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I thought I felt something outside today. It's funny; I never really thought about "inside" and "outside" before. I think "inside" is turning into me, and "outside" is everything else. A little scary, the more I dwell on it. There is only so much within, but without seems to go on forever.

I cannot see the outside yet, either. But... I don't know. Something passed by today, and I felt a little something from it. It felt like a whole lot of different things at once, but I don't really understand any of it yet. Will I ever be able to see without? Within, at least, is becoming ever clearer to me.

I think I'm getting bored with inside, though. Like I said, there is so much more outside. I want to see that. How much could I possibly hold within me when compared to that limitless world that I know is out there?

I wonder if without can see me. I think it tried earlier, but I don't know.

I guess I just need more time. For within to form, before I can see without. I want to get outside soon, though. It's dreadfully dull where I am now.

Where ever that is.

Ugh. It had taken Kumoru almost two full hours to drive A'rendalith out of his house. The lady mage, known to most of her friends as simply Ren, had decided to visit Kumoru for a day. A bit uninvited. Kumoru didn't really mind at first, as it had been a while since he'd last seen his friend. Well, alright, for a good long time before he left the Tower, he and Ren had been a bit more than friends.

She was reluctant to let him go, blah blah, worried about him when he was expelled, blah blah, decided to stalk the Tower elders for any word from him... and had realized that they were trying to delete Kumoru from their records entirely. Ren was too sentimental, which had irritated Kumoru endlessly, and, long story short, felt the need to visit him and warn him.

Now, Kumoru already figured that the Tower of Wings was not eager to get him back. He was told that he was being sent on vacation to study for a while, and then he never heard from the Tower elders again.

Kumoru knew he was quite independent, though. He needed no stuffy mages telling him what to do. He rather enjoyed his newfound freedom. He could study his necromancy if he wanted, without Tower elders constantly breathing down his neck and trying to change his mind.


So naturally, the mage was furious when Ren came to tell him the same thing the Tower had told him. That he was taking an unwise path, studying death magics. And, on top of that, she was quite clearly trying to get him to go out with her again.

Now, the last thing the mage needed was for someone to tell him that he was lonely. He had a creepy lantern in his house already, and besides, more people were just more distractions. Peace and quiet were all the company he required. Mages were not supposed to be emotional like that anyway. So Kumoru told Ren so.

And she went and CUT HIS HAIR while he was sleeping.

Damn, that put him in a bad mood. Kumoru sighed heavily for the twentieth time that day and brushed his fingers through his jaw-length hair, fingering the choppy ends. He grew his hair long because, as a mage, he did not have to do any hard manual labor, and could therefore keep his hair as long as he wanted. So Kumoru grew it out to a great, beautiful length, nearly down to his waist, and took great pride in keeping his hair neat and clean.

Oooh, it made him so angry that Ren thought she could get rid of his arrogance merely by chopping off two feet or so of his hair. And then she spent the morning yelling at him. Well, fine. Maybe he was lonely. He had a daughter on the way, though. That had scared Ren, and he was finally able to force her out.

He hoped Serif would show up soon. Or perhaps whatever possessed the lantern on his living room table could scare her off. A woman, especially A'rendalith, was the last thing Kumoru needed in his life right now.

And the first...?

"I need a haircut," Kumoru mourned, pouting at his reflection in the mirror. Ren had done such a poor job... He needed it all evened out.

Kumoru swore softly as Ren got to the ringing phone ahead of him. Slightly blood-stained bandages trailed down from his right hand, but since the phone had been answered already, the mage sat back down on his Favorite Chair and continued to tend to the cut across his palm. He had received the injury by accident a few months before, it seemed, yet his flesh appeared to have made no effort to knit back together and heal. He had intended to just offer a few drops of his blood to the strange lantern he had received from the Anima Gardens, but the knife had slipped in his grasp and given him quite a nasty cut instead. The pain had ceased to bother him, yet the continuing need to change the bandages regularly was beginning to grate on his nerves.

The necromancer could only hope that, now that the child of the lantern labeled "REVENGE" had been born, his wound might have a chance of healing in the near future.

With a sigh, he continued unwinding the dirty bandages from around his hand, and turned his attention to what he could hear of Ren's side of the phone conversation.

"Hello?" Ren peeked around the corner at Kumoru in the living room. "Yes, he's here, why?" A pause. "I'm just a friend. Staying for a few days." Another few moments of silence. "He's just taking care of a wou- Hm? Right away?" She glanced out at Kumoru again an smiled. "Sure, I can tell him. He'll be right over."

"Who was that?" Kumoru asked, rolling up the length of old bandage and reaching over to where a clean bandage sat on the low living room table.

The lady sorceress came back out into the living room, glancing at where the Revenge anima lay napping on the sofa before coming to stand beside Kumoru's chair. "Some Doctor Koyuki, I think she said? Something about you coming to Project X labs right away?"

"Oh, that," the mage exclaimed almost excitedly as he got to his feet. "Keep an eye on the little one. I'll be right back," he told her, heading upstairs with the new bandage still half-wrapped around his hand.

Ren frowned, turning to call after him, "What now, Kumoru? What all are you involved in?" She stamped her foot and huffed as she got no response from him. "Leave me to clean up your mess, too, why don't you!" she shouted, grabbing his old bandages and stalking off to the garbage can.

Kumoru grumbled quietly to himself and brushed his hair fiercely until every single knot was gone. Not that he felt any more need to be perfect in appearance than usual to visit Miss Koyuki, but brushing his hair usually helped him relax.

Usually.

The mage bluntly ignored Ren on his way out the door, and spent the whole way to the labs fidgeting with his mage robes to be sure every fold was in perfect order.

It was not too difficult to get the girl home. It was the actual arrival that troubled the mage. Well, the persistant tugging at his hair was not precisely comfortable, but Kumoru could not help but wonder what would happen when he returned to his house carrying a baby girl.

The mage decided to make a detour and stop by the grocery store. He was not entirely sure he had something that would work well as nourishment for Serif. Nothing Kumoru himself particularly enjoyed, anyway. Bananas, soft bread, canned peaches... it did not seem like a well-balanced set of foods.

Awkwardly - he had seen other people do this before, of course - Kumoru set his squirming daughter into the little seat in the front of the shopping cart at the supermarket. He figured he did not need enough food to take up a cart, but he did not have any other way to carry the girl while he shopped. People who passed by gave the mage occasional odd glances, but Kumoru paid them no mind and went about his work. To the baby food asile....

Serif burbled delightedly and peered around at the various cans, bottles, and boxes on the shelves as she was wheeled through the store. She was just large enough and old-looking enough to appear more a toddler than an infant, yet she of course did not know how to speak yet. She was still quite the determined explorer, though, and her babbling, though nonsensical, did seem a bit more advanced than just a baby's cooing.

After a few minutes, though, the shelves stopped moving past and just stayed still. Serif frowned a little and leaned over to try to grab what she could off of the shelf, but found she was too far away. Sensing the downward pull that threatened to drag her out of her little cart-seat, she sat back up straight with a bit of difficulty, and settled for staring up at her father.

Kumoru turned towards the baby food, still doing his best to keep half an eye on Serif. She seemed to pick up on the idea that she should not lean to fall out of the cart, but one could never be completely sure. With a sigh, he scanned over the labels. So many choices....

Kumoru wondered how many it would take to feed Serif. She certainly was not a little infant. He picked up one of the small jars and held it out at arm's length towards Serif, closing one eye as if gaguing size.

"Hm, too small, really," he murmured, turning back to the shelf.

The girl blinked at the jar of baby food, then frowned. With a small nose, she waved her arms a little to try to get her daddy's attention.

"Hm?" Kumoru turned back to her, brushing a lock of hair out of his face. "You don't want any of these?" It certainly seemed like she did not, the way she was fussing.

With a sigh, the mage replaced the babyfood, and wheeled the cart to the soups.

Serif seemed a bit more excited by these cans. She twisted around and watched wide-eyed as Kumoru took a few and set them in the bottom of the cart behind her.

"Cream of mushroom, cream of broccoli, cream of vegetable," Kumoru listed quietly as he added the cans. Start with the soft ones. And so he did not have to return anytime soon... "Chicken and stars, turkey stew, clam chowder...."

Kumoru hoped he was doing things correctly so far.

(( ** reserved ** ))

(( ** reserved ** ))

(( ** one more just in case ** ))

[the trip to the museum 1]

Donat swung his feet under his chair, since they still did not quite touch the floor yet from that height. He made a sort of rhythm out of eating breakfast, taping his spoon a couple times on the edge of his bowl, then eating a scoop of his Kix, then tapping a few more times. It was hard to make his feet swing at the same tempo, though, so he just sort of let them do whatever.

"Musical breakfast?" Kumoru asked with a small smile, then took a bite of his own bowl of cereal.

"Muwafeedooo," Serif declared, waving her spoon in the air like a baton for her brother.

"Yep!" the goat replied, then giggled at Serif.

"It would be so much easier if you spoke to us, Serif," the mage scolded the girl gently. He had heard her talking in real words to herself in her room before. It was still beyond him why Serif refused to say anything that came from the dictionary whenever anyone else was around.

Serif stuffed a spoonful of cereal in her mouth, shut her mouth tightly on the spoon, then pulled the spoon out without parting her lips again. Then she grinned broadly. She would not say anything, then!

Kumoru laughed a little to himself, then shook his head and turned his attention back to his own breakfast.

After a few minutes of silence except for Donat's tapping, the goat reached over to poke his father's elbow with one dark brown finger. "Daddy?" he asked.

Once he had the mage's attention, Donat put the finger in his mouth, and set his spoon down on a napkin on the table. "Um," he continued shyly. "What animal am I?" Once the question was out, he fidgeted visibly in his seat and stuck his other index finger in his mouth, too.

Instantly, Kumoru remembered that he had meant to go back to the museum sooner or later to see the goat ghost again.

"You are a Baleric Islands Cave Goat," he told the boy after a moment, when he remembered to actually answer the question.

"Is that like a goat?" Donat asked, relaxing a bit and going back to his cereal to push the few remaining Kix in circles in the milk.

Serif dropped her spoon into her bowl, rose both heads over her head, and made the best monster noise she could produce with a mouth full of Kix. Then she broke down giggling at herself.

"Serif, quiet," Kumoru reprimanded almost like a reflex, then turned back to Donat.

"It's kind of like a goat, I suppose," he told him slowly, pondering how best to answer the question. Then the necromancer said, "If you want, I can take you to meet one today."

Donat lit up like a Christmas tree. "Are we going to the zoo?" he asked exictedly.

"No, actually, we have to go to the museum." Kumoru stood up and held out his hand for Donat's bowl, then glanced over at Serif to see if she was done.

The girl offered her father the bowl even though it still contained a fair number of Kix, then immediately bolted upstairs.

Looking confused, Donat got up out of his seat, too, and ran around behind it to push it in to the table like he was supposed to.

"Why the museum? Don't they just have really old stuff at the museum? I'm not old. I'm new." His little brows knit together and he peered expectantly up at his father for an answer.

Kumoru took Serif and Donat's bowls both over to the sink, then returned to the table for his own. "They have bones at the museums," he explained. "And they have the bones of a cave goat like you." The mage looked down at Donat and winked. "I have magic that will let you talk to the bones."

Donat's eyes went wide as saucers. He knew Daddy could cast magic, but he had only seen little spells, like to make the lights turn on, or to make the bar of soap float through the air when it was bath time. But he could do something as big as making bones talk, too? The goat knew he had to see this.

"Okay, let's go!" he said, his hands nearly shaking with excitement.

Catching enough snatches of the conversation to know that they would be going somewhere that day, Serif scampered back downstairs and gave her father the best angelic look she could manage.

"Want to come to?" Kumoru asked her. "And why don't you try answering by saying 'yes' or 'no' instead of just babbling like a little baby. You're older than that now."

Serif nodded, ignoring the rest of what her father told her. When Kumoru kept watching her expectantly, she squirmed a little, but tried not to let her Daddy's Little Angel mask crack in the slightest. Under the continued pressure of her father's bright blue eyes, she finally looked down at her toes and said, "Yes."

"Good, there!" The necromancer laughed and ruffled Serif's hair. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Yes," Serif repeated, with a defiant pout.

"Just work up to it, then you can talk as well as your brother."

He glanced back at Donat, who beamed.

"Now, let's wash up and get ready to go to the museum."

Crossposted in Donat's journal