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 Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:52 pm
8/09/05 - Narrative
"No! Hey, let go! I'm not a snack!" she scolded the baby, pulling back, digging her heels into Medea's pale skin and flailing for all she was worth.
It didn't work. Her stern tone was lost in the baby's happy giggles as she was drawn ever-closer to Medea's mouth. To her horror, a pair of fangs extended from the baby's mouth. Medea didn't seem to notice the winged girl's distress--to her, this was all just a game. It wasn't that she meant to eat her...she just had a habit of sticking everything she came across in her mouth. Why would this tiny person be any different?
"Stop it! No! Bad baby!" she yelled, pausing in her flailing to smack as hard as she could with her three free hands at the baby's fingers. That got a reaction. The slight pain caused Medea to loose her hold and the pixie-like creature stumbled back, wings buzzing behind her as she rose in the air, away from the grasping fingers.
Medea blinked, somewhat startled, and looked up at the girl, making grabby hands at her. Her eyes filled with tears as the girl only floated higher, and her still-extended fangs caught on her lip as she pouted, causing her to jerk once more. Frustrated and in pain, Medea started wailing. To the hovering girl's horror a few drops of blood welled on the baby's lower lip. She almost didn't notice that the larger mound under the blanket shifted as that baby's cries reached a crescendo. Barely was enough, however, and she fluttered her way towards the head of the bed, landing on the pillow next to the larger mound. Inle was on her stomach, but her face was turned to the side, and the winged creature used her black and purple strands of hair as rope. Inle shifted at the disturbance, still asleep and reacting on instinct. The girl held on tight and waited until Inle settled down once more before moving towards her ear, kneeling next to it.
"Wake up!" she said, two hands gripping the lobe. "The baby's crying and bleeding and there's glass and all sorts of dust and dirt on the shelf. It's filthy, not to mention dangerous! You have to--" anything else she might have said was lost as Inle batted her off her head, still asleep, but only just. The girl squawked and tumbled down Inle's face, landing just in front of her nose.
Oh, that did it. Not awake an hour and she was already beaten and bruised and almost eaten. Her temper snapped and she balled a pair of hands into fists, punching Inle soundly in the nose with them.
That got a reaction. Inle yelped, her cry intermingling with Medea's. Deep purple eyes widened before narrowing angrily as she caught sight of the diminutive girl, who had placed all four hands on her hips. "What. The ********." Inle grumbled, voice still hoarse with sleep.
"The baby's bleeding," she said again.
"Who the ******** are you?" Inle growled.
"I'm...I don't know. Look, it doesn't matter. The baby's bleeding, don't you care?"
Inle glared at the girl for a prolonged moment before shifting and sitting up, scooping up the squalling Medea and rubbing her back, murmuring soothing words to her. The baby's crying eventually died into hiccuping whimpers and Inle got out of bed on Medea's side, still holding her. She took a step and jerked back. "Why the hell is there glass all over the floor?!"
The girl, still on the bed, rolled her eyes and fluttered upwards, following Inle as she stepped over the glass and walked towards the connecting bathroom. She found Inle holding the naga baby up with an arm while she dabbed at her cut lip with a wet cloth and set down on her shoulder.
"Why does she have no legs?!" she asked tactlessly, pointing at Medea's purple tail with a hand.
Inle glared at her in the mirror. "Why do you have four arms?" she shot back.
"Because...I don't know," she mumbled, catching sight of their trio in the mirror briefly before doing a double take. Eyes wide, she pushed off of Inle's shoulder and fluttered down to the counter, this landing much better than the first. She walked hesitantly towards the mirror, putting a hand against it once she had reached it, and studied her reflection. Green and yellow hair, paper white skin, swirling green markings...was this really her? She moved her other three hands, watching them in the mirror as if to verify that they were actually part of herself. It was then that she noticed the beetle shell atop her head and cautiously raised a hand towards it. It smoothed over the hard green shell before moving towards the feathery antennae, which twitched at her touch and caused her to squirm. She caught sight of Inle still tending to Medea out of her back set of eyes, along with her transluscent wings. "Wow," she whispered. "I look pretty cool."
"But who are you?" Inle asked again, looking between Medea, who was now contentedly chewing on the wet washcloth, and the...whatever it was.
"I'm...I don't know. I don't know who I am, or what I am, or where I came from, or, or anything..." One set of eyes flicked up towards Inle while the other remain fixated on the mirror.
Inle glanced down at her, gently taking the washcloth from Medea and placing it next to the anomaly. "Here. You've got a smudge."
The girl glanced at herself and noticed that some of the dust that adorned the shelf had transfered itself to her, and she took the edge of the wet cloth and wiped it off, still marveling at herself. It was only when Inle flicked the bathroom light off that she stopped and fluttered after the baby-laden woman once more. By now the muscles around her wings were aching, and she quickly set down on the nearest piece of furniture, which happened to be the dresser. She watched as Inle settled the baby back in bed, looking idly over the variety of knicknacks that littered the furniture's surface, finally stopping on an odd-looking toy. It was green and yellow, the colors resembling her hair.
After Inle settled Medea back in bed, she picked up the bits of glass she could, holding them in her hand while wondering where they came from. It was then that she vaguely recalled the bug-girl mentioning a dirty shelf, and she looked up. Sure enough, there was more glass there, and bits of dust that resembled the colors of the ashes that had been in the bottle. Inle was quick enough to figure out that the girl had, somehow, come from the bottle. She sighed, moving towards the dresser; the garbage can sat on the floor at an end of it, and she dumped the glass into it. "So what am I going to call you?" she asked the girl as she straightened.
The girl didn't need to turn her head to look at her--her second set of eyes saw her well enough. "I don't know," she replied.
Inle moved to settle herself on a corner of the bed, watching the girl inspect the toy. It was modeled off an anime character. Inle noticed the similarities between the girl and the toy and grinned. "How about Canti?" she asked.
The girl finally turned from the toy to look at her. "What's it mean?"
"It's the name of the toy you were fawning over."
The girl crossed a pair of arms over her chest. "I wasn't fawning over it. It was just...interesting, that's all. And I don't want to be named after a toy."
Inle rolled her eyes, hands folding themselves in her lap. "What about Conti, then?"
"...I don't see a difference."
"One has an "ah" sound. The other is more of an "aw." The girl stared at Inle as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head in the middle of her first one. "It's a vast yet subtle difference."
"But..." she trailed off, still trying to discern the difference. They sounded exactly the same to her.
"What, do you have a better suggestion?"
"Well, no--"
"Conti it is then!" Inle said brightly, smiling for the first time that day. It was a record--she usually didn't smile until sometime after her first few cups of coffee.
"But...uh..." the newly dubbed Conti frowned in consternation, very sure that she had just lost the battle and the war.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 10:44 pm
8/09/05 - RP Recap
Vick's wings were rather sore. They were sore for good reason - he'd just spent the better part of a day flying around a scorching desert, scouring the sands for fine little grains of color, with little success. Even so, he wasn't much for complaining. Instead, he decided to get his jollies by heading into Hayeta Headquarters - for the first time. He'd been about previously but had never really bothered to announce his presence to people aside from Puchiko and Shadow Puppet.
But he liked people so very much! So here went nothing.
"Hellllllo?" cried the purple Hayeta, poking his head in through the open front door. He skipped into the air with a bit of a grunt - silly wings! - and flitted over to a counter, sitting himself upon it with his legs dangling over the edge. He swung them back and forth cheerily and sighed, noticing the place was empty.
Ah well! Perhaps someone would arrive soon.
With pizza. Mm.
"Are you sure this is the place?"
"No. I was drunk and it was dark, remember? This is...more like the general area."
The small creature that sat atop Inle's head sighed, drumming the fingers of a hand against its crossed legs. Said creature--an odd fairy-looking thing Inle had dubbed Conti--had finally gotten her erstwhile guardian out of the house, albeit reluctantly. Conti had been curious about her origins since she had popped out of her bottle several nights ago, and it was only due to her incessant nagging that the pair was out now.
"You shouldn't get drunk, Inle. You've got kids to consider," she scolded halfheartedly.
"I am NOT about to take advice from something the size of a bug."
As if on cue, Conti's insectoid wings buzzed behind her; they seemed to protest Inle's words, even if Conti herself didn't. The Hayeta merely sighed, already used to many of Inle's...personality problems. Some people just couldn't be helped, she supposed.
"We're here, I think." Inle had stopped before a door, plain in appearance and slightly ajar. As she reached to push it open further, Conti hopped from her head, rapidly buzzing wings keeping her aloft as she floated past Inle.
"Hello?" the beetlesque Hayeta called, dual sets of eyes catching on nothing in particular. "Is anyone home?"
Flap, flap, flap, was the sounds coming from Misty's wings. Yea, soar.. she thought as the words echoed in her mind, I can't soar with these wings I have to flap. But I'm supposed to be able to. Stopping to catch her momentum on the ground, Misty looked around.
"So this is it?" she asked to no one in particular. Picking herself up, she continued to flap her wings until she got into the headquarters' door.
Lost was not the word by far for what Orestae was that particular evening. Oh no. Lost entailed not really knowing ones exact position, whereas Orestae Benedict did not know her position, date, time, reason for still being dressed in her pajamas, or a slew of various other tidbits of information that most people surely knew about themselves. Thus, royally ******** was a much better way to put the young woman's predicament.
"I could see where I was going if you'd get you hands off of my eye, you little monkey," Stae grumbled lowly, reaching up to remove one of Kaz's fuzzy little paws from her right eye. The little lemur boy laughed and kicked his feet, pounding his heels into the front of his mother's chest and tightening his grip on her head. With a deep sigh that made the slowly forming bruises on her chest ache, Stae made a mental note not to carry the little tree-leech on her shoulders ever again.
"Bidding!" Kaz squealed excitedly, flinging a paw out towards whatever structure had caught his eye.
"Yeah. Whatever." Grudgingly, Stae turned towards the building, holding onto one of Kaz's legs to stabilize him and pushing open the door with the other, nearly running into Inle as she ducked inside. Lips parted, surely to offer some sort of profound apology, when her eyes snagged on Conti, "******** is that..?"
Something purple and giggling was seated on Inle's head in seconds, crosslegged in front of Conti. Vick beamed and waved a bit, before leaning forward and grabbing Conti's face with both hands and planting a kiss on her cheek.
"Wonderful! Wonderful! You must be the beetle girl - hmm, let's see." He released her face and instead grabbed her arm, trailing his fingers along her markings. "Fully-formed, in good health - I see a bit of the old ones in you, too." Grinning, he leaned back, gave a cheerful flap of his wings. "Kri and I did good work, apparently!"
This one had turned out so nice! He was awfully proud of himself.
Adjusting his long skirt, the shaman twin just smiled hugely at Conti, not even bothering to offer an explanation for his strange actions.
What the...aw MAN! It was bad enough Conti had hitched a ride on her head, but now there was another one! Her hands fisted at her sides as she fought off the urge to flick them both off. What's more, now people were running into her! This was NOT her few minutes, certainly. "I could ask you the same thing," she snarled at the monkey-laden woman.
All of Conti's eyes widened at the sudden appearance of someone just her size. The hand she had raised to tentatively wave back suddenly flailed as she was abruptly kissed. A hint of red colored her otherwise milk-white skin, and she studied the creature in front of her even as she herself was inspected. She had no idea what this guy was talking about, but he was just so CUTE! As Vick sat back, Conti launched herself forward, all of her arms wrapping around him in a mighty hug. "Well aren't you just the cutest thing!"
Stae stared blankly at the second little.. thing, arching a brow and hefting Kazu up and off of her shoulders. She stared at Inle momentarily, shrugging in a gesture that clearly conveyed 'Don't ask me, I have no idea.' Standing beside the woman, lemur-child cradled against her chest, Stae watched the goings-on between the two Hayeta, glancing sideways at Inle.
"Excitable little buggers, aren't they?"
Poor Misty, caught underneth the legs of all the people walking in, managed to get some strength and pulled herself upwards with the draft that was caused. Flapping herself up, she looked and saw two other beings that were ALMOST the same size as her. A lot closer than the other things, that they were hitching rides on.
Trying to land ontop of Inle's head, she managed to latch onto a lock of hair with her hands. "Ummm hello?" Misty asked the two other things.
Vick's reaction was instantaneous. Soon, Conti found herself being hugged back, much more gently, while Vick's cheeks colored a dark purple. "Yes ma'am!" he exclaimed brightly, patting the younger Hayeta lightly on the back.
Good lord, this girl could squeeze! Definitely, DEFINITELY some of the old ones in her. He hadn't expected them to manifest so strongly, of course, but my - strong was hardly even the word! Still, Vick was delighted at the hug, and even as he felt his lungs being crushed he didn't complain.
"I don't suppose you have any beer? Or pizza?" he wheezed, grinning like a ninny.
Edit: His eyes traveled over Conti's shoulder as he caught sight of another Hayeta, and he squealed excitedly, making "gimmie!gimmie!" gestures at her. Another! Oh, another! Things truly were progressing so wonderfully, he'd never felt so proud of himself in his life!
Stifling a small laugh with the back of her hand, Stae cast a look of heartfelt sympathy to Inle. Damn, that had to be worse than having lice. Of course, her preoccupation with feeling sorry for the poor woman lasted only as long as it took for the shaman twin to utter the magic word.
"Beer?" Stae perked up slightly, nearly dropping Kazu. The little lemur clung to his mother's shirt, nearly pulling it down to a point of indecency until his mother gathered him up in her arms again.
Inle's head tilted a bit with Misty's added weight. "Hey hey HEY! My HEAD is not a LANDING PAD, thank you very much! Take your midget party elsewhere!" Purple eyes skittered sideways at the only other normal-sized person in the vicinity. "It certainly seems that way, unfortunately."
"Beer? Oh nonono, you're much too small for beer! Beer is vile and disgusting and it makes people do stupid things. And you'll only feel sick after you drink it!" She nodded wisely; if Inle's reactions were the norm for all beer-drinkers, then she was spot-on. Unfortunately, they weren't. Oddly enough, Conti didn't seem to care.
Especially not when she caught sight of the other tiny creature now occupying Inle's headspace out of the corner of her second set of eyes. "Well hi there!" she said brightly, a pair of arms releasing Vick long enough to snag her as well.
Vick, however, was still caught by two arms, though he seemed quite content where he was. He even snuggled a bit against Conti; he was used to being beaten by his sister, so this certainly made for a pleasent change! Though the refusal to give him beer was a bit upsetting, Vick decided he'd rather not make a big deal out of it. After all, what was the point? He knew he'd find some somewhere eventually! Witches and spikes, if he could pick ashes out of the desert, he could certainly find himself a beverage.
"Bird!" he chattered, pointing at Misty with obvious delight. His wings gave a cheerful flap and he once more attempted to grab at the bluebird Hayeta, eager to study her. She was, of course, his choice - those feathers had been a lucky find, and Vick couldn't help but use them on someone! Wonderful that it seemed to have turned out so well.
With Inle's booming voice making her head ring, Misty dug deeper into Inle's scalp, tugging at the hair lock and not letting go. Atleast not until she saw that the other things on top were friendly. Watching Vick make "grabbie hand" towards her, she let go of the hair piece and gave Vick a hug. Trying to give two hugs at once was not possible, so Misty let go of Vick and gave Conti a hug.
Hello! she said in a cheery voice.
If one was paying close enough attention, they might notice Inle's hands start to twitch, the small tendons in her hand becoming increasingly visible. All of her willpower was focused on not finding the nearest solid object and ramming it head-on. "I could use a beer too," she muttered.
"Yes, she is a bird! Aww, and an adorable one at that!" Conti bubbled happily. Hugs of greeting given, she sat back a bit, keeping an arm around both of them. "Who ARE you two, anyway?" Cute as they may be, if they didn't have answers, all would be for naught.
Vick was pulled out of his impromptu study of Misty - not quite as close as he would like, given he was still being held back by Conti, but he could observe her with his eyes he supposed - and blinked up at the beetle Hayeta, mouth parting into a wide grin.
"Oh! I'm Vick - you probably don't remember me, but I made you." he said brightly. "Well, with my sister, Kridik. She's not here right now but she's very, very nice. I made you too, by the way!" He pointed at Misty and beamed. "Feathers, see? They're not mine, of course, I mean I found them, but I decided to give them to you, to make a fellow bird."
His wings gave a slight excited twitch.
Vick turned back to Conti, patting her lightly on the head - well, shell. "And Kri picked out that shell especially for you! You're all made with a lot of care, you know. Quite the process. Fascinating, really, I don't quite understand it myself."
"They're just so.. happy," Stae mumbled, her mouth forming around that last word with considerable distaste. Kaz's large head slumped against his shoulder, a thin trail of lemur drool seeping out onto her bare skin. Whatever the little critters were saying went completely over her head, her attention focused on staring in stark horror at the saliva which was now oozing down her shoulder. "Oh Jesus.."
Gently easing Kazu's head from one shoulder to another, Stae wiped the drool off with a bare hand, from there disposing of it upon her skirt. "So how about that beer?"
Misty looked at Conti as she was still being held. At the "cute" comment, she replied, "Thank you and my name is Misty." Turning to Vick, she looked curiously at him "You MADE us?" Somehow it seemed very hard to believe, but there was a little bit of trust from somewhere she didn't know. But Misty did know she had feathers.
"They really are. Someone needs to take their caffeine away," Inle grumbled. Her neck was starting to hurt from the added weight--though it didn't seem that any of the three Hayeta weighed very much on their own, their combined mass was considerably different. Inle's mouth opened to respond to Stae's beer query when she caught sight of the drool. "Oh, now that's just gross. I'd rather have these three fairies on my head than be drooled on." She shuddered delicately; although she had her fair share of kids at home, she wasn't the world's best mother.
Conti's antennae twitched a bit at the pat, her second pair of eyes blinking even as her first remained on Vick. "Made? We're made from animal bits? That doesn't sound very hygenic." She paused, thinking on that for a moment. "My name's Conti, by the way."
"Hello Miss Conti, hello Miss Misty! And not from animal bits, no - that's silly! You were made from ashes, of course," he replied brightly, rocking back and forth on his bottom with excitement. "The animal bits were added later to tie you to this world - the feathers, the shell. Without it the ashes wouldn't have any reason to mix, see? It's very important, not unhygenic at all."
Elementary, really!
"Only Kri and me, we didn't need anything. That's 'cause we're special," He leaned forward at that, as though he were whispering a secret. "Or so we think. We're not quite sure."
"No s**t," Stae grumbled, adjusting her son's head right back down in his own little pile of drool. She knew the little bugger wasn't really asleep, but couldn't very well accuse a toddler of scamming her. Well, she could, but it's not like it would matter much at the point. She'd already amassed more spittle in the hollow of her collar bone than she'd even thought Kazu had in that little monkey mouth of his.
At Conti's comment about being 'made' reached her ears, Stae perked up a bit, offering a sarcastic and somewhat abrasive smile, "Well you see, Cootie, when one bug and another bug love one another.."
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Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:30 pm
10/12/05 - Narrative
"The shirt you gave me to sleep in smells funny."
"Funny ha-ha or funny strange?"
"Funny hoping-not-to-choke-on-my-own-vomit-in-my-sleep funny."
"Oh...that's probably bad."
"Probably...I need my own space."
"Mm."
"Inle, are you paying attention?" Two sets of arms planted themselves on their owner's hips as the small form of Conti fluttered down from her mid-air hover, settling herself on Inle's upraised knees.
"Not really," Inle admitted, never taking her eyes off her crossword puzzle.
"Inle, what are--" Conti was cut off by a crash somewhere down the hall. Immediately several calls of "I didn't do it!" were heard from various members of the family. "Aren't you going to see what that was? What if something broke? Someone could get hu--"
"5-letter word for a fairy-tale rose," Inle interrupted.
"Briar. Inle, what if one of the kids walks over whatever broke? I don't think your car will make it to the hospital. And what if--" Conti trailed off at a sharp sigh from Inle. Clearly, this was not her day for complete sentences.
"The babies are asleep, and even if they weren't, Cal doesn't get off the couch, Ciaran has enough sense to stay away from whatever it was, and Medea can't even move under her own power. Everyone else knows enough to clean up their own damn messes, even Tybalt. Hell, even Pavel once he stops freaking out!"
"That's a very apathetic view of things. How is someone like you a mother to so many?" Conti glared across at her. Inle glared back.
"I don't know, Tinkerbell. I really don't. I never ASKED for any of this, for any of you. No one asked me what I wanted, but I'm doing the best I can! Even I'm not so heartless as to throw a bunch of kids onto the streets just cause I'm a shitty mother! You know, you talk a lot about responsibility and whatnot, but you have ********. I'd tell you to walk a day in my shoes, but you're a little too small for that." In the middle of her tirade, she had tossed her crossword puzzle to the side and crossed her arms over her chest.
Conti broke first, her gaze turning downwards, an embarassed blush all-too-obvious against her paper-white skin. "I know I don't know what it's like to be in your position, and I most likely never will, but...how can you not worry all the time, about all the kids and pets and whatnot?"
"I learned early on that the more you interfere, the more likely you are to ******** things up. Sometimes you've just got to let things work out for themselves."
As if on cue, Caduceus rushed in, looking a bit out of breath. "Sorry. I dropped a bottle, but I cleaned it up. I even vacuumed up the smaller shards of glass, so no one's gonna get hurt."
Inle looked triumphant. Conti looked dumbfounded. Point proven.
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Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:07 pm
Backdated from 11/01
Conversation at the breakfast table was stunted that morning. Since Conti's arrival, the early morning crew had grown from Caduceus-and-sometimes-Inle to Caduceus-and-Conti-and-Inle-when-she-felt-like-it. Today was one of those "felt like it" days--Inle often suffered from insomnia when she wasn't suffering from sleep-like-a-hibernating-bearitis, and she loved her coffee regardless of what time she woke up to enjoy it. She was reading the paper, looking over current events with mild interest and ignoring the stares of the table's other two occupants.
The star-child and the Hayeta looked at each other nervously, each daring the other to bring up what was foremost on their minds. Finally, Caduceus brought their silent battle to an end by clearing his throat and leaving the table. Conti scowled after him. She pondered doing the same thing, but curiosity was quickly getting the best of her.
After taking a sip of coffee from her doll-sized mug, she folded her arms in her lap, four sets of fingers fidgeting nervously. "Wild party last night?" she finally dared to ask.
Conti was not a cowardly sort, but the abrupt flicking of two pairs of dead, blood-colored eyes in her direction made her want to squeal like a kid that's just caught sight of the killer in a horror movie and flee the scene. Her wings buzzed behind her as if they thought that was a grand idea and should follow through with it. Instead, she reached down for her cup to take a fortifying sip of coffee and nearly sighed in relief when both sets of eyes turned back to the morning paper.
"I guess," Inle replied, her voice more than a little hollow and dry. Ears that were not hers--green ears, fuzzy ears--wiggled.
"So um...who's your new friend?" the Hayeta asked. Antennae that were hers wiggled in response.
Inle smirked, but didn't look up. It was creepy, she was all pale and her skin was drawn and she was BALD and there was a green bunny on her head--Conti thought the bunny was cute, but it probably wasn't too hygenic to have it attached to one's head. "He followed me home. I'm keeping him...I don't think I've got a choice in the matter. He hasn't told me his name yet."
"He? It's a he? How can you tell? How is it--he--attached to your head? Attached! That's not right, somehow! How do you sleep at night without crushing it?"
Conti didn't bother cringing as the eyes turned her way once more, although she did scramble back as Inle's pale finger reached out to gently nudge the beetle shell that was attached to her head. "You tell me," Inle offered.
And just like that, Conti understood.
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