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"Oops," Arlyn said with a grimace as the block tower collapsed and all the blocks clattered to the table around his hand. He of course could not locate the tower by sound, since it did not make any noise, and had settled for the next best method of groping about to find it. Unfortunately, the Anima's hand had come into contact with the tower a bit too quickly, and his finding it meant also knocking it over.

Donat picked up the two or three blocks that tumbled from the edge of the table and onto the carpet. "We can build a new one," he reassured his brother, carefully placing the blocks into Arlyn's still-outstretched hand.

Once he was no longer holding the blocks, Donat stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked on them thoughtfully as he pondered a solution to Arlyn's being unable to see the blocks. It must be scary, not seeing anything Donat closed his eyes for a minute, wondering if this was what it was like for Arlyn all the time. Not even a nightlight.

But back to the problem at hand. The goat removed his hand from his mouth and wiped his fingers off a little on his pants before resting his elbows on the table again. "Um, you can feel the blocks by touch, right?" At least his brother had the other four of his five senses.

"Yes, I can feel them," the red-skinned boy replied, turning the blocks he had been handed over once or twice before setting them down on the table. He used both hands to place them next to each other, and then line them up carefully.

"Just do it that way," Donat told him with a grin, picking up some more blocks to add to the base Arlyn had made. "Two hands. Just, uhm, be careful. And if the tower tips a little, I'll say, 'careful'." It looked like Arlyn was having an easier time than he was picking up the blocks, it was just a matter of not being able to quite see where he was putting them. So Donat would help with that!

Arlyn felt around the table a little until his fingertips encountered another unused block, and picked it up. He could sort of remember where the tower was now, so he could just feel where the edges of the blocks were to line the next one up. Donat was not saying anything, though, so he must be alright.

With the next block in place, the Anima gave a more genuine smile. This was definitely not bad at all.

"There!" Donat said excitedly. Then he handed Arlyn another block, so he would not have to go fishing for it with his hands.

"Let me go next, I have a block," the goat then told him. He took his block and set it on top, then turned back to his brother. "Okay, put yours next to mine. Then we make it taller."

"Okay," Arlyn replied, reaching out to stack the next one. There was Donat's, so his should go right here....

"Careful!" the goat squealed as the tower shifted a little under his brother's touch. When Arlyn withdrew, Donat straightened the blocks out a little. This was better than playing blocks with Serif, 'cause he could help Arlyn out. And the Anima would not knock the tower over on purpose.

"Okay, now go," he said once the blocks were stable again. They would definitely have to play blocks more often!

Crossposted from Donat's diary

The house had become much more comfortable for the Anima of Revenge since Donat's arrival. He had someone with whom he could interact on a friendly level, and when Donat was not playing blocks or something with him, he was generally keeping Serif occupied enough not to harass him with all her noise.

Kumoru did not force Arlyn to leave the house when he did not want to, but he still ventured out periodically on his own or with Donat.

Today, however, he had elected to stay home while the rest of the family went out to the museum. Arlyn had Eppie, along with Hops, the rabbit plush Donat and Dad had gotten him at the mall not too long before, and so the three of them sat in the living room and played blocks together.

It was a little hard building a tower himself without his brother to tell him when it started to shake or tip, but Eppie and Hops were learning, and had saved this particular tower twice already.

Suddenly, however, Arlyn heard something. It was one of those noises that Serif or Donat or Kumoru would be able to hear, probably, or even Hops with his really long ears. Telling both of his friends to be quiet, the Anima carefully picked up his sword, which never left his side, and stood. It sounded like the noise was coming from somewhere downstairs.

Leaving Hops and Eppie behind, Arlyn snuck down the stairs. It sounded like someone opening a door. Searching his memory of the house, he could recall that there was a door downstairs, but he had nearly forgotten about it entirely, since Kumoru never used it. It was always locked, and, since it was in the laundry room, always had at least one basket of clothes shoved in front of it.

But now it sounded like someone was trying to open the door. There was a quiet scraping sound, then an equally quiet rattle, then a bit more scraping. When Kumoru opened the door, he used a key, so there was jingling noise, and certainly no scraping.

Wondering who might be out there, Arlyn crept to the edge of the doorframe leading from the downstairs hall into the laundry room. Peeking would do him no good, trapped in sightless darkness as he was; he had learned to rely on sound.

The noise stopped.

Arlyn drew his sword slowly, the scrape of the blade against its scabbard sounding as subtle as a shriek in the otherwise-silent house.

And if the sword sounded as a shriek, the sudden sound of glass breaking in the other room that followed was no less than a jet taking off. Arlyn jumped at the sound, wings flaring inadvertatly and the fluff on the end of his tail puffing out.

He gripped his weapon tightly in both hands, preparing for what might come next.

There was a rattling sound that came from the inside face of the door, followed by a male grunt and a sliding sound as the door was forced open, pushing the basket of laundry across the tiled floor.

Arlyn waited just outside the door, calculating as well as he could at every noise how close the man was. The Anima could smell him now, too, and it was no scent he recognized. This person was not supposed to be here.

The man sounded like he was trying to be as careful as possible as he walked across some broken glass shards, then shoved the door shut with a thud. He did not speak a word.

Foot falls that certainly belonged to a man larger than Kumoru, or at least heavier than the mage, made their way across the floor of the laundry room.

Arlyn had heard the lectures about calling 911 if he needed help, ever since Kumoru thought it alright to leave him home alone. But the Anima had always thought that there might be some cases where more immediate retribution was necessary, and that it needed to be done by his own hand.

If the police helped him, he would be in debt to them, and that was the last thing he wanted. How could he help the police, anyway? Besides, he did not trust that they would come. It was Arlyn's house to defend, not theirs.

As the Anima heard the intruder's foot fall immediately beside him, Arlyn spread his wings and lept at the place where he could feel the other presence. The one that was not supposed to be there.

Arlyn felt his sword meet flesh, and immediately smelled blood.

Arlyn had been feeling unusually tired lately. Today in particular, he did not really feel like getting up out of bed, but rather rolled to the side so that the warmth filtering through the window and onto his face would no longer trouble him. He clung Eppie and his bunny to his chest and sighed, then yawned, then sighed again, letting his muscles relax.

The rabbit needed a name, he realized. The wooly sheep was Eppie, but the rabbit was just rabbit. Or bunny. And neither of those were as interesting as a real name. Arlyn moved Eppie to sit on his pillow by his head, and examined the rabbit plush with both hands.

Eppie was a girl lamb, but Arlyn decided the bunny was probably a boy. So it needed a good boy name. Donat was a good name, but that was because it was Arlyn's brother's name. And Donat was a goat, anyway, not a rabbit. Just a simple name, maybe, like, Henry, or Walter, or Joe.

Suddenly, Arlyn did not feel the rabbit in his hands anymore, and there was a soft fmp of poly-filled cloth landing on the carpet. Wait, how had he dropped the plush? His hands had been near the edge of the bed, but he never felt the thing slipping from his grasp.

Pulling himself to the edge of the matteress, the Anima of Revenge leaned down and felt around for the plush. He thought he felt it for a moment, then nothing. Frowning, he shuffled his wings in irritation and continued groping around. Henry had just disappeared on him!

After a moment, Arlyn sighed heavily and extracted himself from the tangle of bedsheets, and hopped to the floor. He felt around under the bed, his tail lashing a little as he crouched down to look with his hands.

With the same suddenness that Henry had slipped from his hands, Arlyn felt the rabbit's familiar soft form under his left hand - right where it had been a moment before. At that exact moment, the red-skinned boy also felt his tail hit the wall behind him. How close had he been to the wall, that his tail had missed it before, but was now knocking against it? And why had he had such trouble locating Henry?

Hugging the rabbit securely in his arms, Arlyn climbed back up into his bed and sat on top of the blankets. Today already felt weird, so maybe that meant he had slept long enough. If nothing else weird happened for the next couple minutes, then Arlyn figured it would be alright to get up out of bed, and go look for Donat or something.

Arlyn gripped Donat's horn firmly and shook it a little, moving the other boy's head with it. "I owe you questions, though. For the ones you were asking me. Personal things, you know."

"If you say so," Donat replied with a slight laugh. "How many?"

The red-skinned boy considered a moment, then replied, "Five, now, I guess."

Then he asked his first: "You say a lot that you do things because we're brothers. Why? We're both adopted."

Why would Arlyn even need to ask that? "We still are in the same house with the same daddy, so why shouldn't we be brothers? And Daddy cares about us both a lot, so we are really a family, I'd say."

Speaking of their father, Donat realized he probably should not spend too much time away from home, with Arlyn or not. "Hey, let's get up and keep walking, and head on home now. I'm getting a little hungry anyway, and I know Daddy might start to worry about us." Since Donat had run away from home a few nights before, of course....

The Anima of Revenge nodded, and carefully slid down off of the rock. Once his brother had taken his hand again, they started to walk back towards the house.

"Why do you only have four fingers?" Arlyn inquired after a moment.

Donat looked down at his free hand, wiggling all four of his fingers. "I have just as many as you have," he insisted. "I just don't have a thumb. Because I'm a Baleric Islands cave goat, and they don't have thumbs. I saw the bones of one in the museum when Daddy and Serif and I went. Only four toes on each foot, just like me."

"Does it make it hard to do things?" the red-skinned boy asked a bit more quietly. Was this something that would upset Donat?

The goat appeared largely unruffled. "No. I would have to learn with a thumb anyway. I just have to learn different. Besides, I can still do everything I need to do, just like you, right?"

Right then, they came across another branch across the path that would be difficult to get around. Donat told Arlyn to wait a moment, then climbed over the branch before taking his brother's hand again.

Arlyn felt the log over with both hands, gaguing how high off the ground it was. "Just like me?" he asked, spreading his wings out for balance while he climbed up onto the log. He felt Donat's hand on his shoulder, helping to steady him.

And then suddenly, there was nothing under him. There was not even the slight warmth of Donat's hand against his skin.

The Anima's breath caught in his throat, and he squeezed his sightless eyes shut behind his blindfold. Maybe there had been an inkling of a feeling the moment before there was nothing, but he could not describe it. Something passing through him, perhaps. Arlyn had no way of knowing.

"Arlyn!" Donat called out, deeply worried at how his brother had just fallen through the log he had been crouching on. The other boy had just gotten all misty and not solid! And with his physical form faded like it was, Arlyn just went straight through the log and landed beneath it on his hands and knees.

The goat knelt and tried to grab hold of the red-skinned boy to at least get him out from under the log, but his hands went through his brother's foggy body. "What's wrong? What happened? Why are you going away?"

The Anima thought he heard a voice somewhere. It sounded a little distant, and kind of muddled, too. It took him several moments to realize that he was screaming, and nearly drowning out the voice with his own noise.

Hyperventilating, Arlyn tried to get control of himself. Why could he feel nothing? Even air had a feel, and now that, too, was absent. Had he disappeared? What was going on?

"Arlyn! Arlyn, stop yelling!" the goat's ears were pinned back against his head at the noise. Desperately, Donat wondered what he should do. The Anima's hands and feet had disappeared almost entirely; only the faintest of red shadows remained. His wingtips and tail were mere ghosts as well. Was Arlyn going to disappear forever?

Crossposted in Donat's journal

It had been a day or two since the last time Arlyn had felt himself fading into nonexistance. The Anima's one-word responses had diverted his father's worries about the scrapes and cuts on his hands and knees, fortunately, and no more mention had been made of it. Not even from Donat, talkative as he could be sometimes.

Revenge had found himself becoming rather fond of the plain and basic bodily feelings, these last few days, though. The slight pricking pain when he got his scrapes wet, the tiredness he felt at night, needing to use the bathroom or take a drink of water, being hungry - he could not help but find himself enjoying the knowledge he was still alive at feeling any of those things.

At the moment, he was enjoying some hunger pangs. And in a few more moments, he planned on enjoying some youghurt to get rid of them.

Arlun tugged the 'fridge open and crouched in front of it. There was another happy feeling of cold as the door, trying to swing shut, came in contact with his back and wings, sending goosebumps radiating out all over his body.

Carefully, he reached his hand into the refrigerator's interior, feeling around gently for the little six-pack of youghurt cups that Donat enjoyed, and Arlyn had come to like as well. They should be near the back on the second shelf from the top....

His hand came in contact with something for a moment, and then there was an extremely unsettling feeling as the refrigerator door swung through Arlyn's body and closed with a click. The Anima's hand was still in the refrigerator, though, and he grasped desperately at anything he could, in hopes of feeling something.

Why was this happening?!

Crossposted in Ice Rose's journal

Kumoru took the bottle in his dominant hand and, stepping away from Arlyn, threw it as hard as he could straight down at the tiled kitchen floor. There was a sharp CRACK of impact that made the Anima jump, but when the mage retreived the bottle, there were no visible signs of damage. No fractures, or even stars, in the glass.

He ground his teeth a little and threw it again, then kicked it across the floor for good measure. Damn this thing for taking Arlyn's soul! He should not have been so careless, leaving it out where it could just absorb any nearby soul.

Could it really absorb a soul with a single touch? Why had it not taken his own?

Brushing his fingers through Arlyn's hair as he passed, Kumoru walked over to the spot in the corner where the glowing bottle had come to rest. He picked it up again in one hand, and started murmuring the words of a wind spell so he could try to break the glass that way.

The magic burned his lips, as they had still not healed from chaining the owl ghost a week or so before. But the wind spell was simple, and fortunately did not require too many words of power.

At least to cast it.

When the glass bottle was wrapped completely in the magic, Kumoru could let go, and it remained where it was, hanging in the air. Then, concentrating harder, he forced the winds that held it to contract, squeezing the bottle. This was probably the safest route to go, in retrospect; if it broke under the force of this magic, the shards would stay in mid air and would therefore be easier to clean up. And who knew what else this mysterious soul-eating glass could do?

Through the threads of magic, Kumoru could feel the glass creaking slightly under the force of the air pressure. It was just not breaking yet.

Holding out one hand towards the hovering bottle, Kumoru whispered a few more words to further strengthen the spell. Spheres were generally difficult to break just because of the shape. The necromancer had determined in his examination of the bottle that the glass was at least half an inch thick, too. He just hoped he could break it before he tired himself out maintaining the spell....

(( crossposted to Ice Rose's journal ))

(( ** reserved ** ))

The fair, revisited. This time, Kumoru has some help.

(( ** in progress ** ))