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 Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 6:40 pm
Taki was peering into a display case, hands full on the glass, a grin plastered to his face. He looked up at the dinosaur skeleton, then to the one that Katrina pointed out. "That one's small. I wanna be a big one like in the front place," he said, and joined in Melchy's growling. "I'ma eat you!" He said loudly, then latched onto Calder's leg, giggling, tail swishing back and forth.
This was apparently a usual occurence, and the Sidhe didn't even miss a step, though it was a little difficult with the clothing he was wearing today. "Maybe I should have stuck to slacks and a dress shirt," he admitted, patting Taki's head with the patience that accompanies very long lives.
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 6:51 pm
"Not if I eat you first! Raaar!"
Melchy giggled as Taki growled back at him, and then watched the older boy latch onto Calder. Tilting his head curiously and looping his tail around his ankle, he considered for a moment and then dove at Katrina.
Katrina was ready for it, and she caught him by the wrists before he could grab her leg, swinging the little boy up so he was on her shoulders. Ignoring the disapproving glower from one of the museum curators, she ignored the boy's theft of her hat and looked at Calder.
"I think perhaps we should move on. Ancient reptiles seem to bring out the worst in our little ones." She squeaked as Melchy pulled her hair, reaching up to slap him. "And I rather like what you've got on, sir."
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:17 pm
Taki clung to Calder's leg as long as the Sidhe would endure it, which was just until they passed the exhibit for the big planteater Melchy had 'imitated'. When Calder shooed him off, though, he was running towards the ice age section of the exhibit. "There's gotta be saber tooth tigers in here!" he announced loudly, peering into the exhibits with full attention.
"Well, I appreciate that," he said, straightening absently where Taki had been clinging, in an attempt to recover the original look of the outfit. "Taki is, unfortunately, only like this when I bring him out in public... When he's alone, he's quiet and well-behaved."
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:41 pm
When Taki took off again, Melchy jerked hard on a lock of Katrina's hair, earning a muffled string of curses as Katrina struggled to keep from swearing like the sailor she was. Growling under her breath, she yanked the boy down, receiving the exact same string of curses. Clapping her hand over the boy's mouth, she waited until he fell silent, shook him threateningly by the back of his shirt, and then set him down. Melchy hissed at her and followed Taki.
"Tigers?" he asked, running to catch up to the older boy. "What's tigers?"
Katrina brushed a finger through her hair, looking guiltily at Calder. "Sorry about that," she murmured, feeling her cheeks grow hot and wondering what she was more embarrassed about: her ward's behaviour or her own. "Bad habit of mine..." she trailed off into a wordless mumble, suddenly becoming engrossed in a display of mammoth skulls.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:41 pm
"All the cats came from saber tooth tigers! They're big and yellow and have huge teeth!" Taki said, elaborating with two fingers on either side of his mouth to mime the creature. "And and... They're x-stink now, Papa said, but all the cats today are... are... What did you say they were papa?" Taki shouted back at Calder.
"Descended," the Sidhe supplied and grinned lopsidedly over at Katrina. "I've come close to losing my patience with the boy myself. I can have quite the mouth on me, when I really want to... But I seem to have an infinite supply of patience for small children.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:56 pm
Melchy watched Taki’s explanation with his head on one side, twitching his tail and ears as he listened, on the brink of sprinting away for the sheer joy of activity. He was still wearing Katrina’s hat, which fell down over his eyes. He blinked a few times when Taki spoke of descendents and tigers. “So I a tiger?” he asked, eyes lighting up at the idea that he could be something huge and ferocious.
Katrina brightened a little bit when Calder mentioned that he possessed of his own store of swearwords. She looked over at him and snorted when she heard the words ‘infinite supply of patience’.
“I couldn’t be more different. I’m not good with children. I never expected to end up with one. Honestly, I thought I had just acquired a rather hardy cabbage. You can imagine how shocking it is to find out that your plant has been transformed into a small child.” She shrugged. “I can’t even abide my own crew half the time, much less something that can’t take care of itself at all.” She looked over at Melchy, now searching frantically for the tigers he was undoubtedly convinced he would grow up to be, and shrugged. “But he’s grown on me, patience or no patience.”
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:18 pm
"Sort of..." Taki said, but scampered off to help Melchy look anyway, a grin broad across his face.
"A couple thousand years will do that," Calder said in explanation for the curse words, and then listened patiently as Katrina described her situation, chuckling quietly when she finished. "They have a tendency to do that. I wasn't too sure about adopting the tyke until I actually had him around. Now, I don't think I'd ever give him up."
A cry of triumph rang back through the halls as Taki discovered the Saber Tooth Tiger model, in full fur and form, next to its skeleton. "Wow... how do you think they got the skeleton out without breaking it?" he asked in awe, eyes wide as he stared at the gigantic mouth, open in a roar.
((OMG I AM WRITING SO SAPPY. I'm so sorry haha ; ; It's to make up for the things Natsu is making me write with her ASKING FOR SLASH SITUATION XD))
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:59 pm
Katrina raised an eyebrow at Calder's casual mention of an enormous age. And she had thought he just looked like an elf. There was obviously more to the man than unusual clothing. "Couple thousand?" she asked, keeping her casual tone and focusing on that instead of on how much better of a parent Calder was, ancient or not. Taki's exultation made her look up, and she smiled when she saw that the boys had found their quarry.
Melchy stood in complete shock next to Taki, staring at fangs almost as long as his forearm. He had never expected the tiger to be as huge as it was, and it was a little scary, especially since there was one fully furred standing next to the skeleton. "Not alive, right?" he asked a little bit shakily. But then he remembered that he was...what had Taki said?...descended from tigers, and he felt a little better. He reached up to touch it.
"Melchy!" Katrina snapped, and the boy drew back guiltily. "We don't touch the exhibits!"
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:13 pm
"Oh... I'm sorry, I forgot to mention... I'm Sidhe. One of the Fae people... From the Seelie court." Calder coughed a little awkwardly, and shrugged one shoulder. "I'm a river diety. I moved to Gaia after... well, the Seelie and Unseelie courts were at war, and the humans got tired of being in the middle of our magics, so we all left, pretty much. I came here, and now I've ended up with a kid."
"Nope, they're x-stink! That means there aren't any more of them left," Taki said, and skipped across the way, pointing up to a Neanderthal display. "Papa says that people come from them. I asked him if he was one too, but he said he wasn't a person, not like other people." His eyes were wide as he stared up into the glass eyes of the exhibit model. "I dunno what he was talking about."
He glanced over towards Melchizedek, and grinned. "Wanna go see if we can find the swords and stuff?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:41 pm
Katrina let most of Calder's explanation pass into and out of her attention without gripping much of it. Details like Seelie and Unseelie were as foreign to her as the concepts of mercy and not setting towns on fire. She held onto the concepts that made the most sense to her: river deity, magics...
"I'm not sure I understand, but I'm beginning to get the impression that things have gotten a lot weirder since the last time I put into port," she said with a wry smile.
Melchy looked up at Taki with an expression just as awestruck as the one he had given the tiger. "You know everything," he said simply, then turned back to look at the tiger. "I'ma be tiger when I grow, yeah?" he asked, latching onto the concept of 'descending' from tigers and not letting go. But when Taki mentioned swords, his eyes brightened again. "Yeah!" he yelled, earning a glare from a curator. "Let's go Taki!" And he dashed off again, toward the exit.
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 9:06 am
Calder grinned, and shrugged again with the one shoulder. "Well, you tend to see some strange things when you live around the Patch. One of Taki's best friends is a sparrow girl."
"I only know what I read in the books..." Taki said, looking embarrassed at the praise, then was quickly off running again after Melchy, ignoring the curator's glares and laughing the whole while.
Calder cringed, and called after them, "No running in the museum!"
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:58 pm
Melchy skidded from the ice age exhibit into a foyer that connected four other halls. He looked from one archway to another to another, and frowned. There was a suit of armour holding a huge lance standing just inside one of the archways.
"We go look at metal man?" he asked Taki, looking for the older boy's approval.
Katrina followed, still not seeming to care that her son was being a little bit stupid and probably about to get himself in trouble. "I met her," she said of Riley, glancing over her shoulder at Calder. "Riley, yes?" Coming up behind Melchy, she put her hands on his shoulders. "You want to look at the knights?"
Melchy nodded. "Night!"
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 6:51 pm
Taki nodded, and skittered towards the hall before Calder could grab him. Cats. Calder watched him go, then turned back towards Katrina. "Yes, Riley. She's a... well, she's certainly full of energy."
"LOOK MELCHY! SWORDS!" came the shout down the hallway, followed by the quiet sounds of a slight scuffle. The curator had finally tracked Taki down and told him to keep his voice down in the museum. When Calder rounded the corner to see the boy, the curator had him in one hand by the wrist, and Taki was scrabbling at his hand, hissing and growling. The curator seemed not to know what to do, especially when two people who looked like they walked right out of fantasy novels walked around the corner.
Calder glanced apologetically at Katrina, and took a few steps forward. "I'm sorry about him, he's mine."
The curator seemed happy to hand him over, letting go of Taki's hand, and the boy scampered back around to cling to Calder's side, still glaring darkly at the man, tail lashing and all the hair sticking out.
"Just keep them under control, please," the frazzled curator said, staring at Melchizedek and Taki, then turned sharply on his heel and walked off.
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 7:13 pm
Melchy tore off after Taki before his guardian could say anything. Katrina let him, confident that nobody would be offended by a tiny cat-child.
Of course, she heard both Taki's shout and the sounds of an apparent fight and picked up her pace, concerned that Melchy had knocked something down or sassed someone, and now he was in trouble. She wasn't actually relieved to see her own ward standing off to the side, watching Taki curiously while he struggled against the curator.
Melchy didn't make matters any better, flattening his ears and growling his peculiar cat’s growl at the curator just before he turned and walked away. Katrina threw her hands up and hurried over to the boy, taking his wrist before he could cause any more trouble. “Melchy, take that as a warning. Don’t run, and don’t yell. That’s not polite here.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Katrina looked over at the rack of swords and other medieval weaponry. “Swords, bucko.”
“Bigger ‘n’yours, Cap’n!”
“They’re different than mine. I have a rapier, and these are broadswords,” Katrina explained. Melchy didn’t seem to be listening.
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 7:27 pm
Calder scratched Taki's head, and looked down at him until Taki met his gaze. "You don't yell or run, okay?"
"Sorry... I only got excited 'cause Melchy and... Sorry." He mumbled the last apology, and looked towards the floor, clinging to Calder's leg.
"Go on, you can look at the swords." Taki detached from Calder's leg immediately, and went to stare at the one Melchy was talking about, eyes wide.
"Wow it's so big. I bet it's heavier than both of us together."
Calder walked through the exhibit with a vague sort of interest, and chuckled at Taki. "No, actually, the typical broadsword wieghs a little less than you, Taki. Probably more than Melchizedek, though."
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