I moved furniture...
Oct. 24th, 2004 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lavandarlizard2and went to the Wild Animal Park and the mall. I am...tired.
But I bring a slightly singed offering...
BFB - 080d - Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Have you ever had one of those twisted, sick-making moments when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’ve just put a figurative gun to your head and pulled the trigger? Yeah, that’s the one...
The IchiBan snorted and I turned to tear into her... and realized – goddess only knows *how* – that I had just been yelling at Dragons... Large, long-toothed, semi-cranky Dragons. Yelling about something that was not my business, something that was in the past, something that was beyond recall or mending.
And then Heero made a noise. Made several noises, actually. We all turned in his direction. The look on his face... I had an awful disconnected feeling that he was going to cry. And if *Heero* cried, I was as good as dead...
Instead, he began to laugh. It was almost hysterical and totally out of control, but at least there were no tears. And we all sat there like rocks and let him go.
The IchiBan snickered a little, but she had pretty good control. The siblings just stared, wide-eyed and nonplused, as if they’d never seen him laugh before. Okay, I’ve never heard Heero laugh like that before either, but I guess I’ve always believed he *could* if the occasion arose. Apparently, they’d never considered the idea before.
Me? What was I doing while my Wyvern was laughing himself literally sick? And don’t ask me what he was laughing about; I don’t remember there being anything funny happening just before.
I just sat there and waited for him to wind down, and eventually he did. When he was down to strangled chuckles, I dared to scoot closer and lay my arm across his shoulders.
“Um...” I began hesitantly, barely above a whisper. “Sorry...?”
He rose up enough to wrap arms around me and pull me against him.
“My Banshee,” he growled and kissed me hard.
All right! He didn’t hate me!
“Don’t even think,” he growled over my head at his relatives, “of being angry with him. Thank the Great Dragons that someone around here has the balls to speak the truth!”
His grandmother smirked at us. “Do you see me arguing with him, Heero?” she chided. “He didn’t say anything I haven’t thought myself on occasion.” She turned to her other grandchildren. “I’ve told you before, that was a pathetic excuse. And the only reason I let it go was because Heero wasn’t clamoring to see you. I see now that I should have been a little less complacent on his behalf, a little less eager to leave things be. I should have kicked your butts around the bloody island, and *made* you come. I am equally to blame in this... this travesty.”
Kikai and Tulip traded looks; neither of them looked very happy. Finally Tulip spoke up, getting to his feet before he did so.
“Heero, my brother, my mother’s beloved son; can you possibly find the charity in your heart to forgive our neglect of you? We were fools and cowards too. If you choose to forgive us, we would like to be a part of your life now, hopefully to atone for the injury we have done you.” He bowed very deeply.
Kikai also came to stand before Heero. “We are very sorry that your brother and sister are such idiots; you are surely entitled to much better. May we have a second chance to prove ourselves worthy of your kinship?” She also bowed low.
Heero blinked and looked at Giniro. She lifted her teacup and a single eyebrow. “I’d forgive them,” she shrugged, “but only after a trial period.” She glared at the pair. “’Lost track of time’, my ass! Such a silly, pathetic, pitiful excuse deserves nothing more.”
And then she turned to us again. “Well done, Duo. I rather think you do your mother proud,” she smiled. “I think Heero has Chosen very well for himself.”
Heero gave me a look of such heat and fire; I’m surprised he didn’t set the room ablaze. “Mother would approve?” he demanded of the elder female.
“Without hesitation, my dear. Without hesitation.”
He looked at Kikai and Tulip. “I think the IchiBan’s suggestion is a good one. One year, beginning today.”
They both bowed deeply again and resumed their places. “Is there anything we can say, any questions we can answer, to help?” asked Kikai.
I raised my hand, feeling oddly like I should do something to lessen the free-roaming anxiety in the room. It was kind of my fault, after all. All eyes turned my way. “Um... I have a question... Nothing to do with anything other than my nosy curiosity, though,” I said hesitantly.
“Ask,” said the IchiBan. “You cannot ask anything worse than Tori did at times.”
::Wanna bet?::
I stiffened my spine and turned to Tulip. “Why did your mother name you ‘Tulip’ anyway?”
Tulip blinked. Kikai blinked. Giniro blinked. Heero was behind me, but I think I felt him blink also.
“Um... Well... It’s kind of silly...” Tulip blushed almost as pink as Tsutsuji’s hair. Kikai poked him in the ribs.
“It’s not silly!” she protested. “It was romantic.” She glanced at me. “Well, as romantic as we get, I mean.”
Tulip sighed and rolled his eyes at her. Obviously an old and on-going thing between them. “My father is something of a chivalrous Dragon; he courted Mother with flowers. Tulips...” he sighed again. “And she decided to... I don’t know; remember the moment or something. So she named me ‘Tulip.’”
Giniro snickered behind her hand. “Nikko had a rather strange sense of humor sometimes...”
“You could have talked her out of it,” Tulip said petulantly.
“Did you ever manage to talk your mother out of anything?”
Heero snickered and winced, clutching his side. “At least it’s the European form; she could have named you ‘churippu’,” he pointed out.
Tulip rolled his eyes again. “Fine words from someone with a normal name.”
Kikai flashed a smug look. “I was her ‘golden opportunity’,” she offered, obviously enjoying poking at her brother. “Tori chose your name,” she said to Heero. “We assumed it was a Banshee name.”
He looked at me; I shook my head. “Not within my Clan; maybe in the Old Country.”
The IchiBan had a rather odd look on her face; I suddenly knew that she knew exactly what Heero’s name meant, but she wasn’t talking. Her gaze slid over to me and when no one was looking, she winked. Okay; I was going to take that as an invitation to ask sometime when Heero and his siblings were otherwise occupied. Maybe I would wait for our next visit.
I won’t say that everything got all relaxed and uncomplicated after that, but I felt better for voicing my frustration at the half-Dragons’ behavior, and Heero looked a lot less... fragile.
It turned out that the siblings (that’s how I seem to be thinking of them now) had joined us at lunch because they were leaving shortly.
“We need to be back by nightfall,” said Tulip with a sigh.
“Back where?” asked Heero with a suspicious frown. I knew that he was calculating time in the air and flight speed and coming up empty on a location. My Wyvern is so predictable sometimes.
“Um....”
“Don’t you ever ask easy questions?” laughed Kikai. Heero glared at her, still waiting for an answer. The female Wyvern looked away nervously. Amazing. Heero can even intimidate the half-Dragons. “It’s not a ‘where’ exactly,” she said after a moment of thought. “I mean, it’s a place, but it’s not...” She looked at Tulip for help. “Accessible? Is that the word I want?”
Her brother shrugged. “How would I know? You’re the smart one,” he teased.
She snorted at him and turned her attention back to Heero. “It’s sort of a different plane...”
Heero raised one eyebrow. “’Sort of’?”
Kikai huffed rather theatrically. “I’ve never had to explain it before, Heero. To us it’s just where the Great Dragons live. It’s not here, with Humans and other Magical Creatures; it’s... above, beyond, beside...” Her eyes lit on my magical bag. “It’s kind of like Duo’s bag; bigger on the inside than on the outside. You step through an opening, like walking into a closet, but it’s not a closet; it’s a whole world.”
“But where is this ‘closet’?” Heero persisted.
“Wherever they decide to put it,” offered Tulip. “We fly to a particular heading and at some point along our route, the closet door opens and we fly through.”
“It is a separate space,” said the IchiBan softly. “Literally. Existence twists and turns and folds back upon itself and creates other spaces. Humans have similar concepts within their scientific disciplines. The Dragons control their space. They place it where they choose and enter and exit where they choose.”
I almost started bouncing where I sat. Cool! Dragons have tesseracts!
“You’ll come back soon?” Heero was going to hold them to their promise. Good; that meant I wouldn’t have to do it. So far all my parts were still intact, but I didn’t think much of my future chances if my mouth got away from me much more.
The siblings exchanged looks.
“We will explain to the Dragons that we have... um...” Kikai looked at her brother. “Screwed up royally.”
Tulip sighed heavily and leaned back on his hands, staring up at the ceiling. “Father is going to Look at me...”
“Mine too,” admitted Kikai. “But we made a mistake, and then we hid from it...”
“Come to the Castle,” said Heero suddenly. The half-Dragons stared at him. “Three months, six months; whatever, but come to the Castle and see my life,” he said firmly. “You said you were proud of me when I went away to school; prove to me that you are proud of what I am now.”
Another exchange of looks, raised eyebrows and shrugs. The IchiBan narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as if preparing to say something that wouldn’t go over too well.
“I think... that would be very nice, Heero,” said Kikai slowly. “I would like to see where you live and work. I would be honored to meet your friends... Sobo has mentioned some of them... The Were-Dragon and Were-Puma who visited here once, and that astonishing young Wizard who picked you to go to the School. I would very much like to meet them.”
Tulip shrugged. “What she said. I’d be interested in meeting a Were-Dragon who doesn’t have his head up his –“
“Tulip.”
“Sorry, Sobo,” he said, not sounding the least bit sorry. I had to stifle a giggle. Heero and Q had both mentioned the... rivalry between the two species.
Kikai nodded to Tulip. “Sometime within the next six months, then? It will depend on when we would be allowed to leave, but we will ask as soon as we return.”
Heero nodded his acceptance.
...tbc...
But I bring a slightly singed offering...
BFB - 080d - Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Have you ever had one of those twisted, sick-making moments when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’ve just put a figurative gun to your head and pulled the trigger? Yeah, that’s the one...
The IchiBan snorted and I turned to tear into her... and realized – goddess only knows *how* – that I had just been yelling at Dragons... Large, long-toothed, semi-cranky Dragons. Yelling about something that was not my business, something that was in the past, something that was beyond recall or mending.
And then Heero made a noise. Made several noises, actually. We all turned in his direction. The look on his face... I had an awful disconnected feeling that he was going to cry. And if *Heero* cried, I was as good as dead...
Instead, he began to laugh. It was almost hysterical and totally out of control, but at least there were no tears. And we all sat there like rocks and let him go.
The IchiBan snickered a little, but she had pretty good control. The siblings just stared, wide-eyed and nonplused, as if they’d never seen him laugh before. Okay, I’ve never heard Heero laugh like that before either, but I guess I’ve always believed he *could* if the occasion arose. Apparently, they’d never considered the idea before.
Me? What was I doing while my Wyvern was laughing himself literally sick? And don’t ask me what he was laughing about; I don’t remember there being anything funny happening just before.
I just sat there and waited for him to wind down, and eventually he did. When he was down to strangled chuckles, I dared to scoot closer and lay my arm across his shoulders.
“Um...” I began hesitantly, barely above a whisper. “Sorry...?”
He rose up enough to wrap arms around me and pull me against him.
“My Banshee,” he growled and kissed me hard.
All right! He didn’t hate me!
“Don’t even think,” he growled over my head at his relatives, “of being angry with him. Thank the Great Dragons that someone around here has the balls to speak the truth!”
His grandmother smirked at us. “Do you see me arguing with him, Heero?” she chided. “He didn’t say anything I haven’t thought myself on occasion.” She turned to her other grandchildren. “I’ve told you before, that was a pathetic excuse. And the only reason I let it go was because Heero wasn’t clamoring to see you. I see now that I should have been a little less complacent on his behalf, a little less eager to leave things be. I should have kicked your butts around the bloody island, and *made* you come. I am equally to blame in this... this travesty.”
Kikai and Tulip traded looks; neither of them looked very happy. Finally Tulip spoke up, getting to his feet before he did so.
“Heero, my brother, my mother’s beloved son; can you possibly find the charity in your heart to forgive our neglect of you? We were fools and cowards too. If you choose to forgive us, we would like to be a part of your life now, hopefully to atone for the injury we have done you.” He bowed very deeply.
Kikai also came to stand before Heero. “We are very sorry that your brother and sister are such idiots; you are surely entitled to much better. May we have a second chance to prove ourselves worthy of your kinship?” She also bowed low.
Heero blinked and looked at Giniro. She lifted her teacup and a single eyebrow. “I’d forgive them,” she shrugged, “but only after a trial period.” She glared at the pair. “’Lost track of time’, my ass! Such a silly, pathetic, pitiful excuse deserves nothing more.”
And then she turned to us again. “Well done, Duo. I rather think you do your mother proud,” she smiled. “I think Heero has Chosen very well for himself.”
Heero gave me a look of such heat and fire; I’m surprised he didn’t set the room ablaze. “Mother would approve?” he demanded of the elder female.
“Without hesitation, my dear. Without hesitation.”
He looked at Kikai and Tulip. “I think the IchiBan’s suggestion is a good one. One year, beginning today.”
They both bowed deeply again and resumed their places. “Is there anything we can say, any questions we can answer, to help?” asked Kikai.
I raised my hand, feeling oddly like I should do something to lessen the free-roaming anxiety in the room. It was kind of my fault, after all. All eyes turned my way. “Um... I have a question... Nothing to do with anything other than my nosy curiosity, though,” I said hesitantly.
“Ask,” said the IchiBan. “You cannot ask anything worse than Tori did at times.”
::Wanna bet?::
I stiffened my spine and turned to Tulip. “Why did your mother name you ‘Tulip’ anyway?”
Tulip blinked. Kikai blinked. Giniro blinked. Heero was behind me, but I think I felt him blink also.
“Um... Well... It’s kind of silly...” Tulip blushed almost as pink as Tsutsuji’s hair. Kikai poked him in the ribs.
“It’s not silly!” she protested. “It was romantic.” She glanced at me. “Well, as romantic as we get, I mean.”
Tulip sighed and rolled his eyes at her. Obviously an old and on-going thing between them. “My father is something of a chivalrous Dragon; he courted Mother with flowers. Tulips...” he sighed again. “And she decided to... I don’t know; remember the moment or something. So she named me ‘Tulip.’”
Giniro snickered behind her hand. “Nikko had a rather strange sense of humor sometimes...”
“You could have talked her out of it,” Tulip said petulantly.
“Did you ever manage to talk your mother out of anything?”
Heero snickered and winced, clutching his side. “At least it’s the European form; she could have named you ‘churippu’,” he pointed out.
Tulip rolled his eyes again. “Fine words from someone with a normal name.”
Kikai flashed a smug look. “I was her ‘golden opportunity’,” she offered, obviously enjoying poking at her brother. “Tori chose your name,” she said to Heero. “We assumed it was a Banshee name.”
He looked at me; I shook my head. “Not within my Clan; maybe in the Old Country.”
The IchiBan had a rather odd look on her face; I suddenly knew that she knew exactly what Heero’s name meant, but she wasn’t talking. Her gaze slid over to me and when no one was looking, she winked. Okay; I was going to take that as an invitation to ask sometime when Heero and his siblings were otherwise occupied. Maybe I would wait for our next visit.
I won’t say that everything got all relaxed and uncomplicated after that, but I felt better for voicing my frustration at the half-Dragons’ behavior, and Heero looked a lot less... fragile.
It turned out that the siblings (that’s how I seem to be thinking of them now) had joined us at lunch because they were leaving shortly.
“We need to be back by nightfall,” said Tulip with a sigh.
“Back where?” asked Heero with a suspicious frown. I knew that he was calculating time in the air and flight speed and coming up empty on a location. My Wyvern is so predictable sometimes.
“Um....”
“Don’t you ever ask easy questions?” laughed Kikai. Heero glared at her, still waiting for an answer. The female Wyvern looked away nervously. Amazing. Heero can even intimidate the half-Dragons. “It’s not a ‘where’ exactly,” she said after a moment of thought. “I mean, it’s a place, but it’s not...” She looked at Tulip for help. “Accessible? Is that the word I want?”
Her brother shrugged. “How would I know? You’re the smart one,” he teased.
She snorted at him and turned her attention back to Heero. “It’s sort of a different plane...”
Heero raised one eyebrow. “’Sort of’?”
Kikai huffed rather theatrically. “I’ve never had to explain it before, Heero. To us it’s just where the Great Dragons live. It’s not here, with Humans and other Magical Creatures; it’s... above, beyond, beside...” Her eyes lit on my magical bag. “It’s kind of like Duo’s bag; bigger on the inside than on the outside. You step through an opening, like walking into a closet, but it’s not a closet; it’s a whole world.”
“But where is this ‘closet’?” Heero persisted.
“Wherever they decide to put it,” offered Tulip. “We fly to a particular heading and at some point along our route, the closet door opens and we fly through.”
“It is a separate space,” said the IchiBan softly. “Literally. Existence twists and turns and folds back upon itself and creates other spaces. Humans have similar concepts within their scientific disciplines. The Dragons control their space. They place it where they choose and enter and exit where they choose.”
I almost started bouncing where I sat. Cool! Dragons have tesseracts!
“You’ll come back soon?” Heero was going to hold them to their promise. Good; that meant I wouldn’t have to do it. So far all my parts were still intact, but I didn’t think much of my future chances if my mouth got away from me much more.
The siblings exchanged looks.
“We will explain to the Dragons that we have... um...” Kikai looked at her brother. “Screwed up royally.”
Tulip sighed heavily and leaned back on his hands, staring up at the ceiling. “Father is going to Look at me...”
“Mine too,” admitted Kikai. “But we made a mistake, and then we hid from it...”
“Come to the Castle,” said Heero suddenly. The half-Dragons stared at him. “Three months, six months; whatever, but come to the Castle and see my life,” he said firmly. “You said you were proud of me when I went away to school; prove to me that you are proud of what I am now.”
Another exchange of looks, raised eyebrows and shrugs. The IchiBan narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as if preparing to say something that wouldn’t go over too well.
“I think... that would be very nice, Heero,” said Kikai slowly. “I would like to see where you live and work. I would be honored to meet your friends... Sobo has mentioned some of them... The Were-Dragon and Were-Puma who visited here once, and that astonishing young Wizard who picked you to go to the School. I would very much like to meet them.”
Tulip shrugged. “What she said. I’d be interested in meeting a Were-Dragon who doesn’t have his head up his –“
“Tulip.”
“Sorry, Sobo,” he said, not sounding the least bit sorry. I had to stifle a giggle. Heero and Q had both mentioned the... rivalry between the two species.
Kikai nodded to Tulip. “Sometime within the next six months, then? It will depend on when we would be allowed to leave, but we will ask as soon as we return.”
Heero nodded his acceptance.
...tbc...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 08:57 am (UTC)I hope Heero's siblings keep track of the time. And now with my curiosity satisfied over Tulip, I am now wondering why Heero got named Heero...
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 01:00 pm (UTC)There is a very good reason why Heero was named Heero. Unfortunately, you're not going to hear about it for some time yet. ^_^
But the hamster took the order to write to heart and finished the last partlet of this, so it could get posted any time... Or not.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 02:10 pm (UTC)Any time? Some time?
Tease.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 04:45 pm (UTC)Should be much fun when they come to visit at the castle. ^^;
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 06:15 pm (UTC)nop; not gonna think about that right now. nope, nope, nope...
no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 08:25 pm (UTC)