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 Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 12:41 pm
(meetings)
Ding-dong!
Liam Penrose sighed, took another sip of his apple cider, and walked slowly towards the door. He opened it, knowing what he would see: nothing. Yup. Nothing. A few lonely leaves blew past a flickering jack-o-lantern, but there was nobody there. His unknown stalker had been perpetrating this game of ding-dong-ditch for nearly fifteen minutes now, and Liam was getting fed up.
So he closed the door, paid a visit to his kitchen, grabbed a bag of flour, walked back to the door, and unceremoniously dumped the contents of the bag on his doormat. There. Now anyone trying to ring his doorbell would leave their mark, and would trail flour all the way back to their hiding place.
Content in his plan, Liam went back to watching the television. Within a few minutes, there it was: Ding-dong!
Grinning with anticipation, Liam opened the door and-
what the hell?
No tracks. Not a single footprint in the flour. Nobody could get to the doorbell without touching it unless-
unless they flew.
Ever so slowly, Liam looked upwards- and there the little bugger was, dangling upside-down from the gutter with a mischievous grin on his bat-eared face. Liam yelled and made a grab for the bat-thing, but it spread its enormous wings and fluttered to a higher perch, all the while snickering loudly.
"You come down from there!" Liam shouted, shaking his fist dramatically at the imp. "Or else I'll- I'll tear you to bits and feed your remains to rabid llamas and then throw their crap in a fire!" It was a pretty good threat, considering that he was improvising. The bat-thing was less creative. "Can't catch me!" he shouted back, scrambling across the roof, wings and claws clicking on the shingles, and suddenly, because these things happen frequently in short narratives, one of the shingles came loose and the creature fell, tumbling in three directions at once, wings flailing uselessly, until it landed-
Liam winced. Ow. Right in the shrubbery.
"Are you okay?" he called as the creature extracted itself from a mess of twigs and brambles, wincing whenever a stick pulled at one of its wings. "That's what you get for running around on the roofs, you little..." He trailed off when he realized the creature was crying, silent tears rolling down its cheeks.
"What's wrong?" Carefully, he approached it, helping it free one of its wings. "Did that help?" Sniffing bravely, the creature nodded. "Now, if you tell me your name and what you were doing," Liam said kindly, "I'll give you some cider and help you fix those scratches. Okay?"
"...okay," the thing said, wiping its eyes with the tip of one wing. "My name's Dann, and... it was a trick." Liam raised one eyebrow in confusion, so Dann continued. "Coz it's trick or treat, right? But nobody would give me any treats coz they were scared of me. They all ran away... so I decided to trick someone."
"Oh, you poor..." Liam reached out to fluff Dann's mop of bright yellow hair. "That's awful! But... I could give you a treat." When Dann's eyes lit up at the suggestion, Liam produced a fun-size Milky Way bar from his pocket. Dann snapped it up happily. "Now, you have to promise you won't trick any more people," Liam continued as his new friend munched away, "because that's not a good way to get them to like you."
Dann nodded. "Okay. But if they're mean to me first?"
Liam sighed. "Eh... we'll figure that out later. Now how about some cider?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:14 pm
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Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:15 pm
(Liam: On Medication)
Dann was perched on a stool at the kitchen table, staring at a notebook, a pen held carefully between his thumb and one very, very long finger. His hands were more wing-like then anything. This made them good for flying, but bad for writing. But he needed practice, and Liam had given him a job to do that needed some writing.
Dann had been asked to watch Liam and keep a record of how he was acting. “I’m on some new medication,” Liam had told him, “and I want to make sure it’s not making me go crazy or something. So can you keep an eye on me? Write down anything I do that’s out of the ordinary, so we can have a record?”
“Why do I have to do it?” Dann replied.
“’Cause if they’re making me go crazy, I won’t know if I’m doing something that’s weird. I’ll think it’s normal, because I’m crazy. Right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Dann agreed, slightly less then confident. So now he was sitting at the table, doodling in his notebook, and waiting for Liam to get out of the shower.
BANG! Suddenly the bathroom door was flung open and Liam leapt into the kitchen, wearing nothing but his dog collar and a strategically placed towel. He looked out of breath, as if he had been yelling a lot. Or singing. Frantically, he looked around the kitchen before finding what he was looking for- a long loaf of French bread, lying on the table, which was supposed to be for their dinner tonight. Liam snatched the bread in one dripping-wet hand, held it to his mouth like a microphone, and belted-
“SOMEONE LEFT THAT CAKE OUT IN THE RAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!-”
Dann covered his oversized ears. Liam may have been a fantastic guitarist, but he could not sing. At all. Oblivious to his son’s pain, Liam continued the song, prancing around the kitchen like a rock star, before vanishing back into the bathroom. With the bread.
Sighing, Dann turned to a new page in the notebook and carefully wrote, “Sunday: everything normal.”
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:33 am
( A New Friend... )
"Hey, Dann." Liam walked through the door, shaking the rain off his hair in a very doglike fashion. The red die hung around his neck on its golden ribbon, bouncing against his collarbone with his every movement. It felt... right.
Like the necklace wanted to be there.
"Hey, Dad." Dann, Liam's adopted son, looked up from his book, wincing a little as errant water droplets splattered his face. "How'd it go?"
"Sucky," Liam grumbled, hanging his coat in the closet. "Nobody wants to listen to music in the rain. But I did get this cool necklace," he added, grinning as he held the relic out for Dann to see.
"Where'd you get that? What is it? Looks like a dice."
"Die," Liam corrected. "And I got it from a space-faring pirate, and it's supposed to hold the soul of a reborn god from another universe." His words were calm; he wasn't about to argue or try to deny what had just happened, even if he barely understood a fraction of it. He'd just wait and see where it took him.
"Okay," Dann said, turning back to his book. He was getting used to this sort of thing. Only a few days ago, Liam had declared that he was being followed by a woman who nobody else could see, swore it was thanks to his medication, and then spontaneously decided to practice singing Romanian dance music on the roof in his underwear. Living with Liam was not for the faint-hearted, or those not able to adapt to the wierd side of life. "So... I'm getting a brother?"
"Sister," Liam said, a startled look flashing across his face. How had he known that? Nobody had told him what gender this kid was going to be... but if its soul had bonded with his, if only for a few brief moments, it made sense that he should know something about it.
"What'cha naming her?"
"Erm..." Liam half-hoped for another unconscious answer, but nothing came. "I'll have to decide later. Hey, watch'a reading?" he added, looking at the book in Dann's lap.
"Mythology," Dann said, lifting the heavy book so Liam could see. "Old gods and weird stuff like that. Want to see?"
"Sure," Liam said, reaching for the thick tome. As he spread the pages, by some freak chance (that he wondered about much later) the book fell open to a page about an ancient goddess presiding over... luck. Chance and luck... they were entertained, weren't they? What was luck, except the chance that the random forces of the universe would, for one moment, fall into a pattern that suited the observer?
Tyche, it said at the top of the page.
"Tyche?" Liam said experimentally. "What do you think of that?" Of course, the necklace gave no response, but he still felt good about the name. And how appropriate that his child should be named simply by... chance.
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Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:50 am
( Music Lessons )
"Dad, can you teach me to play guitar?"
"Uh... sure, I guess." Liam picked up his guitar case and walked over to where his son was sitting, next to the fireplace. "How come?"
"'Cause I like it when you play," Dann said, a slight smile touching his lips. He didn't add the last part of his reason: If I learn to do something really well, the way you do, then people won't like me. They won't call me a freak.
"Well, I'm glad somebody likes my music," Liam muttered, pulling the guitar out of the case. "Okay, one hand goes here- and one goes here- now, you strum likes this-"
Dann swept his thumb over the strings, and his face broke into a smile. He didn't suck!
"Cool," Liam grinned. "Now if you want to play different notes, you put your fingers on the frets and... er.... I'm not entirely sure this is going to work..."
Dann had seen the problem as quickly as Liam had. With fingers stretched out into enormous wings, the space between them taken up by thin membrane, there was no way he could move them the right way to play guitar. Stupid wings. Couldn't play music, couldn't even fly-
Scowling, Dann threw down the guitar and stomped out of the room.
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Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:52 am
(music lessons 2)
"Dann?"
"Go 'way," came the sullen reply.
Liam sighed and raised his hand to knock on Dann's door again. Since the boy slept in the attic, the door was located in the ceiling, making knocking more then a little bit awkward.
Knock, knock. "Dann? I know you're upset, but I want to talk."
"I said, go 'way!" The voice seemed nearly on the verge of tears.
"I've got something for you..."
There was a long pause, and finally Dann pulled the trapdoor open. Kids could never resist bribes. His green eyes were red and puffy around the edges. "What?" he said dully.
"Found something in the basement," Liam said, pulling a thin black case out from behind his back. Dann watched curiously as he flipped the latches and pulled it open. Inside was a long black tube, dotted with silver fixtures.
"What is it?"
"It's an oboe," Liam said, lifting the instrument out and blowing a few stray notes. The sound was something like a duck with a sore throat. Dann winced.
"Er... it's not supposed to sound like that," Liam said sheepishly. "I don't really know how to play. But I thought if you wanted to learn something, this might be a little easier for you to play. The fingerings will still be a bit tricky, but I think you could get them to work..."
Dann was already picking the oboe up, holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger. Experimentally, he placed his hands on the keys. It would be tricky- he'd have to do some kind of flat-fingered technique- but he could get it to work.
"Thank you," he said softly, clutching the instrument to his chest. Liam smiled.
Within a few minutes, the sound of a sore-throated duck came wafting from the attic.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:46 pm
(flying practice)
"Dann?"
"Go 'way," came the sullen reply.
Liam sighed and raised his hand to knock on Dann's door again. Since the boy slept in the attic, the door was located in the ceiling, making knocking more then a little bit awkward.
Knock, knock. "Dann? I know you're upset, but I want to talk."
"I said, go 'way!" The voice seemed nearly on the verge of tears.
"I've got something for you..."
There was a long pause, and finally Dann pulled the trapdoor open. Kids could never resist bribes. His green eyes were red and puffy around the edges. "What?" he said dully.
"Found something in the basement," Liam said, pulling a thin black case out from behind his back. Dann watched curiously as he flipped the latches and pulled it open. Inside was a long black tube, dotted with silver fixtures.
"What is it?"
"It's an oboe," Liam said, lifting the instrument out and blowing a few stray notes. The sound was something like a duck with a sore throat. Dann winced.
"Er... it's not supposed to sound like that," Liam said sheepishly. "I don't really know how to play. But I thought if you wanted to learn something, this might be a little easier for you to play. The fingerings will still be a bit tricky, but I think you could get them to work..."
Dann was already picking the oboe up, holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger. Experimentally, he placed his hands on the keys. It would be tricky- he'd have to do some kind of flat-fingered technique- but he could get it to work.
"Thank you," he said softly, clutching the instrument to his chest. Liam smiled.
Within a few minutes, the sound of a sore-throated duck came wafting from the attic.
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