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 Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:36 pm
2 - solo [cabbage]
3 - solo [cabbage]
4 - solo [cabbage]
5 - solo [baby]
6 - prp [baby]
7 - prp [baby]
8 - solo [baby]
9 - solo [baby]
10 - solo [baby]
11 - prp [baby]
12 - prp [baby]
13 - the lost solo [baby]
14 - prp [baby]
15 - solo [baby]
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Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:26 pm
Her name was Demetri Wickwright-Cole, Demi to her friends and Mrs. Cole to the friends of her children. Her parents had been Milton and Mikaila Wickwright, and her husband was Dmitri Cole. She had two children, boys, named Sirius and Dean. Dean hunted monsters, rather like the man Dean Winchester that she had named him after. Sirius was a scholar, the title-prince of a faraway city. He was going to have his first child. The letter telling him the chosen name of his daughter had lain on the desk in the study for weeks. Well, it didn't any more, because she had recieved a new one, telling her of Yceri's miscarriage.
It had been like a blow to the chest with something large and heavy to Sirius. A stone, maybe; a round boulder. Such a thing wouldn't kill her. It would hurt like the hells, but it wouldn't kill. But her baby boy, who had always been so fragile, took it like she would take holy water to the face. I wish I could take this pain from you, but I understand, she had written. He'd written back with a scaldingly explicit reply, telling her that she didn't understand. Demi did, though. She had miscarried once, too, the child who would have been the eldest son rather than Dean. And when both her next children had been born perfectly formed, she had rejoiced for her luck and sobbed for it, too. For the tiny grave next to the grave of Rae, who was the second child of her friend Riku. Riku was a goddess. This didn't bother Demi too much.
She let it go. Sirius would recover. He always did.
Cheitan would not have been her child, anyway. None of her sons would have known him. After all, he wasn't Dmitri's son. He was the child of Asmodeus, who had laid a claim on her all those years ago that she'd never quite managed to shake off. But she'd still loved the child and mourned the misshapen face and the missing lungs.
It had had her face.
The mp3 player fell out of her hand. The shakes had faded to a mere trembling, and she tucked the hand into her lap. Her house was so quiet without any children walking around, not even the angry and brooding stomps of Dean.
Dean was becoming a drunkard. This bothered her. He was only twenty-three. Dmitri had found him getting into a fight with the eldest Lavoiser male over the eldest Lavoiser girl. Something about being lewd, dangerous, and drunk. Poor Dean had never stood a chance. He had been plastered, and Matsuo had given him at least three bruises and a broken finger.
Her husband had whisked her son off somewhere to do something masculine for the afternoon. Originally she had been grateful, but now the silence suffocated her. Perhaps they would be home soon. Should she start dinner? No, both of them knew better than to try to eat anything she made.
The phone rang. She glanced at the name display; it read "Arthulan" but she knew it should probably read "Bennet", because Lainan never called her but his adopted sister, Rosalie, often did. The poor child had a heart condition but she was quite darling. Like the daughter Demetri would never have, since she was barren now, and had been since Sirius's birth. She picked up the phone.
"Hello, darling," she said. The expected girlish croon drifted over the wire, spilling out a story about how someone had told her she couldn't go to Mars to meet the Martians, even if she brought an air mage, because there wasn't enough atmosphere. And besides that, Rose, Martians don't exist, now sit down and take your pills before I get Maia in here. She'll kick your a**. "Don't say that." Sorry. Everyone was always sorry for her, for some reason.
Perhaps she could go and visit Riku. Her husband could cook. Demi missed her old life, before she'd gotten a job and married and had two kids. But the security of this like was much better. She filed her nails after Rosalie hung up the phone, planned out the rest of her day, and then got ready to leave for dinner.
It was another quiet day alone on Gaea.
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Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:56 pm
Her jacket was oversized. So, a temp. It could be excused. She got off the window seat and walked to the door, opened it and stepped out. "You can't leave this here if I don't take it," she called after the girl.
"Oh, I know," she yelled back. "I got permission to leave it from the sender and the block head." The girl hopped into the van next to the driver, an older male. Demi filed that away for when she made her complaint. But she took the cabbage inside anyway, since it was cruel to leave it out there. She set it on the table in front of the couch and watered it. Then she looked for a note, and found one.
It was written in a girlish, sloppy hand. Maybe from Rosalie, then, but if she remembered right the little prophetess had a more archaic flourish to it. And besides, she didn't speak latin.
"Ad perpetuam memoriam," she read. "Memento vivere. For the perpetual memory, a reminder of life." What? She re-read it. Something another had said to her came back. For rememberance. As a reminder.
Was it the same thing? Well, it hardly mattered, since a cabbage didn't remind her of anything in particular except salad. And Demi didn't have any particularly important or traumatizing memories associated with salad, except the one, but no one would want to remind anyone of that.
"Sup?" Riku leaned in the door, silver hair all over the place. "Nullo, nada, rien, as usual, right?"
"Nullam rem natam," Demi said. Nothing. Her friend peered over her shoulder.
She smiled. "So, how is Dmitri lately, dear?"
"Odi et amo quare id faciam fortasse requiris nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior." She felt archaic today, and it was hardly bad to practice her Latin.
"That bad, huh?" She smiled again. "Care to hop back to our common tongue? I don't like to jump between languages like this."
"Sure."
"Was wondering if you're likely to come over for dinner again. We were going to have Megan over, but she's doing some kind of crazy Christian thing again. And there's an empty place setting, and I know you have no plans for the evening. C'mon, let's get drunk."
Demi rolled her eyes. "All right. But I have to be back before five in the morning."
"Five A.M. Gotcha." Riku dragged her out, but only after watering the cabbage a little more.
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Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:49 pm
Demi was a good friend. A great friend, even. One of the best. But sometimes she was so blind. Did she miss the Liberty Center mark on the bottom of the pot when she'd brought it in? Oh, Riku had heard of that place. One of Atarrabi's daughters had adopted a child from there and nothing had gone right for the girl since, in her own honest opinion. The poor kid was sicker than Demi was. And this was an accomplishment, since Demi had a variety of sickness no one could even account for as anything other than the punishment for breaking the conditions of a curse. Even when in a drunken sleep, her hand shook. Poor Demi and poor Elixabete. Whatever god was up there- even she, a goddess, knew someone else wrote the story- had it out for the two of them.
She smiled. Maybe a child would be good for Demi. They talked a lot- on the phone, on the internet, over a random fence that they chose for its nice paint job. Lots of weird places. And once, Demi had said that she was lonely. Well, it was no wonder. Riku couldn't even fathom Jack, her husband, not being around. He was like a fixture of her life. And her only daughter, Renee. Renee's life was fairly carefree- she worked a nine to five, owned her own house and her own car, and was married to her third cousin on Jack's side. All that, even without interference on the deific side.
Or maybe a child would just make it worse. She shook that thought out of her head. Someone in the Wickwright family needed a happy ending.
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Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:24 pm
She had cute white wings and bright green eyes just like hers. "Hi!" Little girl stopped bouncing, landed on Demi's stomach. What little was in her stomach almost came up, but she managed to confine it to just a dry heave.
"Gerroff," she grunted, and pushed the little girl to the side. "How did you get in, spawn?"
The little girl had the most confused smile on. "I woke up here. Are you Mama?"
"No," Demi said. But then she thought about the cabbage, and about the gossip, and then she looked at the girl again. "No," she repeated, but it was for a completely different reason. She couldn't believe this had happened to her. Why not Riku? Or Kakashi? Both of them seemed to be pretty listless without a kid around. And Maia loved children. Why give it to her?
The note, and the girlish, archaic script it was written in, came back to her. "What's your name," she said quietly, hoping the child wouldn't yell again. Her temples were throbbing.
"I'm Elizabeth! And I like you!" Demi looked at Elizabeth, sharply, like knives that shot from her eyes. Elizabeth smiled back tentatively. "You can call me Lizzy, though." Demi didn't know, but the little girl with white wings had been looking at a page in a book where the only name she liked was Elizabeth. How Lizzy could read, and speak in such complete sentences, was something not even the little girl knew. But she could, and that seemed to go along with all the happy memories and sad memories she had in her head. They were her memories, that she knew, but how she could have acquired memories of people with wings kissing she didn't quite know.
"Alright, Lizzy," Demi said, sitting up and clutching her aching head. "I'm going to go make a call. You. Stay put. Don't jump. Just-" She waved a hand about in the ether. "Stay."
She nodded and sat on the bed. "Okay, Mother." Suddenly, Demi's hangover seemed like the least of her problems.
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:42 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:38 pm
Dean, Dmitri, Elizabeth and Demi
Demi couldn't quite believe the little child sitting across from her on the couch. She had shoulder-length hair that gradiented from silver to pink, tiny wings, and pale pink marks around her biceps and wrists. Oh, and she had hatched out of a cabbage. Riku had laughed raucously and then fled, leaving her alone with her new daughter. Or what Demi supposed counted as a new daughter, since she couldn't give the child back to the center that had sent the toddler to her. She'd called, she'd asked, and then they'd told her that normally it was allowed but not in this case.
"They'll be here soon," she said, all business. It was still awkward to consider raising another child after both of her boys were all fully grown. And it just got worse when Demi looked into her own bright green eyes, in that child's head. Actually, little Elizabeth looked like the child she and Asmodeus might have had, if Asmodeus had been an angel when he'd first cursed her. "Don't piss Dmitri or Dean off, all right? They will probably be on edge enough." Since Riku can't keep her mouth shut and will run off to tell him what we were doing last night, she added in her head, through her pounding hangover.
"Why can Mom drink and I can't?!"
"Because you're an alcoholic and we're trying to keep you from killing yourself before you hit thirty."
"So? 's'not like anyone on Earth really likes me!"
"Dean, keep your voice down. ...Have you been drinking?"
"...No."
Two blonde men came into view shortly as they exited the hallway and entered the room, arguing. The taller of the two walked sluggishly and marked by bruises around his left eye that were currently fading, the slightly shorter one had the taller, bruised one's sleeve in his hand and was practically dragging him down the hallway.
"Wossat?" the drunken younger man asked, stumbling as his father let go suddenly and stared at the new girl with wide, dark blue eyes.
"...Demi...? Is there...something you would like to tell me...?" he asked slowly, pressing his lips together as he finished the sentence.
"I like you," the little girl said promptly to Dean, but she fell silent when Demi threw her a sharp look. Regardless, she smiled warmly at the two men as her mother ran a hand through her cropped hair.
With a deep breath, Demi patted the couch next to her. "It's sort of a long explanation. But Dmitri, you know quite well I can't carry a child to term in the week you were away. Nor did I look pregnant when you left, so there's nothing like that that you should know."
The little girl had been silent as long as she could stand. "I'm Elizabeth," she said loudly, with perfect enunciation. "Who's Dean? And why can't I piss him or Dmitri off?"
Demi put her forehead in her hands. "You shouldn't say 'piss'. It's rude."
"You said it first," Lizzy said vapidly.
"I'm Dean," the aforementioned young man answered, stumbling again before sitting down against the wall and staring at the little girl across the way. He adjusted his flannel t-shirt and yawned, closing his eyes and getting comfortable.
"I realize that, love, but still, it's a bit shocking to see a little girl here...although...it really shouldn't be. We have new characters showing up all the time," Dmitri responded.
"I like you," Lizzy repeated to Dean.
Demi launched into the story then. "I was sitting over in that window," she said, pointing, "And a temp delivery girl who looked a little like Alia came up with that huge cabbage. She said that the sender and Kakashi- you know he's the current block leader, right?- wanted it to stay here, even if I didn't come and get it, which of course I didn't." Her paranoia was a well-known fact. It'd saved her a** several times. "Then Riku came over and we went out to eat. I woke up this morning and this girl was jumping on my bed." In retrospect, it really wasn't that long of a story. "There was this note in the cabbage," she added, passing it to Dmitri.
The little girl ran over the couch- something Dean and Sirius had never been allowed to get away with- to peer over Dmitri's shoulder. "Ad perpetuam memoriam, momento vivere. Says 'For the perpetual memory, a reminder of life.' Why would it say that?"
"For the perpetual memory, a reminder of life," Dean translated at the same time as the little girl. He blinked as he realized that they had both said the same time and shook his head, going back into his drunken doze.
"...Okay...But...Jack tells me that you went out with Riku and got drunk last night..." he murmured. "And she is a Time Goddess, so you could technically conceive a child in a week...and..."
The poor Sound mage was rather confused at the moment.
"You are forgetting that when I lie, I like to tell lies that will be believed," Demi said. She was a little hurt that he didn't believe her. "Besides, if I had had gotten knocked up, which I didn't, Riku would have gone backwards instead of forwards." With her arms crossed, she leaned into the couch and frowned at Dmitri. "If you don't believe me, look behind you at the cabbage with the split down the middle!"
Lizzy smiled at Dean. "You're smart."
[lost the rest, damnit]
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:53 pm
"I don't think you should get a puppy," Demi said.
When her daughter didn't protest, she looked up. Elizabeth was gone.
-----
"Mrs. Riku, can you get me a puppy or a kitty?" Elizabeth already knew the way to the Thylne house, which impressed the girlish goddess. It wasn't that Elizabeth was a genius. She'd already checked that with subtle testing (subtle because Demi would never approve). It seemed to be more that the child had memories already. That was probably it, actually. Riku could sense that sort of thing.
She crossed her legs at the knee. "Have you asked your mother?"
A pout. Predictably, Demi had said no. "She says she doesn't think I should get a puppy."
Ah! A loophole. Riku lounged on her couch, immensely pleased with herself. "Then let's go get you a kitten, darling. How about a white one, with blue eyes?"
Elizabeth sighed, a sound of pure joy. "You get me!" Then she jumped on the couch a couple times. "I want to name him Kae-Askavi, like the Arcerian Warlord from the books!"
"What if you get a girl kitten?" Riku smiled and grabbed the child under her arms. "What will you call her then?"
"I'll call her..." Her face became a little bit troubled. Obviously she hadn't thought of this yet. "I'll call her... Dominion." Riku almost stumbled as she stepped over the barrier between worlds, but avoided such an embarrassment by catching herself on a brick wall.
"That's a little strange, darling. Kae-Askavi to Dominion?"
Elizabeth smiled. "White kitties with blue eyes remind me of friends." And Dominion reminded her of friends? Riku shivered a little and shepherded the winged girl through the automatic doors. Elizabeth's reaction wasn't lacking; her mouth promptly opened in a wide smile of awe, and she started to babble at top speed about everything she saw. Things being as they were, Riku probably could have gotten her to the back of the store without too much fuss, but it was too entertaining to hear the child shout about the golden retriever puppy she saw in one of the play areas.
"We're here for a kitten, darling," she said, and hustled Elizabeth to the back.
And what luck. There, laying in a small wicker basket, was a white he-kitten with blue eyes. Riku beckoned one of the attendants over. "We'd like to meet that little kitten right there." The woman hoisted the kitten out and passed him off to Riku, who passed him off to Elizabeth. The girl smiled angelically at the baby cat.
"Kae-Askavi," she pronounced happily. She mimicked the actions of the baboon from the Lion King and lifted the newly-named Kae-Askavi over her head. Riku quickly deprived Lizzy of the kitten and cradled him as they shopped for the things she would need to care for her new pet.
"Are you happy, Lizzy?"
"Yes. Can I have Kae-Askavi back? Please?"
They went to the front of the store to pay, and Riku wondered how much trouble she was going to be in.
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:24 pm
She ran her fingers through his short fur. He purred, and licked at her wrist. With a giggle, she hugged him close again. "You're warm, too, Kae-Askavi." His claws came unsheathed and she let her kitten go. He started to chase a large, hoppy grasshopper. That was okay, until he pounced on the insect and crushed it. Then a shooting pain went through Elizabeth's chest and she grabbed the kitten off the bug. Pale, translucent goo stuck to his paws, and the grasshopper was flattened under it.
The girl didn't know it, but the hand she reached out with trembled just like her mother's. "Kae-Askavi, it's cold," she whispered. And the stuff left behind was cold. Didn't whatever it was in this forest that loved her, love the little grasshopper too? "Don't do that," she scolded, a little hysterically. "Not even to bugs! That's bad, Kae-Askavi!" Shaken, she held her kitten close. For a moment, she thought he was cold, but then she realized that it was she that shivered.
She ran back to the house, let Kae-Askavi loose, and hid in her room until dinner. Mother pulled her out then, and sat her at the table. Elizabeth tried not to look surprised that Riku and her brother were there in Daddy and Dean's seats; she knew they never stayed long.
"Hi, Lizzy," Riku said, but her voice was far too chipper. Anxiety showed in her face. "You were supposed to go visit Erik today."
"He was quite perturbed when you never showed. We were worried." The man Kakashi looked a little worried, indeed. "You should have told your mother you were back from the forest."
Elizabeth looked at her plate. A small portion of meat- unidentified, as usual, since Mother didn't want to hear that she didn't like a certain kind of meat- and a larger mashed-potato mountain with green beans. She poked at it listlessly. "What's wrong, darling," said Riku. It wasn't really a request for information, it was a demand couched in friendly words. No matter how kind this woman was, no matter how childish she seemed, Lizzy had to remember she was a goddess. And maybe that was where her path to growing up started, with the realization that this woman did play with people like they were puppets on string.
"What does it mean when something is cold?"
"That it's not warm," Demi said uneasily. She looked at Kakashi, who pursed his lips.
That wasn't the answer she wanted. "When it's hurt, and it's cold, and there's stuff all around it."
"...Thick stuff?" Kakashi leant forward, with one hand on his tie to keep it from falling in the meat gravy he had dumped liberally on his plate. (It was said, though Lizzy was unaware, that he was a human wolf. This is not inaccurate.) "Red?"
"N-no," Lizzy said. "It was a bug, and the stuff was clear and kind of green."
"Well, then it's nothing to worry about." He leaned back again.
"But it hurt." She pressed her fingers to her breastbone. "Right here. When Kae-Askavi jumped on it."
Everyone was silent, except for the silent clicks and scrapes of a meal. Kae-Askavi prowled between the chair legs, like a little white cloud. She watched him for a while, until Kakashi spoke again. "That means it died, Elizabeth."
Died? "No, Kae-Askavi didn't put it in the mugs," she said, confused and thinking of dyeing eggs. "It was still green." A strange feeling of trepidation filled her at the looks on the faces of all three adults.
Demi looked at Kakashi again, this time with a look full of meaning. "Died," he said, spelling it. "It's dead, not dipped in a vat of vinegar and chemicals. That means-"
"It's lost?" Lizzy put down her utensils. "I-I'm not hungry anymore!" She fled back to her room, followed by Kae-Askavi. The door slammed and shook a painting off the wall. It fell, but was unharmed, so Demi didn't feel the need to yell.
The tension in the room dissapated.
"Why would the death of a bug affect her that much?" Riku, especially, didn't understand. She hated insects with a burning, fiery passion. "It's just an insect, hardly worth crying over. Now, Kae-Askavi dying, that I would understand..."
"She's sensitive, I guess," Kakashi said, shrugging. "She'll be all right. Just don't take her to any slaughterhouses. I know it's tempting, Riku, but Alice Saint Zenfa was enough of an issue already. Let's not repeat Father's mistake."
"But I want to know," the goddess muttered rebelliously. "What she'd be like if I did."
Demi said, reasonably, "That was Alun's mistake, too."
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:52 pm
"A child," said the lady hoarsely. Elizabeth stared at her in confusion, then straightened her flannel shirt- a hand me down from one of her brothers. She had dresses, but she wasn't supposed to wear them out to play. The man looked up, a question in his stormy eyes, and timidly she smiled at him.
"Where is your mother, little one?" He didn't have an unpleasant voice. It reminded her of honey-covered peanuts, or maybe chocolate pretzels. Sweet, but with that little bit of crunchy saltiness inside. That said, she liked it, so she hopped up on a bench beside him. "If you're lost, I shall help you," he said gravely.
"I'm not lost," she said, and canted her head off a bit when she saw that he looked astonished. "What? What'd I say, mister?"
He sighed and shook his head. "I have surely spent too long among horrors, to imagine a babe speaking so."
"I'm not a babe, that's girls with big boobs," Lizzy said severely.
"It is a very old way to say 'child'," he said. "What is your name, child?"
She pursed her lips. "Not supposed to tell strangers," she informed him doubtfully. "What's your name?"
The dark-haired man rolled his eyes. "I am called Edward." He tucked the beads in his hand into a pocket in his black vest; she reached over and touched a fastening on it as he did, and when he made to slap her hand away she pulled it back.
"Well, I- I am called Elizabeth. But you can call me Lizzy." She nodded firmly. "Who's the lady?"
"I am called Banshee," said Banshee, and with that out of the way, she drifted away. The child watched her go with wide eyes, then turned to Edward.
"What were you doing?"
He frowned, and didn't seem much inclined to answer. Truth, he'd been intending to try a communication spell with the proverbial 'other side'. Martel had been dead for almost nine years but that didn't make the fear that whatever happened to her would get him too. So he'd intended to ask her about how she'd tried to summon Legion... The entire room she had done the ritual in had been blown to pieces in the backlash, resulting in a few scars for him and an unknown quantity for Tae-yul. But he remembered that there were scars on both of them... "Talking," he said vaguely.
"Oh," she said, disappointed. "Hey, is Banshee a demon?"
Edward started. "How would you know," he snapped. Then he covered his mouth with one hand; he'd been harsher than he'd meant to. But Elizabeth didn't look hurt. Quite the opposite, now she was curious.
"I saw someone like her once." She could go 'places', places even her aunt couldn't get to, and her aunt got to everywhere eventually. And she didn't know how she did it.
"Ah, well..." He got up hurriedly. "I had best be going. Have a good evening, Miss Elizabeth."
"Bye, Edward," she said, puzzled.
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:05 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:12 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:17 pm
[Lost post. That's okay; reqs are over-filled, anyway.]
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Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:16 pm
With Dei
Lizzy took a hearty bite of the chocolate bar. This stuff was amazing. Why hadn't Mama let her have it before? She looked down at her short-sleeved flannel shirt (a hand-me-down from her brothers). Brown streaks covered it, hiding the childish print. It was probably good that Mother could get anything out of any fabric ever.
Actually, today was the first day Mother had allowed her to take Kae-Askavi anywhere. Her kitten was growing fast; after only a month, he was a gangly ball of fuzz who almost reached Lizzy's waist. So Mother had decided that it'd be all right to take the cat with her. After all, he didn't hurt anyone. Except people who bothered her, and those weren't many. Not with Mother sitting practically on top of her. She frowned, but continued to thoughtfully nibble at the chocolate. People kept walking by, and it really interested her to see all of them pass her. Especially the ones who had- Oh, well, that was certainly an interesting anatomical addition. She giggled and kicked her feet. Maybe soon someone her age would wander by, and she could talk to them!
He stared incredulously down at his cone of ice cream, slowly watching it melt underneath the sun's light. His blue fingers were smothered in vanilla ice cream, and ocassionally he switched the cone from one hand to the other so that he could lick his fingers clean. Needless to say, he had an addiction to ice cream, especially the soft-served kind, and his father was nice enough to indulge his son in anything that Dei desired. Right now that had been ice cream, and he was licking away at it idly while his father spoke with a woman he really didn't much like. She was light haired. He didn't like light hair, since his and his dad's were rather dark. It took all of his will power not to go whining over to his dad and beg for some attention. He was not a baby! He could stand to be alone for a few moments.
He sat down on the ground, refusing to talk to any of the other children that were eating sweets and playing around him. He could see his dad giving him an analytical look, and he knew that his dad wanted him to go join the other kids in play. He didn't want to. He wanted to sit right here and eat his ice cream, because this was the best soft-served ice cream in town. His tail swished idly behind him, and once again the cone exchanged hands so that he could greedily lap melted ice cream off of his fingers.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a girl around his age, with white hair and a yummy looking candy bar in her hand. Of course, he didn't like people with light hair, and her's was really light. In that moment he decided not to like her, and with a little huff he turned his attention away from her and more fully onto his ice cream. Occassionally he would glance to his father, but never once again did he willingly turn his attention to Lizzy.
Well, it wasn't walking by, but in the book of Lizzy someone looking at her constituted and invitation to play. Undoubtedly, this would get in her trouble later in life, but for now it only meant that she would drop the candy bar in Mother's lap and lick the candy off her fingers in preparation to go over and bother her victim. She wiped her hands on her jeans and bounded over to the boy with blue skin; on her last bounce, she made a mighty leap and landed in front of him with both feet firmly planted. Kae-Askavi remained where he was, lazily draped over a full half of the wooden bench Mother still sat on.
"Hi! I'm Lizzy," she said, a little breathless. "Why are ya sitting over here all alone?" It was beyond her that some people might like being alone. She was always surrounded by people (and Kae-Askavi was a person, no matter what dumb old Dean said) and didn't really want that to change. "Want to play tag?"
He noticed that someone was standing in front of him, someone that he did not recognize, and therefore did not want to talk to. His red eyes slowly rose to fix on Lizzy's face, and a delicate frown tugged down on his lips. No, he wasn't pleased to see her, and her happy-go-lucky attitude was making him feel bad. Not the sad kind of bad, but just /bad/. He didn't like the feeling, and he didn't like her. She wasn't dark haired, she was a girl, and it looked like her wings could just be torn off and cast away. If he was going to play, it was going to be with a boy whom he could wrestle with and even win against. He wasn't going to play with her, he refused.
Her hello was returned with silence from the other boy, and only until she asked why he was sitting all alone did he respond. "Because I want to," he replied stubbornly, glaring moodily up at the other girl. "No, I don't wanna play tag. I'm gunna eat my ice cream, and then I'm going home with daddy." It was a blatant, outright rejection, and he even hoped it was enough to make her go away. He had better things to do than sit and chat all day.
For a moment, she was thrown off balance. She regained her equilibrium admirably, though. Tag wouldn't have worked too good, since there were just two of them. And it's not like he'd told her to go away; she wouldn't have listened anyway, since she was Lizzy and Lizzy didn't have to listen to anyone, but she would have chalked him up to be a mean person instead of just alone. She smiled widely and put her hands on her hips. "Okay. I'll keep you company then!" Without a thought for personal space, she plopped down right beside him. Of course she was careful not to upset his ice cream, since he said he was going to eat it. But other than that, she was sitting right next to him. "What's your name? Actually mine's Elizabeth, but no one calls me that. Or Beth. I don't like being called Beth because Mother read me a story about a girl named Beth who died. So everyone actually calls me Lizzy."
Oh great, she was sitting down next to him, and he felt distinctly comfortable by the close proximity. He could smell the chocolate on her, and it didn't mix well with the salty scent of skin. He crinkled his nose in disgust, and deliberately scooted to the side a little bit to put some distance between them. He would have gotten up and went back over to his dad, except for the fact that he had sat down here first, and so it was his right to be able to sit here. He was not going to be shoved away by some girl! Dei scowled at her, and then brought his ice cream back to his lips to suck some into his mouth. In fact, he paid more attention to the ice cream than he did to her. Right now he hated her quite a bit, especially for her deciding to keep him company when he didn't want nor need company. "Dei," he replied sourly, and just because she didn't like it, he spoke up again, "it's nice to meet you, Beth." He hoped that would make her sad enough to go away, but he just couldn't tell if it would work at this point.
She frowned. But maybe he just wasn't listening; everybody knew that you didn't talk to her while she was eating if you wanted her to remember things. So Lizzy wouldn't bother to explain it all again since even thinking about poor Beth March made her all teary-eyed and sad. Well, not until he was done with his ice cream. Then she might remind him. Besides, he'd said it was nice to meet her. Obviously, it was okay for her to be here. The apparent signs that he didn't want her there seemed to go right over her pretty white-haired head. "It's nice out today," she chirped happily. "It's been all cold and rainy for weeks. I thought we were gonna get flooded and have to live in a boat!" She grinned happily. "Do you like rain? Rain is nice, I guess. Except it's all wet and then Mother goes and pulls on my wings to get them all dry. Because if they don't get dry, they rot. But I don't know that, but Mother says it, so it must be true!"
Dei realized with sudden horror that she did not stop talking ever! He groaned against the ice cream pressed against his lips, and forced himself to take another bite. He was going to have to run off to his dad soon and beg for some more ice cream, just to provide a distraction from the little menace that was sitting right next to him. She wasn't even crying after he had called her Beth, and he was certain that he was good at making anybody cry. He often was mean just to get people to leave alone, because when it came down to the nick of things, he just didn't like most people. Lizzy was like most people. He would just have to continue to try and get her to go away and leave him alone for the rest of his life. "I like rain. Puppies and kitties drown in rain." He had noticed that she had a kitten, and so he decided that pointing out the possibility that her kitten would get killed in the rain would make her leave him alone. "Even your kitty would get killed. That's why kitties don't like the rain."
She froze and thought this over. Then she looked at the sky. It was blue as could be, no clouds in sight. Kae-Askavi was safe. "My kitty wouldn't get killed," Lizzy said confidently. "Kae-Askavi can swim really well, see, I put him in the tub once and he started hissing but then he was happy like me in the bathtub!" But what if it rained for a really long time? That gave her pause, too. But no, Kae-Askavi was a great swimmer. He'd be okay. "How come puppies and kitties drowning makes you like rain? I don't like things drowning. Except sometimes in movies when the bad guy falls off the cliff and WHAM he goes into the river and drowns." She grinned at that thought. "And besides, if Kae-Askavi can drown, that means you and me can too. And Mother would never let me drown, not ever."
He gaped at her stupidly when she did not seem the least bit upset by his comment, but he wasn't willing to admit that he couldn't get rid of her. No, he had more tactics up his sleeve than those had shown her. It was almost time for him to get a whole lot nastier, or just get up and walk away. Anxiously he glanced to his father, who was still chatting with some blonde lady. He could tell by the fake smile on his dad's face that he wasn't enjoying it very much. His dad liked people, but he didn't like people who got too close to him. The only person that was allowed to was Dei, and it made him feel a small bit special. "That's little water. If big water comes your kitty wouldn't survive. We can swim better than your stupid little kitty. I'm blue. I'm a natural swimmer. You might drown, though. You're not that very big." He shook his head, violet hair falling away from his eyes. "Your mother can't save you all of the time."
Lizzy so didn't see the correlation between being blue and being a natural swimmer. She had wings, but that didn't mean she could fly... Or maybe it did. She chewed on her lip, thinking hard about this. "Kae-Askavi is not stupid," she said. "He is a very smart kitty, because you are what you eat, and tuna makes you smart, and Kae-Askavi eats tuna." Would that mean that he would eat Dei? Her eyes widened in horror. "Oh no," she gasped. Kae-Askavi wouldn't eat Dei! Never!... but maybe she should check next time they went exploring anyway. Just to be safe.
He had to bite on his bottom lip to keep himself from saying 'stupid' again, because his dad hated it when he said a bad word, and he had already said his bad word for the day and was convinced not to do it again. "Tuna's gross, and so your kitty is gross because he eats tuna," he said with a voice of finality, nodding his head in a short gesture to confirm his words. He didn't like her, he didn't like her cat, and he didn't like whomever raised her either. He liked his dad, his bird, and himself, and he didn't need to like anyone else beside those three people. "What's wrong with you?" he questioned her with an arch of his eyebrow. All too soon, though, he realized that he had finished his cone of ice cream... and a feeling of dread settled into his stomach. She wouldn't want him to play with her... would she?
"It's okay if you don't like tuna," she said vaguely, still thinking. Kae-Askavi would be big enough to eat Dei when he grew up but that was years from now. So maybe he was safe for now. She frowned. And if Kae-Askavi did try to eat Dei, people would come and take him away! With a sigh, she leaned over and protectively hugged the blue boy. "I won't let Kae-Askavi eat you," said Lizzy firmly. "I will teach him that people are not for eating, especially natural swimmer people with blue skin." She nodded firmly. The fact that Dei had finished his ice cream escaped her completely.
He froze, and the blue skin on his cheeks seemed to turn more icy as he visibly paled as she hugged him. Hugged him! He didn't like touching strangers, especially strangers he didn't like, and now she had taken the liberty to hug him. Without thinking much, he shoved her away from him and stood up, wiping his hands on hi shirt furiously, ears twitching in a mixture of irritation and embarrassment. "Your cat couldn't eat me if it tried!" he exclaimed this, face having regained his color, cheeks now flushed violet with his frustration. "Don't touch me! You're not allowed to touch me, okay?" He glared down at her, and looked quite ready to run over to his father and cling to Jori's legs.
"He could so he's half your size and weighs lots!" She was up on her feet too, but she was completely caught up in what her mother would describe as passionate anger. "No. Not okay! You are going to grow up and be a cold and mean person and it is nobody's fault but yours because you're-- you're--" Lizzy paused to think of words strong enough to express her feelings on this subject "--You're just not being nice." Without thinking, she lunged and tackled him, but that brought her mother running and Demi quickly heaved the little girl away by the back of her shirt. But the action itself had spent most of Lizzy's forward motion and she was left with just hot, frustrated tears.
"Elizabeth Juliet Wickwright," Demi was saying (undoubtedly the start of an unpleasant lecture) but she wasn't paying attention. She stared at Dei, anger and pity clear in her face.
[rest of RP lost; logs?]
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:58 pm
A cold morning dawned just as she finished her warm-up for the day, but the beauty of the sun as it began to peek over the edge of the world was lost on Demetri. It had been far too long since she'd actually found the time to care about something as transitory and yes, common, as the sun rising over an average horizon. She had bigger things to worry over, like her family and her children; things that she could see again at any time were of no import, especially when everything else was so attention-grabbing. In a continuation of her morning ritual, she sat on the frosty, cold ground and ran a hand through her graying blond hair.
For instance, Demetri's oldest son had recently ended up alcoholic, which troubled her because she owned a tavern that she couldn't always tend to. Luckily, though, that seemed to be the only trouble Dean was intent on raising, and it could be dealt with.
Her second child, a boy named Sirius, was the scholar-prince of a foreign city. He had much to worry about and often wrote home for advice in lieu of keeping actual advisers. In fact, she had been up most of the night puzzling out a question of errant taxes; she, given her son's power, personally? Would simply behead the men who thought they could cheat her out of money. This did not seem to be an option for her boy, who said that was foolish and arbitrary. Well, excuse her for breathing...
Her daughter troubled her most. At four, the foundling child already spoke in complete sentences and expressed ideas far beyond her age's comprehension, which made Demi wonder about the girl's past. The only thing it seemed her girl couldn't bear was the thought of death, something that did have to be changed if Elizabeth was going to continue to stay in their neighborhood. People were constantly dying and coming back to life and changing greatly. It simply was the way that their world worked, where the half-gods half-madmen known as Creators ran crazy and wild.
(Actually, she thought, it world be more appropriate to say 'half-madwomen' because the only male Creator she'd ever even heard of had been gay as a daffodil. And she'd met a good six or eight Creators, which was an impressive number considering she'd only been in this world for two or three years.)
With her morning contemplation done away with, she rose from the chilly ground and stretched, arms high above her head. Several audible pops were her joints realigning; the woman was not as young as she had been once, because even curses couldn't keep all the evils of old age away from you and she was almost fifty now. Stiffly, she walked back to the house and knocked the door open with a sturdy kick. She was very, very pleased to see that time hadn't dulled her abilities, because when she bent down to examine the lock it wasn't broken. Obviously she could still use her powers as skillfully as ever if the lock remained in one piece, because that meant the concussive burst with her kick had been in exactly the correct proportion to her lock and the door. It remained in its groove and when she turned the knob it slid in and out of the slot. Satisfied and quite pleased, she strode over the jamb and kicked the door gently closed. Wouldn't do to shatter the thing.
Sitting on the blue satin chaise lounge she'd acquired on a trip to a different world several years back, she thought of the vaguely threatening note that had been delivered yesterday at noon. Knowing that she had eternity, threats of death within twenty-four hours weren't that big of a deal to her, sort of like threatening a Creator with unwanted actions against another person in the development where she lived. The Creator, so threatened, would just laugh it off, because you did nothing that they didn't want you to do. It wasn't really that they were any kind of incredibly persuasive; Alia, in particular, was about as subtle as a club to the head or a fist to the face, and several others were just as bad, though in different ways.
Now, this note, though! It was troubling simply because of the way it had appeared. One second, she had been doing the proper housewife's duty of making lunch and then the next, a man all in black and stinking of decay stood in the doorway separating her kitchen from her living room. He had breathed smoke and set the note down on the counter. Where the strips of flesh hanging off his arm had brushed the counter, streaks of black soot had lingered; actually, they were still there, because she'd tried for an hour to get them off and they hadn't gone.
When she'd asked him why he was leaving her such a note, he had simply answered with "You will die in twenty four hours." Then he had vanished.
Well, dead in twenty-four hours or not, Demi had work to do that she thought rather more important than obsessing over a note. She rested again for a moment in the comforting embrace of the chair, then yawned and stretched out her limbs. The warm light of the rising sun fell into the room through a tall window; she had, upon entry, pulled the filmy black drapes aside so she might watch for the shadowy creature. "What an unfortunate thing," she muttered, but darkly; she did not feel a crooked butcher's ounce of pity for the monster that had invaded her gentle suburban world yesterday. Still, it had to be hard to be so f*cking ugly. Surely there was some kind of slush fund for home invaders like that one, so they could afford to talk their way into the lives of unsuspecting accursed housewives like herself with their looks instead of just breaking in.
She would have appreciated it, anyway.
Walking to the bottom of the stairs, Demi put one hand on the banister and another on the wall. With a deep breath, she shouted up, "Elizabeth! Wake up, darling!"
"Okay, Mom," came back down the stairs, and creaking in the floorboards above and then a loud thump told her that the little angel was indeed awake. And, clearly, by the running feet pattering about, intent on coming down the stairs as loudly and as fast as she could soon. Another set of limbs started pounding the floors above; Elizabeth's cat, Kae-Askavi, hopefully. Her son nor her husband would be pleased to be awakened so early, but nothing would do for the young girl but to be up as early as Mama.
Shortly the white-haired child presented herself in the kitchen, her cat (which, after only six months of growth, was as large as Elizabeth herself) trailing at her heels. Her dress that day was pink, as usual, and summery, also as usual. What was different was that she had apparently been through her parents' clothing again and was wearing one of Dmitri's shirts. Demi was amused, but still divested her child of the soft plaid button-down, folded the shirt and walked quickly to the laundry room to put it away. "Silly Elizabeth," she murmured when she returned, ruffling her daughter's hair. "Now, what do you want to eat for breakfast?"
"Pancakes," said Elizabeth promptly, her first response always. "With cookies and lots and lots of syrup."
She laughed, turning to the stove. "I was planning on apple-cinnamon oatmeal, myself," she said, voice very thoughtful and more than a little teasing. It was a game the two of them played.
This time, her daughter didn't play along. "Okay, Mom. If that's what you want." The angelic girl flexed her wings and climbed up onto a stool. Kae-Askavi hopped onto the chair next to hers, which was already very clawed up from the first few times he had tried that exercise. It hadn't worked very well originally, since the stools were polished, hard woods like cherry or oak and didn't take well to claws. Sometimes it was even hard to sit a human tush on them. So Demi didn't actually mind the scratches and gouges; they made it easier for her to rest heavy things on that particularly stool. Besides, it kept the cat from scratching up the rest of the furniture, a lot of which was more valuable than the stools by unbelievable amounts, both in emotional meanings and attachments /and/ in monetary value, of which a lot of her furniture ranked in at unbelievable costs. Her favorite winged armchair, which was mahogany and red velvet, overstuffed to just the proper weight, had come from a land so far away that not many people knew it existed. She did, of course, as she had to to purchase the chair from its ruler, but that wasn't the point. What was the point was that she had sat in that very chair when telling Dmitri she was pregnant both times, and then she had also sat there again when she had been introducing Elizabeth to her brother and her father for the first time.
(It was not coincidence that Elizabeth also loved that chair, and had been sitting in it while important things like her younger-older brother Sirius taught her important skills like whistling and cheating at arm wrestling, both of which came into great use with her older-older brother Dean, were going on. After all, a girl had to know how to protect herself from the weird bets of older brothers at all times, especially when she grew up as the child of a guy known for his musical prowess and a lady who enjoyed kicking down doors. Sirius had also taught her a simple spell for keeping said lady, who happened to be their mother, from kicking down her daughter's bedroom door. This would later be used to great effect.)
So the two of them had apple-cinnamon oatmeal, joking and talking and planning the day just
like they always did. Time ticked past as they did everything they planned to do, like baking a cake for the neighboring family, and visiting the family friends who lived across the street for brunch, and going to the park.
It was awkward, sitting at the table with her friends. All of them had known each other for so long they could almost read each other's faces like books, but today there was something odd. Riku, who had power over Time, seemed almost frightened to be happy around Demi that day. "Have you made any plans for tomorrow," asked the other woman.
"No," said Demi, all confusion.
Elizabeth grinned and said, "I'm going to go visit Sirius." Riku laughed, but it was uncomfortable...
Almost before they noticed, they had to again be home so they could wake up the two men, who were likely still asleep (Dmitri because he was by and large a nocturnal person, and Dean likely because he was drunk off his a** the night before and had to sleep off the resulting, and undoubtedly horrible, hangover.) As they walked down the sidewalk and watched the cars drive past, Demi began a quiet lecture on crossing the street.
"Lizzy, there is no one inside the cars, there never was and never will be; one of the Creators decided that a suburb with no cars was not a true suburb in any meaning of the word, but since no one is much inclined to travel very far on anything but a horse or hover bike, there is no one to drive the cars, so... no one drives the cars. Instead, they drive themselves. That's how it works, and you have to be very careful when you cross, especially alone. There are lights to cross at. It's only okay for you to jay walk when you're with an adult. And no, darling, Dean does not count as an adult."
Elizabeth laughed as they stopped across the street from their house. "Okay, Mama. I'll remember."
With a solemn nod, Demi stepped into the street, hustling her daughter and the cat before her, saying, "See that you do." She hurried across, since she could see an approaching car that didn't appear inclined to slow down, even though she knew they weren't made to hit someone. Only a being as powerful as a Creator could fiddle with the fabric that made up the neighborhood's vehicles, and beings as powerful and as knowledgeable as Creators were rare.
Elizabeth had just stepped onto the sidewalk, into safety, when the car swerved and, with a loud screech, attempted to stop. Finally, it did...
For a moment, unaware of what had happened, the pale angel laughed at the great game of rush-across-the-street, then, turning, started to ask her mother what had happened. Instead of a shocked woman and a spooked cat, though, Elizabeth only saw corpses.
She did not speak again for a very long time.
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