|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:13 pm
one. intro: richter
two. arrival: london
three. overture: london
four. intro: eiji
five. roleplay: phineas
six. roleplay: william
seven. roleplay: orp
eight. --
nine. --
ten. --
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 5:44 pm
london arrives.
On his way home from work, Richter got just a little bit lost.
It wasn't exactly his fault. No one could really predict that one street would be blocked off for construction or that he might have a certain kind of heavy glass bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk, the kind with amber-colored liquid and a cork. Not like he was drunk; no one could go out drinking with cops and lawyers and not have some kind of ability to hold his liquor. He might have been just a tiny bit buzzed, though, and maybe a little depressed. Only someone without a soul wouldn't feel like the world was made of filthy, deceitful people when he was looking over the bank statements of a rapist, or some such. He couldn't quite remember what he'd been doing. His memory was agreeably fuzzy.
So, when a little floating light appeared in the distance, of course he thought it was his apartment building. The place never turned off the lobby lights, no matter the power restrictions on the city at the time. He appreciated that, which was why he'd remained even after his salary had begun to exceed any reasonable expectation. Besides that, the view was great, he could see the entire skyline and it was quite amazing to look at, even out of his peripheral vision. Sort of like the little light. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but he couldn't quite remember the huge-a** chandelier in the lobby ever flickering. (Richter momentarily worried that Eiji might be home alone. Then he remembered, of course, he'd left Eiji with Reina and Tae-hee because he knew he'd get home late. Maybe he should go to a bar. He tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and thought: Maybe not.)
Well. The light wasn't getting any closer, so he stopped walking and waited patiently for the world to stop spinning. This brought back vague, vague recollections of Paris - he'd gone to school there; it was the first time he'd ever left Reina for longer than a day; he'd come back and everything had been different, but that was okay, because he came back different too. He remembered a black-haired actress in an opera, pretty and pale with an Asian tilt to her eyes, and he smiled until someone bumped into him.
Richter turned, stared after the person - it looked to be some sort of mobster, all in black with a weirdly bright purple fedora. Better not to question, he decided, especially since he didn't really want to end up dead. (He did have a daughter of sorts, after--)
Holy s**t, was that an explosion? When the reflections of the vivid light finally faded, he looked around. The bobbing glow was gone. The streets were completely dark.
Somewhere in the shadows of the streets, he heard a rising, needle-thin wail, pure and silver and alive, like a baby's, if babies were pitch-perfect at birth. With a foreboding feeling, he went to investigate...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:11 pm
london comes home.
Richter did not like children very much; he had wanted one to preserve his own name and to create an indelible reflection of himself. Beyond Eiji, all interest in the younger generation ceased; he had some sort of proprietary interest in his niece, too, of course. But other than his daughter and her twin, he just didn't care. That didn't make him heartless; he looked out for lost kids same as anyone, and knew what to do in case of an "amber alert" and everything. He certainly didn't wander around kicking puppies or taking candy from small children. It was just that, if he had his choice, he would live in a world populated only by Eiji and Tae-hee.
Which led him to this all-important question: How the hell did he end up with another one? Which led to an even more important question: What the ******** did you do with a toddler who was only ten inches tall?
It wasn't like the little girl was a problem. She hadn't even seemed real when he'd finally gotten home at ten minutes to three in the morning, more like a drunken figment of his imagination - just a tiny floating thing all aglow with a seemingly human form on the inside. Whatever, thought Richter, he had to be up at seven to get Eiji and he would prefer to have gotten some sleep before fetching the baby. Sure, the dragon girl was a really quiet kid, easy to take care of- except when she decided she didn't want to be alone- but it was more the responsibility that fussed him. He didn't exactly notice when he woke up and there was the little glowing child sitting on the alarm clock, or when he got out of the shower and she was on top of the toilet tank. But he did notice when he went to get dressed and there she was, sleeping in a clumsy nest of his favorite socks and glowing softly in the pre-dawn light of his bedroom.
Firstly he thought sock fairies. That would definitely be an explanation for her placement. But that didn't exactly jive with his expectations of the world, and as he picked up the tiny girl in one cupped hand, he considered Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is the true explanation, and the simplest explanation was that she'd been that bobbing light and some external force wanted him to have this little glowing girl. Thinking it, it sounded a lot more complex than sock fairies, but Richter liked to think he was fairly observant and would have noticed them before. Unexplained appearances of babies... he looked at the little girl in his palm again. Her hair and her feet were the only things that spilled over the sides. She was no bigger than a doll, really, and looked to be... a toddler, he'd guess, and he set her down on the pillow he'd vacated so he could get dressed.
Secondly, once he was dressed, he considered that maybe he'd finally gone crazy. That explosion (?) had knocked something loose in his head. Or he was still drunk. But no, he held his liquor pretty well and three hours nearly always led to sobriety. He felt pretty sober, too. But she was clearly right there, and just as clearly... not a figment. She stirred and rubbed her eyes, looked right up at him and then smiled. It was a situation similar to one he'd been in most every day since he got back from university- but normally with women of age, naked women, not tiny doll-sized girls.
"Err," he said, "Don't suppose you have a name?"
She seemed to have some kind of basic understanding, since she shook her head and, after a moment of that, slowed to look around, for what he didn't know. Richter checked the time - 6:42, he had to go get Eiji soon - and held out a hand to the child. From experiences with his first daughter, he knew he couldn't return her to wherever she had come from. Not like he would want to, since returning a child to an explosion (or a mobster in a purple fedora) was rather difficult. (Not to mention inhumane, he added in a hurry, not to mention inhumane.) "I guess," he said, "I'll call you London." The name felt like divine inspiration - she certainly lit up on hearing it, beaming with happy eyes suddenly gone dark. He got up, suddenly clueless as to what to do with the girl- but she seemed to have an idea, adeptly climbing up his sleeve to perch on his shoulder, her cheek - no bigger than the print of his little finger- against his jaw. Her glow wasn't too distracting once he was out of the room, but he put up a hand anyway to steady the little girl. Maybe she could float- maybe not. Not worth the risk. It would be hard to explain how she'd gotten injured to anyone.
London and Eiji and Richter, he thought. One of these things is not like the other, and it's not the one you expect. He sighed, and set off on his way, the little girl humming on his shoulder.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:15 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:24 pm
london and her sister...
London's new family had four members, besides herself: her cousin, Tae-hee, who was dark haired and big-eyed with fiery, colorful wings; her aunt, Reina, who had purple hair and funny white plumes on her head; her father, Richter, who was - well - himself; and her sister, Eiji, brown-haired and silent. But, surprisingly, the sisters hit it off rather well. Barely had Richter decided he could handle raising a ten-inch-tall child than the elder of the two had London sleeping with her in her crib, held close like a favorite doll.
Eiji had simple tastes: she liked people to pay attention to her, she liked it when there was no attention taken away from her, and more than anything she loved it when she was not alone at night. Before, this had caused problems - Richter liked to sleep with his own company, and when his daughter woke up, he had to move off and take care of her tears. With London around, he didn't have to worry. The dragon girl woke up, found her little sister there, and went back to sleep.
It was much like having a doll, in the opinion of Eiji. London couldn't be manhandled the same way, but she could and did follow Eiji around and they played hide-and-go-seek and as the elder Fabel girl learned how to walk, she could be counted on to give London a merry chase.
As for how London felt, she didn't talk much. She sang wordless atonal melodies, uncertainly at first, and as she learned that her family liked it she started to get louder, more confident. The little glowing girl's voice wasn't loud, since she lacked the size for it, but it was sweet and bright and, as long as it was at a reasonable hour, just generally pleasant. The songs were always variations on the same tune, which her guardian found slightly annoying but he never commented on it. What was the point, he figured, it wasn't bothering anyone and as long as she stayed quiet and happy, who was there to comment?
It kept them both quiet when he was around, anyway, so it was all good.
Once he'd had time to actually acquire furniture for London - it was hard to find clothing items to scale with her, since she was only ten inches tall - he was presented with a problem. Where did you keep a miniature room? He supposed it could wait- maybe she'd get bigger and then he'd have a better option than setting her up on a table in Eiji's room...
Clothing also presented a challenge, but it was easy enough to find clothes for ten-inch dolls on certain sites his sister had found through her rather unique situation. (Ballerinas loved dolls, after all). So, even more so than his normal-sized daughter, London had enough clothes to wear.
Toy shopping was interesting, but he quickly found he didn't really have to worry about it. The day Eiji got bored of her toy keyboard, he found London jumping on the keys. For a while, it was discordant and a bit annoying. He had, more than once, turned and told her to keep it down, and when she kept it up he just gave up. But eventually, he began to hear the same atonal song that she normally sang, much simplified but clumsier.
For the first time, he considered that she might want to learn piano or some other instrument. With her size, it simply wasn't an option. Well, he thought, maybe she'll grow.
But, knowing Gaia as he did, he doubted it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:25 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 9:11 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:57 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 2:52 pm
Quest time!
The music flows in London, all most literally at times, affecting her form as she listens to songs she enjoys and truly loves - glowing brighter and darker depending.
And then things change just as her tastes in music refine. With the sudden shift in her life, her new guardian finds that the music the toddler likes to be lulled to sleep with has become dark. In an effort to cheer the child up or perhaps put an end to the early emo music tastes ( that's for when you're a teen! ) they find an old music composition. It's beautiful and became more popular long after the composer was gone. The problem? The music causes so much anger, frustration, and sadness in London that she disappears from sight. Weird things start happening about the new home and the toddler cannot control the feelings nor what is happening to her. Can she be helped through this or will worse things occur?
Good luck and hopefully will see London again!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
