Espen and Dark77778's Log

[dark77778]

The Night I Met Espen:

I've had Espen for a while and I've never discussed where he came from to him. Not in detail anyways. Nothing past the short answers that any parent would give their kid who was too young to know the sorts of things I do. I'm writing this down as a reminder of the events that lead to him coming into my care, and so that I can come back to this later when the time comes for me to explain everything to him.

Why do I do this? Well, I guess it's about time I explain myself. You must first know that Espen doesn't remember coming home with me. When I first asked him, all he remembered is waking up in his room. It was a shock to me that he didn't remember the night before, but in a relived sort of way. He was clearly alive that day, but I guess there's a difference between alive and awake.

That night when I met Espen, I had driven up to The Facility after receiving a note that there was a kid waiting for me. I don't know what is up with this world and wanting to give me kids (considering I already have two (excluding Erika's ever-present aura) and my income can only support so many), but if you know me I can't turn down anyone in trouble. The place that I drove up to certainly looked like Trouble to me, but that was nothing in comparison to what awaited me inside.

The interior looked like some poor demented maniacs idea of a hospital or a science lab, I couldn't tell. People in white coats were running to and fro and only one person lead me to a room that had the words "Danger" on it before fleeing as fast as he could. I'm always amazed at how often having a good sense of direction comes in handy around here, because the man left no instructions as to how to get back. I was in an empty hallway with nothing but me and whatever was behind door number one.

What I walked into reeked of medical supplies, most notably: chloroform. If a room could be torn to shreds, this was close to it. Everywhere along the walls, only a few feet above the ground were claw marks and the floor was littered with feathers. Directly in front of the door was a small, unconscious figure. I assumed that this was who I was to be taking home. Thank goodness, he looked like he'd gone through hell...or was a part of it.

I went to go and gently wake the boy, which took no effort at all. As soon as my finger touched his wing, he was awake and staring at me with feirce red eyes. I suddenly realized that this might've been a mistake as the boy staggered to his feet in a drugged stupor.

"Rah! Rah!" he seethed, in a hypnotized voice.

I backed away slowly into the hallway again, as though I had encountered a bear. The boy followed, at first slowly and then quite suddenly he was upon me. Like an angry cat he sprang up and began to claw at my every inch. His hands weren't very strong or cordinated, but his claws were large. He did a number on my pants and jacked, and he probably would've done some serious damage to me had I not thrown him off.

He hit the floor, hard. He suddenly began to wimper as he rose back to his feet.

"Stop hutin' me!" he yelled blindly, as though he couldn't see me. "Leme out!"

The man who had brought me was going on about Angels and Demons and sins and such, but I really wasn't paying attention: the guy seemed like a real piece of work. Still, I had remembered him saying something about Pride and Kindness, so I thought up something that played off of both to get him to follow me. What I would do when we were outside, I hadn't thought that far ahead, but maybe this boy would trust me if I helped him escape.

"Hey, you!" I called. He turned around and looked ready to spring again "I'm here to get you out...buut...to do it you have to beat me in a race, okay?"

"Wace? Out?" the boy repeated, frightened, and then more slowly, calmly "Wace?...Out."

"Yeah," I said "We're going to race out of here, together. Really fast okay?"

The boy bit his knuckles nervously and stared at me. Trying to figure out if I could be trusted no doubt. A smile crept over his face.

"Out. Fast. Okay." he repeated. Thinking back on it, those drugs must've been seriously strong for Espen to have not been able to form a coherent sentence. There must be a law somewhere on this world about the use of elephant tranquilizers on kids.

"Riiiight," I said as I slowly began to walk towards the direction of the exit. The boy followed, just as slowly repeating in a trance "Wace, Out, Fast, Okay." I eventually picked up the pace, once I knew that the boy was following me, and so did he.

The active body movement or the increased supply of oxygen must've woken him up because once we broke into a run, his voice changed from a drone to almost a shout of lively excitement, but he didn't stop running or look at me. He wanted to do this by himself, I could tell. The colour returned to his face once he saw the moonlight outside, and it was at that point that I backed off. He knew where he was going, and I needed to let him beat me, though I was right behind him in case he ran away.

It was a strange thing, but as soon as he hit the open doorway, he stopped and stared on the threshold. He was staring at the sky, the grass, the trees, and the moon and tears of joy were in his eyes. He suddenly spun round on me and clearly said "Together" before slumping down to the ground. I caught his head, but he was out cold and peacefully asleep.

I picked him up carefully and brought him to the van. The boy was light and easy to cary, and as I opened the door something fell out of his clawed hand. It was a piece of my old sport jacket from Earth; he had held it the whole time we were running. I remembered reading something somewhere about sports fans naming their kids Espen, which I thought was a good name for a stupid reason. Still, it was a good name and my reason wasn't stupid. The patch he had torn off and held onto were both done in acts of bravery, so I decided to call him Espen Patch Foster.

I'd like to talk about what transpired the following morning as well, but that'll have to be another story.  

[dark77778]

The Morning Espen Met Me:

The night before, I put Espen in his new room (Erika’s old one, before she faded) and placed the tag he had ripped on the mirror in his room. I hoped that when he woke up, he’d see both himself and his new name. I also woke up Pyren and Rave to let them know about the new arrival. I had been promising Pyren a new brother for a long time and he was ecstatic when he found out he finally got one. Raven was still moody and didn’t trust that it would last. Still not sure what I’m going to do with those two since their friends all disappeared and they seemingly stopped growing because of it, but I’ll manage.

The next morning I went to see Espen alone with some sugar cereal and orange-juice. I wasn’t sure how he would behave upon waking, and didn’t want to risk the possible injury of the others. I slowly opened the door and stepped inside; it was midday and he was still asleep. I knew that the boy needed his rest, but I could tell that he also needed to eat. Gently, I nudged him awake and he rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed. He looked about for the source of the irritation that had woken him until he found me, smiled and tilted his head sideways.

“Who-ah-yoo?” he inquired in a sweet and honest voice, “Where’m I?”

“Look at that, you can talk!” I exclaimed. “This is your house.”

“Courseye talk,” Espen replied as he pressed his hands down against the bed, testing its springyness “Bu..my house? Weally? Dueye know you?”

“Well I...” I didn’t know how to answer that, or what was going on. “Do you not remember last night?” I asked.

“Las...nigh?” he asked, bewildered “Dere waza las nigh?”

He really didn’t remember. He still doesn’t.

“Selective neurotic amnesia,” I muttered, trying to think about the best way to go about things now. “Well, then I suppose I’d better introduce myself and tell you who you are too...but only after you eat, okay?”

“Kay!” he agreed. Espen was suddenly excited, I could tell that while he liked his surroundings, he hated being confused. I placed the cereal next to him and after he sniffed it he ate it carefully because his coordination was still a little wonky. I could tell that he rather enjoyed the cereal, but he made a face when he drank the orange juice.

“Too sour?” I asked, and when he was finished he coughed and nodded. Strange, most people liked orange juice.

“Done,” he said when everything was finished.

“Right,” I replied with a clap “Do you think you can stand up?”
He nodded and lept to his feet, which wasn’t the best of ideas. His small body was still exhausted, probably from the running he had done. He had to use the edge of his bed for support as he followed behind me to his mirror above a small dresser.

The room was quiet, in an awkward sort of way, which was partially my fault. I’d never been in the situation where I had to introduce myself to someone that never had a father, but didn’t remember never having one before. I meant to introduce myself, but I got so nervous that I decided to break the ice a bit further.

“Hey, I have an idea. Let’s make funny faces okay? I’ll start.” I pulled down my lower lip with both my fingers, and bugged out my eyes in the mirror. “Durr!” I said. Espen laughed.

“Oh! Oh! Me now!” he said before puffing out his cheeks, then snorting in laughter at the sight of himself.

Still holding my face, I said in a silly voice “My name is Shaaane”

He giggled and tried to pull the same face I did with one had “My namez...ummm...heehee” the boy dropped his hand for a second, still smiling “Whaz-moi-name?”

“Espen Patch Foster. Ha!...or just Espen, really.” I said.

His eyes lit up, finally having something to call himself, and then turned back to the mirror, and said in a straight face.

“My namez Espen!”

“Yup! And I’m your dad.” I added, figuring that this was as good a time as any to throw that introduction out there.

“Dad? Wazzat?” he asked, and I knelt down beside him and gave him a hug.

“A dad, Espen, is someone who takes care of you, and loves you very much.” I said softly, and patted his hair.

As though he’d done it a million time before, Espen wrapped his arms around me too and said “I love you too...dad.” I couldn’t help it, there was a tear in my eye and I had to break off the hug or risk sobbing like a fool. Things were going to be alright: this was a good kid. No, this was an awesome kid that some freaks had done something terrible to. I suddenly wanted to be like him, and erase all evidence that he had ever come from that loathsome building.

I stood up and just as I was about to grab the tag that I had attatched to the mirror, Espen grabbed my arm and leapt for it himself. The boy looked it over, not knowing what it spelled, but something in it clicked in his brain and he held onto it as he walked and clambered slowly back into his bed. I suddenly got the feeling that I should leave, so I began to creep out of the room when Espen called me back.

“I wememba,” he said with wide eyes “Dere was...a dark ‘n scawy place...wite?” I nodded.

“Do you want me to hold onto that thing?” I asked, pointing to the tag in his hand.

“No,” Espen said as he shook his head. “Tank you...”

I nodded again, and moved to turn out the light in his room...but had a rushing thought of that being a bad idea. Instead, I simply closed the door and ran downstairs to grab the jacket from last night. Dashing outside, I threw the infernal article into the incinerator and watched with satisfaction as it burned. I always hated that thing anyways.

((“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Author of The Little Prince.))  

[dark77778]

ABCs and stuff.

Shane was in the basement with both Espen and Pyren and was pacing back and forth, military-style. As a matter of fact, he had a military hat on that he had stolen from the toy chest down there. Both the boys had booklets on learning how to write the alphabet in front of them, and Shane had mounted a giant dry erase board on a tripod easel.

"Alright troops," Shane joked "Today you're going to learn to spell, and if you don't like it then drop and give me twenty...then learn how to spell."

Both Pyren and Espen gave each other sideways looks and began to laugh at how silly their dad was being.

"Do I hear laughing?" he announced, in mock insult "Do you find my hat to be funny? Well, ha ha! Neither of you two maggots can spell your own name! Now that's funny!"

Yeah, that was more of a jab at Shane's own neglect to have left it to this long to teach either of his kids the alphabet. Work kept him busy all the time, and he just loved playing games with his kids when he came home more than teaching them anything accademic. Still, he figured today was as good a day as any.

"Now, the first thing you need to know are your ABCs, and then we can go on to spell your names. So, after I draw a letter down, I want you to copy it. Got it troops?"

Still giggling, Espen and Pyren nodded.

"Good, now this," Shane paused to draw "Is the letter A! It stands for Apple and Aligator. A big A is two lines leeeaning against each other, with another line going right through the middle like a triangle. A small 'a' is a circle with a stick on the right side." Shane drew an arrow next to the stick on the small 'a' as a guide.

"Now draw and give me twenty 'A's, troops! Ten big ones, and ten small ones."

Shane stared at both of them and noticed Espen constantly looking up and down from the large letter to the smaller examples in his book. Pyren on the other hand, was staring intently at the letter while his arm moved in a perfect motion. Shane had suspected Pyren of trying this old trick so he decided to teach him a lesson by erasing the board once he saw that Espen was done.

"Okay! Pop quiz time." Shane announced. "Pyren, come up here and draw me a big 'A'."

Pyren got up nervously and took the marker in hand and drew a squiggle that looked like a british pound sign. Shane shook his head and calmly took Pyren's hand and helped him draw out the letter properly on the board.

"Pyren," Shane said calmly, with a hint of disapointment in his voice, dropping the military act. "Next time, don't cheat. You can't learn to spell if you just scan everything."

"I know.." Pyren smiled sheepishly before sitting back down next to Espen, who pet his back.

"It's kay," Espen said, though he felt awesome for being better than his older brother for not cheating.

"Alright! Next is "B" for Brothers or Bear." Shane announced.

****

It took them most of the day to get through the whole alphabet, with breaks inbetween of course, in which to eat, go to washroom and play. Playing would usually consist of Pyren trying to teach Espen how to play the xylophone while he sang. Espen had no sense of pitch however, so he just banged on whatever color he thought made the best noise while Pyren tried to sing Clocks.

After each break was over, Shane would change up his costume using different things they had in the basement. A robot, a spelling-bee, and a pirate when they got to the letter 'r'. By the time they were done, he had run out of ideas so he was just himself.

"Alright, so now each of you are going to try to spell both of each others names, without me telling you what the real letters are. Then you're going to both learn how to spell each other's name properly. So this time, just guess. Pyren, how do you spell Espen? Espen, how do you spell Pyren?"

"Hmmm..." Espen thoguht and then wrote down in his notebook what looked like 'diram' "P-I-R-A-M" Espen announced, once he was finished.

"S-P-N" said Pyren. "An nooo...it's a 'N' at de end. P-I-R-A-N."

"An mine's E-S-P-N stoopid!" Espen growled when Pyren corrected his mistake. He hated when people told him he was wrong.

"Well, I don cry in my sleep!" Pyren retorted.

Espen gasped. How did Pyren know about that? Espen's face grew red with rage. If Pyren knew, who else did? Did he go blabbering off to all of his friends? Suddenly, Espen's eyes locked onto something from lunch that Shane hadn't yet finished

"Well I'm not lergic to wata!" Espen yelled as he raced towards the waterbottle.

"Oh crap! Espen don't! You don't know what- "Shane screamed too late. He was way too far away to make a move before the toddler, blinded by his injured pride grabbed ahold of the bottle and delivered a single spray to his brother's face.

The blow hit Pyren like a phonebook and he fell backwards, crying. He wasn't bleeding, but his body began to convluse and he sputtered as though he was having a serious sesiure. Espen had never seen this before, and he was scared stiff. He'd only heard about his brother's condition but didn't exactly know what the word allergic meant. He thought that it would just make his face turn into a rainbow or something, he didn't actually mean to hurt him.

Shane would've yelled something terrible at Espen if he didn't know that it wouldn't help the situation. Instead, he ran over to Pyren's side, ripped his shirt off and tried to use it to mop up all the water.

As he did so, Espen noticed that his brother's body stoped jerking so much, and this made him spring into action. Racing up to the bathroom, Espen grabbed both the normal and travel blowdryers that he could find and ran back to hand them to Shane.

"Plug them in," Shane snapped, not wanting to leave Pyren's side.

Espen winced and nodded. His dad was still angry with him, this was a really bad sign. Plugging the dryers in, he dragged the cords over to Shane who wordlessly grabbed them and began to dry off Pyren's face. The minute that it took for Pyren to stop shaking felt like a day, and even longer as Shane's eyes didn't even touch Espen until his brother's breating returned to normal. With a sigh of relief, Shane picked up Pyren and Espen followed gingerly behind him.

"Izhe gonna...be okay?" Espen wimpered when they got upstairs. Shane nodded. Up more stairs.

"It was an accident!"

"I know," Shane replied tonelessly "I'll try to talk to him so he's not angry when he wakes up...and y-you...need to go to your room and think about what you've done. Now."

Espen didn't know what to do, so flustered, he ran in front of Shane, and tried to block his way.

"Espen, please move!" Shane ordered, just as Raven came out of her room to see what all the comotion was. "Raven, could you make sure that Espen doesn't come out of his room for me please? He's grounded until I say he can come out."

Raven didn't believe it. Shane never grounded anybody.

"O..kay." she said, and thought better not to ask why. "Come on Espen." Raven said as she took the boy's hand and lead him into his room, while he looked back at Shane as he brought Pyren into the master bedroom until the door closed behind the two of them.

"You have to stay in here," Raven said to Espen and patted his head, trying to calm him down as he started to struggle and wanted to leave.

"Why?! Fo how long?!" Espen demanded.

"Shane's angry, at you I guess...and you need to stay in here until he isn't." Raven explained softly "You need to stay in here alone and think about how what you did was wrong. If you do that, you'll be out sooner, that's how grounding works."

"Den Ican..row...seef Pyren's dwy n okay?"

"Is that what happened?!" Raven gasped, wishing she hadn't heard that. She didn't want to scare Espen further by letting him know that he could've killed his brother so instead she just told Espen that doing that meant that he'd probably have to think about what he did for a long time. Probably all day.

Espen didn't want to question why again. He'd just been causing too much trouble today and wanted to sleep. He'd think about everything in the morning. He didn't even get a chance to spell out his name, and Pyren didn't spell his, that was the worst part about all of this, he thought.

"Hey, waven?" Espen called before she left "How d'ya spell Sowwy Pywen?"

"S-O-R-R-Y. P-Y-R-E-N." She said with a smile "Got it?"

Espen nodded and ran over to his desk with crayons in hand repeating the letters to himself. He was going to put all of his thinking into making a great card for his brother to see when he woke up, and promised that he'd never do something so stupid to his family again.

((It snowed last year too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down. Then we had tea” - Dylan Thomas ))  

[sevenofsevenmule]

sevenofsevenmule

It would be on a Saturday that you open your mail box (if you have one) and notice there is a rather thick envelope stuffed in there. There is no postage stamp and a very vague return address. But you recognize the font and the company's name. 'Seven of Seven Inc' scrawled in majestic font across the upper left hand corner. As you open it, you may strangely find yourself drawn to the letter, there is a mass of notes inside. They read as follows:

Letter

Congratulations! You have managed to succeed in raising your child. (IE: Not killing him or her or getting killed yourself. Haha we kid of course.) We would like an update from you on the following:

Guardians Name:
Child's Name:
Sin:
Virtue:
Gender:
Current Attitude:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Any abnormal growths: (if any, example: Feathers molting, horns growing larger, scars )
Current hair style:
Current clothing preferences:
Dominant celestial trait: (The sin or virtue)

Please summarize in your own words how difficult or easy it was taking care of your child. Did you manage to care for them in a kindly fashion? Or were you forced to discipline them?
As well do not be alarmed if you suddenly find your child achieving a massive growth spurt in the next little while. We are finding that the children from our facility have strange growing patterns and are rather unpredictable. Although please let us know if anything unexpected occurs.

Sincerely the technicians from Seven of Seven Inc.

Ps. Please just leave your letter back in your mail box one you have completed it our courier will pick it up.

Thank you.

You would notice the letter seems overly friendly...strange since the scientist were so ...cold before.

(Just take the from Guardians name to Dominant Celestial trait and pm it to the mule, the summarization doesn't have to be long just have fun with it.)

 

[dark77778]

((Espen's Journal entry about his growing to go here))  

[dark77778]

It was a fairly warm day for being in winter when I decided to take Espen out for dinner at a small family chicken restaurant. I hadn't eaten anything all day so I ordered a sizeable half-chicken with a salad and water, while I told Espen what was on the kid's menu and he picked out some chicken fingers,fries and a soda. Typical. Never anything healthy unless absolutely necessary.

I brought Espen out for a few reasons, both to spend some quality time with him, but also because I wanted to talk to him about his frequent night terrors. Every other time that I had confronted him about them, he'd try to ignore me and I just left it be. I figured they were bound to go away after a while. However, lately they've become so frequent and extreme the point where his screams have woken me up in the middle of the night and it takes a sizable amount of effort to wake him up and leaves the two of us exhausted all through the day. This type of stuff has been going on for about a week now so I figured now was as good a time to talk to him about it, but only when the time was right.

When our food came, Espen was eager to dig right into his french fries with his hands and skewered one playfully onto his claw and was about to pop it into his mouth as I caught his arm gently.

"Espen, if you're going to eat with your hands you need to go wash up, or eat with your fork. You'll get sick otherwise."

"Tch, fiiine." Espen resigned, putting the fry back down on his plate as I lead him to the bathroom and made sure that he washed with soap. Once we were back he began to nibble and play with his fries, but I noticed that as much as he was enjoying the meal, his appatite was in some strange cycle. I figured that it was because of his uneven sleep pattern, and knew that these strange pauses would be a good time to bring up the issue of the night terrors.

I was about through with my dinner when Espen had finished his fries and a single chicken finger and was staring down at them in a daze, as though he had forgotten what chicken fingers even were. He poked it with his plastic fork (metal forks mate him uncomfortable) and then his eyes wandered around the room.

"Espen I'd--" I called lightly.

"Huh!? Oh!...Hmm?" He jumped, and looked at me as though completely forgetting that I was there.

"Espen," I started gravely "I want to talk to you about your nightmares."

At first his eyes darted around the restaurant for a place to hide and avoid me, as was expected. However, because he didn't want the waiters or other customers to see him wandering around, he instead tensed up and sunk into his chair. I leaned in closer to maintain eye contact, knowing that he wouldn't hide under the table.

"They've been getting worse haven't they?" I spoke as though I was only casually concerned. I didn't want to alarm him, or make him seem as though I was scolding. I wasn't, I wanted to help.

Espen's face flushed and he began to grind his teeth a little and looked into my eyes. He was clearly even more embarrased now and still didn't want to talk about it.

"Come on, you don't have to say anything," I calmly encouraged "Just nod your head 'yes' or 'no'. I won't tell anybody. You know I'm here for you."

It took a while before Espen realized that he wasn't going to be able to avoid me this time, so after about a minute he gave me two small frightened nods.

"They're probably making you really tired right now aren't they?"

Another nod.

"Do you remember what happens in them?"

A third nod, and a whisper.

"Yeah..." Espen fiddled in his seat and began to sit up a little more, but leaned in to face me to keep the conversation secret.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Espen closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. I could see they were watering up. "No." he squeaked.

I suddenly thought that maybe this wasn't the best place to ask him about all of this, as I really didn't want to make it seem like I was a bad parent for making my kid cry in the restaurant: when it all came out of him.

"S'too scary to talk bout dad," Espen wimped "There's these dark-an-scary people with pointy needles that hide under my bed, and I can't move and I know they're bad. Like really really bad people. They don't like me but they don't wanna let me go neither, even if I ask'em nicely! Then I-I...I dontwanna hurthemoryouormyfriends dad..."

Espen wasn't crying, his eyes were just wide in fear, if a little bloodshot (though one couldn't really tell because they were just naturally red anyways). I hoped that talking to me about this would help him a little bit, but at least now I knew that the facility (and probably that night I had picked him up) had done something terrible to his brain, so there had to be some sort of link back there that could be used to cure his night terrors. The problem was finding out exactly what that thing was.

I looked sympathetically at Espen as he regained his composure and slowly walked over to give him a hug and patted his hair. He gripped my coat and whispered to promise that I wouldn't tell anyone. I promised and then sat back down. The goal of getting Espen to confide more in me was successful, but the other of getting him to finish his dinner had backfired. He'd understandably lost all of his appetite, which I wouldn't stand for.

Suddenly, an idea sprang to mind about how I could hit two birds with one stone: both cheer Espen up and do a bit of secret reconnaissance on the facility and the source of Espen's trauma.

"Hey Espen, I don't think you've ever had a party have you?" I started excitedly.

"A party?" Espen's voice pereked up a little bit. He knew what a party was from books, but never had one. They sounded like lots of fun, with a whole bunch of people playing games, being nice to each other and celebrating a person. It was exactly Espen's sort of thing.

"Yeah, we can invite a bunch of people like you from the facility over and we'll have food and games and stuff. I'll even let you guys watch some of my Earth movies. You'll have to stay in the basement though, can't have kids running all over the house."

Espen was liking the sound of this party more and more, and a huge smile escaped from his lips. The basement was huge with squishy carpet and had more than enough room for a bunch of people. Espen would even be able to show off his high score in Duck Hunt to everyone too.

"Alright!" Espen cheered and paused "Oh...can it be a...slumber party?" He knew what that meant for him, but wanted to prove to both Shane and himself that his night terrors weren't going to be a problem again. Besides, he always wanted to have one. Sleeping bags always seemed like so much fun, way better than sleeping in a bed.

"Espen...are you sure?" Shane asked.

Espen nodded sharply, like any further questioning would be an insult.

"Okay then, we'll make it a slumber party."