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 Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:04 pm
: || 8/27/06 - Tovar's Journal - Entry #5|| : Dear Journal,
I feel bad. I haven't really prepared for Leith at all. I...- there's so much stuff to do that I haven't done at all and I feel silly because of it. At the same time, maybe I'm so used to being panicked about this stuff. After all, when Etain came along there was...nothing for him. Literally. No bed, not even a room! No toys, nothing for him to play with except for the stuff laying around in the hallway. Lord knows it wasn't exactly the best environment for a little boy (not like it's in great shape for an infant either - oh god, if this kid doesn't get buried under a pile of books or something, it's going to be a damned miracle).
It is a little...exciting, though. Alright, so getting babbled at in the back of my mind is a little creepy and it wakes me up and for the first few nights I thought I was going insane because I remember that someone (Who was it...? I don't even remember; augh!) had told me that the baby ghosts could talk, if only to their guardians and 'in their heads.' Something like that. Still, it's little comfort in the middle of the night when I wake up from Leith screeching and no one else can hear it. Michael thinks I've cracked, I'm sure. Etain takes it in stride, but - well, he doesn't know any better.
At least Leith trusts me. I think he does, anyway. When we go on errands, he likes hunkering down in that satchel I used to keep the wand in. I hope he's not like that as an actual baby - it might be hard to explain to people why I'm toting a baby around in a messenger bag. Ahah. Oh god; we're doomed.
To Do List:
-Have Michael make a room
-Get stuff
-Paint? I don't know. Augh.
-Paint Etain's room
-Attempt to make house infant proof. (Good luck.)
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:08 pm
Coffee Break
Meeting Malen and Kishi August 27, 2006
There was nothing quite so nice as a cup of coffee in the middle of a cool afternoon. A bit of cream, a lot of sugar - it really didn't take much to get Tovar to relax. Being away from the house and not running errands for once in his life probably had something to do with it. Furthermore - as much as he felt a little guilty for thinking it - not having Etain on one arm all afternoon had been a welcome break. Besides, he liked the girl who was babysitting him so Tovar didn't really see a problem with it... Shifting, he stretched out his legs slightly and attempted to get more comfortable in the chair.
The little cafe in Barton was nice enough, and outside was cool enough for him to enjoy sitting on the front patio with his cookie and coffee, sipping and nibbling contentedly. Besides, he got a nice view of the street this way. It was interesting to see who was passing by and--
"Kreeee!"
Tovar winced slightly, pausing mid-sip on his coffee. He shifted, casting a long glance toward the floating, gathering of blue-ish foggy mist swirling boredly near his elbow.
"I really wish you wouldn't do that," he told Leith, fighting the frown off his face. "You're going to give me a heart attack, you know." Nearly a week now and he still wasn't very used to the occassional input by the baby...ghost... Tovar couldn't count how many times something Leith had 'said' had made him jump five feet in the air and startled the breath right out of him.
Leith gurgled happily, wiggling in a decidedly pleased fashion.
"Now remeber this is our secret Kishi no one else hears about this not even Kit" Malen warned. It wasn't that what he was doing was something horridly wrong persay just not totally appropriate either. After all most adult tried to avoid giving young children caffien and here he was taking a child not even in the first grade out for Cappuccino. He had no doubts that his fiance would be having words with him if she ever found out about it.
Kishi nodded not understanding the need for secresey especially from her pet cat thing but she was willing to agree to anything for a chance at a new treat. However as the walked past the patio o nthe way to the inside of the cafe her eyes were instantly drawn to a small bluish object. As it moved she recognised it as a baby ghost though not one she'd seen before. " Daddy look it's a ghost, can we go see it?" She asked, all thoughts of treats gone from her mind banished by the more promising prospect of making a new friend.
Malen followed his daughterss gaze and recognised Tovar as the guardian of the baby ghost.He figure it would hurt to go and say hello, if the man was busy or didn't wish to be botherd they could make a hasty retreat. He began to walk towards Tovar with Kishi just a half step behind.
Oh well, Tovar thought grudgingly, shifting slightly and finishing off his sip of coffee. Startling 'kree!' noises aside, he was happy, he was content, he --
He recognized those people, is what.
Tovar straightened slightly in his chair, setting aside his coffee. Leith immediately seemed to catch sight of the approaching... they weren't quite strangers to Leith, but in some way it was much like meeting them for the first time. Extreme deja vu, and maybe a touch of recognition and the certainty that he knew them in some fashion, but...
The baby ghost made a hissing sound that wormed it's way through the back of Tovar's mind.
"Be nice," Tovar forewarned, standing slightly and immediately snatching a smile and pasting it across his face. "Hullo," he called out, lifting a hand in some semblence of a wave.
" Hi there what's your name I'm Kishi, what's the ghost's name, is it a boy or a girl can he play with me" The words explouded excitedly from Kishi mouth in a steady stream.
Malen sighed and smiled at Tovar " Forgive her, everyone and everything that moves is potential friend to her." He hoped they weren't bothering the other man too badly.
Maybe it was the caffine or the fact that the weather was nice, or both, but Tovar couldn't help but laugh a little rather than fidget and scowl slightly. In all honesty, the young man had made some rather impressive social improvements since his first child. Practice made perfect, he supposed...
"It's fine," he muttered, wafving off the other male's concerns. "This is Leith, Kishi. He's a boy and - and...I'm not sure if he can play with you or not." He glanced thoughtfully toward the ghost where it wiggled and shifted, clearly trying to get a better look at the newcomer. Leith was making little squeaky noises in the back of his head, but otherwise he remained suspiciously quiet.
Tovar just hoped he wouldn't start crying. Leith was exceptionally good at that much.
Remembering how afraid of her Zah had been when they first met Kishi stayed where she was not wanting to get too close and risk upsetting Leith. " His name is very pretty " She stated.
Relieved Malen relaxed and plopped down into a nearby chair. " Good to hear, congrats on leith's growth so far and did that book you were lookign for help you?" He inquired. Small talk came easy to Malen so he hoped he could keep the conversation interesting while Kishi got her curiosity satisfied.
Tovar smiled faintly, shrugging (moreso with one shoulder than the other). "That book in particular wasn't a whole lot of help, but...it gave me somewhere to start I suppose. Better than nothing." Small talk definitely wasn't Tovar's forte; he was only too happy to have someone else willing to direct the conversation. The last time he'd met someone as socially inept as himself... it hadn't really gone well, to be honest, and he didn't particularly want to repeat the experience any time soon.
Leith drifted his way to the edge of the table, peering over it suspiciously down toward Kishi. His little wispy arms shifted and roiled, the interior of the baby ghost rolling about itself in a distinctly fog-like manner. Just because he had a better thought process didn't mean his physical being had changed overly much...
"Sssssss..." Leith said, the noise stuck in the back of Tovar's head.
" Good to hear" Malen said nodding. He wondered of anyone had every gone to the library and walked away with something that wasn't at least a little useful , heck he wondered if anyone ever left without a book." how are you enjoying baby ghost stage?" he wasked wryly, he remembered all to well being the only person who could hear Kishi and how unsettleing it would be for her voice to ring in his head whenever she wished to voice an opinion.
Gently Kishi used her wings to create a small gust of air directed at Leith. Hopefully he wouldn't be frightened or angered by this action.
Tovar grimaced slightly despite himself. Oh, it was good to know that Leith trusted him enough to grow in the way he was but at the same time... "It's...interesting," he said at length. "--Oh, but where are my manners? Please, you should both sit. Here, we can...move to that table there." Before Malen could say something to the contrary, Tovar had retrieved his cup and picked Leith's wand up from the table. Unsurprisingly, Leith followed the motion of the stick closely - though not quickly enough to avoid the little gust of air brought about by Kishi's wings. The baby ghost wiggled, casting a sightless 'glance' in the little girl's direction. He made a slight 'huff!' noise that tangled in Tovar's head for a few seconds before fading.
Tovar cheerfully relocated his cup to the adjacent table (which, as intended, had more chairs available). He settled himself immediately in one of them, replacing the cup and Leith's wand on the table top. "There we go."
As Malen moved seats he nodded, given a chance Kishi would stay on herr feet twenty four seven, but she was pretty polite child and offered a seat she'd sit. He quickly thought up a new topic of conversation since each one seemed to last an exchange or so. "Pardon me if I missed it during out first meeting but what will Leith become when he manifests?" Turely he couldn't remember and he liked to know these things, for the most part he rememembered nearly every wand wisp or child ever seen by him or mentioned in passing.
"Nothing with wings" Kishi said somewhat sadly as she sat down. Although not having wings didn't mean he would be bad, after all Zah didn't have wings and he was fun, still winged things were always better.
Settling into his place on top of the new table, Leith wiggled his wisp excuse for arms as if to illustrate the point that he didn't need wings, thank you very much. Tovar smiled slightly despite himself, pausing to take a sip of what remained of his coffee before answering.
"No, nothing with wings," he murmured fondly to Kishi before readjusting his attention to Malen. "He will be -- or, technically is, I suppose -- a Kelpie. It's, er, a malevolent water faerie of sorts." If nothing else, he'd at least gotten a bit more comfortable about telling other guardians what sort of creature Leith was, particularly after meeting a few children whose original spirits were a little...dodgy...also.
"What about you, Kishi? I don't recall being told what you were." He could just be forgetting though - Tovar wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
Kishi smiled " I'm a succubus ,well half anyways dad says that it probably won't matter untill I'm older though." Kishi was still uncertian as to what a succubus was so she just had to take her father words as the truth.
Malen nodded " I read a book once fiction though, had a kelpie in it, mentioned something about horses that trick people and drown them. Something like that anways the main point of the book was the secrety society that had mastered the way to tame kelpies but only guys were allowed in and girl wanted and and " he shrugged trailing off.
A succubus, eh? Tovar knew what that was, with or without a book to look it up... He smiled faintly across at the little girl, sipping his coffee thoughtfully for a moment. It was difficult to imagine Kishi as the sort of succubus one always read about in books or stories. Sure, she had the wings and it was already obvious that once she was older she'd be devestatingly good looking, but...
But at the moment, she seemed far too sweet and innocent to do half the things succubi were said to be capable of.
Setting his cup down, he glanced to Malen. "Ah, really? Honestly, I hadn't heard much about kelpies before I got Leith. I mean, a bit here and there, and I knew they weren't...particularly nice, but otherwise I was pretty clueless."
" Oh and I'm part Navajo too" Kishi piped up suddenly remembering. " I get read lots of myths and storys becuase dad it's important to know about my heri " She paused and frowned "Heritage" She said slowly grinning with pride at finishing the word.
" I think a lot of guardians are and any of them not born on Earth where most of these myths seems to originate from are probably just as lost." Malen wondered why he hadn't ended up with a child more suited to his own culture's mythbase.
Leith wiggled slightly, wisping this way and that as if trying to concentrate on both ends of the conversation. The baby ghost's infantile 'kree's and 'graaaa's continued to bubble on through Tovar's sub-conscious, just out of mind enough that he could concentrate somewhat on what was being said by the other two. Leith flapped his stubby arms (albeit a little slowly, considering what he was made of) a little indignantly, but didn't seem overly annoyed at being but on the back burner. Apparently he derived enough interest from peering curiously at Kishi to not care over much.
Tovar nodded, smiling sharply at the little girl. "Navajo, eh? That's good that you're reading about your history - it's a good thing to know. Makes you feel important, right?" Chuckling, he sipped the last of his coffee before placing the empty cup on it's saucer and nudging it slightly off to one side.
"Personally," he said to Malen. "I think it's interesting. Sure, it's a little...daunting...having to find things about a species just because you suddenly have a child that is this or that, but...I don't know, it's a little exciting too, I suppose. I have to wonder what he'll look like," he murmured, glancing in Leith's direction (The baby ghost perked up at being acknowledged, empty 'eyes' swimming around to peer back at Tovar). "When he finally becomes a bit more, er, solid."
Kishi out of things to say and not interested in the adults conversation lay her head down on the table and yawned. All the nice warm smells coming from the cafe were making her tired which seemed silly to her since her daddy said that the stuff here made you awake.
Malen grinned "Oh well I'm sure he'll be deceptively charming looking one way or another." Despite thier varying species not all of which were pretty by nature, Malen had yet to see a Ghost of the past that didn't look at least mildly beautifull.
Tovar smiled faintly, shrugging with one shoulder. "Maybe," he murmured, casting Leith a fond glance whether he realized it or not. The baby ghost squirmed a little under the gaze, drifting closer to Kishi's head now that it was down on the table. Hmm, the ghostly infant mused almost audibly. Testily, one of those short stumpy, not-quite-solid arms reached out to in an attempt to poke the little girl's head. Bother, it didn't seem to work too well.
Chuckling, Tovar kept a protective hand near Leith's wand. While the baby ghost might not be able to affect too many completely solid things with his wispy body, Tovar had seen a baby ghost pick up a wand and hit something with it before and he definitely didn't Leith whacking on Kishi with it.
Kishi was oblivious to all of this, her mind had been dulled by the overwhelming smells and she merely yawned again.
Malen watched Leith with amusement " Be careful " he warned " If she sits up and yawns she could inhale you. " He doubted that was a possibility but one never knew and he really didn't want that sort of mess on his hands.
Leith squirmed his little arms in Malen's direction, as if to argue that 'he wasn't going to be inhaled!', and then promptly continued to poke at Kishi's dark hair. Apparently he didn't care if she noticed or not.
Tovar chuckled, turning the empty cup on it's saucer absent mindedly. "Well," he said at length, an eye wandering to his watch absently. "Perhaps we should be going, eh?" He glanced to Malen, offering his hand out over the table for a prefunctory shaking. That was the male thing to do, right? "I'm sure you both didn't come here to sit and chat with the two of us." --Not that...Leith did a whole lot of chatting.
Malen just rolled his eyes at Leith before looking at Tovar again." Well it was nice meeting you again and besides the line has cleared while we've been sitting here," Malen said reaching out to take the other mans hand. Malen was somewhat grateful for this little visit, it had tired his daughter out and given him a chance to get aquainted with another guardian better than he had been before.
"A pleasure," Tovar murmured, letting his hand fall away from Malen's as he stood, reaching for Leith's wand and, therefore, the baby ghost. "C'mon Leith, time to get home. No doubt Michael's got errands for us to run."
The baby ghost squirmed irritably, gurgling sharply in the back of Tovar's head. Nonetheless, he hadn't started crying so that was a good thing. Offering Malen and Kishi a last smile, Tovar tucked the wand into his satchel out of habit. Leith followed it a little comically, nestling himself in the empty bag like it was a carrier.
"See you later!" Tovar called, and then the two of them were off.
Malen watched the two leave before he scooped his sleepy child into his arms. He whispered softly to her so she would wake then carried her away. Deciding against coffee for either of them he turned and headed for home.
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:01 am
An Auspicious Beginning (to oral fixation)
Leith's Baby Quest August 28, 2006
"Why can't you just clean out another storage room, like with the unicorn?" Michael asked irritably even as he tromped down the stairs ahead of Tovar. He had the perfect place thought up despite his arguments. Tovar wouldn't like it, but... - well, Michael was well aware that they shared few of the same amusements.
"Because," Tovar snapped at his teacher's back and he scuttled down after him, the wand stuffed into his back pocket and the baby ghost trailing after him a little irritably. "It took almost two months before your damned house stopped trying to smash his with a wardrobe every morning! Furthermore," he continued, tone pitching up higher and higher - spiraling up like a bird on a wind thermal. "You have so much junk in this house, there's no where to PUT the stuff in the other store room, so either way you'll be making a new room and I'd rather not move a bunch of stuff that I don't have to."
Michael stopped at the bottom of the tight staircase, giving a quarter turn to look back at Tovar. "Has anyone ever told you that you're incredibly lazy, Tovar?"
"EXCUSE ME?!" the chestnut haired man screeched after Michael as the older man turned with a flair of his bathrobe's tails on around the corner of the stair case. "Where do you think you're going?!" he demanded, taking the last two stairs at the same time and chasing the mage around the corner.
"I'm making," Michael said, as he dug through his pockets. "Your desired room, Tovar." He stopped at the highest point of the wooden structure that held the stairs, rapping his knuckles on the short door there thoughtfully. Tovar knew for a fact that it was stuck, and had been for ages.
"You're not serious," Tovar dead panned. The wiggle of the other man's eyebrow was enough to tell him that yes; yes, Michael was quite serious. "That's just foul. Sticking him under the stairs?!"
Michael shrugged, pulling a slip of parchment from his pocket. ('Ah, there you are.') "There's a door here already," he explained as he uncapped a ballpoint pen, similarly drawn from his pocket, with his teeth and used it to scribble a series of runes on the facing of the parchment. "It's easier with a door."
Thunk. Tovar's forehead, wall. "And I'm the lazy one, am I?"
Michael pressed the parchment to the door, gripping the pen between his teeth. He tapped the parchment twice with his thumb and then pressed his knuckles on it for good measure before taking his hand away. The parchment stayed on the door. "Precisely."
"You don't make any sense, do you know that?"
"I know," Michael said, taking a half step back from the door. "It's part of my boyish charm. Now shut up so I can work." With an overwhelming sense of disparity, Tovar fell grudgingly silent.
Michael wiggled his fingers, his wiggled his bare toes and it wasn't long because Tovar was convinced he was just procrastinating. "Michael!" he snapped, leering angrily at the older man.
"Okay, okay. Christ, took you long enough." Chuckling, Michael made a short, sharp cutting movement with one hand. There was a sudden, tangible thickness to the air. Just as quickly it popped like a bubble with a pin taken to it, and the rune covered bit of parchment caught fire and was consumed so quickly it left only a faint trace of ash on the door. Tovar eyed the smudge distastefully.
Michael brushed off his hands - as if they were dirty - and stepped to the door. He attempted to shoulder it open, cursed, and stepped back so Tovar could give it a good kick. Apparently the door was still a little sticky. Once that had been done, however, it slid easily open on otherwise untroublesome hinges.
As expected, the New Room beyond the door was not particularly spectacular by way of decor. It was a decent size, a little small but not necessarily cramped, and far more than one would expect to find under the stairs. There was even a little window on the opposite end of it, and Tovar had to wonder if it actually went outside, and if it did if you could climb back through it.
"Nice," Tovar said in faint approval.
"Of course it is," returned Michael, retying his bathrobe. "Now, I'm going back to sleep."
"Thanks Michael," Tovar called after the man, receiving a dispassionate grunt in return as the mage clomped back down the short hall, twisted, and proceeded back up the stairs to his room. Shrugging, Tovar poked his head back into the empty, antique-white painted room. "Alright then," he murmured. "Time to get that junk moved in." 'That junk' being all the baby stuff he'd either collected from There or bought on his errand running, conveniently all in a relatively organized stack near the start of the staircase.
Tovar hadn't been expecting help, so dragging the pile out of the hall into the bedroom wasn't particularly bothersome. He only wished the same could be said for furniture assembly. Someone Up There really needed to figure out how to make assembly instructions easier to learn. It took a rocket scientist to put a crib together, Tovar decided as he glanced over the bits and bobs necessary to construct the damn thing.
Three hours and many curse words later, Tovar was beginning to think that even a rocket scientist was screwed in the long run. He eyed the crib stuffed into the corner of the room warily, hoping it wasn't going to fall down the moment he put something inside. To test the theory, he chucked a blanket and a few stuffed animals (the little black horse from Tamra included) inside. Luckily, it didn't fall.
"Hooray, no baby death. Hopefully."
The rest of the room was taken care of in a slightly ore timely fashion. A side table, a lamp, a mobile (which had seemed like a good idea at the time - damn clever salesmen), a rocking chair, a changing table and a few other bits and bobs were all it took to make Tovar feel a little more satisfied with the state of the room and a little more prepared for whenever Leith decided to get a little more solid. Leith, hovering about lazily, seemed to approve in some small way concerning the room. The infant screeched and purred in the back of Tovar's mind, and the fog-like structure of the infant wiggled this way and that as if inspecting the layout of the place critically.
Straightening, having plugged in the lamp, Tovar craned his head over to peer at the baby ghost. "You like it, then?"
"Kreeeurrrm," ghost baby Leith gurgled, stubby arms wafting idly up and down.
Tovar felt a little warmth in the pit of his stomach; a sort of parental satisfaction and pride that a few months ago had not only been utterly foreign, but an almost laughable concept in his opinion. Even then he was a little clueless as to what the feeling actually was but...well, it was the feeling that counted, not the name of if or the recognition there of. "Good," he murmured, smiling at the green colored blanket tucked into the crib. "I'm glad."
Absently, he pulled the wand from his back pocket. Leith seemed happy enough to let him keep it in his pocket - in all honesty, the baby ghost hadn't shown much interest in the wand save for an instinctual sort of forced association with the object. He certainly hadn't liked it enough to go whacking people with it, like Aricia had - a fact which Tovar found simultaneously relieving and worrisome all at once. Maybe something was wrong with it, he considered as he eyed the slightly damp wand thoughtfully. Or maybe something was wrong with Leith. He glanced to the misty form of the baby ghost.
"You want to try it out?" he asked the infant, motioning to the crib with his free hand.
The baby squirmed mid air, making a somewhat exasperated noise in Tovar's head. He grinned sharply despite himself. Nonetheless, Leith drifted down into the depth of the crib, settling his ghostly form over the blankets and plush animals with an air of wariness. Chuckling, Tovar stooped and lay the wand inside. Disinterest or no, Leith couldn't seem to wander far from it. Bent over slightly, Tovar crossed his arms on the edge of the crib and settled his chin on his crossed wrists.
"There," he laughed. "Looks charming, eh? You almost match that blanket, you know."
Leith gurgled, his somewhat translucent form smothering the little black pony Tamra had given Tovar weeks before. Laughing, Tovar closed his eyes briefly to press his hand over them. Malevolent fae creatures or no, babies were babies he supposed.
Somewhere upstairs, he heard the taps turn on suddenly. Michael must be taking a bath. -That was what he assumed, anyway, until he heard the mage beginning to curse adamantly. Alright, not a bath. Frowning, Tovar let his hand fall away from his eyes as he glanced up to the ceiling. There was a long pause, and slowly the sound of running water slackened. Michael turning all the taps off, no doubt. Rolling his eyes, Tovar looked back down into the crib. "Must have done something wrong with his spell work or -- nnghk."
The large grey eyes of the infant peered back up at him, the extremely solid infant's slightly sharp teeth working at one of the legs off the little stuffed black pony. Leith gurgled pleasantly, and Tovar was startled to realize the sound wasn't coming from between his own two ears.
"Oh," he squeaked. "I should stop wondering about the taps, shouldn't I? You seem to have a track record with them."
Leith kicked his legs approvingly against the crib's mattress and continued gnawing on the stuffed animal's leg.
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Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:57 pm
Cookies and Caffine
Leith and Kishi March 06, 2007
Tovar stuffed the peanut butter cookie into the infant's hands and waited warily, eying the baby sideways as his other hand hovered over the cup of coffee he'd ordered. Leith sniffled and continued to whine and stutter and little but, eventually and rather suddenly when he actually did, he stuffed the cookie into his sharp-tooth filled mouth and began chomping at it, leaving peanut butter cookie crumbs all over the table.
Tovar sighed, taking a hesitant sip of his coffee. Well, that had worked fairly well. Up until that point, Leith had been throwing an absolute fit all over the outdoor front porch of the little Barton coffee shop. He'd done everything he could think of - humming, singing a little to him, bouncing him up and down.
Cookies though, cookies apparently worked.
"Well," Tovar said at length, setting down his cup and looking at Leith as the baby continued to gnaw at the corner of the cookie. "That wasn't too bad -- don't coke."
Leith ignored him, as babies are prone to do.
Malen needed out of the HQ he was getting ansty and agitated when cooped up for more then short periods of time. After emerging from the hell that was the in between he couldn't spend to long in his home without getting paranoid that it would happen all over again. So in addition to getting out of the house he'd decided that sweets and coffee were needed.
As they approached the coffee shop Kishi was watching the world with icey gray suspicious eyes. She was about to growl at someone walking a bit to close behidn her when she got that feeling, the same oen she'd had upon meeting Taylor and his crazy sister in the craft store. There was another ghost child nearby but it's energy had changed. Slowly her eyes roamed the area untill they found a familiar face.
She did not recognise the boy with the man but Kishi waved at a guardian whom she vaughly remembered havign seen before.
Glancing up over the rim of his coffee cup, Tovar was somewhat surprised to catch sight of a familiar pair of faces. He smiled, slightly, setting his cup down on the small circular cafe table, leaving a ring of coffee on his napkin. Leith shot a glance in Kishi's direction but continued to devour his cookie, taking little chomps out of it with a dogged sense of determination.
Tovar's smile widened faintly. "Fancy seeing you two here again," he called cheerfully, waving back at Kishi good naturedly. "What are you doing here this afternoon?"
If nothing else, this whole parenthood experience had given Tovar enough self assurance to actually talk to people nowadays. Who would've thought a couple of kids could make a chatterbox out of an introvert like Tovar.
Leith screeched a little around his cookie, frowning at the other child.
" Avoiding the house" Malen said tone neutral, still he smiled at the other man. Company would be nice and even if he seemd a bit cranky kishi would have a baby to fawn over. He walked over to Tovar and dragged a set to the table. " I hope you don't mind."
Kishi frowned back at Leith " Be nice you liked me last time.. I think" kishi emeory was hazy about thier last meeting. she knew the boy before her had been only a baby ghost and that she herself had been younger. Still she was certain nothign bad had happened.
"No problem - I've already done the crossword puzzle and was just about to run into a lapse of entertainment." Well, half done the crossword puzzle anyway. 42-Down, three letters, 'Wine adjective' and Tovar was stucker than a hiker in quicksand. Glancing toward Kishi, he quickly nudged Leith's highchair a little to the side and made sure the infant was fully concentrating on his cookie before he saw fit to forewarn the little girl. "Careful, he's got teeth already and, uh, likes to use them. On hands."
Leith peeled back his lips a little as if to illustrate the point, showcasing a nice row of nasty incisors as he chomped his way through the last of the cookie.
"He means well," Tovar assured them with a sigh, even if he wasn't entirely sure whether he was telling the truth or not...
Kishi eyed Leith warily but smiled none the less." I can bite back and I have a stronger jaw..maybe." If she had been told what Leith was in the past she didn't remember it. It was possible he was something with tremendous jaw power. " I still bite back."
Malen looked at Tovar and just shook his head " At least they've both had their shots yes?" He was glad that he wasn't completely interrupting the other guardian.
Tovar grinned a little crookedly. "Right; we've got at least that going for us." He chuckled, sipping off the last of his coffee, setting the cup down on the corner of the folded up newspaper. It left a damp ring, the newspaper print congealing into a soggy pool of black ink and recycled paper.
Leith kicked his legs absently, grinding his teeth a little obnoxiously as he wiggled around in the cafe supplied high chair. Tovar quickly bent and snatched a little eyeless black stuffed pony from the satchel at the foot of his chair. He set the pony down in Leith's reach, the infant instantly snapping up the toy and stuffing it's yarn-maned neck into his mouth. Tovar winced.
"So, what have you two been up two since we saw you last?"
Malen goggled at Leith for a moment " Is there anything he won't put in his mouth?"
He thought for a moment on the other man's question." Been training mostly, visiting a few old friends, trying to avoid the small dragon war taking place due to my own stupidity" He smiled a bit at that.
" Del has dragons from d-corp a big one and a two little ones, they don't exactly get along." Kishi explained.
The grin on his face flit lightly over his face, from one corner of Tovar's mouth to the other: flicking in and out in a way that clearly suggested he was trying not to break out into (manly) giggles and a full on grin. "Not much," he told Malen. "Kiddo doesn't like vegetables too much though, mashed, smashed, or pureed."
The dragon part, though, he couldn't fight the grin off on that one. Or the laugh. Tovar turned the cup in his hands, grinning hard from ear to ear. "My other kid, Etain, he's just got his dragon. Real pretty gold. Unfortunately, the poor kid's half terrified of the dragon - would rather spend time with his goldfish and bowl than with the dragon; he's convinced it's going to eat his hand off."
Leith snorted and gurgled around the neck of the stuffed horse as if to say 'My brother is a giant baby,' or something along those lines.
" I think it's a universal law that kids hate veggies just to annoy parents." Either that or it was some deep seated memory passed from parent to child about not eating them when they were children.
" Del loves Echo who happens to be a bronze but looks gold because he's a baby. Plus she's got two of those mini's from the fund raiser. All together that makes three dragons, one dolphin and something thats either a cat or a dog or both sharing one bedroom. I'm surprised they all come out alive each day." He grinned at Tovar " I hope he gets over the dragon fear before the grow at that point the thing will probably be bigger than he is. What is Etain if you don't mind my asking?"
Kishi just smiled at Leith and moved the tip of her wand towards him. at least if he attacked it he couldn't do much damage. She wanted to get a reaction from him.
"He's a unicorn," Tovar explained, moving the cup from off the used newspaper so he could fold the paper up into quarters. A nervous compulsion. Maybe. "Ah, I'm not...entirely sure how they got a hold of the DNA in question, but frankly," - he glanced at Malen, grinning sheepishly - "I'm not sure I want to know."
Leith eyes the approaching wand tip with distaste, continuing to nibble on the stuffed pony's exterior. He growled, a low pitched noise that was predominantly absorbed by the pony in question.
" You're probably right, all things considered their sketchy practices in finding guardians." Malen muttered thinking back into how he'd been roped into taking in Del.
Kishi just smirked and went to touch the tip of her want to the Pony.
Leith apparently wasn't having any of this 'poking' thing. Suffice to say, it seemed he was getting a little irritated having his pony/chewtoy's personal space bubble violated in such a fashion. With a muffled screech - he was, after all, still chomping away at the stuffed animal's neck -, Leith's chubby little baby fingers snapped out, snatching at the end of Kishi's wand, clutching it tightly and tugging at it stubbornly.
"Ah, Leith!" Tovar reached forward, carefully attempting to pry the infant's fingers from around the little girl's wand.
" It's ok it's obsidian he can't hurt it" Kishi said. Her tone was filled with dejection, although she loved babies and toddlers Leith was proving to be the one child she couldn't make a connection with. She supposed it was only natural though. " Plus I'm bugging him so it's not his fault." When Leith chose to let go she'd leave him alone from then on, no point in irritating him more.
Tovar smiled briefly, his expression a little sad. "It's alright, it's not your fault. He's just irritable, aren't you Leith?" The infant gurgled a little and then finally released the girl's wand, his chubby little fingers curling back over his stuffed toy.
"See? I think he's just grumpy about being in the high chair so long to be honest." Tovar hesitated, glancing toward Malen apprehensively before directing his attention back to Kishi. "You know, there's a nice little courtyard with a lot of grass just across the street there," he said, thumbing over in the general direction of the pavilion. "Maybe if your dad agreed, we could go over there so you two could play huh?"
Kishi shrugged "We could try, I think he just doesn't like me." Again she was disconcerted by the thought but she knew that it was impossible for her to become friends with all the others. Leith was simply going to be one of the other children she would know of but not consider herself close to. Considering the amount of babies she'd gotten along with it was probably good for her ego to be reminded that she wasn't a baby magician or something.
Malen nodded in response to Tovar " We can give it a try for sure."
With a nod, Tovar rose to his feet and gathered his things. "Alright then - hear that, Leith? You finally get out of that chair."
The infant nibbled on his toy, peering up at Tovar curiously. Oh, they were moving now? He shot Kishi a sidelong glance over the yarn mane of the stuffed pony, features scrunching a little.
Tovar tugged the infant from out of the high chair, nestling him somewhat awkwardly on his hip. "Alright then, to...across the street," he declared cheerfully. The caffine was kicking in.
Taking leave of the cafe, making sure not to out distance Malen and Kishi, Tovar cut across the street toward the little park and pavilion in question. He tromped a good distance away from the sidewalk and then plopped Leith down in the grass.
To be continued...?
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Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:58 pm
The Endless Buffet
On The Subject Of Eating Dandelions March 06, 2007
"See, it's like...a giant buffet table," Etain explained patiently as he snapped two more dandelions up out the grass, passing one to his baby brother. The unicorn boy flicked his ears impassively, glanced over his shoulder to where Tovar was sitting nose-deep in a book a few yards away.
Leith sniffed the dandelion, handling it clumsily in his chubby little fingers before taking a big ole' bite out of it, crunching and ripping the yellow head of the flower off with his sharp teeth. He made a distinct, distasteful expression at the other boy but continued to chew at the flower.
The two boys were sitting in the tall grass of the wild grown public greenhouse. For a boy who ate rosemary on his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches it was a dream come true. For Leith...
Not so much.
But he was willing to put up with eating dandelions and grass and whatever else Etain picked out of the ground when no one was looking if it meant not having to sit with Tovar all day. Not like Etain had much choice in the matter - it was either hanging out with his little brother or hanging out with the gold pet dragon and, really, given the options Etain figured Leith's teeth were easier to avoid.
Besides, Watson the Dragon didn't seem to mind sunning herself on the bench next to Tovar.
"...Look, brat! A leaf..and...foliage..growing...place...!" Came Thae's faux-excited but still unsure voice, followed shortly by the pleased squeal. A rather loud...pleased squeal. "Here, you can go with your big brother! Thae needs to go run and do something real fast!" Shortly after the words were spoken, The group came around the corner; the red-headed doppleganger, a tall dark skinned, white haired Drow with sunglasses, and a stroller that contained one very excited looking deer anthro, and a not-so-excited albino deer anthro.
Of course, the redhead left quickly.
That left the Drow with the stroller of brats. Prince, the white-spotted brown one, was pointing at the two boys and screaming something in happy babytalk, occassionally glancing back at his current watch. Sighing, the taller boy turned towards the two boys and...dragon?, heading over to them.
"...Mey join?" He asked them quietly, his heavilly accented voice doing nothing for his still poor english skills. Meanwhile, Prince was making grabbyhands for the other little boy, his little pink tongue stuck out in determination.
Artemis looked over at the group of boys. To join or not to join... ikiru ka shinu ka sore ga mondaida... Art laughed to herself. She wondered what in the world they were up to... She swept one of her curls behind her ear and into her bow, before losing balance and falling from behind a random shrub.
This was absolutely delightful, wasn't it? Christine grinned, wiggling her toes in the mud she'd found. She'd wandered in here due to sheer boredom while waiting for her Dad to finish up what he was doing. Granted...he was no where near here, that she knew of, so she'd taken the time to walk here. Only now she noticed the voices and looked up curiously, blinking and moving towards them sneakily. She doubted she was supposed to be here.
At the sounds of squealing, something within the small grove of tulips stirred. Really, he should have been more obvious what with the black hair and purple bangs, but then again, he'd been laying in the bright flowers up until now. His attention leaving his experiment for a moment, the young Mind Flayer tilted his head back in attempt to find the source of this noise, his eerie yellow eyes scanning the greenhouse's lush green surface. Near his knees, a grasshopper lay squirming, its great hind legs missing. Not quite missing, per-say, but lost in the soil and perching delicately between the toddler's pinky and thumb. It had come off so easily- much easier than any of his toys. And he hadn't felt nearly as guilty about it, even when the thing began to... leak. Well, he didn't know what it was. All he knew was that it only gushed when he had pulled of one of those legs. It had made a similar sound as the dear baby -in his opinion- before he'd taken the second.
Now he could see them- other children quite possibly his age. Good. This was getting a little boring, even though he'd been planning to make the little insect open its wings for him so he could look them over. The leg was pocketed for later, and his small hands reached out to wipe their fingers clean on the tulip stems. With a soft coo to the grasshopper, Xerksis nudged the maimed thing with his knuckles as if expecting it to go about its business before pushing to his knees. Crawling, he approached the group, staying to the tulip patch until he had to duck into a tall collection of sunflowers. That dark one- he had just walked up. What were the two... others to respond with? And why weren't they oozing like the grasshopper? Maybe the one in the carriage...?
"Holy crap," said Etain, looking around. His expression reflected a vaguely 'hand caught in the cookie jar' feeling. He quickly dusted the grass off his hands, brushed down Leith's front and took away the dandelion stem. Where the heck had all these kids come from suddenly? He cleared his throat and threw the stem in some nearby bushes, looking shifty and really hoping Leith would hurry up and swallow what he was chewing before the other kids started to ask why he was feeding his baby brother flowers.
Leith looked up, tongue lolling and dandelion bits stuck to it. He wobbled a little in his snap-up onesie jammies, looking over his shoulder at the stroller and the...weird things inside in. He sniffed - they smelled weird, hairy like the stray dog that had been in the garden. Though...these kind of smelled a little bit better. Kind of. Like food. Maybe. Leith bared his teeth, sharp rows of little points glinting in the fake 'natural' sunlight.
Etain clapped his hand over the infant's mouth. "Uh, hi," he said, glancing over the gathered children. "Are those deer? Where're you keeping them in a stroller?" Just because Etain was used to seeing kids with weird animal ears and stuff didn't mean he was used to seeing animals wrapped up in blankets and making baby sounds. Talk about strange.
"Echk." Zasalamel replied when greeted, his purple eyes focusing curiously on the unicorn boy. There sure were some strange ones around! When questioned, he only shrugged. "Siyo, Deer. Matron put 'hem in." He really didn't have any idea why. It was just something Anethae did...and he never really got into he habit of questioning her. Leaning down, the tall kid took the more eager of the two out, setting the spotted brat down in the grassy floor.
He hadn't seen the little girl fall into the bushes, but he heard it. The Drow's purple eyes were dragged around the place, looking around at the various, almost sneaking sounds. His hand moved to rest against the hilt of the wooden sword that dangled from his belt. It was the only weapon Thae permitted him to have right now, and he used it whenever he could...like now. It made him feel better somehow, to feel the hilt in his hand.
Still, he turned his attention back towards the unicorn and the fanged child.
"Beybee eet lyke Oak." The Drow commented idly. "Weeds." He finished, as if it explained everything.
Prince, however, now free from his section of the stroller, hat around the grass with his hard black hands...then stared at the black haired infant in front of him. His disproportionate ears rose and he tilted his head, his hand pulling at the grasses.
Out of nowhere, a fistfull of grass was thrown at the black haired infant.
What the heck was she looking at here? Christine stared with a mixture of awe and disbelief at the...weird bunch of people on the other side of her protective shrub. Those were deer...and that person had oddly colored skin. And she was getting a bit weirded out. But heh, they were throwing grass. She loved throwing grass. She shifted a bit, contemplating at least getting closer, to see what on earth they were.
Yes. She would. Frowning, she shuffled along behind the greenery, trying to keep out of sight. She wasn't quite sure why. Maybe they weren't too nice? She couldn't tell. Honestly...they WERE throwing stuff. And what if they didn't want her to see them? She'd seen too many movies to know that didn't always go well. But she was curious, and they didn't seem so bad from a distance.
Artemis was glad no one saw that brilliant display of grace as she rolled herself over onto her stomic. So maybe walking on the uneven grass wasn't a good idea for now. She began to crawl along the blades of grass twords the people sitting there.
She made a loud coo sound as she had as a baby, although as a toddler she had at least learned some minor speach. She had hoped to gain someone's attention, for she adored being payed attention to. Mind if they didn't, she had a few tricks up her sleeves that would make them look at her at least.
Oh, it was being pulled free of the container! It was, IT WAS.... not oozing. A moment of puzzlement ran through the male toddler's mind as he pondered just why the furry something would be making such hideous noises. Granted, he had been making them most of his infant-hood, but only when he was unaccompanied. Was that wh--
It was hard for one with even half a brain to scrape by a creature that thrived on them, even if it was a reborn and juvenile Gaian. Thought of his own ceased as Christine stepped within his radius of awareness, and Xerksis turned his head, searching for the female that hid in the foliage nearby. Had she spotted him? It would seem not. Taking a step away from the grown-up for his own comfort, he returned his sight to the small group. Now there was a little girl, whose curly black hair seemed awfully familiar to him, crawling towards the group. Well! He certainly wasn't going to be left out! Between the children, the stranger of a grown-up, and his sleeping guardian, he would choose the one which he believed would be best of company for him.
First, the girl, who still rolled about in the grass as if her legs didn't work. Not that he was very good at it either. Xerksis stepped free of the sunflowers, toddling on semi-stable legs. He wore no shoes, but his purple socks picked up whatever moisture was clinging to the grass. His small pants were rolled up over his knees as if in some attempt to keep them clean and, thus far, it was working, along with the Captain Planet shirt some unfortunate soul had managed to wrestle on him that morning. Now that it was there, it could stay, but lately the boy just had to be difficult about something.
Approaching Artemis, he nudged into her side with his knee as he attempted to walk alongside her crawling, grunting softly in a demand of attention. He was rather close to toppling over.
Etain watched the two deer things warily, clearly ready to snatch Leith out of reach in case on of them went suddenly rabid and tried to eat his little brother's face off or something. Slowly, the blond's attention flicked back to the dark skinned boy. "Uh, yeah. Weeds. Doesn't like 'em much," he explained sheepishly, quirking an awkward and feeble grin.
Leith let out an unholy screech as the fistful of grass hit him square in the face. It was a loud, ear-piercing yowl that died just as quickly as it had occurred, leaving the infant rather blank faced and clearly rather confused and offended that about having grass thrown at him.
At length, his chubby cheeks expanding as he held his breath in for a few seconds, Leith turned his face away from Prince, scowling at the tall stems of the flowers in the other direction. 'I'm ignoring you now,' the expression and body language stated clearly. The infant's poor mood lifted suddenly though as he caught sight of two other children toddling (or crawling) over in their direction. He raised both his hands, shaking them like fists in the direction of both Xerksis and Artemis.
Artemis shot a look at Xerk. Why was he attempting to make her fall over? Honestly... she crawled in such a way to give space between them. Looking foreword she saw the other shild wave. She smiled, sat and waved back before returning to crawling.
Maybe today would be fairly interesting after all.
To be continued...?
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:44 pm
Duck Hunt
Meeting Taylor March 14, 2007
It was an unusually warm day, considering the season. Not, that it was by any means hot outside, but it'd been so cold lately that 50 degrees seemed like a blessing. People on the streets unzipped their coats, and took off their gloves, giving the blue sky grateful glances. Instead of rushing, head down against the wind, people were walking, even smiling.
Savius, who had been going stir crazy in the recent cold, was only too happy to take advantage of a change in the weather. He wasn't an indoor bird, and if the sun was going to offer a little heat, well, he was going to take advantage of it. He was going to breathe in the rays and walk in the street.
He bundled up little Taylor (because, it was chilly, none-the-less), and headed out of doors. Taylor had been fussy lately, but whatever was bothering him, it wasn't something he had the words to articulate. As Savius walked down the street, with the gryphling sitting on his shoulders, Taylor wistled to the birds, and seemed to perk up a little. A relief, to here the child giggling.
They reached Savius's destination quickly, and the lanky, winged teen swung his younger brother down from his perch and set him down gently. It was a small lake, really more of a pond, with a few little streams feeding into it. But there were benches to sit on, and a few ducks who were stupid, or too well fed, to search for a warmer climate.
Savius had brought bread in hopes of contributing to the well fed argument. Besides, he'd seen it in pictures. Even if his inclination was to catch and eat the ducks, he'd decided that it was more important to have one of those bonding experiances with Taylor.
He'd eat the ducks later, after the bread made them trust him.
"Michael's going to have a fit," Tovar informed Leith patiently as he set in infant down in the grass. "Sent us out to go shopping and you and your brother just absolutely must go play in the park."
It's not like Michael had needed anything incredibly important anyway. The man was locked up in his room with the mother of all head colds, too busy being irritable and irrational to pay mind to anyone else. If Tovar took a little longer getting rosemary to grind up and the skin of a snake (seriously, what kind of crap was the man planning on concocting?), Michael wouldn't be the wiser.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Tovar cleared his throat uncomfortably, looked across the grass toward where Etain has already loped off dig up dirt in the thawing, rather dead, flower beds that speckled the edge of the lake. Leith wiggled on the grass, shooting him an expectant glance before his goldfish-sized attention span wandered and settled on the lake water.
Hmm.
Savius had a loaf of french bread on his lap, and a whistling boy clinging firmly to one of his hands. Ducks were starting to grow closer, greed fighting caution. Savius threw off some pretty strong predator vibes, and even if most people missed that, animals rarely did. At the same time, he was person shaped, and he had bread. This was usually a good sign.
Contimplating how best to get the ducks to take his offering, he pulled off a chunk and handed it to Taylor.
"Go on, Zombie. Give it to the ducks." He pulled his hand free, and pushed the boy gently toward the water, until the young boy took a few wary steps.
He noticed the unicorn boy out of the corner of his eye then, and glanced up, throwing Tovar one of his lazy, unconcerned smiles. "Do they want to feed ducks? I've got lots of bread..."
And they sure as hell aren't going to take it from me, he added, mentally.
Taylor, meanwhile, was talking to the ducks. Duck language was a lot simpler than human language, in fact, all bird languages were. They didn't have a lot messy, imbetween words. Right now, they were saying mostly 'food' but also 'predator' and 'give'.
He replied with a reassuring quack of 'no predator' and 'food', as he toddled unsteadily toward the water. He didn't like this walking thing. Crawling made so much more sense. The ducks gathered closer to him, as he left the company of his brother, but stayed in the water.
Glancing up at the other park goers, Tovar offered Savius a quick, shy smile. "Etain might be interested, but Leith's probably more keen on stuffing it in his own mouth, aren't you?"
Leith pumped his fists up and down in the air, wiggling out from between Tovar's feet and beginning to make his hamfisted away through the dry wintered grass. Tovar kept on eye on him, making sure he didn't stray too close to the glorified-pond, twitching his attention aside to call over Etain.
The unicorn boy floundered out of the reeds, a jumble of green cover alls looped around his waist and a too-bright yellow long sleeved shirt. He loped over, crow hopping over his crawling baby brother as he went, skidding to a halt beside Tovar. He glanced at Savius' feet, didn't raise his eyes further.
Just in case.
"What's goin' on?" he chirped, eyes straying to the younger boy communing with the ducks.
"Do you want to give the ducks some bread? They've offered to share."
Etain glanced at the loaf of bread the other boy held. At length, he shrugged. "Sure, why not."
Tovar nodded. "Take your brother with you - don't let him fall in the water."
"Cute little brats you've got." Coming from Savius, it was a compliment, even if it didn't sound much like one. He pulled off a large chunk of french bread, and held it out toward the unicorn boy, his expression falling into one of idle interest. Three brats tended to be more entertaining than one.
And he wouldn't mind having someone closer to his own age, even if that person was non-Kin. Savius liked people. He just... didn't identify with them much.
"Zombie-" Reaching out with one of his long legs, he nudged Taylor with a toe, sending the ducks backpeddling and earning himself a frown from the quacking child. "Say hi."
The retreat of the ducks bothered him a bit. As much as he tried to reassure them that Savius wasn't a predator, they wouldn't listen. He wanted to pet their soft feathers, make friends, but his brother was preventing him.
"You go." He scolded, pointing toward the far end of the bench, further from the ducks.
And now there were other kids? He looked toward them, not quite trusting. But he was an obedient child. "Hi."
The taller one had something sparkly on his head, and that was interesting. Reaching up toward it, he made grabbing motions with his hands. "Give?"
He shot his little brother a sidelong glance before, shrugging, he took the lump of bread offered by out by the older boy. 'Not that much older,' he thought a little stubbornly, letting his eyes roll over Savius' face, squinting slightly. The startled, backpeddling ducks made him shift, glance over quickly. "I think yer scarin' them," Etain observed, grinning a little crookedly. "Just a little."
Near his feet, Leith eyed the new, darker skinned boy thoughtfully. He was plucking up the dry grass with his chubby little baby fingers, letting it fall through the cracks between them and get all over his footie-d baby clothes. Leith wrinkled his nose absently at Taylor, smelling the air with a great huff of his narrow little chest.
Smelled like bird. And something to watch carefully to make sure it didn't catch you in the throat... Leith rubbed his neck with his grassy hands, making garbled baby noises as Taylor introduced himself.
Similarly, Etain stuck out his hand toward Taylor, stooping a little in the process to catch the younger boy's hand, shaking it fervently. "Hey, little fella." He released Taylor's hand relatively quickly, fingers skirting up to brush against his horn. Give it? "It don't come off too easy. Can't just be giving it away."
Between the irritated look that Taylor was giving him, and the more gentle glance of the unicorn, Savius was getting plenty of pressure to get out of the way. With a shrug he stood, leaving the bread on the bench, and moved a reasonable distance from the water. He stayed close enough that he could reach one of the kids quickly, just in case. Not that he didn't trust the Zombie to take care of himself, but he didn't even know the other brats. Cute, though, for what little that meant.
Taylor, meanwhile, was trying not to pout. While he couldn't understand Etain, he was able to pick up the general tone of the words, and figure out that he was not going to get the shiny in question today. Etain moved down a bit in his estimation at that, but there was still the younger boy, and the ducks.
Speaking of ducks, they were returning now, and coming out of the water, as they'd been reluctant to do when his brother was still near by. Quacking messages of safety, he reached out his bread to a pretty brown one, and petted it carefully as it took the bread from his hand.
"You pet?" He asked the younger boy, stroaking the duck in demonstration. "Good. Soft."
A glance at the older boy, who he was a bit more relucatant to share with, now. "You too. She stay."
Leith hamfistedly imitated the other boy's movements, crawling closed before plopping down directly next to Taylor and patting the duck in question rather firmly on the back. Probably not quite as gently done as one would have preferred, but at least he wasn't trying to pull the slick water-proof feathers out of the duck's wings or something.
That was something, right?
The bread was a little dry under Etain's hands, but he tore off a thick clump of it anyway, squatting down and crabwalking a little awkwardly closer to both the younger boys and the duck. He held the bit of bread between two fingers, offering it with his arm outstretched to the water fowl. "Never had ducks this friendly," he noted absently, casting a quick backward glance to Savius from the corner of his eye. "They like bread, but never had one let us pet it." He quickly dropped the lump of bread before his fingers could get snatched when the duck bit out, gobbling up the bread hungrily. Etain dusted his hands off a little self-consciously, looking to Leith.
"H-hey, be nice," he muttered, catching the infants hands and guiding them into a soft stroking motion over the back of the duck rather than the slightly obnoxious pat-pat-patting Leith had previously been entertaining himself with.
The duck squacked at the rough handling, but, with bread being offered along with a correction of the infant's touch, it found more reason to stay than to leave. Besides which, allowing itself to be touched seemed to be providing it with exclusive attention, as all three children failed to share with the other ducks that were pressing in more closely.
"Got ask. Got say safe." Taylor explained, in his choppy, toddlerish english. The words themselves were clear enough, his skill at mimicry making them clear, but he had yet to fullly grasp proper structure. So words were simply pressed into service, without elegance. As he spoke, he began throwing bread to the other half dozen ducks that had gathered around the children, loudly demanding their share in the spoils.
Curious, he took a bite of the bread himself, and frowned as he chewed at it. Without the stuff that 'rain put on it to make it sweet, it didn't taste that good. "Why bread? Not good. Give good. Ham. Icecream."
For his part, Savius stood, still keeping a watchful eye on the brats. He closed the distance between himself and the other children's apparent guardian, standing within talking distance, but leaving a rather excessive amount of personal space for the two of them.
"So, they yours?"
Etain grinned a little askance at the other boy, eyebrows shooting up into his pale and curly bangs. He sure had a whole lot of them - the hair all over the place, wild and looking tangled and unbrushed, whether or not that was the actual case. Curly hair, ringlets like that, had the tendency to look out of control no matter what the situation, particularly on a rough and tumble little boy. "I don't think ducks eat meat," he remarked, pulling of great chunks of bread and chucking them away from themselves, trying to keep them from getting over run by the hungry mob of water fowl. "Dunno 'bout ice cream, though."
Leith squawked as a second duck decided to move in closer, walking all over the infant's lap and clacking it's beak demandingly. Shrieking, Leith waved his chubby arms, hands tightened into indignant fists. It was siting on him!
Meanwhile, Tovar let his attention skim from the three boys to Taylor's comrade, giving Savius a quick once over. He squirmed a little bit on the bench, slightly awkward and a little uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess you could say so. More mine than anyone elses leastwise. -He yours?" He nodded at Taylor.
To be continued...?
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Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:08 pm
"Son of a bi---"
Leith's Toddler Quest June 7, 2008
“You know, he’s going to get splinters one day,” Michael remarked flippantly over the remnants of breakfast, his heels hooked on the cross bar of one of the kitchen chairs, his elbows on the edge of the table.
Tovar winced as he used both hands to pry Leith’s teeth from around the table leg. He made a point to keep his fingers out of the way of the infant’s teeth, more than happy to make due with the ten or twenty nicks and nips he’d already received the benefit of over the past few days. He was running out of band-aids. “I know, I know,” he snapped as he lifted Leith off the floor by the underarms.
Leith squirmed and kicked his feet in protest, gnashing his teeth. He made a terrible noise somewhere between a shriek and a growl. Tovar stuffed him unceremoniously in the battered high chair at the end of the table, confident that at least there he couldn’t do anything more dangerous than run rivets into the plastic with his sharp little teeth.
“Maybe you should find him something he like to eat other than the table,” Michael suggested as he pushed his leftover eggs around with a fork. “And your fingers.”
“And me,” Etain piped up, skimming a wide circle around the napping dragon occupying the corner of the room and popping up nearly on top of Michael (the older man hissed at him, going stiff through the shoulder and elbow) and snagging his plate out from under the tines of the fork.
Etain gave him a pointed look until, muttering, Michael dropped the fork on the plate. Nodding in approval, the unicorn retraced his path around the dragon and edged the dirt dish into the kitchen sink.
Tovar flapped his hands ineffectually at the both of them. “But he’s supposed to eat carrots and peas and—“
“Jesus Christ, are you fuc—“
“Language!” Tovar snapped, knee-jerk automatic, eyes flashing dangerously.
“--…freaking,” Michael allowed, momentarily cowed. “Kidding me? With those teeth?! That kid’s going to chew your fingers off before he’s going to willingly swallow carrots and peas. Granted,” Michael mused, a sharp grin tugging viciously at the corners of his mouth. “You technically are part of his natural food chain.”
“Nuture over nature – I thought we discussed this.”
“Yes well, if you hadn’t noticed, he’s being nutured right into chomping on your fingers. For God’s sake, give the dam—“
“Language!”
“--Darn kid a slab of beef and see if that doesn’t keep him from chewing on the rest of us.”
Tovar wobbled at the end of the table, gathering dishes in the uncertain pause. He eyed Leith warily as the infant put teeth marks in the plastic tray in front of him. “I’ll look into it.”
--
Etain had his crayons and a large sheet of paper spread out in easy reach on the kitchen table. He was, in fact, sitting on the table himself, occasionally getting up and relocating to the other side so he could scrawl a few more lines of yellow or orange on the paper.
“All set?” Tovar asked, rolling up his sleeves.
From his post on the tabletop, Etain gave him a mock salute and held up the paper. He’d drawn little pictures at the top of a number of columns Tovar had drawn out for him. Included in the list was a crayon drawing of a ball of fluff which vaguely resembled a sheep, an orange smudge representing a carrot, green dots for peas, bits of yellow corn, a hamburger (some part of Etain apparently refused to acknowledge the idea that hamburgers came from cows), a goldfish (though Tovar had carefully and quietly explained to Etain that they weren’t feeding Leith that kind of fish after the unicorn had thrown a shrieking fit: ‘What if he wants to eat Percy next?!’), and a few strips of bacon.
“Ready!” Etain chirped. He looked at Leith who was kicking away in his high chair, his chubby hands intermittently balling into fists.
Returning the salute, Tovar uncovered the dishes on the kitchen counter, steam rising from the plates and a host of smells curling into the air. In his chair, Leith stopped wiggling and peered curiously in the direction of the food (for that matter, so did Watson under the table).
The vegetables went over with a magnificent flop, a significantly larger proportion landing anywhere but in Leith’s mouth. Etain marked down large, disapproving X’s in those columns as Tovar cut off little bite-sized pieces of the meat he’d prepared. With a marked note of uncertainty, he set the plate down in front of Leith who promptly grabbed a piece of lambchop and bacon and stuffed both into his mouth.
Etain looked on with muted fascination and horror before making large check marks in the deserving columns. For a kid raised solely on sunshine and the occasional rosemary-sprinkled peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the idea of scarfing down meat (let alone two kinds at once) was both utterly repulsive and strangely interesting.
“Gross,” Etain observed in hushed tones as Leith hamfisted his way through the bits of lamb, bacon, ground meat and fish before raising his eyes expectantly at Tovar. The infant slapped both palms down on his high chair tray and frowned a little. Gnashed his teeth.
Tovar glanced at Etain, eyebrows crawling up toward his hairline. “You get all that?”
Etain put a big checkmark in the last empty column. “Yup,” he chirped.
Tovar shook his head, looking back to Leith. “So much for carrots and peas…” he muttered as he reached out to wipe a bit of grease off the corner of Leith’s mouth.
The baby’s teeth clamped down on the edge of his finger, more than hard enough to draw blood. Tovar jerked back. “Son of a bi—“
“Language,” Michael called gleefully as he wafted by the kitchen doorway. Tovar glared after him, suspecting rather strongly that the older man had been lurking in the hallway waiting for that opportunity.
Grumbling, Tovar dug in his pockets for a band-aid. “So,” he said as he peeled off the paper. He watched as Etain colored up a list – again in the form of childish crayon drawings. “That’s a sheep, a hamburger, bacon, a fish and…”
Etain scribbled in a stick figure at the bottom of the list. “People,” he said decisively, dotting the end of the list with fevor.
Tovar made a faint noise in the back of his throat. He glanced at Leith. The baby was quietly licking his fingers, eyes closed.
Great.
Sighing, Tovar peeled Leith out of the high chair and set him on the ground. “Come on, Etain,” he said as he straightened, beckoning to the unicorn. “Off the table.”
Etain made a face and moved to the end of the table. He paused to get a good idea of where the dragon was and where his little brother was – more for his own sake than for any fear of jumping down on them. And that’s when the kitchen sink gurgled to life.
No taps this time. Tovar jerked around, staring at the sink as water came roiling up out of the drain – dark and murky, bringing the smell of forest and cold with it. From the hall bathroom came the faint sound of Michael stringing together a number of rather choice curses. The water roiled in the sink and for a moment Tovar thought it was going to go up and over the edge, pour down into the kitchen floor and just keep coming until the dark of it, the sickly sweet smell of rotted wood and fish chased them out into the garden.
And then it stopped, hovering at the very edge of the basin. Tovar waited, uncertain.
Etain, still on the table and tugging at his sleeve, was what finally drew Tovar’s eyes off the black pool in the sink. “He’s bigger,” the boy said, peering over the edge of the table.
Tovar looked down between his feet where he’d set Leith down. The kelpie, dark eyes and wild curly hair, soft featured and more innocent looking than he had any right to, was definitely ‘bigger.’
Leith tipped his head back to look up at the both of them. He paused, seeming to think this new development over for a moment, and then he turned slightly and closed his teeth around the nearby table leg with a resounding noise of his incisors grinding into the wood.
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