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 Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:30 am
At least they weren't shopping for socks this time. Rapier wouldn't have been able to handle it if her daughter had decided to go sock-shopping again. Alread her dresser was overflowing with the stupid bits of fabric and, frankly, her usually grumpy mam was getting even more irritable as time went on.
Jem thought it was hilarious.
It was just another rather cool day along the area that was Gaia. The wind was not a friend for those wearing skirts but Cleo didn't mind; today, her goldcrest had actually worn a pair of jeans. They constricted her movements (Rapier was pleased) and they kept her from kiddie-flashing anyone across the streets.
"Wann'ice." Gold eyes peered up at her, a brown and green hand reaching up to tug at her mothers wrist. "Wann'ice! S'red an' bluuue an--"
Brown eyes narrowed in on her and Rapiers hand moved to rest on the crinkly black and yellow hair. "Cleo. What did we talk about?"
She heaved a sigh, wings stretching out and flapping a few times in her annoyance. But she was going to answer anyway - otherwise there would be no ice to be had! "Wan-TUH an ice." The eyes stayed on her and Cleo fidgeted, shulders rising to her face, "Please."
"At least you pronounced the T's... alright." Rapier grumbled a little but she allowed herself to be pulled to the little shaved ice stand along one of the sides Cleo had seen. "Why do you want cold when it's getting chilly?"
"S'yum."
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:44 am
"PUDDA A TELLA-FONE IN YA BUTT! PUDDA DINOSAW BONE IN YA BUTT!!" a young voice was singing at the top of its lungs as Felix, head down and ears lowered was shamefully weaving his way in and out of the early-season crowds to get back to the seclusion of the car.
He didn't know where Pablo had heard "Put The Boogie In Your Butt", he was sure Sharika was somehow to blame for it, and it made him look like an especially bad father to have his diminuative toddler belting it for all to hear while cradled against his chest.
Pablo, however, was having the time of his life. The chilly air had him happy enough to sing and that's exactly what he was doing. He wanted the entire world to hear his beautiful voice and, above all, to notice him.
Hello there, lady with the big nose! Hi there, fat man with the bushy face!
He was blissfully unaware that some of them were favoring him with looks that they might give a cockroach shortly before squashing it as a result of his serenade.
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:42 am
Unfortunetly, Rapier knew exactly what the little creature was shrieking as she was almost positive that Jem had been somewhat-trying to sing the exactly same thing a bit ago from her iPod. The woman winced from the side of the shaved ice stand where she was handing the man some money.
"Aun'Jem?" Cleo questioned her mother and she twisted around to see. Nope! It was just a veeeeery tall thing (an adult, her mother kept reminding her) with a smaller, darker thing right there with him. It was the small thing that kept singing and carrying on the way small things were prone to do.
Tyven never did, but Cleo wouldn't hold that against her sister.
Once the shaved ice was in her hand, balanced c carefully on a badly-made paper cone, Cleo had freed herself from her mothers eye-sight and scurried off towards the bigthing and the small thing.
"Wha'else can you sing?" Hellos were a thing of the past as the gold crest threw herself in the line of fire, standing up on tippy-toes to see the small thing against the white man.
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:18 pm
Felix visibly shied away as someone approached them. "I--I'm sorry." he stammered without really having heard what Cleo had asked, and just assuming someone was so righteously offended at Pablo's warbling that they'd chosen to approach him. "He's just a kid....he doesn't know any better. We were just leaving, I--" He silenced when he finally laid eyes on the little goldcrest, realizing that she was neither a figure of authority nor did she seem upset.
Also, she was not even talking to him.
Pablo stopped in mid-verse at the sound of the female voice and practically lunged out of Felix's hands to better see Cleo. YES, someone had noticed his obvious talent! He gave Cleo a beaky grin and gave a kick at Felix to let him down. "DOWWNNN'N!" he commanded, giving his adopted father an annoyed look.
He gave a penguiny smile of satifaction as he was set on the pavement, still being clung to by one flipper. "I sing!" he assured Cleo. "I sing ahh...ahh....." well, really, after Boogie In Your Butt, what else WAS there? Oh! He had one! "Sun-eeeee days! Keepin dah coooouuuds a-waaayy!"
It was not the best rendition of the Sesame Street theme song ever, but at least it meant he'd been absorbing something from the DVD's they'd put him in front of.
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:51 pm
Well, he was cute and Cleo always noticed the cute things. They were fun and adorable and they moved all-- his big thing was cute too! Quiet and all...fidgety. That was odd for adults but the little bird shrugged it off, crouching down to peer at the small boy-thing almost eye to eye.
Pablos grin was returned and then he began to talk to her. Cuteness almost strangled her at the chubby little yellow thing and his voice wasn't all too bad either! She may not have been a penguin but she was some sort of a bird and could appreciate a small ones warbles.
"I like that song!" Her chirrup was cheerful, one hand reaching out to give that bright yellow fluff a little pet. "Do you watch the show? Maybe one day they'll hire you to sing it! You sing it very nicely."
A wise nod from the little girl when the familier, fast-paced clip-clip-clip of her mothers shoes approached. Cleo didn't look up at her. Her concentration? On the penuin.
"Cleo." Rapier recieved no response and she just sighed, one hand having moved to press against her forehead. Since her daughter was there and undisturbed, her eyes turned towards the other parental unit at hand. "Sorry. She ran off while I was paying and.. just sorry. She can be a little harasser sometimes."
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:01 am
Pablo, still fresh out of the labs, did not have as good of a command on the english language as Cleo did, but he tried to answer anyway. "Uh huh! I like th' um...th'..." he didn't know what they were called, so he imitated them instead "Yeeeupyupyupyupyup guyz."
"Its all right..." Felix said, regarding the other adult with some degree of relief. "I mean, she wasn't doing anything wrong...Pablo needs the interaction, I'm sure. He just came from the lab--" he cut himself off with a flush.
...whoops.
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:09 am
"I like Big Bird." She grinned a little more, keeping her hand on the BRIGHT YELLOW that was his hair. "S'yellow. Like y'hair." Her own grasp on English slid away mildly as her mother came closer but it was nothing serious, to her.
"What's you're name?"
Still, Rapier was embaressed. Another glance at her child assured her she was doing nothing BAD to the child and - lab? Cool brown eyes flickered over to Felix and a grin twisted itself on Rapiers thin lips.
"Lab? A lab with animals and humans? Unless they have more around here I'm not aware of, I'm guessing your..." She blinked at the birds, "...child came from the same place Cleo did."
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:40 am
Pablo jerked one flipperthumb at himself proudly, practically preening at the compliments on his hair. Of COURSE it was gorgeous, it was part of HIM. "Pab'lo." he informed her, as if somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear a chorus of angellic voices singing as it was uttered. "Whosyoo?"
Felix was silent for a long moment, wondering if he should just decline to comment or assume she also meant Dcorp. It was a safe assumption, he guessed....Cleo DID look to be made of the same stuff Sharika, Alex, and Pablo did.
"Yeah....yeah I guess so...." he managed after a minute, daring to make eye contact with Rapier. "Have you had to deal with the...ah....the egg yet?" That would tell for certain, he decided. Cleo looked old enough for them to have put an egg in her care if she was, indeed, from Dcorp.
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:02 am
"Pablo," Cleo repeated. The word was mostly to herself, a hum, fingers petting back the yellow hair. Despite everything, yellow was still her favorite color and Pablo possesed hair made from it! Attention must be made. "I'm Cleo."
At least she wasn't referring to herself as 'Squeakah' anymore.
Felixs' silence just strengthed her conviction they were from one and the same company. The eye contact didn't detour her any, hand smoving to rest on her hips casually. At least looked anything but.
"Yes. She's happy the egg 'matches' most of her wardrobe." Her lips twitched a little in amusement at that and peered at Pablo. "But he doesn't look old enough. So either they tell you things they don't tell me or they saddled you with more then one too."
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:49 pm
"Cweo! CWEEOOOOO!!" Pablo sang at the top of his lungs with no particular tone. It was just fun to say 'Cleo'.
Felix, the last of his doubts shaken off, seemed relieved he had found someone he could talk to. Up until now, he really had not had any contact with other parents aside from passing nods and acknowledgements while taking the kids to and from their classes.
"They have." he nodded. "I have two others at home -- Sharika, she's our oldest, and Alexander. We just got this one a few days ago..." he drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "....they're making us move into a bigger house." he said, trying to pass it off as off-handed but sounding exasperated instead.
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Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:49 am
"Yeeees~" The giggly girl drawled out for the singing penguin. For his troubles, his chin/underside of his beak got a fond little scritch, and she smiled at him happily. She wanted one like him at home! Just like him! He could sing and Tyven would grump and it would be so much fun!
"Mam, I wan' Pablow. Aun'Jem woul'ike him! Chris'mas?" Her voice pitched to the hopeful and she canted her head to the side to peek at her mother. Rapier was mildly busy with Felix and took a moment to respond to her child.
"No. Tyven would eat him." And her attention went right back to the man, one brown eyebrow already arched. "Two more? Hopefully they're less...vocal?" Bigger house. Egads. Rapier almost flinched. She liked her house. It was hers. Now invaded by a lover and CHILDREN, but it was hers. "It's not like you can just throw the kids out, though.. I mean, despite whatever they can do to you. You get attatched, unfortunetly."
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Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:10 pm
"Yayayayay!" Pablo cheered, wrenching his flipper out of Felix's hold to clap his hands gleefully. "Wanna go wiffyoo!" Being in the presence of people who obviously had taste in good music was a lot more appealing than being in the presence of people who told him to be quiet all the time. He was PABLO, after all, he couldn't be caught with plebeians. They made him look bad.
"No, they're not terribly vocal..." Felix said, making a frantic grab for Pablo's hand once more to keep him from running off. "One of them runs around outside most of the day with her dragon, and the other one's always too busy checking the house for ghosts...his dragon just hatched and we can't keep her out of my wife's jewelry box..."
It only sounded like a circus because it WAS a circus...
"But yes, you do get attached. We can't have children of our own, Aj and I, and that was their biggest leverage for getting their foot in the door."
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Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:23 pm
The mention of Tyven eating the little penguin made the girls expression fall - her sister DID like to eat things the size of her face, after all. Her mam ALWAYS had to do things difficult-like, didn't she?
"Bu' Chris'mas," She persisted, fingers moving to play with the bright yellow hair once more, "Tyvie won' eat him." And then a little tickle to the chubby penguins belly! Oh yes. The cute part.
Rapier blinked a little, watching the children together - and the flipper grabbing - with something almost amusement. "What kind of dragons are they? Cleos is a gold...thing."
"I'matches!"
"Yes. And it matches. I have yet to find out what, exactly, they do but eh." A faint shrug and Rapier took a step or two in order to straighten her daughters hair a bit. "So that's what they used for you? That's rough."
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Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:40 pm
"Yeah..." Felix agreed, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. It WAS rough, and it was a really crappy way to introduce somebody to your company, but as long as it all worked out in the end..
"Shar has a blue dragon and he completely destroyed our backyard with his digging. He's already working on ruining the new one. Alex's is gold and stays inside mostly. I don't think she likes him much yet." He said 'yet' only because he didn't want to sound like he was making his older adopted son sound like a complete lost cause.
A sudden buzzing and tweeting from his pocket made him wince and immediately fumble for his cel phone where the alarm he'd set was now going off. Punching a button and silencing it, he gave Rapier an apologetic look. "Listen, I'm sorry we didn't get to talk more, but I really need to get him home and try to get him in the tub before dinner..."
He'd already made one attempt earlier today and it had failed miserably. He hadn't counted on penguins becoming especially slick when wet.
Pablo, hearing the mention of the dreaded "tub" stamped one foot petulantly. "NO! NO BAFF!!" he bellowed defiantly. Water wasn't supposed to be warm and it DEFINITELY wasn't supposed to have weird pink nasty-tasting bubbles in it.
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Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:47 pm
Cleo peered at the little penguin as he stamped his foot and declared that he would NEVAR BE CLEAN AGAIN! But she just patted his hair, head tilting to the side. "Ya'should 'ake baths." She informed him, voice serious for a Child, "Th'make you pretty an' clean. S'm'aunt dagger says."
At least, that's what her Aunt Dagger Said. Rapier always told her daughter to ignore everything Dagger told her but some things just stuck in the girls mind. In fact, the Fallen just wrinkled her nose and swooped down. Cleo was plucked up by her waist and tossed over the taller womans shoulder.
Felix, however, got a faint smile. "It's not a problem. She needs her nap. It was nice meeting you and your singing... uhm. Child. Good luck with the new house."
Cleo? Not pleased.
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