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 Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:35 pm
A baby. She had a baby.
A pointy-toothed-possibly-part-shark demon baby, but a baby none the less.
Leaning on the edge of his crib, Kali watched the little monstrous infant roll around, capture his foot in his hands, then somehow bend it up into his dangerous looking mouth without gnawing it off. She didn't quite understand how that worked, exactly. He had realized by now that biting down on himself hurt, but everything inevitably fell victim to his razor sharp teeth. Except, for some reason, himself.
"Come on, kiddo, feet don't belong in our mouths." She said softly, tugging it out of his jaws with gentle fingers. He gurgled, and wiggled his hands up at her, and squealed.
Teeth or not, he was kind of adorable...
"You can't call him 'kiddo' all the time." Came a tired yawn from her doorway. She turned her head, fingers down in the crib, and frowned at Zak. Faust caught her hands and began to clumsily grip as many fingers as he could fit in his plump little fist, playing with them absently.
"What do you care?" She was still a bit bitter about being stuck with a child. She was only seventeen, for god's sake! She was nowhere near old enough to care for her own, relatively human babies, nevermind this...
Well, she wasn't sure WHAT it could be classified as. He wasn't an Impling, as Zak and Nigel had dubbed them...
"What is he, anyways..." She asked quietly, turning back to watch him try and fit her fingers, and his fists, in his mouth. She pulled har hands away, not wanting to become shredded to bits, and gently tickled his tummy. He giggled, then stretched out, sighing and yawning. She raised an eyebrow, but didn't stop, watching as the motion lulled the baby to sleep.
"Damned if we know. A subspecies of Impling. It seems to have inherited more monstrous qualities than the first batch. I suppose we could call them Monsters, though it is such a broad term..." Zak stalked into Kali's room, his silky green robe billowing out around him. It would have been very mage of him, had he not also been wearing a pair of white boxers, with gold trim. Who, Kali wondered, had gold trim on their underpants?
Zak would, of course. Why she wondered was a mystery to her.
"He's too...cute, to be a monster."
"I do believe you need to reassess your definition of 'cute'." Zak joined her at the cribside, looking down at his little creation.
"Because you're the authority on normalcy now?"
"Don't backsass your Master." He sniffed. She rolled her eyes, and propped her chin up on the railing again. They were both silent for quite a while. Then-
"Munster."
"What?"
"Munster. That's what you should call them. Munsters."
"I wasn't asking you what we should call them as a whole. I was asking what we should call this one."
"We-?" Since when had there been a 'we' in this endeavour? He had dumped this kid, unceremoniously, into her arms! And she had already decided that he was going to stay far, far away from any babies. Ever.
"I was under the impression that infants required names...no? Am I wrong?"
Kali frowned and pulled her hands out of the baby's crib, pointing one at Zak, pressed into his bare chest.
"Let me make this perfectly clear. There is no WE. YOU are not going anywhere near this baby, or any baby, because you and parenthood are a very, VERY bad match."
"Does that mean you're not going to name him? Because I've been thinking, and I'm pretty sure I thought of the perfect name."
Oh, goddess, he was thinking. THAT was never good. She tossed him a flat look, then sighed, holding her forehead. She was going to regret asking, but...
"What's your idea?" She asked flatly.
"Jaws." He grinned, and seemed to think it was funny.
"Out."
"Clearly you don't appreciate my wit."
"I SAID OUT!" She ushered, shoved, and spelled until her master, cackling gleefuly, was standing in her doorway. She slammed it shut, though she could still hear him cackling as he made his way down the hall.
"You are so lucky you didn't end up with him as a guardian.." Kali said, turning and lifting the baby out of the crib. He'd started to whine when they'd started to yell, and was about to shift into full blown wailing. She rocked him, and he calmed, sucking on his fist as she walked in a small circle.
"I know what to call you." she smiled, looking at him out of the corner of one eye. "Faust. Your name is Faust."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:12 pm
It was hard to tell if Faust was doing well, mostly because he was, you know. Not human. But he was still a baby, and babies all developed along the same lines, didn't they?
He was farther along than Shade, though she didn't know much else. He was sitting up on his own, at least. He'd always been able to do that. A few weeks ago, he'd begun to stand by pulling himself up with things like the coffee table, chairs, or his favorite thing, her leg. It wasn't long after that, that he'd started to walk, or rather, run, everywhere. He was speaking, small words, like Momma, and short syllables. But one thing she worried about, was teething.
He couldn't cut even MORE teeth...could he? He already had so many; and they were very, very sharp. She worried about him getting hurt if more teeth came in. This worry nagged at the back of her mind, unable to be comforted by anyone. There was no one who COULD comfort it. Not Zak. Not Nigel. They didn't know any more than she did about her strange son.
So, she worried, silently.
Until, however, she noticed something.
Not long after he began to speak, things began to show more wear and tear than usual. It became obvious what from, however, when she walked in on Faust; and the enormous hole he'd chewed through the side of his crib. Six of the bars fell victim to his jaws; and after that, the door. It was increasing into a terrible, terrible problem.
She was, however, relieved.
She had been studying baby books, for quite some time, trying to place Faust on some sort of scale, to gauge the time until he was supposed to start teething. It was due soon, and...and this could be it! Her baby wouldn't be hurt by more monstrous teeth! He would just eat everything in the house!!
Zak was less enthused than she was.
"KALINKA!!" His voice, magically amplified, ripped through the mansion. She nearly dropped the plates she was preparing food on, but managed to fumble them to a flat surface, setting them down before he barked the command she already knew was coming.
"Come HERE!!"
There was no twisting THAT command. Not when he was so PISSED. There was such power twisted into his words, she would probably have lost her head if she tried to resist. Against her will, her body moved, carrying her to where a very angry Zak was staring in his room. At something.
She dreaded to find out what. She tried to slow, to not look; but the Command held her, and she walked over, immediately spotting what his problem was.
There was a gaping hole in his door. And, who knew what else lay, destroyed, behind it.
"See, I can explain that-"
"Explain it QUICK." Zak hissed, seething. He had THINGS in his room. Dangerous things! Expensive things! If that baby ate them...
"I already told you about the teething thing! You didn't listen at all! You-"
Suddenly, however, Zak's mood shifted. Visibly. He became...happier?
It was never a good thing when Zak got happier.
"...why are you smiling...?" She was almost afraid to ask.
"I was just thinking of all the dangerous traps and artifacts I have in my room..." He said, almost dreamily. "And how much damage they could do to a Munster I don't want in my hous-"
"FAUST!" She rushed forward, through the door, and Zak laughed.
The Munster was no where to be seen.
Frantic, she followed the trail of splinters from the door, but they ended abruptly on the circular carpet in front of Zak's fireplace. Wide eyed, she spun around, calling out for her child desperately. Where was he? Was he too hurt to call back? Was he...de-
"What a pity. He's not in here. Oh well. One less probl-" Zak's gleeful smile slipped from his face as his apprentice turned, not with the face of unbridled fury that he expected, but with her brown eyes filled with tears. Tears were quite and well into territory that he had never breached with her, before, and they threw him off balance.
"M-my...ba...my baby..." Her voice was hardly audible, and she was shaking, stammering, looking around wildly. She was...devastated. She dropped to her knees on the carpet and tried to find the trap behind it, tried to find her baby. He watched, silent, unsure of what to do. She was CRYING! Kali NEVER cried! And if she did, she didn't do it around him! He didn't...he wasn't...
He wanted her to stop.
Narrowing his eyes, he walked over to her, and knelt down beside her. Strong hands took hers and moved them out of his way, pushing her off of the rug. She opened her mouth to protest, but he turned away, and thrust his arm through the rug, up to his elbow in an extra dimensional hole. Digging around, he grasped and felt for - ah, there. The tuft of hair. There was a slight shriek as he grabbed hold of the appendage, pulling it up. The tail came first, followed by a rather upset and frightened toddler, his cries able to be heard now that he was out of the rug-trap.
"L'go! L'go!" He swung back and forth by his tail, and Zak quickly obliged, depositing him in his mother's lap, scowling.
Kali stared, dumbfounded, as Zak pulled Faust up out of his rug by his tail. She hadn't been able to find the hole. How...How...
Oh, it didn't matter.
More tears welled as she looked down at her baby, who was uninjured, despite his adventure. Now that nobody was pulling his tail, he wasn't screaming, or crying. He was holding it in his hands and pouting, but he stopped, looking up at his mom.
"Momma?" He asked, reaching up with both of his clawed hands to touch her cheeks. They were wet. She was...crying? Maybe a hug would make her feel better. Burying his face in her shoulder, he wrapped his arms around her neck. But...it only made her cry harder. He didn't understand! What was wrong? Why was she crying? This was...this was strange!
"Th-thank you..." Kali stammered, looking up at Zak. He was watching her, though she didn't know why. Silently, he nodded, and stood.
"Next time I won't pull him out. Keep him out of my room. Get him a muzzle or something. Get out." He turned away, and Kali quickly obliged.
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Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:27 am
The 'teething' thing was becoming a problem. More than a problem, it was...catastrophic.
He chewed on anything and everything. Well, almost anything. His stuffed wolf, Fenn, and people were currently exempt from the terror of Faust's teeth. But Zak's artifacts, Kali's books, and anything within his reach? It all seemed fair game to him. Shoes in particular needed to be kept away from him; he was like a strange little dog, or something.
Faust could not be kept anywhere, for any amount of time, if he did not want to be there. And if his mother wasn't there? Well, he didn't want to be there.
He followed Kali everywhere, toddling after her almost obsessively. If she put him in a play pen and happened to leave the room to fetch a different toy, or food for him, he would chew a hole in the flimsy siding and crawl after her, wrapping his little arms around her leg and perching on her foot.
Now, she was no stellar example of motherhood, but even she knew that this would become a much larger problem, later. He'd already started snapping at Zak; how long would it be until he actually bit somebody?
She found out when they went to the park a few days later; not long. She hadn't seen it coming - Faust had seemed in such a good mood! She had been talking to a boy, Lance, he was called, and Faust had hugged his leg, and... And, it had all gone down hill from there. Her baby had bitten; and MAN, did he ever pack a powerful bite. He had nearly torn a chunk out of Lance's leg! It wasn't safe. It wasn't right.
But she didn't know how to make him stop.
So, a trip to the book store was in order. Faust came with her, of course; Zak couldn't be trusted, and she didn't want to leave him around Shade, just in case he decided that today was the day he was going to start gnawing on some limbs.
He behaved rather well for the entire trip; she almost started to doubt her need to solve the issue. Not once did he snap or nibble or even look at something like he wanted to eat it.
Although, he was asleep, and so into the book store she delved.
She found five different books, grabbed them quickly, and purchased them before heading home again. Still, Faust slept, which she was thankful for. She more than had her arms full, between him, and the books.
It was a tense walk home - and she knew, from that, that it needed to be dealt with. She couldn't walk around, afraid that her child would wake up, because if he did he would bite people. She couldn't stand it.
When she got home, she set Faust in his repaired crib, and curled up in the bean bag chair she'd set in his room to read her books.
Be nice, they said.
"Resist the temptation to bite a biting child back as a way to "show them" their wrongs. Use a positive approach instead. You don't want your toddler telling his teacher that he bites because that's what his parents do!" She read out quietly, flipping the page. She pursed her lips at the advice, but nodded. It didn't seem right to bite a child, whatever the reason. Besides. She was sure that there was plenty of other advice in the books that would help. There were five of them, after all!
"Children bite for a variety of reasons..." She murmured, shifting on the bean bag. "Exploration, imitation, independence, frustration, self defense, and for attention..." She paused, on that one. Attention.
That was definitely Faust's issue. He was so attached to her, and yet she didn't understand why. He constantly craved her attention; and it had been when she hadn't been paying much attention to him that he'd sunk his teeth into Lance's leg.
It listed a few pages with suggestions on the issue, so she flipped to them, and began to read. Observation. Separation. Punishment. Teaching them to vocalize their feelings.
Her head was spinning with all of the suggestions, and by the time Faust woke, she was more than ready to put the book down.
He yawned, stretched, and rubbed his bright eyes, turning in his crib to look at her.
"Up." He demanded, lifting his arms as soon as he was coherent enough to speak. She frowned, and took her sweet time getting to her feet. She walked over to the book shelf and put the books away, peeking over her shoulder at Faust. He seemed distraught, and bounced, holding his arms up over his head.
"Up!" He was very adamant. "Up, up, up, up, up, up, up-"
"That's enough." She said sharply, walking over and putting her hands on the side of the crib. "That's not how we ask for things. No yelling. Say please." She frowned at him, and he dropped his arms, pushing his lip out into a pout. For a few minutes, he gave her the biggest puppy dog eyes he could muster; it was sheer force of will, and perhaps the 'mom' part of her that was growing ever stronger, that kept her from relenting to them.
Finally, he stopped.
"Up...pleeze?" He had a hard time speaking, because of how large his teeth were, but the request was recognizable, and she lifted him out of the crib and set him down on the floor. He didn't seem happy about this, and gripped her pant leg, toddling after her as she left the room.
"Up, Momma! Pleeze?" He asked, shaking her pant leg. She shook her head at him; while he was doing it for attention, she didn't want him to think that it was okay. Giving him what he wanted would only make him think that what he did worked, and that he should do it more.
"Not right now, Fausty. Momma's busy, okay? Why don't you play in the play room." She smiled and ran a hand through his hair, opening the door to the brightly colored room. Toys were scattered across the floor, but Faust looked at them with disdain. He didn't want to play with toys. He wanted his Momma to lift him up!
But there she went, out the door, across the hall into a different room. He frowned, and followed her, bound and determined to be lifted. Even if it killed him.
"Momma!" A definite whine rose in his voice as he followed her into the room, but she didn't even look at him. "Up! Momma, up!"
"That's not how we ask, Faust. And I'm not going to lift you until you stop biting people." She kept her eyes away from him as she lifted a pile of scrolls from the desk, sifting through them and taking them back where they belonged.
Stop...biting? He was confused. Why couldn't he bite?
As she continued to ignore him, Faust grew more and more frustrated, glowering at his mother from where he sat on the floor, right in her way. She'd have to pick him up and move him! She'd HAVE to!
But, no; she simply stepped over him, even when he reached up to grab her ankle. She'd just shaken him off!
Frustration grew, and he continued to swipe at her as she passed, but she did not pick him up.
Finally, his frustration burst forth, and he threw himself down on the floor.
"Up! Up, up, up, up, UP!" He shrieked, flailing around. Even NOW, she didn't stop! She kept walking around him! He shrieked, he wailed, and she didn't do ANYTHING! It was terrible! It was cruel! How could she do this to him?!
He didn't know how long he screamed for, but his throat began to hurt, and he was getting tired from flailing around. He saw her stepping over him again. Grabbing her wouldn't work.
Not with his hands.
As his mother stepped down beside him, about to walk away yet again, Faust rolled, and snapped his jaws shut on her ankle.
Pain flared and shot up Kali's leg as she felt Faust's teeth sink into her ankle; something snapped, audibly, and she fell, shrieking in pain. Faust still held onto her ankle, bound and determined to keep his mother near him.
What he didn't expect was for her to reach down, grab hold of his arm, and bite him. HARD.
He shrieked, and let go, staring up in shock at his mom. She was crying, and...and she was angry.
"Ow! Hurt-"
"Yeah!!" She choked out, stubbornly ignoring her very-likely-broken-ankle. "Biting HURTS! No biting! EVER! You are...You are SO in trouble!! Ow- mother ********> She sobbed and let Faust go, curling up to hold her foot.
Faust stared, holding his arm where his mother had bit him as she fumbled with her ankle, clumsily trying to heal it. She had...bitten him. And it hurt.
And he had bitten her.
So...she was hurt.
His Momma was crying, and it was his fault. His lip wobbled, and as Kali pulled away from her ankle, which was popping itself back in place and turning into a rather nasty scab, he wailed, and threw himself into her lap.
"M'sorry. M'sorry!" He hiccuped, burying his face into her side. "M-s'so'orry M-momma." He cried, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
"We don't BITE, Faust." She said, shifting him in her lap to look into his eyes. "Biting hurts, and it's not NICE."
"M'sorry..." He said miserably, reaching out to hug her. Tentatively, she let him, quietly wondering what his punishment would be as she held her son close.
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Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:59 am
The house had to be Faust proofed. It was part of the only solution she could think of. So, after a lot of begging. (And exactly one foot rub, a library organization, a neck massage, and three meals later) Zak set out across the mansion with Kali, fortifying everything with spells. Soon enough, everything within reach of the little munster was tooth-proofed, and verily, indestructible.
Zak suggested pulling out all of Faust's teeth. Kali chased him away with a boom.
While the house was one problem dealt with, there was still the issue of what to do with Faust. So far, she'd been able to catch him before he began to bite anything, and a firm reminder had stopped him from doing it. He hadn't so much as sniffed another living thing since he'd bitten her, and he made it a habit to run up and kiss her ankle whenever he saw her.
He continued to follow her around like a shadow, though, lurking just around the corner while she worked, or did anything, really.
It was an improvement; but she still hadn't punished him for what he'd done to her.
"I just...I don't know what to DO." She sighed, leaning back in the cushy armchair that occupied the space in front of Zak's fire. "I couldn't think of anything, and now it's been at least two days, and I don't know if it's too late to do something about it..."
"What do you expect me to do for you?" Zak asked from where he sat at his desk, flipping through the enormous tome he toted around with him everywhere he went. "I'm not to have anything to do with the child."
"Since when do you listen to anything I ask you?" She scowled, crossing her arms.
"When it suits me better than it suits you." He replied, smirking as she scowled deeper, shifting around to hunker further down in the chair.
"We'll see how well it suits you when YOU'RE the next one he bites."
"If he bites me, your child will either not exist, or will have no teeth. Control it, Kalinka." He paused, then looked up at her. "I know you can."
She held his gaze for a few moments, before looking away, a slight flush rising on her cheeks. He turned his attention back to his book, tapping his fingers on the pages. A silence, almost awkward, formed around them. It was quickly broken by the door creaking open, and Faust sticking his bright green head in.
"Momma?" He asked, tail flicking around his ankles. "C'n I come in?"
Kali looked over at Zak, who scowled at her. She took that as a 'No' and got up, walking over to the door and looking down at Faust.
"How 'bout I come out?" She suggested. He nodded and hugged her leg, bowing down to kiss the bandage on her ankle before scurrying off. She sighed, and followed him, limping her gimpy a** down the hall. Zak's door snapped closed behind her, and she paused to look back at it.
Control it. Faust.
How?
Zak's previous suggestions had been removing his teeth, a muzzle, and just plain vaporizing him. Those, obviously, could not be considered. She wasn't about to do that to her son.
She was still enforcing the rule of not lifting him until he had stopped biting people. Was that enough? He seemed to be behaving...
"Shtory. Pleeze."She realized that he had lead her to the playroom, and was holding out a thick book to her. The Disney book of fairy tales, one of her own that she had charmed to be indestructible, and placed in here long before the rest of the house took the charm.
Faust shook the book a bit, then pressed it into her hands, scurrying over to the bean bag chair she sat on most often. She chuckled, and followed him over, sitting down and waiting until he had settled himself in her lap before she began to flick through and search for a story.
The rest of the day went by well. Faust was well behaved, and surprisingly so. He was clearly making an effort to do better. It seemed a shame to not reward him, but at the same time...
Oh, it was hard.
But, after a long day of thought, she was sure that she had the solution.
Faust didn't exactly know what the strange poster in the play room was, but he knew it hadn't been there earlier. It had boxes on it; a bunch of them, too. One of the boxes had a star in it. He quite liked the star, he thought, leaning up to peek at it. It was shiny, and gold. He just didn't know what it was for, why it was there, or who had put it there.
There was an unwritten rule, though, that mothers knew everything. So he went to find his.
She wasn't far. Just in the other room, putting away markers and a big piece of paper.
"Momma. Whassat?" He asked, pointing through the wall, at the poster, as if she could see it from where she was standing. At first, she seemed confused, but in a few short moments, she answered his question.
"It's a chart."
"Chawt." It was close enough. She kept talking.
"For every day you do good, and don't hurt anyone, or do anything bad, you get a star." She took his hand, and lead him into the other room. "When you do something bad, you don't get a star. You need seven stars to stop being punished."
"Punish...?"
"Right now, you won't be picked up unless you don't bite people. If you don't bite someone for seven days, you'll get seven stars. And then you'll be picked up."
"Seven stahs, up?" His eyes seemed to brighten; he understood.
And, he was very eager to deserve those seven stars.
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