radio show to blow off steam. They thought my pain was so funny, they asked me to come in today to "ask some questions"
So now that you're up to speed, today I went to the studio for these questions they wanted to ask me. I had to bring Zhane with me because Yeande was out somewhere shopping and nobody who WAS home could be bothered to watch the kid for a couple of hours. Thanks, guys. I'll be sure to remember this next time YOU need a favor...
It ended up working out. They had me hand him off to one of their gofers as soon as I got in the door and she took him down to the vending machines to buy him some candy and keep him quiet while we talked about "grown up things". If you can, of course, call a studio that broadcasts radio shows centering around fart jokes and chauvanism "grown up" by any stretch of the imagination.
Anyway, they wanted to know more about my job and such, and told me not to hold anything back. That's a very dangerous thing to tell me, so I didn't.
Random thought at this time: s**t, what if they've got an affiliation with Dolphin somehow and this is all going to end up on a Memorex on the district manager's desk tomorrow?
They listen to this, don't bat an eye, and I'm thinking any minute now, they're going to throw back the curtain and Jake is going to step out and hand me my pink slip.
"How much are they paying you at Dolphin?" one of them asks me. I tell them I'm making about seven dollars an hour. "How would you like to make twenty?" he asks.
Random thought at this time: They're not going to fire me, they're going to hire me to kill someone for them
"Sure" I say, waiting for the catch.
"Ace used to have a cohost." they explain. "He left the show just a month ago after two years with us because he was offered his own show. Ace needs somebody who he can banter with, someone who'll wiseass at the callers, someone who'll just generally liven the show up a little bit."
"Me, you mean."
Random thought at this time: Liven the show up? God are THEY barking up the wrong tree...
They said I start on Monday if I agree and I'll get my first paycheck the following Friday. Every evening, seven-to-ten Monday-through-Friday. They'd be paying me to b***h, basically. To do what I do ANYWAY. I'm not sure what to think of all of this. They don't even care that I don't have any prior media experience.
Plus I'm looking at the timeframe I'd be working. Twenty an hour is a lot of money, but three hours a night, five days a week only puts me at earning $240 a week. That's forty dollars less than I'd make if I stuck with Dolphin.
They told me it didn't seem like much, but that this was factoring in strictly the air time. It wasn't factoring in the bonuses, or possible public appearances, or being asked to speak at gatherings (Ace, apparantly, gets asked to do a lot of graduation speeches).
Part of me wants to talk to Yeande about it first, and part of me wants to just say screw it. If she can't have the decency to tell me she's looking into adopting a second child, maybe I won't tell her I'm looking into a new job. It'll be like some sort of twisted Christmas morning and we'll just surprise each other.
Childish, I know.
At least Zhane came out of it happy. He was loaded with enough tootsie rolls and sweetarts that I STILL can't get him to go to sleep six hours later. Thanks a lot, nameless-vending-machine-girl.
~T
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2005 11:04 pm
GMFC VISIT 09/22/05
Talon didn't know what had brought him to the GMFC today aside from simply needing to get out of the house with all that was going on. A possible job change, trouble in paradise, FEH.
Zhane, of course, had come with him...he felt he owed it to his son to allow him to interact with other kids his age after putting him through all of this and, frankly, had no idea of where else to bring him.
The young child struggled and kicked in his father's grasp, not wanting to be carried. He was a big boy now and just starting to get the hang of this whole "walking" thing. Besides! All of the fun stuff was on the floor!
"Dow'!" he complained. "Dow' Day-ee!" which roughly translated into Please put me down, good sir, I can walk by myself, thanks.
"Will you just -wait- a mi---STOP that!" Talon growled, shying back as a small purple-blue tail lashed in his face. At length, realizing he was fighting a losing battle with someone who was one-third his size, Talon relented and set Zhane on the floor.
The baby ijiuo was overjoyed and took two wobbly steps forward before collapsing on his rear. Whee, people!
Ava grumbled and tugged on her mother's shirt, a wibbling of her lip threatening to burst into an all out scream. Luckily, Jade finally set her down, sensing impending doom if she did otherwise and the little girl beamed happily and started to tromp towards the little blue-scaled ijiuo boy with the things on his head that reminded her a little of her older brother, swaying to and fro as she did so and nearly tripping over the toes of her shiny white sandals.
"Hiiiii!" she called again as she resumed smiling, though the tone was now more of a "Pay attention to me now dammit!" tone than before, waving clumsily.
Zhane's earfins flared and he turned his head toward the sound of the nearby "Hiii!" Spying the golden-haired girl nearby, and seeing that she was not only waving at him but approaching him, he broke into a grin and waved back.
"Hiieee" he said back, mimicking the noise she'd made at him and attempted to trundle to his feet. Someone who was HIS size! For awhile, he'd wondered if he was the only little person in the whole world as he had been too young to recall his first visit to the GMFC some months ago.
Talon, eyeing the two toddlers skeptically, took an unoccupied seat that was a polite distance away from the other adults and reached for a magazine.
Jade also took a seat, only by a window so she didn't feel so surrounded by strangers, and dug around in her purse for a tattered crossword puzzle. She was going to just head home after cleaning Ava up, but a little social interaction for the toddler wasn't a bad trade off either. As long as she didn't cause some catastrophic disaster, they could stay.
The mostly-blonde little girl continued to head in a zig-zag pattern for the boy, walking on her tip-toes in the characteristic gait of a newly walking child. She was so excited to see that he had noticed her approach that she had stopped paying attention to her feet and that proved to be her undoing. The toe of one baby-sized sandal scuffed abruptly as she went to move it forward. An utter look of shock darted across her features and her solo wing cut the air in a weak attempt to save her balance but it was useless. She toppled over hard onto her elbows and knees and was now left with the option: to cry or to not cry. She glanced around to see if anyone had watched it happen.
Zhane had continued forward toward the other toddler, seeming nonplussed by Ava falling over. He did it all of the time, after all. Trying to come to a graceful stop, however, once he'd reached her led to his own balance failing as he teetered on one foot for a moment like some strange little ballet dancer and then fell flat.
Sitting up, seeming no worse for wear, he waved again. There. It was easier up close. "Hiieee" he said again, still smiling. Behind him his wings fanned excitedly between his shoulders at the prospect of meeting somebody new. What a great new discovery THIS was!
A quick sweep of the area told her that none of the big people NOR her mother had noticed her fall, thus giving her no reason to cry. It didn't really hurt, except the scraps on her knees twinged a bit. She sighed and rolled onto her diapered rear, kicking her feet out in front so her dress hiked up to just about mid-thigh, producing two knobby bandaided knees.
She stared at the other child for a moment, quickly noting that he too had odd thingies coming out of his back too, only his were different and he had more than she. "IngIngs!" She pointed at the flapping appendages excitedly, then tried to point at her single little falcon-like one, only she managed to point at the ceiling. Oh well, surely he'd get the point, right?
Zhane, unfortunately, had no clue what she was saying or what she wanted him to look at. But that didn't seem to matter as he seemed thrilled enough that they were "talking". Green eyes practically glowing, he giggled shrilly and clapped his hands. "INGS!" he agreed happily.
He inhaled to say something else and then his attention was grabbed by the bandaids on the little girl's knees. "Wuh-oh." he said, pointing at one, his tiny brow furrowing. He knew what those were...you put those on owwies. Or as his father called them "ouchgoddammits".
Yes! Someone finally understood her! She beamed and clapped too, since he was doing it.
As he pointed then at one of her knees, she giggled at his look of concern. "Booboo," she proclaimed, poking one knee. Then she poked the other, deeming it a "Booboo" as well. She did this a few time in row, going from knee to knee, then started to pick at the one on her left. He simply had to see these booboos because her mother seemed to be very upset about them. Zhane had to be let into how awful these things were.
The little boy's tail curled and uncurled with interest as he leaned forward to watch, almost to the point where he might topple forward if he wasn't careful. "Booboo." he repeated, trying the word out. Now he was confused...was it supposed to be a booboo or an owwie? Maybe it depended on where you wore the bandaids what you were supposed to call them.
He also wondered if you were supposed to take the bandaids off or not...wouldn't all the ucky red stuff fall out if you did that? Did Ava even HAVE ucky red stuff under her skin or was that just him? So many questions!
Finally, after a bit of struggle, she peeled one of the bandaids off. Tears sprang to her eyes because it did hurt to pull them off, but she didn't cry. No...there were more important things to do. One finger experimentally poked the raw edge of the scrape as she tossed the bandage to the floor.
Hm...
The finger was lifted and she inspected it, finding red stuff on it like the stuff that ruined her dress. She sniffed it, eyes darting briefly to see if her mom was watching.
...could it taste good?
At the sight of Ava's scrape, he blinked owlishly. "Owwie!" he said reflexively. Even as young as he was, he could tell it hurt. The red stuff must have been what made it hurt, he concluded. His elbow had looked much the same way when he'd scraped it on the corner of the coffee table and it had been AGONY
...for a toddler, anyway.
The green eyes widened as Ava took some of the red stuff onto her finger and brought it close to her face. Didn't it hurt her finger to have the bad red owwie stuff there??
Talon looked up briefly from his reading, quirking a brow at the two toddlers sitting across from each other seeming to be deeply ensconsed with something. Kids only looked that serious when they were up to something. But neither of them was crying, and they weren't breaking anything. At length he sighed and returned to the magazine warily.
Ava nodded at Zhane's proclaimation, but continued to stare at the blood on her finger. It smelt like...nothing. Well, maybe not nothing, but she couldn't match it with anything she'd smelt before. It was definately not like oatmeal or blueberry baby food. It looked like juice though. Maybe that's what happened when people hurt themselves... Momma had said the loud bad words once when she spilt juice all over her lap once.
After a pause, she daintily popped the marked finger into her mouth, deciding that tasting was the ultimate test of badness.
Zhane flinched backward as the finger disappeared into Ava's mouth, blinking much in the same way he did after falling down and knocking his wind out. She was EATING it?? He squirmed and fussed, waiting for the red owwie stuff to make her start crying. That wouldn't be good.
Fumbling up the discarded bandaid, careful not to touch any of the red stuff on it, he moved to put it back where it belonged, somewhat-clumsily.
Ava blinked slowly before grimacing and pulling the finger out, giving a loud "BLECH" noise and made an expression one might see their dog make when it's eating peanut butter.
"Icky..." she said mournfully as she wiped her hand on the carpet and helped Zhane pat the bandaid back where it belonged. Other than the bitter taste, she seemed to be pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. No screaming or crying, anyway. Then, like most toddlers, she changed the subject abruptly. She pointed at his head, indicating the little nubs of horn at his temples.
"Whut?"
Zhane sat back on his haunches a bit, blinked, and reached up for what she was pointing at. Was there a bug crawling on him? He liked bugs. His fingers found the soft fleshy base of one horn nub where an antler would grow in someday and he tugged on it.
"Annlers!" Mommy liked this game too. She'd point to various things on Zhane's person and tell him what they were and then try to get him to say it too. So far he knew how to recognize hair, antlers, tail, and toes. He was working on the other stuff.
He twisted around, scanning the room quickly for his father and then pointed one tiny finger at Talon who was still bent over his magazine, pointing out the much bigger antlers that he would have when he grew up.
Ava followed the pointing and saw the large stick things.
"Ani!" she chirped out of a sudden epiphany. "Ani annluuurs!" Big brother Yani had antlers too...and she wanted Zhane to know that. "Ani big annluuurs." She attempted to further communicate this by making antlers with her hands by putting her arms up over her head and spreading her fingers out in a poor mimic of the deer fa'e headgear.
Jade paused her crosswording to see what the two were doing and smiled inwardly. She'd seen Ava make gestures like that before and knew whom she was babbling about. Too bad her brother couldn't see it though. He'd have appreciated it.
Zhane gave a small happy shriek and clapped again as Ava mimicked having antlers of her own. "Ist annlers!" he agreed, laughing. It clearly didn't take much to make him happy. And then he put his hands up to his own head, making antlers on top of his own antlers and wiggling his fingers. This was fun!
In doing so, he, for the first time, noticed Ava's wing and blinked before grinning broadly and pointing at it. "FEZZER!" he declared, pointing at one striped primary feather.
Talon looked up again from his reading, hearing the two children chanting about antlers and blinked at them as they made fingerhorns at each other. O-kaaay....
She wriggled her fingers about, pleased with herself. "Anluuuuuuuurs~" she cooed before dropping her hands back in her lap and folding them as Zhane pointed to her wing.
At first she didn't understand. Fezzer meant nothing to her. However, she did know what her mom called it besides a "Ing". She got a smug grin on her face.
"No fezzer. Assiden. Dam-et assiden..." She'd heard her mom call the single wing an accident way too many times to not pick up the word. She, however, had no idea what it meant. She'd probably point to any feathered wing and call it that.
"Azziden." Zhane repeated, reaching out to touch one of the feathers and finding himself inexplicably delighted that it felt just like the stray crow feathers he sometimes found in the backyard, except warmer.
"Assiden!" he repeated. "Fezzer Assiden! DAM-ET!" Yay! He was learning all sorts of new words! He was oblivious to the way his father cringed and stared at him like he'd just grown a second head. Oh lovely, THAT would be fun to explain to Yeande...
Zhane's purple-and-blue earfins flared as he suddenly took note that several of the bigger people around them were looking at magazines. Maybe they were supposed to have one too. Heaving himself to his feet, Zhane grabbed a magazine at random off of the nearby table and pulled it to the floor in a flurry of pages into his and Ava's midst.
Ava cheered as Zhane rattled off the long string of word and flashed a thumbs up, a gesture she had learned from Keir on her last visit. She knew it was supposed to happen when people did good things, and that was certainly a good thing.
As he dragged the magazine over, she get a huge grin of mischief on her face. Ahh...paper things! She'd seen these before. The little girl pulled herself closer to the magazine and clutched one of the flimsy pages with her hand, wrinkling up the page that was home to some ad for makeup in the process. Crunch crunch crunch!
Ah, good, she knew just what paper was for. He wouldn't need to explain. Grinning as well, Zhane began to join her in the festival of crinkling, ruining the magazine's pages completely. He grabbed for one of the pages, finding that it tore at the seam as he did so, coming out completely in his hand.
Blinking at it for a moment, the ijiuo turned it over in his hands examining both sides. On one side, there was a picture of a couple of boys on a swingset. On the other side was a visage of a smiling red-haired woman. Looking to Ava, he mashed the page up against his face like a mask. The effect wasn't terribly convincing but he assumed she'd get the point as he giggled into the thin newsprint-smelling paper. "Lookit!" the muffled voice proclaimed.
The little girl promptly dissolved into giggles as Zhane disappeared behind the magazine page, her hands slapping the carpet in delight as they clutched the makeup ad in her hand. The page torn out with the motions, much to her pleasure, and she wadded it up promptly before chucking it into the air where it bounced harmlessly off an unoccupied chair.
She grabbed for the magazine again and started to carelessly go through the pages until she found a picture of a flea medication ad with a dog of some kind. This was torn out and she mimiced Zhane, shoving it to her face before giving a loud round of yappy dog bark imitations and a howl.
Zhane peeked out long enough to see what the noise was about and began to laugh loudly before stuffing the picture of the lady back against his face. Unfortunately he didn't know what kind of noises ladies made, so he winged it with various babbling and assumed that this was good enough.
Talon had been hoping to god that Zhane and his friend had not been the source of all of the tearing crumpling paper he'd just heard and had been loathe to look up and confirm it. It was so much easier to just pretend it wasn't happening. Grudgingly, he raised his eyes and flattened his ears to see both children sitting amid a small sea of crumpled papers.
All right, that was enough. Tossing his own magazine onto the table he'd gotten it from with disgust, he rose from where he was sitting to retrieve his son and inform him that they were leaving.
Ava tittered and threw the picture of the dog aside, ready to leaf through the magazine and find something new, but she noticed that the big antler man had gotten up and was heading her way. Immediately she put up her arms and wriggled her "antlers" at them, beeming at him with no clue as to his intent.
Jade had, somehow, ignored the entire event and still hadn't looked up to see what was happening. However, she noted someone approaching her so she glanced up to see Surion, whom she didn't recognize right away.
Talon disregarded the other toddler completely as he fetched Zhane up beneath his arms and picked him up. "Come on." he sighed, turning to head for the door. "You're not allowed to do that at home, I don't know what makes you think you can do it here."
Zhane's attention immediately shifted from playing "faces" with Ava to this much greater injustice being inflicted upon him as he struggled and attempted to heave himself over Talon's shoulder, reaching out to Ava like she might save him.
"Noooo!!" he complained. "No no no! Dow'!" He didn't WANT to leave yet! He was having fun! And they weren't even halfway through the magazine yet! Where were the brakes on this thing?? One tiny sneakered foot kicked out, clocking Talon right in the jaw and making him wince. "Dow' Day-ee! DOW'!!"
"We're. Going. Home." his father growled amid the squalling, turning to head for the door.
Ava cocked her head as the antlered man bent down to pick up Zhane and the smile left her face immediate. Wait...where was her friend going?
"No! No go!" she suddenly bellowed, turning to all four and trying to grab the man's foot. Talon was moving too fast though and she was quickly left behind. Tears instantly sprang to her eyes and the lip quiver started just as quick.
Jade, meanwhile, smiled at Surion. "Wow, you're getting so big. No wonder it took me a second to recognize you. How is your mothe-"
A ear-splitting howl broke the air as Ava burst into sobs, her hands beating the carpet as she launched into a fit.
Jade sighed.
"Excuse me a second, Surion," she mumbled before she got up and headed for Ava, now seeing the utter mess the two toddlers had made. She palmed her face a moment and shook her head.
"Aye...Ava...why do you do this to me?" Jade asked, though she didn't expect a reply, and scooped the tantruming child into her arms. The toddler sniffled and cried into her mom's shoulder, only muffling her sobs now into Jade's shirt.
The woman sighed and jiggled her a bit, trying to get Ava to calm down, and decided then maybe it was time for home. She started to awkwardly crouch down to pick up the papers with her free hand.
She stood up again and threw away what few pieces she had gotten and flashed an apologetic smile to the young boy. "Thank you for the help...and I'm glad your mother is doing well. I haven't seen her for a bit, but I suppose she's busy like most parents are nowadays."
Ava paused briefly in her crying, sniffling again into her mothers shirt. For a second, Jade thought she was done, but the toddler only seemed to pause to take in a deep breath, then started a new wave of sobs. Jade glowered at nothing in particular.
"I guess that's a sign that she's ready to sleep...we best get going. Please give your mother my best and perhaps I'll see her the next time I come visit the clinic."
She then whisked back to her chair to gather her purse, then headed for the door. Ava continued to cry. Loudly.
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:22 am
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:25 am
<
However, if one were to be able to translate, this is what its author meant to say...>>
i found daddy's book! he draws in here all the time and i want to draw too! daddy doesn't know i came into his room. he is in the bathroom and aunt karma was supposed to watch me. she is yelling bad stuff at arkie. i don't like yelling because it makes me scared. daddy yells sometimes and i don't like it. i think everybody should just be happy because that would be nice. i want to meet more people my size. everybody is bigger than me. maybe mommy will take me to visit more people.
-Zhane
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Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:57 am
The week seemed neverending as the standoff between Talon and Yeande continued. Zhane, though he didn't understand it, was able to sense the tension between his parents and it made him uneasy. He didn't like it when mommy and daddy were being upset at each other. He wanted them to be all huggy and good again so everybody would be happy.
He tried voicing this to his mother and father in various ways, including but not limited to drawing what he thought was a very nice picture of them as a family on his nursery wall. He still didn't understand why aunt Karma had washed it off...maybe she didn't think crayons were good for drawing and he should use a market next time.
He had also tried protesting loudly when Talon and Yeande had been about to part ways for the evening, but that usually just resulted in him being handed off to the opposite parent for the night as they misunderstood his request. At length, he'd relocated his interest to other things. They were grownups. They'd figure it out.
Talon sat with his head propped on his hands at the kitchen table, eyes lidding slowly in deep thought. This face-off with Yeande was obviously getting them nowhere at all. Every time he'd tried to present his side, she'd found some way of heading him off and taking any and all validity out of whatever argument he'd fashioned against having a second child.
It all kept coming down to one thing -- "This is going to happen, you may as well accept it" And, yet again, it was coming down to the point where one of them would need to bend and soon and all signs were pointing to "It had better be you, Talon". Zhane was starting to notice the tension and it was clearly upsetting him...he knew this because Yeande had pointed it out to him several times. No pressure or anything.
To escalate things, he'd gone in to do his first night on Ace's show yesterday to test the waters. Surprisingly, he and Ace had gotten along rather well, but the outcry from the callers had been ridiculous. Complaints had ranged from anywhere from "Ace, why are you even bothering with some chucklehead second-banana when the first one ditched you for his own show?" to "I don't like his voice". Ace had assured him, in front of thousands of listeners, that they'd get used to it and that 99% of his callers were morons who's opinions didn't account for anything anyway.
All the same, he'd not quite turned in his two weeks at Dolphin just yet. Which meant working two jobs, which meant twice the stress. Hopefully the pay would be worth it in the end.
Zhane sat in his high chair haphazardly arranging bits of cereal that he'd pulled out of his bowl of Lucky Charms, seeming moreso interested in the colorful marshmallows than actually eating it. Eventually, Talon's blank gaze wandered in his son's direction, watching him in stoic silence for several moments.
"How do you ever expect to grow if you never eat anything?" he grumbled, his voice breaking the silence in the kitchen. Zhane looked up at him, blinked, and then grinned and offered him a handful of the oat shapes.
"Ist fo yoo, day-ee." he said cheerily.
"I'm not hungry." Saying so, he sighed and let his forehead thud to the tabletop.
"Owwie." Zhane remarked, cocking his head at his father curiously before going back to his cereal bits. As he rummaged through the bowl of oat pieces, looking for any marshmallows he'd missed, he exerted a bit too much force and the bowl went clattering over the edge of the tray, showering the floor in cereal bits. "Uhoh!" he declared, looking to his father immediately.
Despite flinching at the sound of the plastic bowl meeting the floor, it took Talon nearly a full minute to summon the strength to lift his head and observe the carnage. While he saw cereal bits littering the floor from every direction, he was puzzled that the bowl seemed to be nowhere in sight. Scanning the rest of the floor and then under the table, he turned to look at his son and was puzzled to see the cereal bowl sitting neatly on the countertop several feet away.
He froze, mind faltering. He'd distinctly heard the bowl hit the floor, and even if it hadn't....even if Zhane had somehow saved it from getting to the floor, there was no way he could have placed it on the countertop like that.
What the hell...?
Green eyes wandered quizzically from the bowl on the counter, to Zhane, and back to the bowl.
"FLYNE!" Zhane laughed, clapping his hands.
...right. He was fairly sure that whatever it was, there had to be a more logical explanation than the bowl flying itself there. And it was an explanation that he, unfortunately, didn't think he wanted to know at the moment. He had enough to deal with as it was without factoring in phantom bowl-movers.
Leaving the cereal where it had fallen for the moment, Talon removed the highchair's tray and unbuckled Zhane from it.
"I think maybe its time to get ready for a bath now." he said, now unable to shake the eerie feeling that an unfamiliar pair of eyes were watching him.
"No baff!" Zhane argued, though mercifully didn't struggle as he was picked up.
"Yes, bath." his father told him, carrying him toward the hallway. "And after that, bedtime for you and me both."
Hopefully after getting some rest, he'd better be able to rationalize what had just happened....or better yet, not care anymore.
As he left, something in the kitchen stirred, barely visible and hardly tangible. It was as though the air itself had come to life. At length, a pair of mournful emerald eyes faded into view as their owner heaved a deep sigh. And here she'd thought she was extending an act of good will by helping him pick up the cereal bowl.
She supposed the Yeande knew her own mind best and that, as she said, she would never marry a bad man. That did not, however, change Morwena's own opinions that had formed of Talonfuast since she had come from the Maban adoption agency to live between the two ijiuo and study them from beneath a cloak of invisibility. Revealing herself to Yeande hadn't been as difficult as she feared and the two women had formed something akin to a bond...however, she had yet to reveal herself to Talon and, at the rate things were going, would continue not to for as long as she possibly could.
If only she knew how long that would be...the youngling within her would be ready to be born soon, and she'd already put things off much longer than she should have. Most of the young mothers that had come to the Maban clinic were just beginning to show. Morwena's belly, however, looked considerably swollen and awkward against her otherwise frail frame due to the months she'd hidden herself away from the other nymphs deeply in the woods, hoping against hope that if she wished hard enough, the pregnancy would simply fade into the nothingness of bad dreams.
It hadn't, however, and her condition had driven her out of seclusion to seek help. She had gone looking for someone much stronger than she to bring up her child and had found Yeande. If only she had known then what she knew now about Talon, she might have rethought it. But it was too late now and she could only hope that things would turn out for the best in the end.
Shimmering back out of sight, she moved silently and swiftly through the house to relocate herself somewhere less intrusive. Perhaps tomorrow would bode better for speaking to him.
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Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 3:17 am
Some said that to watch a man as he slumbered was to look upon him as he would be in death. Whoever coined that phrase obviously had never taken into account the people who rested fitfully and donned contortionists' positions when they were fitful about something.
Morwena had stood in silence at the base of Talonfaust's bed for the better part of two hours, simply watching as he tossed, turned, and muttered. Even in sleep, she mused with a sort of grim fascination, he was not a peaceful creature.
Not at all like his son whom she had spent the earlier portion of the night watching. It was hard to believe that a child such as Zhane had come from parents like Talon and Yeande. Yeande, stormy and mysterious, and Talonfaust, brooding and short-tempered...one would not think that a golden-haired boy so full of inquisitive nature and good will could have been the product of their joining.
But now she was simply dawdling. She'd come here to fulfill a purpose tonight and wasn't sure when she might gather the nerve to do so again, if ever. The question remained of how to do so in a way that would garner the least-violent reaction...of that much, she wasn't sure.
When in doubt, she'd found, the best way to capture someone's undivided attention was to inspire awe. Taking a deep breath, her body suddenly seemed to exude a warm yellow-orange light from every pore and the air of the bedroom took on a faintly-sweet musty smell of dying leaves....as though the very essense of autumn had ghosted from within her. It lent a sparkle to her eyes and an ethereal bounce to her hair as she approached the bedside and reached out with slender fingers to brush them over his brow.
What she had meant to do was gently awaken him and explain the situation softly and musically while he was still half-awake and slightly-lucid, captivated by the unearthly beauty of a nymph and the sweet nectar of her voice as countless travellers and vagabonds had been while travelling through her woods on the nights she'd felt daring enough to speak to them. IF done right, he would understand and sympathize with her side of the story. He would not resent the coming of her child or Yeande's decision to raise it alongside Zhane.
That was not quite the way it happened, however.
As soon as her fingers touched his skin, his eyes snapped open and, upon seeing the strange glowing woman at the side of his bed, Talonfaust toppled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and blankets, erupting in strangled obscenities. Morwena's immediate impulse was to panic and, no sooner had he clawed his way to his feet, than, in a flash, his vision left him.
Blinded, pissed off, bewildered, and half-awake, Talon gave an incoherant bellow as he swiped at his momentarily-useless eyes and Morwena, taking full advantage of the spell's brief effects, fled the room to hide herself once more. Slowly...very slowly...things drifted back into focus, the meaningless fuzzy hulks of gray and black becoming the familiar surroundings of his bedroom.
The intruder, however, was nowhere to be seen. Not in THIS room, at least. Lunging for the doorway, Talon intended to make a quick sweep of the house. Instead, he collided with someone in the hallway.
"Hey...HEY!!" Karma complained. "Jesus, what the hell's your problem?? You woke up the whole damn house just now!"
"Where is she?" he demanded to know, trying to shove past the foxcoon.
"Where's WHO? There's nobody here! Hey! TALON!" she said, digging her fingers into his arms to get his attention. It seemed to work as he ceased shoving and focused a blearily angry gaze on her. "There's nobody here." she repeated. "Maybe you had a dream or something."
"It wasn't a dream." he insisted, looking past Karma and then over his shoulder as though Morwena might produce herself from thin air at any moment. "She was there. She touched me, then she blinded me."
"Who did?" she asked again, feeling like a broken record.
"I don't know!" he growled, throwing his hands up.
"Okay, calm down. Touched you how? Like...bad touching, or--"
"She tried to touch my face." he grumbled, his tail lashing behind him in anger. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he was coming to terms with how stupid this all sounded.
"Yeah...okay, I think maybe you just had a nightmare." Karma sighed. "You want me to get you some milk or something?"
"I'm not a child." Talon sneered, turning to storm back into his room and close the door. He knew what he'd seen and would be damned if she was going to belittle him about it
"Right. My bad." she paused to yawn and then lumbered back in the direction of her bedroom. "Well...you might want to check in on Zhane before you slink back into your den, there. I think you woke him up with all of your squawking." and, with that, she was gone.
"I'll give -you- squawking, you cow..." he muttered vehemently as he stalked off toward the nursery to check on his son.
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:52 am
"Leeeeeeafs!" Zhane squealed, happily kicking out at a pile of raked leaves and scattering them.
"Don't make a mess." Talon sighed. Apparantly the words "I'm off today" translated in Karma's mind as meaning "Give me menial work to do and b***h at me until its finished" because he found himself tasked with raking the back yard after the recent cold snap had caused all of the trees to shed their leaves at once. Cleaning up the disarray his son had just made of the leafpile he'd been putting together, Talon again let himself drift into thought.
Zhane blinked up at his father and frowned a bit. What good was making a big cushy pile of leaves if you couldn't spread them all out again? And they were all such pretty colors too! They used to be green but now they were brown and yellow and red. Had somebody come and colored them in while he was sleeping? Bending over, the young ijiuo plucked a choice one from the pile, a broad yellow maple leaf, and turned it over in his fingers as he examined it up close.
"Yewwow!" he proclaimed.
"Right." Talon replied absently, not looking.
"Ist yewwow!" Ugh...what did he have to do to get daddy to pay attention? He was PROUD that he was learning what his colors were! "Day-eeeee!" he complained, waving the leaf frantically.
"Zhane, please!" Talon snapped. "I'm trying to get this done so we can go inside, all right?!?" Immediately, Talonfaust felt horrible for yelling at his son...he hadn't meant to, he just...rrgh, there was too much going on right now.
"Yewwow." Zhane said again, more quietly this time as he twiddled the leaf between his fingers and seemed to be making up his mind whether his father's outburst warrented a crying fit or not.
"Its yellow. Yes." Talon agreed, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Listen, I didn't mean to yell. Maybe you should go inside and find something to do."
"No." Zhane replied, shaking his head.
"You still have some coloring books you haven't touched yet, I could find the markers and--"
"NoNoNO!!" he protested, stomping one foot and then hugging onto Talon's leg. "Wanna stay wif day-ee!" Talon watched him for a moment and then resumed raking.
"All right." he relented. "Let me get this done and you can stay out here with me, okay?"
Zhane didn't answer and remained attached to Talon's leg for several moments before letting go and toddling off nearby to investigate the leaves once more, this time selecting a firey spade-shaped one. What was that color called again...? It was a short word, and it had an rrrr sound. Oh! He remembered now!
"Wed!" he announced happily, grinning down at the leaf in his fingers. The grin faded into a look of puzzlement, however, as he noted that, on the red leaf, there were smears of brighter red. Blinking, he tentatively touched the redness and examined the pad of his finger. His eyes widened as he realized that it was the same ucky red stuff that came out of cuts. But what was it doing on the leaf??
His answer came a moment later as the pile of neatly-raked leaves seemed to explode from the middle, scattering them about the yard in such a way that it didn't look like Talon had even -started- raking.
"Zhane...!!" Talon hissed, looking up with fire in his eyes. Didn't he just TELL him not to mess with the damned leaves?? The tirade of holy hell he'd been about to unleash on his son was stalled, however, as something or someone seized his upper arm forcibly.
"Please..." a voice whimpered raggedly. "Please, help me..."
Talon, for his part, could do little more than yank his arm out of the invisible chokehold and back away spastically. What the -hell-?
Zhane's earfins fanned as he tried to place the voice and where it was coming from. It was not an unfamiliar voice...he'd heard it speak to his mother on several occasions while he'd been visiting, but today she sounded upset for some reason. For his part, somehow sensing that this was not a good time to get underfoot, he stood to the side and watched his father scramble away from the invisible assailant.
The air shimmered and a very distraught-looking Morwena faded into view, one hand clamped over her belly and the other reaching out beseechingly to Talonfaust, the tips of the fingers smeared with blood. "Please..." she whimpered again. "Yeande is not here, and--and the child...!!"
Child...? Talon's eyes immediately darted to Zhane, looking him over quickly for the source of the blood. In doing so, suddenly it snapped into place. Not Zhane, HER child. The one Yeande was supposedly adopting. The one that he hadn't ******** been TOLD about.
"No." he growled. "HELL no. I want nothing to do with this!" saying so, he attempted to stalk past her and retrieve Zhane so the two of them could go inside. Both of the nymph's hands clamped onto the back of his jacket in a white-knuckled grip as another contraction gripped her.
"I--I can't...I--please. I can't do this alone..."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you and my wife decided to plot all of this behind my goddamn back." he told her waspishly. "I mean, I don't know what you people think...that I'm some sort of tank who doesn't -have- any real feelings or something? That you could just make these plans without me and I'd be okay with it?" He bent over, scooping Zhane into his arms and started toward the house.
A brief and ugly flash of guilt played over Morwena's features, and ordinarily, the rebuke would have been more than enough to send her into hiding. However, pain and terror were powerful aids in casting off one's shyness. Didn't he understand? The baby was coming and she had no earthly -idea- what she was supposed to do!! Tears were spilling over the rims of her brown eyes and small tendrils of dark blood seeped down the ivory slope of her legs as she tottered after the retreating ijiuo. "Talonfaust...!" she called after him in a faltering wail of a voice. When he didn't pause in his gait, she slowed to a stop. Why...WHY couldn't he ever do things the easy way...?
As Talon stopped at the back door, opening it and setting Zhane down to go inside ahead of him, the rose bush to his immediate left sprang to life, its sturdy stems elongating into thorny vines that snaked out like tentacles and entangled themselves around Talon's legs from the knee down.
"Day-ee!!" Zhane cried out in alarm, reaching out for his father.
"Go inside, Zhane." he managed through gritted teeth, the thorns digging into his flesh from dozens of different points as he frantically reminded himself that he could not attack a pregnant woman. But Zhane didn't -want- to go inside! Daddy was in trouble and he wanted to help!
"No, day-ee!" he said, stamping his foot in defiance as he had a few moments ago since that had seemed to work when he'd wanted his way. "Day-ee no!"
"Zhane, dammit, go inside!" Talon snarled. He wasn't in the mood for games right now and rightly so.
"NO!" Zhane yelled back. "NONONO!" Great....what a beautiful time for the fact he'd inherited his parents' stubbornness to rear its head.
"I--I was afraid." Morwena's voice spoke again from behind Talon as he tensed, setting his jaw in anger. "I tried to tell you, but..."
"It was you." Talon said accusingly, still not turning to face her. "You're the one who was in my room the other night."
"I didn't know how else to make myself known."
"How long have you been here?" he demanded to know.
"I---" she doubled over as another contraction hit, sweat beading on her brow as she moaned sickly. "Weeks. At least two months. Please, I can't--"
Talon felt his outrage peak, and then deflate out of him with an almost-audible frustrated whoosh. As pissed off as he was about the entire situation, one couldn't exactly stop the birth of a baby no matter how inconvenient it happened to be. And as satisfying as it might be to turn his back on her and go inside to pretend that this wasn't happening, what would happen if there were complications? He could only begin to imagine everyone's reaction if this stranger were to die while in easy reach of assistance.
"I can't bloody well do much tied up this way." he grated. Almost instantly, the loops of rose vines loosened their grip and fell about his ankles like coils of living rope as he stepped out of them without further ado. The tiny punctures where the thorns had scratched him stung and had riddled his slacks with small tears and holes. He eyed them for an instant with annoyance before forcing himself to turn back to Morwena. The nymph's balance faltered...faltered...and then failed her entirely as she collapsed at the edge of the patio in a shuddering heap. Sighing, Talon approached her, shrugging out of his jacket as he did so. It occurred to him that HE didn't know what the hell he was doing either. Being present for one birth didn't exactly make one an authority on the process.
Here." Talon grunted, folding the jacket over twice and slipping it under Morwena's head to cushion it. The nymph didn't seem to notice or to care as she had already begun to focus herself fully on the birth process. There was no preamble into it, there was no grace period of contractions -- the time for that had all long-since past. The child was being born, and it was being born -now-. Her face contorted in agony, Morwena arched her back and gave a choked scream as her body bore down on the impossibly-large obstruction it was trying to pass. It was pain like she had never known before and hoped never to know again...pain that she felt she would surely die from if it persisted much longer.
Talon, for his part, served the purpose of keeping her company, but as far as anything else went, was fairly useless. He was not used to seeing so much blood at one time, just as he was not used to seeing parts of a woman's anatomy stretch and contort in quite that way. He hadn't actually WATCHED Zhane come out at the GMFC, and--oh good christ, what the hell was THAT thing? Something domed and a vague purple-gray in color crowned into view and made him want to retch. Was that the BABY?? The nymph cried out again and more of the purple-gray thing slid into view. Acting more on instinct than on anything else, Talon put his hands out just in time to catch the infant before it would have slithered out onto the patio.
The baby, a little girl, gave a mewl and then began to cry, shivering in the outdoor air. The first thing Talon became aware of was that there was something...wrong with her. Her skin was not the flushed lobster red that Zhane's had been as a newborn. Hers was a bluish gray color that was unpleasant to look at. She was obviously getting air if she was able to cry like that, so why--
"Let me see....." Morwena's tremulous voice floated past his ears. Uncertainly, Talon held the infant out to her, watching as she struggled to sit up and pulled the wadded jacket from beneath her head to gather the blood-grimed infant in. He nearly protested, but bit it back...blood washed out and it was a black jacket anyway.
"Ucky." a young voice said from directly behind him, making Talon start and turn to see Zhane overlooking the spectacle with his nose wrinkled in distaste as he eyed the blood. In the rush of everything, he'd forgotten to make sure Zhane had gone inside and been spared having to watch the carnage. How long had he been standing there, Talon wondered? And what a hell of a way to be introduced to the miracle of life....to have some random woman drop a baby in their yard.
What a ******** mess....the cord hadn't even been cut yet. Sitting back on his haunches, aware that his hands were tacky with drying blood that was not his own, Talon gave an immense sigh. "How're you doing, Zhane? Okay?" he inquired.
"Ist owwie..." Zhane said, pointing at the blood. He didn't understand what had just happened, only that the woman laying on the edge of the patio would likely need a band-aid or two.
"She looks...just as her father did." Morwena said softly, eyes closed as though looking at the child brought her pain. "Please....take her."
"Just like that?" Talon asked skeptically. "You're not--"
"Take her." the command came more urgently as the ijiuo, one brow cocked, complied, accepting the infant into his own arms again. No sooner had he done so, than Morwena was haloed in a gentle green light. As Zhane and Talonfaust watched, the nymph faded from view completely, taking with her the green light and all traces of the birth. She needed to rest now....badly, so. And after she'd rested, she wished to get as far from here as she possibly could. Away from the fright, the embarrassment, and the pain, and begin her life anew elsewhere.
Perhaps one day she would write.
Talon blinked in surprise at her sudden departure and then dared to look down at the infant in his arms once more. The cord seemed to have dissolved and vanished along with Morwena, at least. Her blue-gray color was beginning to fade into more of a slate and the child had never once ceased crying, as though knowing her mother had left, quite possibly for good.
Hell...now what did he do?
"Bay-bee...." Zhane remarked, peeking over Talon's shoulder at the little girl. He'd never seen one in person, being the youngest member of the household, but he knew what they were. There were pictures in his storybooks and on TV. You had to be careful with babies because they cried a lot. The infant opened tearful green eyes and fixed them on Zhane, whimpering and hitching. "Whuzza name?" he inquired.
"I don't know." Talon said, wincing as a pounding headache set in. He wondered if he yet qualified for the excuse of "getting too old for this s**t". After two years of life, likely not...but it sure felt that way.
"Hiee bay-bee." Zhane smiled, reaching out one hand to the infant. Tiny gray fingers closed weakly around his own as the little girl's crying slowly began to wind down. His father suddenly jolted visibly, as though shaking off the shock of what had just happened and quickly got to his feet.
"We need to get her inside." he told no one in particular, heading quickly for the back door as Zhane toddled after him as quickly as he was able, trying to keep up. He still wasn't sure of what had just happened...or why there was suddenly a baby where there had been no baby shortly before. And where had the lady gone? His young mind buzzing with questions, he could do little more than tag after Talon as he rushed around the house trying to do far too many things at once.
At least it was more interesting than raking leaves.
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Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:30 pm
Zhane peered through the bars of the crib at the sleeping dark-skinned baby within. Phaerna had not stirred all the while he'd been watching her and the young ijiuo was utterly fascinated with his adopted baby sister. There had been a bit of confusion as to how both children would gracefully co-exist in the same house and, eventually, it was decided that the nursery was big enough to have the both of them in. A bit of rearranging was done and Phaerna was soon put up in Zhane's old crib while Zhane had a new youth bed to sleep in with guard planks on the sides to keep him from falling out.
His parents had both sat him down and had a serious talk with him...well, as serious a talk as one could have with a toddler anyway....and explained that it was very important he not leave his bed at night unless Phaerna started to cry, and then he could come and wake one of them up to take care of her. Zhane had managed to get the gist of it and had obeyed for the mostpart (except for the couple of times he'd snuck out to ask Aunt Karma for cookies while she was up late in the kitchen). He was a big brother now, and he wanted to make sure he did it right so Mommy and Daddy wouldn't take Phaerna back to the store. Or wherever it was she had come from.
The baby sighed and shifted a bit in her sleep, eyelids fluttering. Zhane smiled and extended a hand through the bars, trying to reach her. She was centered just so that his fingers could brush her arm, but little else.
"Hiee Fay-na." he said in a loud stage whisper.
"Shhshhshh." a small voice commanded, making the child turn his head and blink curiously. On the footboard of his new bed, Valtentin was perched. As Zhane had grown older, the stout green oculai had become more and more bold about showing himself. Now that the child was reaching an age that he could be reasoned with, he was not quite so afraid of ending up squashed. "You mustn't wake her, Zhane." Val said gently, adjusting his tiny copper-wire spectacles on the bridge of his nose, each lense a drop of water caught in the rim. "She's been very testy all evening and that's made your father testy as well. Let them both sleep."
"Izza my sisser!" Zhane smiled, pointing at the infant drow nymph in the crib.
"Yes. That's your sister." Valtentin agreed with a nod, inching a bit closer to the edge of the footboard. "But quiet, please. You ought to be in bed anyway."
"No nap." the toddler replied with a solemn shake of his head.
"You do want to play with your sister in the morning, don't you?" the oculai goaded. "What fun would you be to her if you were cranky and tired?"
"No nap." he said again, shaking his head so that his hair tumbled around his earfins and antler nubs.
"Then at least keep your voice down." the oculai whispered, beginning to crawl down the side of the footboard, aided by his many suction cup feet. "Perhaps you could pick out a storybook and I'll read it to you, how would you like that?"
"Hung-ee." the child replied, placing his hands over his belly for emphasis.
"I see. I suppose that's what comes of not eating one's dinner..." Valtentin replied sympathetically. He hadn't BEEN there, but he'd -heard- the epic battle of wills between Talonfaust and Zhane as he'd attempted to get him to eat a bowl of Zoo-Roni and the young boy had decided the animal-shaped noodles were much more entertaining when arranged on his high chair tray like a little two-dimensional, saucy, cheesey, messy circus. At length Talon had grown tired of arguing and had thrown the whole damn bowl into the sink.
Vententin, not being a parent, reserved his judgement on the matter. The oculai hesitated and then hefted himself onto the child's foot and began his journey up his leg. It was a long way to even a toddler's shoulder and he clung for dear life as Zhane squirmed and giggled at the tiny tickling legs, but eventually reached his destination.
"Now if I were you, child..." the caterpillar began. "...I would get myself to bed before my father woke up and came in here braying about the noise. But being that I'm not, and likewise that I've no father to speak of, perhaps we can come to another sort of agreement."
"Geen!" Zhane announced, reaching for Valtentin.
"Aheh...yes...green." Val smiled, shrinking back against Zhane's neck to avoid being grabbed. "I happen to know that if you are very quiet and very careful, your aunt Karma keeps a box of graham crackers on the bottom shelf of the pantry." While on Zhane's shoulder, Val took a brief moment to observe up close how the boy was growing. His wings appeared to be gaining a bit of size, though were still too small and feeble for flight. It appeared likely that they, like Talon's, would be only ornamental when he grew up...what a pity.
On his head, the nubs of flesh he'd sported since birth were beginning to open at the tops as the startings of his first pair of antlers began to peek through. It was fantastic, really, the rate at which he was growing and far quicker than what he had read to be the norm of human infant development.
Zhane's eyes lit up at the mention of crackers and he immediately took a step toward the door, but then hesitated, looking over his shoulder at the crib. He wasn't supposed to leave...
"What's this? Second thoughts?" Val inquired somewhat hopefully. He really had hoped not to lead what was likely to be a doomed quest into the kitchen, but likewise hadn't wanted Zhane to go hungry if he was entirely hellbent on remedying the problem.
"Godda stay." Zhane said, crossing the room back to the crib and peering in at Phaerna again who, despite their conversation, had not awoken.
"You're a fine big brother." Valtentin commended. "As long as we'll be staying, shall I read you a story?" he offered once more, relieved when the young ijiuo toddled toward the stack of books beside the rocking chair and began to sift through them. Zhane was already showing traces of being just as strong-willed as his parents when he got older, but for now, the oculai was enjoying the fact that he was still open to a bit of suggestion.
"Mu'soom Plannit." he told Val hopefully, holding up The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. It was a slightly-battered hardcover book that had been a hand-me-down from Karma's own childhood. He'd only been able to get Daddy to read it to him once and he'd immensely enjoyed what he'd understood of it. Daddy, however, had said that it was the finest outhouse wallpaper ever printed the night they'd finished it and tossed it back onto the pile without further ado. Zhane didn't know what an outhouse was and Daddy wouldn't tell him, but the fact remained that the idea of boys in space and aliens eating eggs was a great story.
"A classic. Of course." the oculai nodded sagely. "Into bed with you and we'll get it started." Zhane obediantly clambered into bed and wriggled beneath the covers as Valtentin slipped off of his shoulder and inched toward where the book had been placed on the edge of the bed. With some difficulty the oculai managed to struggle it open and get it properly turned to the first page and, for the next hour or so until he finally nodded off, Zhane listed raptly to the retelling of one of his favorite stories.
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