:: Family Reunion ::
Echo snuck into the door. She was late, but that was nothing knew. Her family knew how uncomfortable she was at these occasions. Family reunions were every year, and each one was just as strange as the one prior. And Miss Echo always walked in late.
Pez followed closely. As Echo attempted a quiet entrance, well, he didn't think that would do, obviously. For just as the door's latch slip noiselessly into place, a sharp whistle emitted from the floating gem.
Echo flinched and sent a glare to the innocent shadow. "Traitor!" she snipped. Sure, the sound wasn't much, but her family had sharp ears, especially the women.
"ECHO!" came the excited scream from the other room. A robust woman, green scaling across her features and macaw-like wings sprouting from her back, came around the corner and into the hallway. Now, everyone knew she had arrived and came around corners to crowd the woman. Pez was yet unnoticed.
"So nice of you to drop by, my dear!" the woman gathered the smaller Echo in her embrace. "We sometimes wonder if you're still around, you call so little."
Before Echo could even respond, the voice of a male in about his mid-20's came as a cousin leaned against a doorframe with a smirk, "Find a man yet?"
Echo twirled out of her aunt's approach, "When I find one, Jules, you'll be the first to know."
Jules smiled more. He may not have inherited the scales and wings but his manner still spoke of his Kulkulkanese blood. "Ouch, Echo.... ouch."
She ignored his comment and moved in further. All the woman had scaling and wings, of varying colors, as was usual among their kind. Echo was the only one not of that form. She preferred her fully human-looking form, thank you!
Pez followed closely, seemingly unsure for a moment as he was quiet, and his twisted shadows seemed to twitch.
As Echo reached the food and took a plate, the woman's small form moved to a quiet room. In fact, it was the study, and the reason it was quiet was because people weren't really allowed to 'mingle' there - the books were old and had to be well-preserved. The only reason she got away with not only being in there but also eating in there was because everyone knew she'd take extra precautions. Her love of history and knowledge was so great, she would rather burn off her wings than allow a book to be destroyed.
The small woman curled up in the worn leather chair, resting her plate on the table nearby. Pez didn't need to eat, so he buzzed around. And quite literally. Echo could not find eyes on the gem, but she could always tell when he saw something he liked - making a combination of odd noises that suspciously resembled approval. So, while she ate her meal and worked up the nerve to go see everyone, Pez drifted about and looked at the books.
*CRASH THUMP*
Echo jerked to her feet, food safely on the side table, and turned in that diection. She was sure the shadow-encoased gem had broken something - but the books were in place and the randomly placed ceramic were safe. So what was it....? Ah... The woman walked over to where the gem hovered and was starting to rattle and cackle like a choking bird.
The book was about mythical creatures, the one that Pez was by, his crooked shadows reaching towards it as if he wanted to posess the volume of paper and leather. Echo's own solid hands took the place as it went through the shadow in order grasp the tome. "Is this what you wanted, Pez?" she asked, and brought it off the shelf. As the woman opened it, she could feel the gem by her ear - and hear the noise he was making. It was like a bowling ball hitting pins combined with a babbling brook and finishing off with a sounds like the tapping of a pen. She was getting used to it.
The two of them were actually reading about the Feathered Serpent when there was a sound from behind them - and Pez knew it was not himself.
They spun as one. Echo's heart beat a little faster, nervous on who it was that could be there. Dark violet eyes sparked in the light as a well-manicured hand with a full spoon paused in its mid-way to full lips. The woman scowled at the man in the chair she so recently filled. "Put down my flan! And if you get so much as a speck of caramel on that chair, your mother is going to skin your scale-lacking hide!"
Jules stuffed the spoon in his mouth and stood up from his chair. It had been when he set down her now-empty glass that he made a sound that alluded to his long-awaited arrival. He knew where he could find her and allowed her a time of rest before coming in after. Moving the spoon to the corner of his mouth, Echo's cousin stood and greeted her once again. "Now, how is it that Mother allows you to eat in here and not her own son?"
"Easy," Echo snorted, walking back and snatching up her plate - he hadn't left anything else for her. "She trusts me and not you."
Jules shook his head, "Again? Will there be anything left of my pride by the time you are done?"
The woman shrugged, "Keeping this up, probably not." Inside she wanted to rip him a new one - how dare he eat all her food!?
Pez had more than picked up on Echo's thoughts. The small gem zoomed forward, making a ruckus as he went. To the man's face, he pounced off as Jules tried to swat him away like a bug. The sound wasn't deafening, but it was annoying.
"Call it off! Seriously, Echo! You don't need a little piece of rock to fight your battles for you? Do you?" Jules growled, catching Pez in the palm of his hand as he swatted. The shadow pink gem was hit away and then came right back.
His sounds were getting more obnoxious - now it was a horn with what sounded like a dying engine.
Echo grumbled, her eyes still narrowed, "Pez, that noise is getting rathing irritating...." Her voice said it all. If he didn't shut up, she catch him under a glass and hold him hostage. She did it once before, when he wouldn't leave her guests alone and were actually getting in the way as they made dinner.
The shadowed gem stopped his attack - and only quieted a little. He had attention, that was not the problem at the moment.
Jules took the moment of silence as a sign - and used it to fix up his mussled hair. "So what is that there, Echo?" He moved the topic from her cleaned plate and previous engagement of anger - sure that the reason for the rock-outburst was her. "You aren't the one to usually bring home strange things. In fact, you try to hide anything that couldn't be termed as 'normal'... nevermind that this place isn't so."
Echo still scowled and growled, but was swayed by his questions. "I am not entirely sure... I went to a jewelry shop and picked him up - he's been with me ever since."
"And you didn't question it?" Jules's arched a brow. They couldn't even convince her to take a simple spelled ring before, she was usually so adverse to magical and supersticious things. And now, here was an inadiment object moving and making a clamour of noise.
Echo shrugged, "He felt fine to me. Pez is a pest, but he doesn't seem to act mean or vicious."
"But you hate this kind of thing," Jules motioned. His dimeanor replaced by pure curiousity and a bit of suspicion.
Echo grumbled and shifted her feet. She couldn't explain why she tolerated and even liked Pez (annoying though he was), and it was that she tended to not like those things she could not explain...call her a control freak or paranoid... either way.
"Well, I don't hate him." Echo glared her cousin down as best she could, even though he was over a foot taller than her. Pez rumbled next to her, and hovered over her shoulder - humming graciously. Maybe they'd get along yet.
