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 Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:57 am
January 15th, 2005~
Sosiqui bit her lip and looked at the bloom. It had been over a week since it had arrived, and they had begun their experiments. So far they'd burned through a good pile of votive candles, run through several Dixie cups of water, and...?
"I have no idea what it wants," she admitted, finally. The setup was exactly as it had been from the beginning - dim light, flickering flame, cool water, pile of earth. The firelight danced off of the bloom and off of the large mirror above the bathroom counter.
Amalthea stood on the faucet, arms akimbo, eyeing the lit candle warily from time to time. "Maybe it's not a Feien bloom?" she asked, almost hopefully.
"Of course it is," Sosiqui said, giving her a glare. "Weren't we over this?"
"I was just saying, that's all," the Feien said peevishly. "It's not doing anything, so maybe it's just a plain flower."
"No, it's absolutely not. I've never seen a flower like this." She lifted the flower out of the glass bowl, twirling it between her fingers. The light reflected off of the petals rather prettily. "It is a Feien bloom. I was entrusted with it specifically; it didn't just fall off a tree or something."
"Fine, fine," Amalthea sighed, sliding down to sit on the faucet, her legs swinging back and forth. "Maybe it's sick?"
"I hope not." Sosiqui returned the bloom to the bowl.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:57 am
January 29th, 2005~
Sosiqui jumped as a little shriek came from the bathroom, then a louder squeal. The book she had been reading tumbled to the floor as she leapt out of her chair and skidded down the hall? "Edan?" she gasped as she flung herself into the bathroom, almost slipping on the wet floor.
Wait. Wet floor?
The bloom still sat exactly as it had before, light dancing off the shiny petals - but Amalthea was standing on the faucet, grinning wildly. "I did it!" she crowed.
"Did what? Made the floor all wet and cold?" Sosiqui muttered, dragging a hand towel off of the towel rack and mopping up the water with it.
"No, this!"
A second later, a small stream of ice-cold water hit Sosiqui in the face. "Hey!" she spluttered. "That's not funny!"
Amalthea looked hurt. "But I did it myself."
"Yourself?"
"Just look," the Feien insisted, raising her hands and concentrating. There was a faint ice-blue glow, and then a spray of water seemed to erupt from the palms of her hands, splattering into the sink this time. "I did it!"
"Is that a new spell?" Sosiqui asked, wiping her face off with a corner of a dry towel.
"Chilly Spray!" Amalthea crowed. "I've been practicing for months and finally I got it! Isn't it cool?"
"Uh, yeah, it's really cool. Literally. Don't spray it at me again, okay?"
"Okay. I'm going to go show Kree."
Amalthea flew out the doorway smirking. Sosiqui kept mopping up the floor...
"Wait. NO, AMAL, DON'T DO THAT TO KREE- ah, dammit," Sosiqui sighed as a sudden outraged Dream-bellow rang through the house, followed by a torrent of little giggles.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:58 am
February 12, 2005~
Amalthea woke with a start, looking blearily around the dimly lit bathroom. She'd taken to sleeping and practicing inside this room - except for when Sosiqui was using it, of course - just to keep an eye on the bloom.
It hadn't done anything for so long. Maybe it was dead? Amalthea wasn't sure if that thought was a happy one or a sad one.
Rakuen and her sword still by her side - check. Candle, check. Water, check. Dirt, check. Bloom-
Amalthea stared at the glass bowl. There was the normal gray shape in there, alright, but there was also something else. She pulled out her sword and advanced on the dish, leaping into the air to examine more closely.
"Who are you supposed to be?"
The unfamiliar voice nearly made Amalthea fall out of the air, but she recovered quickly and zoomed to the bowl, sword-point first. "Who are you?" she barked, trying to sound tough.
"Who?" The Feien, for now Amalthea could see that there was a small gray-marked fairy inside the dish with the bloom, seemed to consider this for a long time. "Edan," he said, finally.
"You're not... not a hot fairy, are you?" Amalthea said warningly, flitting closer and holding the sword point an inch from his throat. The tip trembled with her slight movements.
Edan turned, and caught sight of the mirror. "Ah..."
"Answer me!"
Edan half-jumped, half-flew out of the dish to land awkwardly in front of the bathroom mirror, apparently unconcerned with Amalthea's weaponry. He looked carefully at the mirror, and then at his own reflection, turning around as much as he could and still see, fluttering his wings, running his hands through his hair.
"I SAID ARE YOU A HOT-"
"No," Edan said calmly. "And please get that thing out of my face. Who are you?"
Amalthea finally put down the sword, folding her arms and looking at Edan in a flustered manner. "Um... I'm Amalthea. I'm... I'm another Feien. Like you. We have the same bond. I'm an Ice Feien," she explained, landing on the counter. "Are you Ice too?" she added, hopefully.
"No... no, I don't think so," Edan said, examining his reflection in the mirror again. "Reflection... yes. Reflect. Ice is reflective, yes?" He looked at her with some interest. "You're a girl."
Amalthea blinked. "So? You're a BOY."
"Interesting," Edan said blithely, then tried to hop up into the air. He stumbled and fell on his first try, then made it up on the second, his cloth-like wings flaring outward to catch the air. "Where is my bond? Who is my bond?"
"Sosiqui," Amalthea said, still flustered. "She's my bond too. I'll take you to her." She leapt into the air as well, grinning a bit as she did so - she was MUCH better at flying than this new Feien was. At least he wasn't a hot element... and Ice was kind of reflective. Maybe they could work out.
"And what is that?" Edan asked, pointing at Rakuen's gem.
Amalthea immedately flitted down and scooped the gem up off the counter. "This is Rakuen. He's mine," she said, in a warning tone. "My best friend. We're going to be together forever someday."
Edan took this in stride. "Your best friend is a rock. Duly noted. My bond, please?"
"Rakuen is NOT a rock, and if you're not nice, I won't show you where she is," Amalthea said, giving Edan a nasty look.
"I'll find her myself, then. Goodbye, bond-sister," Edan replied, apparently unruffled, and flew out of the room.
"OOOH. I don't like him," Amalthea said, sticking her tongue out at Edan's back.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:58 am
February 13th, 2005~
"Very nice," Edan said, peering with interest into the whorls of frost Amalthea had painted on the window. "I can see myself in them." He pressed his nose up into the frost, his breath melting them.
"Don't do that," Amalthea protested, then sighed. Edan might not be a hot Feien, but he definitely wasn't a cold Feien either. He was just... Edan. Who liked to stare at shiny things way too much. Who bothered her to make ice for him, and who seemed inflappable no matter what she did.
He hadn't apologized for the rock comment he'd made, but he hadn't said it again, either. It was somehow unsettling.
"I'm... going into my room," she told Edan. The other Feien just nodded, nose still smushed into the window. Amalthea sighed and jumped off the windowsill, flitting into 'her' room and slipping into the terra-cotta pot.
"Now he's finally here... I was waiting all this time, and now he's here, and I don't know what his deal is, if he's good or bad or what," Amalthea groused to Rakuen, flopping across the gem. "I didn't want to leave just in case he came out and was Fire or something... that way I could kill him right away, you see, if I was right there," she added.
There was only silence from the gem, but Amalthea felt a touch of guilt. "Well, okay, I wouldn't have really killed him," she admitted. "But I would have told him to go away."
Now what?
Springtime was coming. Already the nights were getting shorter, and the snow was softer. The icicles dripped more, and the sun was feeling hotter.
"He thinks you're weird. You're not," she assured Rakuen, feeling antsy.
But... she remembered now, with a sudden surge of excitement. Now that she didn't feel compelled to watch the bloom, she could go. She could take the last protection of winter and she could fly with Rakuen... she could find the Feien Shalafi had told her about... and... and...
The excitement mounted until Amalthea could hardly hold it in. She abruptly rolled off of Rakuen and scooped up the gem, her wings quivering. "We could do it. We could. You and me. Edan would never say that you're a rock again."
And with that sudden resolve, Amalthea flew out of her pot, carrying the gem in her arms, her mind whirling over the plans she'd made.
She could do it.
The Feien flitted into the other room to inform her bond.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:59 am
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:59 am
Reserve: Amalthea's Merging
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:59 am
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:59 am
March 16th, 2005~
Edan carefully scribbled across the notepaper, the quill's feathery bits crunching a bit in his hand. He wasn't used to this writing thing, not yet, and his letters were still scribbly and scrawly... but they were his.
His letters. Him filling up a blank space with his own thoughts and observations. Before there hadn't been anything there, and now there was something! It was one of the most interesting things he'd ever seen. Admittedly, he hadn't seen much in his short life so far, but this writing was pretty high up there on the coolness list.
He turned the paper over and kept going, glancing every so often into the mica-chip mirror near him. He kept the mirror at all times, wearing it at his side, held there by a length of soft cord. Amalthea had teased him, but he didn't mind.
"Weapons are supposed to go there," she'd said.
"It is one," he'd answered, calmly, and she'd laughed at him and left. He'd laughed back to himself.
It was one, truly. Once he figured out his own magic. He was the first of the new generation of Feien to have this element, and that made him special.
He liked that, and made sure to write it down.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:00 am
April 9th, 2005~
"Happy almost birthday to ME," Amalthea warbled, off-key. Edan winced and threw a wadded ball of paper at her; she dodged, neatly. "Happy almost birthday to ME!"
"You're going to be old," Edan informed her. "Old and crusty. What does it feel like to be old?" He looked at her expectantly, quill poised above another sheet of paper.
"I'm not OLD," Amal retorted, wings buzzing in irritation.
"Cranky. Refuses to see reality," Edan said and wrote at the same time.
"I do NOT," she insisted, snatching the paper away from him.
Edan looked up, eyes hard. "Give it back."
"No. Why should I give it back? You're only going to write more mean things on it," Amalthea huffed, jumping into the air and waving the paper above Edan's head. "I'm going to throw it in the toilet and flush it away."
"I'm almost as fast as you!" Edan leapt after her, his cloth wings flaring, but Amalthea dodged again, her eyes sparkling with mischeif.
"Not fast enough!"
Edan muttered something under his breath. He WASN'T fast enough. She might not be that much quicker than him, but she was more agile and had far more magic than he did (it was excessive, really!), and so she could fly much better than he could.
He landed and slid down to sit cross-legged. "I'll write it down again."
"I'll flush it again," Amalthea said merrily, flitting out of the room, paper in hand.
Edan looked darkly at his next sheet of paper and began to write.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:00 am
May 10th, 2005~
"Show-off," Edan muttered as Amalthea executed another round of Chilly Spray, right in the middle of the kitchen, where she KNEW he'd have to watch her as he nibbled on his wedge of dry toast.
Edan didn't have a whole ton of magic, and what he did have, he was unsure how to use. Amalthea seemed intent on showing him up at every opportunity, as a sort of petty vengeance for his taking notes.
He'd show her. Magic wasn't the be-all and end-all she seemed to think it was. When she glanced over at him, he quickly met her gaze, frowned, and made as if to write in his makeshift notebook. She glared at him and turned away.
"Bah," he muttered.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:00 am
June 4th, 2005~
Mirror.
Edan raised his right hand and placed it on the mirror; the reflection-Edan did the same thing. He leaned in, feeling the cool surface beneath his palm, close enough that his breath marred the other Edan's face with mist.
"Who are you?"
The reflection's lips moved in time with his, but there was no answering sound. It was the one thing the mirror-Edan couldn't do.
The Feien pressed up close to the mirror, leaning against it with his whole body.
"Who are you...?"
"A stupid Feien who talks to mirrors!" came a giggle.
"AMAL, STOP IT," Edan barked, whirling around and glaring at her - she was standing in the doorway, head tilted rakishly at him, hair falling over her face. She snickered and darted away, wings buzzing.
"She doesn't understand you," Edan muttered, brushing his own hair back out of his face and turning back to the mirror. "Only I do. Just me."
He smiled shyly at the Edan in the mirror. The reflection smiled back.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:01 am
July 11th, 2005~
Amalthea squirmed in her tissue-box bed, wriggling until the noise of rustling paper made Edan fling a pebble at the side, denting it a bit. "Shut up," he hissed.
"You shut up," Amalthea retorted, but her heart wasn't in it. Not entirely. Still, she rolled over one last time and fanned out her wings, then lay on her stomach and pouted.
Stupid... everything.
So much had changed when she'd merged.
It wasn't like she'd thought it would be. She MISSED Rakuen. She couldn't find the soft gentle hum of his voice anymore. She missed the cool shivery touch of his gem against her skin. And though they'd merged jut as she'd dreamed... the result hadn't been what she'd dreamed.
Eternal togetherness. Thoughts mingling and dancing in her head. Magic.
"Rakuen, where are you?" she whispered, squinting to prevent tears from rolling down her cheeks. She'd never hear the end of it if Edan heard her.
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