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 Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:42 pm
.:Not again!:.
It was a lovely day for a family picnic. It was sunshiney and hot and Emmaline and Maxwell Peace had decided to take their two adopted sons out into the field behind what was left of the barn for sandwiches and some good ol' family time. The road to hell, as they say, is paved with the very best of intentions.
Warren did not want to leave the house. The cyclops baby screamed his fury and beat his impotent little fists on Emma's shoulder as she carried him down the stairs. His reluctance could probably be attributed to the fact that if they'd all gone out and left him alone, the troublesome tot could easily have escaped his crib and managed to find the AA batteries he'd been wanting. But, to no avail.
"We can play with the kittens, baby!" Emma said brightly, effectively shutting Warren up. Oddly, the cyclopic ex-interplanetary-criminal was fascinated with cats. He loved them.
Darsh, the older of the two boys, did not want to go because he would be there. The he in question being Warren, Darsh's unwanted and uninvited baby brother. It wouldn't have been so bad if both boys weren't blue-skinned. But Darsh took it as a personal insult that the stupid squalling infant was stealing all his attention AND had copied his coloring as well.
"We can fish in the pond, buddy!" Max cajoled the older of the two boys, his tone wheedling. Darsh crossed his arms, a stormy look crossing his face. For a moment, the sun's brightness seemed to wane. "We can... uh.. I made croissants!" Max finally settled on. If the roll-and-bake pillsbury kind even really counted. But Darsh, with his greediness for rich food, decided to bury the more or less one-sided hatchet between him and his brother for the time being. Darsh, consequently, was more of a dog person.
The blanket was big and checkered red-and-green, some ancient christmas throwback. The cooler was full of faux-bologna and vegetable sandwiches, rolls, cookies, corn and any number of deliciousness. Darsh dove into the food immediately while Warren seemed more interested in scooting on hands and knees through the grass, hunting the new litter of kittens.
"They've been acting kind of strange." Emma noted, chewing on a carrot.
"Strange? Who?" Max dipped his own carrot in hummus and took a satisfying bite.
"The cats. Not all of them, just some of them. They're silly."
"Cats are supposed to be silly, Emma. They're cats."
"No, I mean the other day I found a bunch of them sort of.. congregated in the barn. They were all lined up and staring at the ceiling."
Max rolled his eyes. "You have to stop smoking so much weed." He informed his sister with a tolerant smile. "You're starting to see things. Cats don't ---" Whatever he was going to say, it was cut off by the sight of an aged old man in a trenchcoat sprinting through their field. "What the hell?"
"What? Who is that?" Emma squinted at the man. "We don't know him, do we?"
"No, we don't." Max said suspiciously as, behind him, the half of the barn that hadn't exploded when Warren's pod had landed burst into flame.
"Oh my god!" Emma screamed.
"Oh my god!" Darsh repeated after her, his golden eyes round with an odd mixture of fear and apprehension. Only bad things happened when barns caught on fire. Burning barns meant more brothers, and that was never a good thing as far as he was concerned.
Warren just stared. His mind was shouting frustrated curses in his native alien tongue, but his infantile mouth couldn't actually say them and his limited telepathy was not reaching anyone at the moment. So, for all intents and purposes, Warren just stared.
Luckily, the fire wasn't a big one. Max and Emma had both sprinted to the barn where a small bonfire seemed to blaze. Oddly enough, it was blazing right where Emma had seen the cats gathering to stare at the ceiling. She found herself pausing to look upwards, but there was nothing there. The woman shivered and helped Max stamp out the flames.
"What the hell?" She muttered at her brother, who shook his head helplessly and looked back at her.
"heck-heck" came a tiny coughing noise from behind the kiln. Max and Emma exchanged a single look that spoke volumes, but is was Darsh who dashed between them towards the sound of the coughing first.
"Noooo!" The older blue boy shouted, stomping his foot. The sun was decidedly hidden behind clouds now.
Max stepped forward to see what Darsh had found. "Oh." He said quietly, raising an eyebrow.
Emma joined him. "Oh." She repeated, also quietly.
The squirming little bundle looked up at them all with big eyes and raised it's paws towards them. "Can has fud?" It asked with a pointy little grin.
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Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 4:18 pm
.:Brotherly Love:.
"Look. Fuds." The small lolcat-boy narrowed his eyes in a predatory fashion, his tail swishing behind him, butt high in the air.
"Not those, dummy." Darsh whispered, casting a glare at his new little brother. At least this one could talk. And he wasn't blue. The fact that Hayden looked nothing like Darsh went a long way to the grudging relationship they had struck up. Grudging on Darsh's side, that is. Hayden was enthusiastic enough for the both of them and had taken to following Darsh around without invitation.
"Can't has?" Hayden's eyes got bigger and bigger and bigger, a little frown twitching at his lips. He looked absolutely pitiful.
"You don't want chickens, stupid."
"Nuggetz!"
"There are no nuggets on chickens. Thats what we want." Darsh pointed and Hayden's gaze followed his brother's arm.
"Big fuds." He'd never seen a cow before. Three of them stood in the pasture, lowing softly and chewing their cud. "We huntz?"
"We don't huntz." Darsh cringed and shook his head. "We are not hunting them." He repeated, this time in appropriate english. Hayden's bizarre speech pattern had an irritating way of rubbing off on people.
"But they haz flavr. Yes?"
"You don't want their flavor. You want their milk."
"Milkz?"
"Urgh." Darsh groaned, running a hand through his star-studded hair. "Just... come with me. Shut up and come with me." Grabbing Hayden by his little black hand, he pulled the kitten across the small pasture and into the barn. Once inside, he looked around furtively. "Good. Nobody is here."
"Bad guise?"
"Sure, Hayden. Bad guys. We dont want anyone to see us." Golden eyes flicked across the barn until they hit paydirt. Glistening moistly in tall metal buckets. He could smell it from across the room.
Apparently Hayden could smell it too. "What is? Is we in heaven?" The lolcat's eyes were partially closed with bliss. Darsh knew the feeling, he recalled with clarity the first time he'd discovered the cows and the barn on the neighboring farm. Of course, farmer Ben was a cranky man. But that was what Hayden was there for.
"Yeah, buddy. Heaven." Darsh grinned and pulled his new brother towards the milk. There was a dipper hanging to the side and he skimmed it across the top. The milk was warm and pure and fresh. Completely untampered with. "Definitely heaven." He handed the dipper down.
The fresh milk appeared to have a sort of druggish effect on Hayden. "I has a happy." He mumbled, raising up on his tiptoes to see into the milk pail. "You are my happy, fud." He crooned to the thick white substance, a stupid grin spread over his face.
Darsh knew the feeling. Fresh milk, especially stolen milk, had a similar effect on him. The sound of footsteps outside of the barn and a cheery whistled tune snapped him out of it immediately, though. "Farmer Ben!" Darsh glanced around for the nearest escape route. "Hayden, you cover me!" He said before sprinting away.
And so it was that farmer Ben found a clearly guilty but immensly innocent looking cat-child bathing in his milk pail. And so it was Darsh made his escape as planned. And so it was Hayden discovered a happy. Hayden also discovered that farmer Ben was Not Nice when cats got into his cream.
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Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:20 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:00 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:19 pm
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Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:37 pm
.:The Maiden's Curse:.
"Oh wild-shy October moon..." Darsh muttered to himself with a faint grin. He had his flute tucked into his belt and his harmonica in a little bag, also hanging from his belt. The moon was vivid, yellow against the darkening sky. The family was safe at the house, the general chaos of a day at the Peace house had calmed a bit. And Darsh had felt the pulling of the moon.
He skipped lightly through the field towards the small copse of trees beyond. There was a little pond there, good for catching frogs. It was fed by a stream sometimes, although the stream was dry now. Max and Emma had said that in the spring it would be running again. But the pond never went dry and there were lily-pads and trees whose leaves were starting to turn the golden red of autumn.
The water was dark and still when he reached it. The pond was shallow except for the very center which was oddly deep. He'd found that out the hard way. Darsh was not the strongest of swimmers. With a soft sigh, the blue boy sank to the grassy bank and inhaled deeply, the crisp air teasing his senses. There was something about this time of year, he was discovering, that made the whole world seem ripe with mysterious possibilities.
Laying on his back, he stared up at the sky, tracing the faint constellations by memory and giving them his own names, his own mythos. There was the the Great Lady, and her Consort. And over there, the Golden Harp. He smiled at his folly as the sky grew darker and the stars shone brighter for it. After a few moments, he drew out his flute and began to play.
The melody was winsome. It might have been Cat Stevens or some bastardization of a Beatles tune. It could have been a ballad or a blues tune or some slow, sad jazz number. It was impossible to tell, really, since he was making it up as he went along.
Lost as he was in the music, it took longer than it usually would have for him to hear the singing. The voice was feminine and reminded him oddly of Casia's, for all that the tones were totally different. But there was something compelling, similar to the way the siren's voice was compelling. No words, just a sort of moaning melody. Darsh sat up and then forgot he was playing the flute.
There was a woman in the middle of the pond, her skin blue-tinged white, as if she were frozen. Her hair hung down over her face, black as pitch, obscuring her features. She was thigh-deep in the water, though Darsh knew that it was much deeper than that, there in the middle. Her white dress floated around her, clinging to her thin frame and spotted darkly with something that could have been blood, a long time ago.
He stared, gaping, a chill coming over his body, seizing his muscles. When his flute stopped, the woman's singing stopped as well and she raised her gaze to regard him. Her eyes... where eyes should have been were deep black holes and her mouth was sewn shut. He could see the jagged black stitches standing out starkly against her pale skin.
A choked sort of moan escaped the blue-boy's throat as the specter reached her hands out towards him, palms upwards like a supplicant. Like he could help her. And then she faded away and there was nothing left but the pond, the sound of crickets, and Darsh's own harsh breathing.
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Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 3:07 pm
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Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:49 am
.:The ghost again:.
He hadn't been back to the pond since he'd seen the ghost. It wasn't that he was afraid of her... Well. If he were being totally honest with himself it was exactly because he was afraid of her. But that wasn't something Darsh was willing to admit, not even to himself. But life had been busy and weird things had been going on all over Gaia, not just on their property. But things had calmed down. Sort of. There was the whole christmas rush going on. The preparations for gifts and treats and the decorating of a tree. Of course Max and Em didn't believe in cutting down trees to decorate, so they had all traipsed outside and wound a live fur with garlands of popcorn and cranberries, hanging sugar cookie ornaments and pinecones rolled in peanut butter and birdseed. Even Darsh had had to admit that the effect was pretty. It was while the little (and yet ever expanding) family was outside drinking hot cider that he'd thought about the pond again. Really thought about it instead of just letting his thoughts avoid it. Which was why he was now trudging his way out there with his harmonica through the barren, snowy fields.
The pond was iced over. Darsh thought that might be a good sign, since maybe the ghost couldn't escape through the ice to haunt him. He was still nervous when he pulled out his harmonica and put it to his lips, blowing a soft and shaky melody. Nothing happened. Emboldened, Darsh smiled a little and threw his shoulders back, taking a much cockier stance and playing the tune with more confidence. The addition of the ghost's keening song took him so much by suprise that he dropped the harmonica.
The ghost looked at him with empty eyes and the blue boy suppressed a shiver. "Who are you?" He asked, swallowing against the hitch in his voice.
The ghost opened her mouth, but no sound came out. It seemed sad, somehow. Darsh felt like he was supposed to do something. "Can't you talk? You can sing... why can't you talk?" He asked, not sure what he was doing.
The ghost shook her head and reached her hands out towards him imploringly. Darsh backed away. The ghost's face grew ugly, contorting with anger. The blue boy took another step backwards.
"I don't think so..." He said, just for the sake of having something to say. The ghost snarled at him and lunged.
Darsh shrieked, but the jewel set in his forehead let out a sudden red flare and in that moment he found the spell broken and turned to run back towards home. That was the last time he'd bother with a stupid ghost, Darsh promised himself. It was unfortunate that he'd forgotten his harmonica by the side of the pond.
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Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:50 am
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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:29 pm
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