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 Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:55 pm
Having suggested it, Crowley had been half-suspecting the ball to come his way next. Still, there hadn't been lots of warning. So he used his head to deflect it. This was not exactly on purpose, but it worked really well for what he wanted, so he just grinned and said, "Ow!" The teabot whistled in a worried way.
"Feely surfs real good," said Crowley firmly, nodding. This time, though, he kept an eye on the ball.
Antan smiled, pleased by the speed with which she'd have her painting- "So fast? Wonderful!" -and by the fact of, well. Not even her boss had a painting done by a world painter. Sure, they were generally dry and useless for anything but decoration by the time someone received one. But it was the idea- places that needed no portal to reach, because they were all under Nur's influence now. The High Chancellor loved that idea.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:39 pm
"Yeah," agreed Fish, trying very hard to keep his eyes on the ball. It came his way again, redirected by Crowley's head, and he gave it another clumsy kick. "I wanna be 's good," he added, wistfully. "Someday."
"What d' you do 'sides kick-ball?" he asked, eager to explore the rest of the yard and house. It looked like a rather exciting new set of surroundings, at least from where he was standing.
"World Painters work fast," explained Prosper with a shrug. "The magic only works as long as the paint's wet."
To be perfectly honest, it was rare to find a World Painter willing to take on such a large canvas, but Prosper was up to it. He fidgeted with the pin on his collar again, a bit unused to its weight. This was the only outward sign he could give of his qualifications, however, and while he didn't enjoy flaunting the master rank, he had found it gave clients a bit of reassurance to know they were working with one of the best and brightest that the Painters' Assembly had to offer.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:21 pm
He stopped the ball carefully. "I asplore," said Crowley, casting out one hand at the house and the lands surrounding it. "Find stuff. Sometimes I find cool stuff." Like the one time he'd found a big rock and under it was a little cavern. That was nice. It'd be a good hiding place, if he ever needed one. Not like he would- Crowley was a pretty normal kid, except for those odd yellow eyes.
"You want to go asploring? We can climb trees!" He pointed at a big tree that had limbs either kid could easily reach.
"So. What's that pin?" She tilted her head, drifted a little closer. "It's the Master rank, yes?" What she really meant to ask was, why are you acting so nervous about it but she didn't really want to know. Sometimes people faked things, and if he was faking, she didn't want to know.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:45 pm
Fish, who had never before given any thought to climbing a tree, nodded hesitantly. It didn't look too hard, and Crowley was enthusiastic about it, so he supposed he could give it a try. "Okay," he said, and set off for the tree with a certain degree of forced boldness.
Prosper looked down at the pin between his thumb and forefinger and nodded. He let go of it, having been previously a bit unaware of how obvious he had been with his fiddling. "It is," he said quietly, a bit impressed that Ms. Howl was familiar with the insignias.
"Excuse me," he continued, a bit sheepish at being caught in the act. "It's a bit of a tic. I don't wear it often because I wind up fiddling with it incessantly."
From her familiarity with the rank signs, he was curious to know if she knew the requirements of the master rank. He was hesitant to mention it, of course - it only lead to awkward and painful conversations.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:12 pm
"Isfun," said Crowley, and his enthusiasm was unfeigned. He headed off, running happily towards the tree. Once he stood beneath the great old oak, he looked back to Fish and said, "Here. This is how." Reaching up, he wrapped both hands around the branch and pulled himself up carefully, walking his way up the branch.
Once he was suitably perched, he stood up and started to look for the closest limb. "You just grab 'n pull 'n go up the side. Issa slippery, be careful."
She peered at it curiously. "The reports are vague but I was reading them before you came and I read that you'd had to do something forbidden or something to get that. I mean obviously it is none of my business on account of being an Observation and not an actual person and definitely not a painter but I can see why you fiddle with it, it looks interesting. If I had hands, and a pin, I'd totally fiddle with mine."
Only she didn't have hands. But she did have a cloak-pin, a multifaceted gemstone as red as her hair.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:23 pm
A bit uncertainly, Fish parroted Crowley's actions and struggled up onto the branch. He had a bit of trouble with it because webbed hands were not necessarily conducive to climbing, but he got up and walked along behind Crowley.
"'Ve never been in a tree b'fore," he said, chewing thoughtfully on a fingernail. He looked around. "Kinda high," he observed. "Go higher?"
Prosper nodded. She had basically summed it up but did not feel inclined to comment further. "It was a tremendous test of skill," he said, and left it at that.
He looked out the window, hoping to catch sight of the children, but remembered that it didn't actually show what was happening out in the yard. He tucked the notepad and tape measure back into his pocket and said, "Should we check on the boys?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:33 pm
"Yeah," said Crowley, spotting the branch and grabbing it to climb up. "Mama make us come down if we get caught," he noted absently, but with a knowing nod. This had happened many times before to him, he seemed to say, and it was completely unjust every time. Crowley was as at home in a tree as Fish was in the water! "Don' worry. If you fall, it is not really hurt-y."
By now, they were perhaps ten feet off the ground. The teabot had anchored itself to the roots of the tree and was whistling anxiously.
Antanasia nodded, understanding the 'tremendous test of skill' part, if nothing else. "Yes, perhaps we should go check on them. The windows show Amedia, you know. Have you been to Amedia? Was very nice. Now it's sorta destroyed." She shrugged and glided back down the stairs, though she certainly could have just skimmed over the empty space to the doors.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:49 pm
Fish followed Crowley, a bit slow compared to his friend's rapid ascension. There was a knot of something solidifying in the pit of his stomach, but he was too naive in the ways of the world to understand that it was 'fear.' As long as he didn't look down, it was content to hang out in his abdomen and not wrap cold tentacles around his heart.
When he got onto the next higher branch, he clung to it for a moment, reveling in how solid it felt. He then looked to his friend for instruction on where he ought to climb next.
"I think I have," said Prosper. Although he could not recall every single world he had visited on his Wanderer sentence, Amedia seemed to stick out in his mind. It was a bit distressing to hear of its destruction. "Perhaps a bit over a decade ago. How long ago was its destruction?" he asked, following her down the stairs. He admitted to himself that he found her lack of body a bit strange, but he also admitted to himself that he had seen far stranger.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:21 pm
Crowley stopped there, sitting on the branch and kicking his feet back and forth. "Na. We wait a sec." He always did, just for a secong, because if he went too high too fast, he got dizzy and his head felt funny and then Mama always came out. "Fun?"
Some people didn't find it fun. He had surmised that Amagi definitely didn't like climbing up the tree, and Mama just floated up so it was actually a kind of moot point with her. She was just Mama. Crowley, though, he was Crowley. And awesome. Trees were fun!
Antanasia thought about it, tipping her head back as the door opened before the two adults. "Eight, maybe nine years. It was around when I was sixteen, so probably twelve cycles, so yeah, eight years. Definitely before the first time I died." She shrugged- sort of- and looked around. No boys in sight, though she could hear a teabot whistling.
"Perhaps they're this way," she said, heading off in the appropriate direction.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:36 pm
"Kinda," gulped Fish, looking down. He steadied himself by clinging to the branch for support. They were awfully high up!
"Woah," he said, watching the ground spin below him. "Woozy."
He looked over at Crowley, who seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit, and felt sick. Fish were not meant to climb.
Prosper followed his host across the grounds towards the source of the whistling. The boys were not immediately visible - the sound seemed to be emanating from the roots of an enormous tree. It took Prosper a moment to understand.
He clapped a palm to his forehead.
"Don't tell me they're up the tree," he said.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:44 pm
Antanasia only had to look at the teabot to know. "They're up the tree," she said. "Sorry, but it's true." She glanced up at them, and yelled, "Crowley Errol Howl!"
He looked down guiltily. "We maybe go down now," he muttered, thinking of his friend's wooziness and of how mad the redheaded lady was going to be. Perhaps he'd get off easy since he hadn't confused the teabot into, well, confusion. And self-shut-down. He'd learned how by accident once. "Hi Mama," he yelled down at them. Then, quieter, to Fish, he said, "We get down this way" and promptly demonstrated the proper swinging technique to get down a branch. The branch, being rather strong, didn't waver in the least.
She frowned, a bit worried by the height, as she always was. Just because the kid was a mistake didn't mean she hated him or anything. "So do you think your boy knows how to get down out of the tree," she asked, thoughtful. "Because if not, I can go up and get him, since you know I don't have to worry about that "body" thing. Although if he's scared of the dark I don't recommend it."
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:09 pm
Prosper broke into a jog and approached the base of the tree. "Phineas Maurice Prosper!" he hollered, looking up to see his son clutching a branch and watching Crowley swing down, monkeylike, with wide blue eyes. "You get down here this instant!"
Boys would be boys, he supposed, since the only thing he could even begin to think of Ophelia doing that even came close to this was the one time she returned home with her head covered in bubble gum and crazy tales about Never-Never and Peter Pan. And she had been much older than Fish.
He could only dread the trouble Fish would get into in the future with a promising beginning like this.
Fish finally got up the courage to imitate Crowley's swinging grace and made a clumsy drop down to the next branch. He clung to it for dear life for a moment before dropping down to the next one in equally clumsy manner. Another drop and he was back on the ground, a bit shaken but no worse for the wear. He looked up at his father and smiled sheepishly.
Prosper shook his head, relieved that Fish was okay but incredibly annoyed with such reckless actions.
"Big trouble?" asked Fish, chewing a grubby nail. Prosper nodded and looked over at Crowley's mother.
"I think we ought to be going," he said, "Before our sons think of more inventive ways to kill themselves."
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:17 pm
Not wanting his friend to face the wrath of the parents alone, Crowley scrambled down the tree without a care for his limbs. He ended up slipping a little on the last branch, but got down okay; his first activity was smiling brightly at Fish, like wasn't that fun? Okay, so Fish had been a bit slow, but that was only natural on someone's first time climbing a tree! He'd get used to it eventually.
"Yes," said Antanasia flatly. Then, in a complete 180, she smiled brightly (and a little creepily, since her teeth all looked pretty sharp) at Prosper. "Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing the painting."
Crowley squeaked when a shadowy mouth bit into his sleeve and yanked him to his mother's side. Chagrined, he wiggled his fingers at Fish in a 'goodbye' wave.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:42 pm
Prosper took Fish, who was still waving to his friend and chattering "See yah Crow-lee!" over and over, by the hand, and frowned for a moment.
"I'm sorry to impede on your hospitality," he said, chuckling slightly, "But I find myself in need of a flat surface."
He dug around in his pockets again, this time coming up with a folded piece of parchment and a travel-sized set of paints in a flat-ish metal case. He held them up as if they explained everything.
"The portal we came by has since closed," he added.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:48 pm
"Ah," she said, understanding. "Indoors?" Dragging Crowley along by the sleeve of his shirt, she led Prosper back into the stone house, along the wall, and to a smallish room where the walls were frighteningly bare. The room itself was warmly appointed, the chief among them being a small desk that had a slightly slanted surface. This, evidently, was a design feature, as a small brass-plated knob appeared to be attached to a lifting mechanism.
"If this isn't big enough, just tell me," she said, "and I'll be glad to find a bigger flat surface."
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