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 Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:10 am
* Who am I? 1
Donat's little glowing clock by his bed said eleven-two-five. He was supposed to go to bed when it said nine-three-zero, which also means nine-thirty. Eleven was a lot bigger than nine in hours, but Donat was really not tired. He was not sure why.
Daddy was downstairs reading, which meant that he was busy. Serif and Arlyn were both probably asleep because they have the same bedtime, too. So Donat had to find something to do on his own.
Sighing and giving up on sleep for the time being, the goat slipped out of bed and flicked the light by his bed on, since it was not quite as bright as the light on the ceiling. Then he crawled over to his bookshelf under the window and turned his head sideways to look over the titles. He usually did not need to follow the letters with his finger to read them anymore, but this was different because they were all sideways.
Donat's eyes fell on his book about animals. He had read it before, but he liked it because he saw animals that looked like his friends. There was the camel with a hump like Ollie and a bird like Harper and a horse like Etain (only with no horn) and, of course, people like Serif and Daddy.
But there was no creature that looked like Donat.
He pulled the book off the shelf and flipped it open to one of the pages he had marked by folding the corner down. Daddy said that was how you marked pages to find them again, and it worked. The page had farm animals on it. There were cows, like where Donat got his milk at breakfast, and woolly sheep that you made clothes from, and a dog to keep the sheep from misbehaving, and a rooster to wake everyone up in the morning.
Donat looked at the goat as he had many times before. People called him a goat sometimes, but it looked nothing like him. He had his horns that he used for counting like a goat, but the goat in the book was white and had a funny beard. Donat was brown, and had no funny beard. So he must not be the same as a goat.
He turned to the next marked page that had forest animals on it, like clever foxes and big huge bears and little birds that sing songs. There was a picture of a rabbit in the corner. It was brown like Donat, and he thought his legs might look a little like rabbit legs, but the bunny had big pointed ears, and Donat knew his were just small, and his pointed down, too.
Finally, he flipped to the last page that had animals in the snow. Most of them were white, like polar bears and seals, and then there were penguins that looked like they were dressed up in suits. One page had a picture of a snow leopard, that looked kind of like a leopard but nothing like snow because it was not white. Donat thought its spots looked just like his. He loved his spots, too, he thought, as he glanced down at his arms to admire them. He knew he was not a snow leopard either, though, because the snow leopard had a really big tail and his was little and fluffy. The leopard was also eating another animal in the picture with its long, sharp teeth, and Donat thought that was totally gross. He only liked vegetables.
With a sigh, he stood up and hugged the book to his chest as he walked back to his bed. Then he climbed back in it and stretched out on his stomach as well as he could without his back hurting, and opened the book to the beginning. Until he was tired, he could look at all the animals all over again to see if there was one anywhere that looked exactly like him.
Or he could ask Daddy in the morning.
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:19 pm
* Who am I? 2
Donat swung his feet under his chair, since they still did not quite touch the floor yet from that height. He made a sort of rhythm out of eating breakfast, taping his spoon a couple times on the edge of his bowl, then eating a scoop of his Kix, then tapping a few more times. It was hard to make his feet swing at the same tempo, though, so he just sort of let them do whatever.
"Musical breakfast?" Kumoru asked with a small smile, then took a bite of his own bowl of cereal.
"Muwafeedooo," Serif declared, waving her spoon in the air like a baton for her brother.
"Yep!" the goat replied, then giggled at Serif.
"It would be so much easier if you spoke to us, Serif," the mage scolded the girl gently. He had heard her talking in real words to herself in her room before. It was still beyond him why Serif refused to say anything that came from the dictionary whenever anyone else was around.
Serif stuffed a spoonful of cereal in her mouth, shut her mouth tightly on the spoon, then pulled the spoon out without parting her lips again. Then she grinned broadly. She would not say anything, then!
Kumoru laughed a little to himself, then shook his head and turned his attention back to his own breakfast.
After a few minutes of silence except for Donat's tapping, the goat reached over to poke his father's elbow with one dark brown finger. "Daddy?" he asked.
Once he had the mage's attention, Donat put the finger in his mouth, and set his spoon down on a napkin on the table. "Um," he continued shyly. "What animal am I?" Once the question was out, he fidgeted visibly in his seat and stuck his other index finger in his mouth, too.
Instantly, Kumoru remembered that he had meant to go back to the museum sooner or later to see the goat ghost again.
"You are a Baleric Islands Cave Goat," he told the boy after a moment, when he remembered to actually answer the question.
"Is that like a goat?" Donat asked, relaxing a bit and going back to his cereal to push the few remaining Kix in circles in the milk.
Serif dropped her spoon into her bowl, rose both heads over her head, and made the best monster noise she could produce with a mouth full of Kix. Then she broke down giggling at herself.
"Serif, quiet," Kumoru reprimanded almost like a reflex, then turned back to Donat.
"It's kind of like a goat, I suppose," he told him slowly, pondering how best to answer the question. Then the necromancer said, "If you want, I can take you to meet one today."
Donat lit up like a Christmas tree. "Are we going to the zoo?" he asked exictedly.
"No, actually, we have to go to the museum." Kumoru stood up and held out his hand for Donat's bowl, then glanced over at Serif to see if she was done.
The girl offered her father the bowl even though it still contained a fair number of Kix, then immediately bolted upstairs.
Looking confused, Donat got up out of his seat, too, and ran around behind it to push it in to the table like he was supposed to.
"Why the museum? Don't they just have really old stuff at the museum? I'm not old. I'm new." His little brows knit together and he peered expectantly up at his father for an answer.
Kumoru took Serif and Donat's bowls both over to the sink, then returned to the table for his own. "They have bones at the museums," he explained. "And they have the bones of a cave goat like you." The mage looked down at Donat and winked. "I have magic that will let you talk to the bones."
Donat's eyes went wide as saucers. He knew Daddy could cast magic, but he had only seen little spells, like to make the lights turn on, or to make the bar of soap float through the air when it was bath time. But he could do something as big as making bones talk, too? The goat knew he had to see this.
"Okay, let's go!" he said, his hands nearly shaking with excitement.
Catching enough snatches of the conversation to know that they would be going somewhere that day, Serif scampered back downstairs and gave her father the best angelic look she could manage.
"Want to come to?" Kumoru asked her. "And why don't you try answering by saying 'yes' or 'no' instead of just babbling like a little baby. You're older than that now."
Serif nodded, ignoring the rest of what her father told her. When Kumoru kept watching her expectantly, she squirmed a little, but tried not to let her Daddy's Little Angel mask crack in the slightest. Under the continued pressure of her father's bright blue eyes, she finally looked down at her toes and said, "Yes."
"Good, there!" The necromancer laughed and ruffled Serif's hair. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"Yes," Serif repeated, with a defiant pout.
"Just work up to it, then you can talk as well as your brother."
He glanced back at Donat, who beamed.
"Now, let's wash up and get ready to go to the museum."
Crossposted in Serif's diary
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:29 pm
* Who am I? 3
Donat swung his feet as he sat on the bus, too. The seat was lower, so his furry feet made little scuff-scuff sounds against the floor where they just barely touched, but he could only hear that when the bus was stopped at a red light or a red stop sign anyway.
The museum was fun, and he was really interested to see one of Daddy's bigger magics, but Donat had to admit he was still deeply confused why they could not go to the zoo to see a... a... whatever-island goat.
He had a book about dinosaurs that was different from the book about animals, since all the dinosaurs were all bones now and not in zoos. Did that mean Donat was a dinosaur, too? The goat closed his eyes and tried to remember all the dinosaurs from the book, and if any looked like him.
There was that one that had two horns, but it also had a big thing around its head that made it look like it had a silly collar or something. It also had a horn on its nose, too, and Donat knew he lacked one of those.
Most of the dinosaurs in the book were green, too, and he could not remember if any of them had dots like him. He just remembered a lot of stripes. And he did not think any dinosaurs had fur.
Wait, now Donat could remember on the last page, there were little things with fur that were not dinosaurs, but were probably in museums anyway. They were really little, though, and the book said they ate eggs. Donat thought eggs were kind of icky, and he would certainly never dream of eating one.
His fingers curled tightly around the edge of the seat with a strange, unhappy feeling that made his tummy feel a little weird. Like there were butterflies in it or something. Was he supposed to be bones, too? Why was he not bones?
Maybe there were bones here, and another whateverisland goat in a zoo somewhere else? Maybe there was only one in China or something, so Daddy could not take them, at least not on the bus like this.
He also could not help but wonder what the bones might want to say to him, if Daddy could make them talk. On second thought, Donat was not sure what he would have to say to bones, either. Even if they were bones of a whateverisland goat like him. Were bones friendly? Donat could be friendly even if they were not, he figured. He would say, "Hello, bones," and nod to them like Daddy taught him to do to be polite. And then he could say, "I'm Donat, who are you?" and maybe the bones would answer.
Would they be big bones or small bones? The little mousey things that ate icky eggs were really really tiny, at least compared to a person. And almost all the dinosaurs were really really big. Donat was small, but he was getting bigger than Serif already. And Daddy was big, but Donat bet a dinosaur would be a million feet taller.
scuff-scuff ... scuff-scuff ... scuff-scuff
Donat's mind got all quiet when the bus did, and he listened to his feet on the floor for a several moments.
He would understand everything once they got to the museum and Daddy showed him the bones. Then he could ask the bones all the questions he wanted. The butterfly feeling just made him all the more excited to find out.
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:01 pm
* Who am I? 4
Donat held onto Kumoru's hand with both of his own, not because he was scared but because all the dinosaur bones were so big! He had to look up to see anything but the dinosaurs' knees, and that started to make him dizzy, since there were lots of really tall skeletons!
Fortunately, though, they were just passing on to the smaller ones, since his back was starting to hurt from looking up. The "smaller" dinosaurs looked like cars, only with feet. And they were only bones. There was the tri-ce-ra-tops with the horns and the funny collar, just like he had thought of on the bus and had not remembered the name. And a steg-o-saur-us, too, with things like teeth on its back that were actually plates, like a knight's armor. Or maybe they kept the dinosaur cool; that was what Daddy said the information about the steg-o-saur-us said.
They were all just like from his book. Only huge! Donat felt a giggle slip from his mouth from the sheer excitement of seeing real dinosaur bones.
Serif seemed just as awed by the bones, and but she was not really willing to do anything about the loss of balance resulting from looking up. As a result, she nearly blundered into several people before Kumoru took her hand and pulled her closer. She felt like being quiet in the museum, though, because the dinosaurs looked hungry. Serif was anything but scared of them, but still, it was not a good idea to take chances.
Recognizing the area, Kumoru leaned down to point ahead into the next gallery and tell Donat, "The Baleric Island Cave Goat is in there. You ready to meet him?"
Donat looked at the sign up ahead. "Prehistoric mammals," it said. Donat wondered what that meant. He must be one of them.
"Yeah, I wanna see one," he said with conviction, leaning down a little to ease his posture for his back a bit before looking up at his dad again. No hands on the floor, though, promise!
Catching site of another dinosaur, Serif started to walk off, not doing anything about the fact that her father was still holding one of her hands.
"Come on, Serif, we can come back here in a few minutes," Kumoru told her, tugging her gently along to the next gallery with Donat leading the way.
Donat would not need to touch the goat or anything, so it would fortunately not require as drastic a spell as he had had to cast on himself the last time he was here. It was not a spell that was good to cast on someone else in a public place, especially if the spell's caster wanted to retain a low profile. It would just take a simple spirit-sight spell to allow Donat to see the goat ghost. He could leave Donat to talk to it, then, and help Serif work off some of her seemingly limitless curiousity and energy.
Donat stepped through the archway into the next gallery, and looked around at more bones. The butterflies instantly came back as he saw no sign of any living thing except the other museum-goers, and they did not count.
He wandered over to the first skeleton on the right, that had four legs like a dinosaur, and a big ugly face. Giggling a little, he stuck his tongue out at the creature, and looked down to try to read its name.
As he moved his eyes, however, he caught the slightest glimpse of another creature, standing with the help of wires in the fake sand beside the other big ugly thing. It had horns and four legs, and each leg had four little square toes.
Donat walked over to it.
"That's it," Kumoru told the boy, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Baleric Island Cave Goat, just like you. Those are the bones."
Then he touched his fingers to his lips, whispering, "Sight beyond sight, sound beyond sound." His lips and fingertips glowed faintly with magic until he leaned down to touch Donat's forehead to place the spell on him.
"There you go," he said quietly, figuring this was supposed to be a big thing for the little boy. "You'll see the ghost in a minute, and you can talk to him. Serif and I will be back looking at the dinosaurs, alright? Unless you want me to stay here?"
"Um," Donat looked around, sticking his fingers in his mouth, then crossed his eyes in a vain attempt to see what was on his forehead. Then he looked over at his sister, who was making faces at him. The goat made a face back, then said, "Show her the other dinosaurs, Daddy." He could definitely handle his daddy's magic. And he kind of felt like he should be quiet, which Serif most definitely was not.
"Yes," Serif said, and stuck out her tongue at her brother, and at her dad, too, for good measure, and turned to haul Kumoru back towards the dinosaur hall.
Stupid Donat, rushing her through past all the big monster dinosaurs.
As Donat turned away from his retreating father and sister, and back towards the skeleton... he saw it. The goat. Standing right there beside the bones, on the other side of the bars.
"Hello, bones," he began, all the butterflies making his voice sound a little shakey for some reason. He remembered to nod, though, just like Daddy taught him. "I'm Donat, who are you?"
Crossposted in Serif's journal
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Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:14 pm
* Who am I? 5
"Hello, Donat," the ghost replied, shifting its stance a little. It remained behind the bar, though, right beside its skeleton, and although it was mostly see-through at the moment, it looked to Donat like it was getting more solid and more real with each passing moment.
Donat walked slowly up to the bar and tried to lean over it, but, finding that the plaque affixed to the top was not exactly comfortable for someone of his height to lean over, he crouched down instead.
"Baleric Islands Cave Goat," he repeated slowly, hoping it would stick in his memory for good this time. Then he smiled to the ghost. "Why do you live here and not in the zoo?" he asked.
Shaking its head a little, the goat walked up to the bar and peered at Donat from just the other side. "I live here because these are my bones," it told the boy.
DOnat giggled. "Don't they belong on the inside?" Then he pondered a moment, and finding the idea a little icky, he ventured to ask, "Does that mean I can make my bones go outside, too?"
"I am just a ghost. I have no need for these bones," the spectre replied, tilting its head a little to glance at its skeleton. "I have been dead and gone a very long time. And you are only the second person who can see me since I came here."
So it really was a ghost! And Daddy could let him see it! Cautiously, Donat reached over the bar to try to touch the ghost-goat on the nose. His hand went through it, and it was kind of cold inside.
The goat-boy wondered how long the spirit had been here, lonely. It must be kind of sad, being a spook with no one to talk to, and everyone just looking at your bones. "Was the other person who saw you my daddy?" he asked quietly, then clarified, "Daddy has long black hair, longer than mine even, and he's tall and he's got blue eyes."
The ghost looked a bit surprised, lifting its head a little. "You are the son of him? Yes, he did visit me." Then it tried to lean its head against Donat's hand again like a dog asking to be pet, once again enclosing the boy's fingers in a cool, faintly-misty feeling. "So you are just like me." It sounded relieved.
"Yeah, just like you," Donat repeated with a grin. And as he looked at the ghost, it all looked right. It had brown fur and blotchy dots and legs a little like a rabbit's and two straight horns. Its little hooves were even split in four, just like Donat's four fingers.
The boy giggled and moved his hand away from the spirit's head to point to its toes. And he counted them. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight." And then the two horns. "Nine, ten."
Leaning down a little, the ghost paid careful attention as Donat counted his toes, then kept his head bowed so the boy could count his horns, too.
"Will you come visit often?" it asked, feeling very cold and misty indeed about being left alone for hundreds of thousands of years again.
With a slight nod, Donat sat back on his heels and held onto the bar with both hands as he continued to peer over it at the Balerics Island Cave Goat that was just like him. Already, though, he could see it starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges and see-through again.
"Okay," he promised with a nod. "I'll come back here with Daddy as soon as I can." Then he asked, "What are the Baleric Islands like?"
The goat-ghost looked up wards, as though trying to recall. "Lots of trees," it said. "And tasty bushes. Some other animals, like birds, but nothing like any of the other bunches of bones here." It glanced around at the other skeletons around it, most of which were almost as big as some of the dinosaurs.
"I like bushes, too," Donat told the spirit. "And grass."
And then... he had to ask, especially since the other goat was getting blurrier by the moment. "Did you ever meet a dinosaur?"
The ghost promptly shook its head. "No, never. They are too big. Nothing where I lived was as big as one of those except the trees. A dinosaur would not have fit."
Donat laughed a little, then nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I think one is too big to fit in our house, too. Besides, now they're all only bones," he said quickly, wanting to say as much as he could before the ghost disappeared completely.
As the last of the spell faded, the goat seemed to watch over Donat's shoulder, back towards the dinosaur hall, and repeated slowly, "Only bones...."
When the goat was completely gone, and Donat could not even see the faintest bit of an outline or anything where it had been, then he finally stood up. Nearly bumping his shoulder on the information plaque on the way up, he scooted over to the side to look at it, and scanned over what was on it. There was a map of some place with some small islands colored in - maybe those were the Baleric Islands?
There was a lot of other writing, too, that was a little hard to read since Donat was a bit short to see it. It looked like there were some big words, too. With a final glance back at the bones, the goat-boy turned back to the dinosaur hall and went to look for his father.
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:14 pm
* Who am I? 6
Serif pulled on her cheeks and made a funny noise at the dinosaur skeleton on the other side of the bars. It looked really cool to her, and she would certainly give a lot if she could have plates on her back and a tail with spikes, but there was just something about it that necessitated making a face.
"That's a stegosaurus," Kumoru told her, like she could not remember her dinosaur book. "You're lucky he's a plant eater, because I bet he doesn't like you making those faces at him."
"Yes," the girl giggled at him, then blew a little raspberry. Why did he need to follow her? Maybe she wanted to get lost in the big bunch of people around the T-rex bones. Scampering over to the bar separating the cluster of museum-goers from the huge beast, Serif tried to shove her way in.
"Serif, behave yourself," the mage said, catching her sleeve. Then he turned to the couple people his daughter had been trying to squeeze between and apologized to them.
With a sigh and a pout, Serif felt herself get scooped up off the floor. "Down," she requested forcefully with a squirm.
"No, the dinosaurs look better from up here than down here," the mage replied patiently, hoping he could talk her out of a temper tantrum here in public. He pointed forward and upward slightly at the head of the tyrannosaurus, which was arched over them with its jaws parted.
Serif stopped her fidgeting, actually got quiet, then looked up at the skull of the dinosaur over them. An appreciative smile spread across her features, and then she roared back at the T-rex.
Donat laughed a little at his sister as he walked up to tug on Kumoru's sleeve. "The ghost went away," he said quietly, drawing close to his father and glancing at the people around them. Turns out a couple of them had been watching him while he had been talking to the ghostie, and must have thought he was really weird. Donat decided that he would just let them wonder what he was doing. They probably would not believe in ghosts anyway.
Waving to her brother, Serif made more dinosaur noises at Donat and past Kumoru's ear until he put her down. She would have to ask him about this ghost stuff, though, sometime later. It sounded cool, and Serif would not be left out.
Kumoru brushed his hair back away from his face as he leaned down towards Donat, smiling faintly. "Did he answer your questions?" he asked, hoping the ghost had decided to get along with his son. Who, in some strange logical way, was the ghost itself.
When the boy nodded in response, Kumoru ruffled his hair a little. It was getting hard to do that, what with Donat's horns getting bigger. "Are you ready to go then? We can look in the store, too, on the way out," he said, directing the comment to both Donat and Serif.
"Toy!" Serif declared, and grabbed Donat's four-fingered hand to indicate she was ready to go, and to bring her brother by force if necessary.
"Hey, you're squeezing too tight!" Donat complained as the girl started pulling him towards the hall that lead back to the front of the museum.
"Let your brother go," Kumoru told the girl, striding after them.
Maybe he could just buy them each one toy, to make sure they quieted down on the way home. Kumoru would have to find some other time to talk to Donat about whatever the ghost had told him.
Crossposted in Serif's journal
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Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:33 pm
* Return and Aftermath
It was clear when Kumoru, Donat and Serif came home that something was wrong. Or... it was clear to the mage, at least. Also, he could hear water running somewhere.
As soon as she was through the doorway, Serif started rattling the bell her dad had gotten her at the museum shop. Maybe Arlyn was somewhere around, and would run away when he heard the noise. Serif thought the bell sounded pretty, though. Grinning to herself, she ran upstairs to her room to play with it more.
Donat was feeling kind of tired after being out and about for so long, seeing dinosaurs and meeting a real ghost that Daddy made come out of the bones just for him. He fanned himself with his new fan, and climbed up into his chair at the dinner table, then yawned.
"That was fun, daddy," he said, smiling a little. The expression quickly faded as he saw his father's face, though. "... Daddy?"
"Wait here," Kumoru told him, trying not to sound as tense as he felt. He swept from the room quickly, and headed downstairs.
Arlyn was in the bathroom rinsing blood off of his hands. It was on his sword, too, which was resting across the top of the toilet beside him. And it stained the carpet in a few places outside the laundry room, too. And it was smeared across the tiles, where it finally mingled with broken glass, and headed out the slightly-opened laundry room door.
The Anima of Revenge turned around as he heard his father and guardian approach, and smiled a little. "I got him to leave. He shouldn't have been here."
Kumoru found he felt surprisingly numb at all this. Somewhere in his mind, the parent was flying into a fit, raging against whomever had apparently broken, insisting that Arlyn should be praised for his bravery, and similarly flipping at the prospect of having to now clean the floor. But the mage, the necromancer, felt he resonated with the feeling of exceedingly calm satisfaction that may or may not have originated from the Anima boy.
It was in his own nature, though, to be cool and collected even upon finding things like bloodstains all over his child and his house.
Kumoru patted Arlyn on the shoulder gently. "Good job, getting him to leave. He won't be back. Thank you." The nerve, breaking into his house like that. "We'll have to clean this up. But after you."
The red-skinned boy tensed and bristled a little as his father picked up his precious blade, but relaxed after a moment. He could trust his father.
Donat crept downstairs, and gave a squeak of surprise when he saw the mess on the floor. "Daddy, what happened?" he asked, his voice wavering ever so slightly.
"Someone broke the window to get in the door," Arlyn said quietly, turning off the sink and drying his hands. "I didn't kill him, but he won't be coming back."
The mage placed Arlyn's sword back into his now-clean hands, then turned to face Donat. "Why didn't you wait upstairs like I told you?" he asked sternly. "Go up to your room and wait there until I'm done cleaning this up and I come get you."
"But- but-," Donat stammered, pointing at the blood and the broken glass. Little tears were starting to appear in the corners of his eyes.
"I can clean it myself, don't worry. Just go to your room. The glass will cut you, too." Kumoru's voice carried almost no tone.
The goat-boy stood there staring at the carpet at his feet a moment longer, then nodded. "Y-yes, Daddy," he said shakily before shooting upstairs like a bolt of lightning.
"You, too, Arlyn," the mage told the other boy. "The glass is sharp and I don't want you to get cut."
"Alright," Arlyn replied calmly with a slight nod, then also headed up to his own room, leaving the necromancer alone in the hallway.
Crossposted in Arlyn's and Serif's journals
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Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:50 pm
Kumoru The police got to pay a visit today, so that I could tell them about the attempted break-in. They are working on finding who it was, and in the meantime, understand that Arlyn attacked him in self-defense. Back at the Tower, that whole city, there would have been a lot of questions, but here, I guess in Gaia, there are all sorts of people and even law enforcement is used to it. They are cleaning things up for me for the omst part. Taking the glass as evidence, and samples from the blood and such. Asked Arlyn some questions, but of course, he did not see the man. They are so slow with everything. I want my house back to normal again. I have all these children now, and I just wish I had some way to protect them better when I leave the house. Arlyn is the only one old enough to leave home alone. Donat is far too friendly to be much good at something like this. If it had been him home today, he would have gotten hurt. I am failing as a father if I cannot keep all my children safe until they can protect themselves. I might be getting another child, too, it seems, though I want to avoid it if I can. I have a soul bottle and an essence from Lab 305, adjacent to the place where I acquired Serif. I am deeply interested in the soul bottle, but I am not sure I can get away with just the study of that without following through on the full experiment, which would net me another child to raise. I was not exactly told too terribly much about these "raevan", either. Perhaps it might make a good guardian? But it could also just be another infant to look after. I have far too many already. I need to work on my magic. Maybe come up with some ways to ward the house.
Crossposted in Serif's journal
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Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:12 pm
Kumoru I met a young woman named Aylana recently. She was kind, if rather attracted to odd combinations of food, but she is pregnant, so that at least was explained. She told me that she thinks I'm supposed to be the guardian of her unborn child, though. This is quite out of the blue (no pun intended), and I told her so. I have too many to deal with already. In fact, if I want to maintain our current standard of living, I need to find myself a job and soon. I fear we may have to sell this house and move closer in to town. In light of the recent break-in attempt, I have been working on a spell to capture and bind a ghost. I don't want to worry the children too much, especially Donat since I know he will want to help if I tell him. It's probably not the best for myself to stay up late as often as I have been, memorizing magic. The spell is quite powerful, and the words sting my lips and fingers whenever I'm working on the memorization. As soon as I find a suitable ghost to capture, though, I will be able to cast it, I think. Donat recently received a summons to the D-corp main headquarters. Something about a dragon. I only hope we do not have to take care of it here, since I certainly lack the funding to keep a dragon around the house. In addition, I don't need the attention that would, no doubt, accompany the possession of an animal such as a dragon. At least I can be confident that Donat will not be scared by a dragon. He seems bothered by very little, which I suppose is how he made friends with his brother Arlyn in the first place. He has been making friends quite well, with the notable exception of Altessa, but I fail to believe that he had done anything wrong in that situation. Maybe he will be able to meet more of his peers when I take him back to the D-corp headquarters, as well. It is still a chore to buy clothes for Donat, since he plays outside enough to get them dirty quite quickly. Also, I still periodically catch him walking on all fours, or at least leaning down to put his hands on the ground. I am starting to worry that it might be a back problem, and not just a hard-to-drop childhood habit. I will have to ask about that when I take him in for his vaccinations. note to self: make appointmentI wonder if the back issues have anything to do with his DNA coming from an extinct creature. I guess I need to explain that to him sooner or later, too, though. He was curious why we had to go to the museum instead of the zoo to meet a goat like him, but did not question it too much. He was quite impressed with the spell I used to let him talk to hte ghost of the animal, and is not against the idea of going back to talk to it again sometime. I just hope the idea of being the only living one of his kind is not something that will upset him too much when the time comes for him to learn.I guess Donat is just growing up more quickly than I am willing to admit.
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Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:45 pm
Not all the letters are perfectly formed, and there are plenty of spelling mistakes, but the little guy should get credit for trying.
Donat Daddy bot me a jernal book! Now I can practiss my riting and talk about myself. I am going to meet a dragon soon! Daddy sed D-corp asked me to come see the dragon. I wunder wat the dragon wil be like. They are not in zoos. My anamal book sed so. I am not in zoos eether, but Daddy took me to the musee-um to meet a gost like me. Daddy's magic is so cool! Daddy has been busee today and yesterday and the day befor. I think he is reeding again. He reeds alot. He reeds to me to but not today or yesterday. He reeds big grown-up books. I think they hav magic in them. I want to reed one, but the werds all look like funnee lines. Maybee wen I grow up to. I think it wood be fun to lern magic. Wile Daddy is busee, I played with Arlyn and we bilt with blocks. I ask and ask if he wants to play outside but he wont. Daddy sed he mite be scared, but I dont under stand. Outside is fun! And noting out ther is scaree. I like tag outside, and I want to play with Arlyn. Maybee tomorow. Um, by-by, jernal! =)
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:13 pm
* Getting Lost 1
It was late at night, but Donat still lay awake in bed, wondering why Daddy had been so busy lately. Well, Daddy always had his nose in a book, but Donat thought he seemed kind of different about this book. It had a skull on the front; the goat did not think he had seen a book like that before.
The boy wondered if Daddy wanted a hug or something. Hugs made Donat feel better. He was supposed to be asleep, but maybe a hug would be a nice surprise? Daddy might still be awake and busy, though.
Donat stewed for a few more minutes, wondering what he should do. The glowing clock beside his bed clicked up three more numbers before the goat finally sat up and ever-so-cafefully slipped out of bed. Sucking on his finger, he crept over to his bedroom door and opened it, peeking outside.
It was really dark out in the rest of the house. Donat tiptoed out through the doorway, wondering if Daddy was asleep already. As he walked towards the steps down to the kitchen, he glanced over at the library door, which was shut, as usual; it looked pretty dark under the door, too, though. Daddy must have gone to bed.
Feeling a sudden need to make sure, though, Donat snuck over to Kumoru's bedroom door. It was closed almost all the way but not latched; the goat chewed on his fingers with one hand, and used the other to push the door open.
The inside of Kumoru's bedroom was pretty dark, too, so Donat took his time creeping through the doorway and over closer to the bed.
Daddy was not there, though. In fact, the bed was still made up, and the covers were not even turned down.
This would require further investigation.
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:10 pm
* Getting Lost 2
Donat scoured the house, except of course for Serif's room and Arlyn's little room off of the library. Daddy seemed to be gone! The goat remembered what Daddy's friend Mister Higashi had told him about wandering and getting lost, and wondered if maybe Daddy had gotten lost. He highly doubted his father was scared of the dark, but still, finding him seemed like something that should be done immediately.
Heading down to the kitchen, Donat tugged the refrigerator open, and shielded his eyes, squinting as the light inside came on and blinded him for a second. Keeping his eyes half-closed, he fished around in the fridge for the pitcher of water, pulling it out with both hands. Then he filled a cup with a lid up with water, and grabbed a trail-mix bar from the pantry. Best to make sure he was well stocked in case Daddy was really lost.
Not realizing that he had neglected to put the pitcher back into the fridge, Donat unlocked the door and let himself out, then shut it carefully behind him.
It was a little chilly outside since it was night time, but Donat decided he did not really mind. He stepped down the two stairs from the door, then remembered to shut the door behind him. He pulled it closed... and observed that the knob would not turn, meaning that he was now locked out.
Donat stood before the door for a moment to think about this, but quickly shrugged it off. When he came back, he would be with Daddy, and Daddy would let them in! So everything was fine, as long as he could find Daddy.
Undaunted, the goat-boy strode out into the woods, keeping his eyes open for any sign of his father, including shiny magic. It was awfully dark, though, and Donat could scarcely see the path in front of him, but the moonlight did help. He tripped occasionally anyway, though, but his feet were fairly tough, even barefoot.
Pajamas were a bit of another story, though. Donat managed not to tear them or anything, but the baggy pant legs still got snagged on branches a few times, leaving little holes behind in places. It was just kind of a pain to have to pick them carefully off of shrubs in the dark.
Hopefully he would find Daddy soon, because he was starting to get sleepy.
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Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 1:51 pm
*Getting Lost 3
After maybe an hour or so, Donat stopped walking. His feet just refused to move. His eyes kept wanting to close, too, but every time they did, he would trip. He had already stubbed his toe once and fallen, getting his knees dirty.
He would just have to keep looking in the morning. Glancing around, the goat found a tree that looked like it would be comfortable to sleep against, and made his way over a few thick branches to get to it. It was big and kind of had a space where he could fit, like when he sat in Daddy's big chair and made it lean back.
Donat's legs told him that yes, this was the perfect place for bed by giving out under him. With a little giggle of surprise, he collapsed in a little heap in the leaves that littered the forest floor.
Fortunately, it had not rained lately, so all the leaves were nice and dry. Donat squirmed up with his back against the tree, and piled some leaves on himself. Not quite a blanket, but it would do. Maybe he needed a few more....
Sleep overcame him before he could finish piling leaves onto himself. His eyes slid closed for the night and his tired limbs started to go slack, and his mind made sure that he stayed asleep until morning.
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Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:21 pm
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Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:04 pm
*Newton's Third Law 1
Arlyn had finally agreed to go outside with his brother, just to walk around a little. He clung to his sword tightly with one hand for the comfort the lacquered sheath provided, but his other hand actually held Donat's as the goat-boy lead him slowly around the back yard. The Anima had not yet had too much of a chance to memorize the terrain, and he also suspected that Donat was taking him a little further afield than just the back yard as well. But somehow, he felt like his younger brother would be a decent guide, and actually overcame enough of his personal pride - or perhaps it was fear - and committed himself to Donat's care for the time being.
Donat thoroughly enjoyed his brother's company, and was glad he had finally talked Arlyn into coming outside. He was perfectly willing to help him navigate the little dips and hills of the backyard and the edges of the forest behind it in exchange for Arlyn's coming with him.
"Why did you decide to come with me this time?" he asked his red-skinned brother after a few minutes of silence. The goat really wanted to know why Arlyn had refused in the past, but this seemed like an easier start to that conversation.
"You offered to guide me," Arlyn replied with a small shrug and a slight shifting of his wings. "It was a fair trade."
"Trade?" Donat laughed a little. "But we're brothers. I would have taken you any other day."
To Arlyn, being brothers was not a good enough reason. "I don't know that until you make the offer, though," the Anima replied.
Donat nodded, though his brother could not see it, and was silent for a moment. Gently, he tugged Arlyn around a fallen branch across part of the forest path so he would not trip on it. Then the goat asked, "Why do you like trades so much?"
The red-skinned boy opened his mouth to respond to the question, but no easy answer came. "Um," he mumbled inarticulately, knowing that for every question, there had to be some kind of response. Every action, a reaction.
"Every action, a reaction," he repeated after a moment, wondering if that was it. He had never questioned himself in such things, and, in fact, never really thought about it. But really, upon some consideration, that was the answer.
"I am... reaction," Arlyn explained; it was right, he was just not fully sure why.
"And I'm action?" the goat inquired, now somewhat curious.
"Here, let's sit down and talk," he added, guiding his brother over to a large pair of rocks by the path. He held his hand out, still holding Arlyn's, until both of their fingers brushed against the cold stone.
Arlyn let go of Donat's hand as he felt the rock, and grasped at it in both hands so he could get a better idea of the shape of it. Then, finding a good place to sit, he pulled himself up on top of it and sat down cross-legged.
"I need to get people back for everything they do," the Anima explained hesitantly. "You do a lot for me, so I have to do a lot for you."
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Donat told quietly him after a moment. Then he quickly added, "But I am really glad you decided to come with me. I like being outside." He grinned and plopped down on the other rock, stretching his arms out over his head.
"But, I mean, can't you do whatever you want?" the goat asked again, sounding a little confused. Could his brother only do things if he himself did something first?
"I don't know what will happen back to me if I make a move," Arlyn told him, turning his head away from the sound of his brother's voice. "If kindness will come back as kindness."
Arlyn did not trust him? How silly. Donat laughed a little, reaching over to grasp his brother's lion tail gently. "It always will from me."
"But why?" Arlyn turned back to his brother, reaching out and groping at the air until his palm came in contact with one of Donat's horns. No one on earth had that obligation to him. Reaction was his domain alone, and he only trusted himself for reactions in his dealings.
Donat shook his head a little, but not enough to dislodge his brother's hand from his horn. "We're brothers. That's the only reason I need. That's why I want to do things like lead you around outside."
He narrowed his eyes slyly and added, "Besides, you had halfway agreed to coming with me outside before I said I would guide you."
The red-skinned boy spread his wings for a moment before refolding them against his back; a sign Donat had learned meant he was a little flustered. "Well, yes, but you also came to play blocks with me yesterday, and I didn't respond to that yet for you."
Sighing in mock frustration, Donat glanced up at his brother. "Yes you did, you came to my room last night and we listened to music for a little while," he insisted, tugging playfully on Arlyn's tufted tail. "You can trust me, I promise. I'm your brother."
Crossposted in Arlyn's journal
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