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 Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:08 pm
Few things were more boring than the middle of the afternoon for Aurrek. Especially this time of year. The restaurant where he slaved and toiled to earn mortal money to feed his mortal kids was closed, as the owners had gone on vacation for Christmas. The cursed holiday had robbed him of his job for the moment, too.
So, while neither he nor his crab companion needed to eat, it did provide an excellent diversion for a while. The hourglass god set baby Kelreid in his pram, and, after a second thought, tossed the strange bone wand in there to entertain the baby, too. Along with Nordri the crab. And then they all set out for the local bakery, where there were all sorts of things to buy and eat for the Christmas season.
Aurrek bought himself an entire gingerbread loaf, and picked out a snowman-shaped molasses cookie for Kelreid. Then he wheeled the pram and its contents over to one of the small tables in the bakery window and sat down, adjusting all of his velvet robes before handing the cookie to the water boy.
Kelreid waved his arms and whined starting from the moment he first saw the cookie. He only quieted once it was actually in his chubby little hands. He shoved the snowman's little mittened hand into his mouth and sucked and slobbered and drooled, gibbering happily the whole time.
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Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:30 pm
Deet was far from pleasant this chilly morning. For one: It was morning. For two: It was chilly. But the big kicker was that he had skipped breakfast that morning. Still, in his panicked state this morning he did manage to get Nihilo some fresh air, some proper baby clothes and toys, and finished his last-minute holiday shopping. The little tyke was happily playing with a small plush rat Deet had bought him at the last store, blisfully unaware of his father's problems.
Deet stopped pushing the stroller, however, as he saw a bakery. Ah, where there were bakeries, there had to be bagels! Fumbling with the door, Deet managed to squeeze himself, with the umpteenth bags and the stroller, through the doors. Ahh, it was pleasantly warm in here!
Deet looked over, seeing another man out with his own odd-looking child. Unlike Nihilo who was scaly and yellow-green, this child was...Well, translucent! It looked like animated water, almost! Still, the rather happy child seemed quite content. Deet looked up at the father, gesturing a small greeting wave as he and his adopted son took a seat a table near-by.
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Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:14 pm
Upon spotting the other parent, Kelreid let go of the cookie, allowing it to slide down into the blankets, trailing drool down his cheek on the way. He whined a little and waved to the other man in a way that seemed cheerful enough, but indicated that if some sort of attention was not returned soon, there might be a fit.
As the man with the stroller walked past his table, Aurrek looked up from his first slice of gingerbread cake and waved back perhaps a bit shyly. His eyes held some understanding, though, as far as the child-raising thing went. With one hand, he cut another slice of his loaf with a plastic knife, then twiddled his fingers in Kelreid's face a little in hopes of distracting him from another tantrum.
The other kid looked about as weird as Kelreid, if in a rather different way. All sorts of crazy children living on this Gaia.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 1:13 am
Deet neatly put away the bags and made sure Nihilo couldn't easily crawl off.
"Bah!" he shouted, pointing towards the other two in the bakery, "Bah! Bah bah!" the forked tongue toddler said cheerfully, shaking his little rat toy happily.
Deet just smiled and chuckled, ruffling the hair on the tyke's head as he got himself a bagel and his adopted son a small chocolate cookie. Its not like the little thing had teeth though, but he did enjoy gnawing on stuff. Of course, with the scales and such Deet would be curious to see if he WOULD ever grow teeth!
So, Deet sat there eating his bagel while Nihilo gnawed at his cookie, an occasion bout of baby babble escaping him. An awkward silence fell between the two adults, as some thing like an awkward silence could ONLY fall between two adults. Finally Deet couldn't take it any more. The gent seemed nice enough, and besides, he did have a kid that was just as strange as Nihilo...If not more so.
"So, he your's?" Deet asked. A stupid question in all respects but at the very least it was a question!
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:55 pm
"No," Aurrek replied immediately and with a pleasant smile. "Not at all. Doubt I could have one like this if I tried." He glanced down at his hand holding the plastic knife, and set the knife down before resting both of his hands and their pale, slightly translucent skin in his lap. "Why, does he look like me?"
Not like it was a bad thing or anything like that, but it still freaked the hourglass god out more than a little to think that he had a son. More like a ward. Or a future follower, but Aurrek was not about to say that part. Though it did give him pause sometimes to look at the kid, with his semi-see-through skin; Aurrek half-wondered if Kelreid would sprout his own head of navy blue hair just like him.
"Kelreid, ah, turned up on my doorstep one day," he went on to clarify. "And, you know, I couldn't just leave him there. I thought it would be interesting, too. Raising a kid." He sighed a little. "I mean, it is, just not like I thought it would be."
Awkward silence hung in the air for a moment, which the god filled with a cough after a moment. "How about yours?" he asked, reaching up onto the table long enough to grab another hunk of gingerbread loaf to stuff in his mouth before folding his hands in his lap again.
Kelreid heard the call of another youngster somewhere else in the shop, but out of sight. Feeling some deep primal urge within himself to return the repetitive baby-calls to find his potential equal in the wide and scary world within the bakery, the water-boy started to respond with shouts of his own: "Bah! Bah! Bababah!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 9:42 pm
"Oh, um, n-no, I guess he doesn't look like you per-say..." Deet chuckled awkwardly, before hearind this strange man mention finding the child on the door step of his home. "R-really now? You as well? Little Nihilo here showed up in the exact same way. Though I've taken a liking to the little fellow..." Deet admitted, looking down at the younger gnawing on a cookie happily, stopping every so often to scream some sort of gibberish.
"I kind of took him in 'cause I know what its like to be kinda alone...No parents myself, y'see." Deet explained nonchalantly, "But he's not a bad kid. A bit of a handful but at least he's not a fussy child I'm happy to say."
"Bah!!" popped Nihilo in his attempt to communicate with Kelreid.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:03 pm
Screaming and babbling was fun and all that, but Kelreid decided after a few minutes that he really wanted to see the other baby, too. And so he took a deep breath and cut loose, wailing like a banshee.
Aurrek winced at the racket, and leaned down to pick Kelreid up. This was the attention cry, at least, so nothing was wrong. The god reflected momentarily on what it said that he could identify now what the infant's different screeches meant.
He held the baby exactly what the parenting magazines said, though he still looked a bit stiff and awkward. "Come on, shut up and go back to squealing or something," he told the boy quietly, bouncing him ever so gently on his knee. "Have more cookie." Aurrek picked the drool-smeared cookie out of the pram, blew a piece of fuzz from the blankets off of it, and tried to shove it into the boy's mouth.
Once he was out and about, Kelreid decided to keep screeching a little just for good measure, but it became clear that he was much happier out of the pram for the moment. After a few more good yells, he decided to indulge his guardian and quieted down, taking the cookie again in his hands and gumming at the edges.
Looking relieved now that the kid was quiet again, Aurrek went on with the conversation. "Lucky you," he said with a weak smile. "This one's pretty fussy, but tolerable, I guess. Better than some others in my household." He leaned over and picked Nordri out of the pram as well, and dropped the large white crab none-too-carefully onto the table.
Nordri held still, stunned, for a few seconds, then went for the paper plate that held Aurrek's gingerbread loaf. The navy-haired man rolled his eyes, but let the creature alone for the moment.
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Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:05 pm
Deet chuckled, not out of cruelty mind you, but the scene was some what entertaining. Espicially since Deet had lived through more than his share of fits from Nihilo over Tishrei...And vice-versa for that statement.
"So, m'names Deet. Yours?" Deet asked, seeing as how while he knew the child's name, he forgot to get the father's name as well! Slightly rude but understandable, at the very least.
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