Strong of heart
CH.1 Goodbye Big Brother
Henri rolled the ball at his twin while she was distracted by a notation on her sheet music, timing was everything and if he could get it just right…
No, it bounced off her heel and failed to role under the peddle, slowly it's momentum rolled it back in his direction and settled into his hand. He'd try again in a moment when she was suitably distracted again. If not for a huge shadow that fell from the door over his sister all the way to his hiding place behind the pot-plant.
"MY GLORIOUS SISTER, MY ROGUEISH BROTHER I HAVE NEWS, COME QUICKLY LITTLE ONES THERE ISNT A MOMENT TO LOSE" A pair of huge hands descended from the shadow and pitched him aloft. Head spinning from shouting, sudden changes in position and a horrible rhyming couplet it took himself several seconds to recognise that he was being borne along towards his big brothers room under the arm of said man while his sister perched opposite him on the man's shoulder.
Upon reaching said room he threw them unceremoniously onto his massive bed with Henri's sister landing perfectly lady like precisely on the edge. Henri's belly flop was both ugly and simultaneously so perfectly done that awards should have been given. Hauling himself to a similar position as his sister he saw his brother throwing many objects from all over his room into his huge trunk with excellent precision. Many where copies of the clothes he wore, a few books, firearm in a holster and the world's smallest hairbrush. Finishing with the trunk he called for the servant's to remove it, before turning to his siblings,
"My dear sister and brother I'm going to be away for some time for our county calls and I must answer, but I have something for each of you before I leave, for you my beautiful sister these" he handed her a tiny box in which lay a pair of diamond studs. "They come with a promise from mother that you can have your ears pierced this month rather than on your seventeenth, be wearing them when I return" he said with a small smile and a tear beading on his eyelashes.
"And for you brother." Henri lost all the air in his lungs when a huge book slammed into his stomach. His eyes flashed across the title.
A GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE ALCHEMICAL ARTS
If the wording of the title was anything to go by it would be a hard slog to read and by the weight and thickness a harder slog to carry anywhere.
"If you can prove to me that you understand all of the thousand pages by my return, AND do your daily exercises, AND stop trying to prank everyone in the house… I will show you my personal research notes when I return. I think that would be an equivalent exchange." An uncharacteristic smirk on his handsome features. Henri, who's jaw had dropped open at his brother helping him take his first steps in alchemy (something that the family was founded partly on), could only enthusiastically nod.
"EXCELENT NOW I MUST SEE FARTHER AND MOTHER BEFORE MY DEPARTURE" with that he strode from the room leaving his kin in a dazed and joyous state in his room.
The fact that their brother was leaving barely entered the pairs mind.
Until they were standing on the steps with their Parents and two of their older sisters, watching the car take their shiny headed brother to a war far from them. Catherine cried openly and held her twins hand in a bone crushing grip, Henri refused to let his tears come as his brother ,still visible in the back window of the motorcar, gradually disappeared over the rise.
Henri watched and hoped as Alex Louis Armstrong headed for war.