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 Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:36 pm
.: Reserved :.
~Meeting Odnako ~
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Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 7:16 pm
.: Responsibility, Part One :.
"...you're kidding, right?" Sprawled across the couch, receiver tucked carefully against her ear, Dani Spyre could not help but gape wordlessly at the window. "You're joking. You have to be. Wraith? With a kid?" Listening carefully to the soft voice mumbling across the phone line, she nodded once...twice...and sighed. "I don't believe it. How did that happen? ... .... ... I just can't believe that Wraith is going to be actually honestly taking care of a kid. This...this I gotta see. I'll be over in an hour."
A cry of protest rose from the phone as she slipped it snugly back into its cradle, utterly ignored by the fox halfling who, in the next instant, slid smoothly to her paws and snatched a dark hoodie from its place atop the well-worn couch. "This is just too weird to be true," she muttered under her breath as she paced into the wintery sunlight, stretching in the December chill that ruffled her dusky fur. "Kaen!!"
The sparieh elder appeared in seconds, twittering in acknowledgement as she hopped from the back stairs to the prickling grass. "I need a lift." The quadrapedal avian stared incredulously at her, squawking in mocking derision as she glowered death in his general direction. "Give me a break, I said I'd be there in an hour and it's not like I can walk down the mountain in that time...just don't do anything crazy, okay?"
Still snickering coldly, Kaen settled against the ground, remaining remarkably still as Dani settled between his two sets of wings. "Okay, now take it easyyyaaaiiiiii!!" As the ground went hurtling out from beneath the sparieh's feet, the half-fox buried her face in his feathered mane, praying for the ride to be over soon...
~ .: =+= :. ~
Odnako glared daggers at the dragon man sitting complacently in the chair before her play pen, little hooves clicking dangerously against the plastic poles that braced her enclosure. Oh, he would pay for sticking her in this soft little box with nothing but a few pillows and stuffed animals to kick around...in fact, she had half a mind to leap over those flimsy walls and go give him what for!
...of course, the other half of her mind was rather infatuated with the fuzzy face of the reindeer toy in front of her. It...it was just so happy...and when she grabbed it, she felt all warm and cozy...and it was so soft and fuzzy and happy and it made her just want to be a good little fawn and --
NO!! Must concentrate on vengeance against the dragon!!
...but...soft...toy...gggh...
Wraith peered up from his latest project to watch as the young deer snuggled up with the reindeer plush toy he had 'commissioned' from Dani the moment he knew that his life as he knew it was over.
He had been 'tending' the little waif for...just a few days, actually, and already he was about ready to explode. The half-dragon couldn't bear to live in the confines of that magical place, where he knew no one and had no one to turn to (as much as he hated to admit it, he rather depended on his old traveling companions)...and so he spent his days in the place he knew, the place that felt like home.
And in the process shoved the responsibility for tending that deer child on Jou, Pyro, and Rae.
It made things so much easier on him; he was stuck with her all night, trying to sleep through her incessant crying and screaming and tantrums, barely able to catch her as she bounded shrieking from his touch, bitten and kicked when he tried to calm her. At least now she was being quiet...and at least dragon kind could survive on so little sleep.
Pyro sighed, carefully stirring the milk warming slowly on the stove. Normally he didn't mind Wraith: they weren't exactly friends -- no one but Dani could claim to be friends with the disagreeable dragon -- but they got along as well as anyone could claim to when faced by someone with dragon blood flowing through his veins. Now, though...now there were problems.
Well, one problem. Named Odnako.
Jou wasn't good at tending children; Kenji was the sole exception, as the boy was already partly grown and they shared a similar interest in the art of combat. Rae was better with books than people, especially children, and Pyro was rather sure that the lion half-breed had found some spell that blocked out noise. And Wraith just ignored the fawn completely, too lost in his 'work' to notice...either that, or adept at feigning deafness.
And so it fell to Pyro to tend the screaming, flailing, rambunctious, uncatchable child.
Sighing heavily into the softly aromatic steam rising from the stove, staring balefully at the plain white wall backing the assembled burners. When, he asked himself silently, when would it end?
A sharp knock cut through his spiraling thoughts. Mayday, Mayday, SOS, CQD, the little voices cried as he snaped the stove off, moved the pan from hot burner to cool, and hastily removed the flowered apron that was so common to his wardrobe, balling it up and hurling it in a disgusted bundle to one corner of the cabinet. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" he snarled as the rapping continued unabated, heavy claws clicking down the hardwood halls as the sound stuttered.
"What?" he snapped, throwing the door open, rage breathing through his flaming throat --
"...oh." A remarkably familiar woman stood before him, staring in what could very well be shock and something akin to terror, her bottlebrush of a tail fluffed three times its normal size. "Oh, gods, Dani, I didn't...I'm sorry, it's just...I...I'm sorry, it's just that..." And, hunching submissively, the winged wolf tucked himself neatly against the wall, reduced to incoherent mumbles as the half-fox entered the room, shame dripping from his every strand of fur.
"...Pyro, I never thought you would grow a spine."
Dani smiled over her shoulder at the wolf as he perked, miserable eyes of mismatched grey blinking weakly out at her from beneath a single curving horn. "Take it easy. I'm not mad...just a little shocked, as you might imagine." She watched his uncertain smile twitch again at the very corners of his lips, tilting her head encouragingly. "That's my Pyro. So, did I hear right that Wraith's been saddled with a kid -- "
"SHUT UP."
Oh, gods, the gossip mill was back at work.
"Oh, this I have to see," the half-fox snickered gleefully, slipping carefully around the nearest doorway and into the living room...
...only to stop at the sight of the child's pen and the...the...something inside.
... ... ... well, somethings, if she counted the plush toy the little fawn...child...thing...was staring balefully over.
"...is that my reindeer?"
"Yes," Wraith grumbled impatiently. "Now, who called you, why are you here, and what do you want?" Of all the people he had hoped would never find out, this was the person at the top of his list. He would be a laughing stock by morning.
...gods save him.
"Oh, come now," Dani laughed, waving away his questions with an easy flip of the hand. "I can't just drop in on a friend now and then? See how he's doing with his new little charge, hmm?" She knew full well that she was being nasty. It was in her nature toward her close companions, she swore by it, and they could hate her for it if they wanted; she could care less, as they somehow seemed to forget by the next meeting, either way.
"So!" she chirped, leaning carefully against one flimsy rail, staring at the dark-eyed fawn within. "Who's the kid?"
Odnako glared livid death up at the strange red beast that had come waltzing so carelessly into her space. How dare this stranger come onto her turf and expect mercy!? Oh, she would show this red monster a thing or two, give it a piece of her mind --
...but...but the soft...
VENGEANCE! Soooooft. RETRIBUTION!! Fluuuuuffyyyyy. ...a nice stern kick in the tail? Poof.
...the poof won.
"Nyaaaaw, she's cute," Dani giggled, reaching in to pet the fawn and her plush as a pale brown face buried itself in loops of divinely fluffy fabric. Wraith had said that he needed it soft...for a baby, she now saw, one black-furred finger running lightly over one velvet ear. "Odd, admittedly," she added, her touch skirting gently around the bony growths of the tiny deer's shoulder blades, "...but still somehow adorable. How in the world did you get saddled with her?"
"I don't know," the half-dragon huffed, heaving himself up from the chair and leaving the latest statuette half-finished in his wake. "And I honestly don't care. I didn't want her, I don't want her, I don't think I'll ever want her." As he paused at Dani's side, glaring daggers into her green-gold eyes, something inside him willed her, just for once, to listen.
"She's a pain," he began, his voice low even as the fawn's ear flicked toward him; she always seemed to know when he was speaking badly of her. It was annoying, to say the least. "She's an aggravation, she's loud and noisy and violent and I can't control her, I don't know who can, but I can't take it."
Even as he scooped the deer child up from her pen, he knew that he'd made a grave error. Dropping the plush, Odnako let out a piercing shriek that filled the house and most likely the meadow beyond, an ear-splitting cry that sent Dani's ears twitching sharply into her dark hair and Wraith's own drooping as low as they could go. "TAKE HER!!" He shoved the struggling, flailing, thrashing, kicking child in the half-fox's direction, willing her to understand the gesture even as she took an instinctive step backward. "PLEASE, I CAN'T TAKE IT!!"
"SHE'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY," Dani snarled back, crossing her arms decisively over her chest. "PUT THE KID DOWN." Wraith looked at her as though she were absolutely insane. "DO YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR EARDRUMS!?" She watched as the dragon halfling very nearly dropped the poor fawn, who immediately fell silent and bounded wildly from the room and down the hardwood hallway to realms unknown...though, if she had to guess, she would say that Rae was about to get a rather unpleasant surprise. "She's your responsibility," the half-fox repeated carefully. "Which means that you can't shove her off on me or anyone else. I won't take her."
"You used to be willing to help your friends in their times of need," Wraith hissed. Dani's green-gold eyes narrowed dangerously as she drew herself up to her full height, a full five inches over his head with the inclusion of her ears.
...oh gods he pissed her off.
Smart move, dragon boy.
"Now listen here," Dani rumbled, looming over the dragon who still managed to stand proud and defiant against her. "Listen here and listen good. You have no right to say that when this child is your responsibility. Now, help I can understand; help I can give. But I will not take what you consider a 'problem' off your hands. You never learned what it meant to be responsibile; I'm going to teach you right now."
And, without a single further word, the half-fox turned on one dark heel and stalked calmly from the house she once knew as her own.
...sighing, Wraigh snatched the reindeer plush from the floor and crushed it between his hands, a low growl bubbling up in his throat. "Great," he snapped. "Juuust peachy."
Stuck with the deer again.
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:37 pm
.: Responsibility, Part Two :.
Miserable, fuming, and in distinct pain, Wraith curled tight on the slim bed he knew as his own, one hand pressed tight to his chest. It was still sore, still painful to the touch; that last kick had done it, he was sure, finally loosening his plate mail of carefully overlapping scales. The little deer child was scrappy, he had to give her that, and more powerful than he had honestly expected her to be; he'd never known that scales could come loose like that, tiny teeth set loose and wriggling with a single touch...
...or, in his case, with every breath, a sensation that stung painfully and drew tiny drops of blood welling within the shifting cracks in his armor-coated skin. Every inhale, every exhale, threw flame-hot daggers deep between the tiny spaces, murdering him slowly through the intricate pains.
Dear gods, he wished Dani was around.
Somewhere far away, creeping through the hazy muddle of pain and anguish clouding his perception, Wraith thought he heard a siren begin to scream. "Odnako," he guessed bitterly, his tail hanging heavy and limp across his ankles. "This is just getting to be too much."
Wheezing faintly, the half-dragon curled tighter in on himself, trying to still the pain that ripped through his chest with each shallow breath.
At the front of the house, much as Wraith had expected, Odnako was throwing a screaming fit.
Kicking, thrashing, flailing, a whirl of uncontrolled limbs and blurred browns, the little fawn struggled valiantly against the remarkably careful grasp of the strange chimera, screaming for freedom, liberation, vengeance, retribution, --
POOF!!
…and her plush, stranded some ten feet away, trapped in the hands of a glowing white lion that could very well devour the little thing in a single gulp if he so desired.
WANT POOF!!
WANT FREEDOM!!
The screaming continued unabated.
Much as Pyro had surmised, Rae had finally found a spell capable of negating Odnako's near-constant shrieking. The banshee's wail had been too much from day one, so used to quiet reading was he; more often than not a foray to the kitchen ended with a hasty retreat, spoils tucked under his arm and hands pressed tight over his ears. In the worst of cases, he wound up with a bit of blood on his hands; in the best, his ears simply rung for a few hours.
And now, thank gods, he had a magical way out. His favorite kind.
...though he did feel rather guilty for not sharing it.
Pyro deserved the respite, if no one else, he mused, turning the soft plush toy over and over in his hands, eyeing the seams and the careful handiwork, the remarkable texture of its fake fur and the unyielding, giddy lightness of the stuffing within its gangly limbs. Pyro, who was always at the front of the house, always going about his work as though nothing were happening, slowly being harried into a testy beast unlike anything Rae had ever known.
...maybe tomorrow he would play spellcaster.
"Hey, guys, what's with all the commotion?"
Pyro blinked muzzily up from his place on the floor, bottle in one hand, Odnako's struggling little body under the other. There around the doorway there peeked a dusky blonde head, grey-blue eyes half-narrowed against the wailing still piercing the evening silence.
"Wraith ran out on us," he called, as loud as he could manage over the rest of Odnako's shrieking. "We're stuck trying to feed her. It's not going well, because she won't eat when she has the toy because her face is always buried in it and she won't shut up when she doesn't have the toy and she flails to much to do anything and I have a splitting headache someone just shoot me."
It was hard to hear through the ringing peals chiming so deafeningly through his head. He just wanted it to stop, make it stop, make it stop...
Admittedly, beyond the noise issue, Jou didn't really mind the new kid on the block. Weaving to the wolfish creature's side, Jou swept Odnako up from the ground, out from beneath Pyro's hand and into the air.
For just a moment, there was silence, as the deer found herself free and the chimera found himself lacking one flailing bundle.
"Doll please!" Jou called cheerfully, brandishing the fawn at Rae, who immediately shoved the reindeer plush into her chest. The young man smiled as the start of another shriek was cut off mid-breath and a contented, gurgling coo took its place. "See, now, that wasn't so hard, was it -- OW!!"
Sharp hooves beating madly against his fingers, Jou dropped the deer child the four feet from air to floor, cursing all the while as he made his desperate, ineffective grabs for her writhing, twisting form, all four limbs flailing madly in a wild attempt to run in mid-air.
Final Score:
Gravity - 1 || Odnako - 0
Dazed and disoriented, the deer picked herself daintily up off the ground, stumbling about on unsteady limbs, before flopping back onto the ground with her face buried squarely in her poof's back.
...well, at least her aim was good.
Seven feet of fur, claws, and feathers leaned weakly back against the coffee table, sighing breaths sliding past sharp teeth. "Gods, this child is disagreeable," he mumbled. "Did we incur the wrath of some other-worldly being or something to deserve this?"
"Not to my knowledge," Jou muttered sourly, hefting the unresisting bundle of anthropomorphic venison into her pen. "We just happen to be the unlucky fools that Wraith counts as 'friends.' In common terms, 'people to shove unwanted troubles off on.' So no, we didn't piss off a god or two, we're just convenient. You okay?"
"This has to stop," Rae murmured faintly, padding lightly to Pyro's side and helping the chimeric wolf to his feet. Jou hovered close by, fidgeting madly and worrying at the red marks flourishing on his hands. "We're not slaves, we're not servants, and we're not babysitters. Wraith needs to take care of his own child."
"His own problem, you mean," Jou scoffed. "He needs to take responsibility for once in his life."
"Dani said the same thing," Pyro sighed, collapsing across the couch and rubbing gently at his ringing ears. "That he needs to learn to take responsibility...that he never learned how to be responsible...something like that, I think. She stormed out of here just a little while after coming, so he must have said something, but I didn't make much out..."
"I'll get some asprin." Tail flicking softly through the silence, Rae turned toward the dark hall, one hand hovering atop the back of the couch. "And then we can have some tea and a nice long discussion about what we're going to do about the problem that Wraith is not going to push off on us anymore.
There was no dissent.
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:15 am
.: Responsibility, Part Three :.
They were talking about her.
She could tell by the way they ducked their heads together over those three mugs of tea, their glances resting darkly upon her when they pulled apart. Even the wolf with wings managed it, though one of his eyes was pale and light.
Odnako, though, couldn't care less about what they were saying or what they were planning or whatever. Every stare was returned with a hard glare of her own, silent and malicious, bleeding misery and hatred from her confinement.
Thinking of which, her dark stare trailed up to the suddenly mesh-covered top of her pen, its wide weave mocking her every movement. She had already tried to escape, all to no avail: she had leapt and it had caught her, sent her tumbling back to the plush hoof-printed floor. She had thrashed and flailed and kicked and thrown herself against the side, only to have the pen tumble over and leave another net over her head, this one equally impenetrable. She had boxed at the mesh with her hooves in hopes of breaking it, only to find herself inextricably snared until she could bite and pry her way free. She had screamed and wailed and shrieked like a banshee within her claustrophibic box, but no one had come to investigate or even tell her to quiet down.
No, there was no escape today.
Oh, how they will pay for this.
Hungry.
They will pay dearly for this injustice!
Cold.
They will wish they'd never been born once I'm through with them!!
It's too small.
Together we will make them suffer!!!
Want out.
Let's find a way out of this trap.
"I think she's planning something."
Blue-grey eyes glowered into the pen where the silent little fawn stewed, plush pressed tight to her chest and dark eyes glaring back at him. "I don't trust that little deer. I swear, she's smarter than she looks, and a lot smarter than her age should allow."
If nothing else, though, she was being quiet. It was somehow both a blessing and a curse: silence saved his ears, but he could swear whenever she stayed so quiet that she was plotting something...
"You're imagining things," Rae sighed, sipping daintily at his mug of dark, rich tea. "She's far too young to be planning anything, let alone plotting against us. She's just a baby, Jou; you give her far too much credit."
Even so, his deep violet gaze trailed over to the unusually quiet deer child, taking in her ice cold stare and her remarkable stillness. This was decidedly abnormal...she had never, in what short time he had known her, been so still, even while sleeping. Now she simply watched, ears pricked forward, even her breathing invisible behind the plush that so rarely left her sight. If he didn't know any better, he would say that she had died where she sat...but no, she blinked: once, twice, again, keeping those large eyes from drying out.
So much for those emotive 'doe eyes' that everyone raved about. They'd never met Odnako.
At the other end of the house, roused not by the noise but the lack thereof, Wraith finally stirred from his tight bundle of clattering scales. The silence was somehow unnerving now after so many weeks of enduring the screaming and crying at all hours...
"What's going on?" he mumbled faintly, stumbling to his talons as he rolled from the bed, one hand pressed tight against his chest to hold the loosened scales in place. Somehow or another, the idea that something might have happened to the fawn -- that she might have gotten hurt or lost somewhere -- was unnerving...even frightening. He was used to the noise...he was used to the deer and all her annoying, enraging acts...
He opened the door slowly, fumbling slightly with the knob as he tried to close the room once more. The tick of claws on wood was almost deafening in the unnatural silence as he slipped his way into the living room...
...to find the members of the house assembled around the coffee table, their glares fixed on him as he paused awkwardly in the doorway.
"...um." Smooth. "...what's going on...?"
Odnako was almost willing to smile when the dragon man appeared in the doorway. With all attention fixed on him, she was free to find that escape she so desperately needed.
Now, the top wasn't there last time, right?
No?
Exactly. Which means that there must be a way that they put it on.
...huh?
They attached it somehow; we just have to find out how to take it off.
I guess...
Good. Let's look.
Dainty hooves picking their way carefully across the mesh beneath her, Odnako drifted to the closest side, eyeing the webbing, searching for the overlap and its closest end --
Is that a hook?
Eyes narrowing, one hoof pawed at the tiny curl of dull metal tucked inside her pen. It was tight, the netting stretched too tight to come free with ease...clutching tight at her Poof with one limb, she turned her every attention to freeing that infuriating slip of tarnished silver --
AHA!! With a muffled, barely audible 'pop,' the hook came free, flying up toward the top before coming to a stuttering halt, dragged inescapably back by the other hooks that doubtless held her an arm's length from freedom.
But we're one step closer, aren't we?
All we have to do is keep looking.
"I think you know what this is about," Pyro murmured softly, steam curling eerily about his sharply featured face. "We have something that we'd like to discuss with you." Mismatched eyes watched carefully as the half-dragon wandered across the room, his ice blue eyes never leaving the trio, catching the faint waver in his small form just before he took a seat in the chair that, as long as he could recall, had belonged to the dragon alone. The strange grimace that dashed across his expression...was it only in the chimera's mind?
"Odnako." The name rumbled menacingly from his throat as the dragon settled himself in the stiff-backed chair, bladed tail settling across his legs. "You never had any vocal problem with me before she came around, after all. So what is it? Is there something you can't handle, because you've been doing just a remarkable job up until now with her -- "
"That's just the problem," Rae snapped, taking to his paws in an instant, mane blazing with white light. "You keep shoving her off on us when, quite obviously, she is not ours to care for. She was put in your care, Wraith, not ours. We shouldn't be the ones who have to take care of her when she's your responsibility.
There was that word again. Fury kindling in cold eyes, the half-dragon started to his feet --
Pain lanced through his misplaced scales, sending him collapsing slowly back into the chair, a pained smile sharpening his face. "Is that so?" he chuckled faintly. "Well, then, answer me this, if you're so wise in the ways of the world." The lion glowered; Wraith simply grinned, fangs glittering under the soft lights. "Why are you only bringing this up now? You didn't mind before; you're just trying to teach me some kind of addle-brained lesson, just like Dani was doing. You can't do anything without a woman's lead -- "
"You leave her out of this," Jou snarled, hot tea splashing across both hands and table as he slammed the mug into the well-marked surface. "Dani has nothing to do with this situation, you ungrateful freeloader. We're sick of having to take care of your kid, getting our eardrums blasted out at all hours of the day and night, having to deal with her kicking and thrashing and just having to do your job. You need to grow up, you ingrate!"
The attacks were coming in from all sides. Growling low in his throat, claws digging into the unyielding, shining upholstery of his chair, the half-dragon leaned dangerously forward, cold gaze piercing the triad before him. "Look who's talking," he laughed sharply. "'Grow up,' he says. Where's your worldly skill? At least I can actually bring in some income. What do you do, axe-boy? How about you, bookworm? What good do you do for this household, hmm?"
"All right," Pyro sighed. Silence fell, thick and suffocating, as he turned his bi-colored grey eyes on the half-dragon. "Yes, some of their claims are hypocritical and rather stand-offish." The indignant glares turned his way by his own comrades were staunchly ignored. "Maybe you'll listen to me. I'm sorry to say this, but I can't take Odnako anymore. The screaming, the crying, the sheer disagreeability of her...! I'm half deaf and haven't slept well in almost two weeks, half of my time at home is spent trying to tend to her while you sit in this very room and ignore her every cry...I can't take it any more, Wraith. None of us can. So you have two choices, I'm afraid."
There was some faint spark of shame in those ice blue eyes. It was one of the few things he could see and not fear imagining. "You can either own up to your responsibility and take care of her as you should...as a guardian should...or you'll have to move."
Sighing softly, pale gaze fixing itself on the floor. Carefully, slowly, his fingers laced beneath his chin. It was a terrifying proposition: to lose everything he'd come to know just because he couldn't manage the care of a single fawn on his own.
"... ... ... that's not much of a choice, is it?" he murmured faintly. Taking unsteadily to his talons, the half-dragon padded his way to Odnako's up-ended pen, righting it carefully and sending the fawn tumbling back into the blue padding with a startled shriek. He could hear the frustrated shriek rising up in her tired throat as he carefully stooped to detach the dull metal barbs from cloth mesh. "I'll do my best."
Odnako peered distrustfully at the scaly hands that so easily finished all her hard work, just when she was about to get it done, having already made it all for naught --
For the first time since she'd known him, the dragon was smiling. It was such an uncertain gesture, wavering and almost timid as he threw the net aside.
...he doesn't look so mean when he smiles.
Wary, not quite ready to place her full trust in the dragon hovering over her, the fawn returned the smile with a timid one of her own.
Progress was finally being made.
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