Chapter 9: The Morning After
Siren's P.O.V.:
"WHAT is going on here?!" Atem and I jolted awake and I reached for my pillow.
Then my eyesight adjusted and I groaned and fell back onto the bed. Yeah, I'm such a morning person. "Go away…" I groaned.
I heard Atem chuckle softly behind me and I figured that she was talking about how he was on my bed. Yeah, on not in; Atem's a 'not under the covers till wed' kinda guy with me all of a sudden. So I stretched and, for the sake of my Grandmother, I pushed him off the bed and onto the sleeping bag.
The pickle pulled the duvet.
My grandmother smiled in satisfaction and walked out of my room saying, "Breakfast in an hour."
I got up and yanked the duvet out of my sleeping boyfriend's arms (yeah he falls asleep fast after a hectic night) and wrap myself in it. Half an hour later, I woke up from my short nap, threw the duvet onto the person in the sleeping bag and walked drowsily to the bathroom to get ready for breakfast.
As I exited the bathroom 5 minutes later, now thankfully more awake, I noticed that the room was absolutely clean. The little neat freak sure worked fast. Was he even in the room when I woke up? I walked down the stairs, hoping that there was still food for me. Upon entering the kitchen I quickly grabbed a plate, a stack of pancakes, and a slice of toast and hijacked the syrup from Atem, who gave me an annoyed look. I pulled tongue at him then happily munched my breakfast while everyone else talked.
Then I choked on my toast as the face I knew belonged to the ass who tried to kill me appeared in the doorway.
He shook his head at me and I recomposed myself before speaking, "Good morning, Seto, did you sleep well?"
He rolled his eyes at me, "Good morning brat, yes I did."
"Oh sure, you're the spoilt rich kid and I'm the brat."
Everyone laughed and Seto rolled his eyes before sitting opposite me, next to Atem. I winked at Atem and carried on eating. Seto was just putting a spoon of porridge in his mouth when he froze and looked over at me with a look of surprised curiosity on his face; probably just realizing that I'd used his first name.
"You have any idea how funny that looks?" I asked pointing my fork towards his face. Atem chuckled and used the back of his spoon to lift his cousin's lower jaw and tilt the spoon downwards.
But not before a loud 'CLICK!' and bright flashed captured the moment and, with a triumphant laughed, Mokuba scrambled out of the room. We all laughed and Seto carried on eating, now and then shooting a glance my way. Afterwards we all cleaned out the breakfast dishes and neatened up the house. That took up most of the morning.
A loud squeal of excitement sent me flying down the stairs and out into the central area faster than light. (LOL, I wished). Then I ran directly onto Rein, who was on her way to fetch me, and I only get this because she and I sumo slammed one another on the way out of/into my house.
"Ow," Rein said.
"My nose," I said.
"Hey get off of your arses!" Sthenos screamed from the training circle. "OW!"
"Don't swear!"
That last voice was new. It wasn't one of the carers and it wasn't anyone from the Island. But it wasn't unfamiliar.
I scrambled to my feet and hauled Rein up and we dashed to the main circle. There we found the Carers and Ancients laughing together at Sthenos, who was rubbing his head, and a girl with forest brown hair, slightly taller than me, and golden brown eyes.
"Solene!" I screamed, tackling her to the ground.
"Hey cuzzy!" she screamed back, hugging me.
"You're going to break my bones!" I half choked.
She laughed and let go, "Oops, my bad."
We pulled each other up and I took in her appearance. My baby cousin Solene was five years younger than me but still taller than me. She was broader built and had a rounder, happier face with almond shaped, yellow-brown eyes. My crazy cousin; we all knew she was a giant softie until she got moody. Then she was a force to be reckoned with.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
Solene pouted at me, "Fine, next time I won't come to see you."
"I was just asking!" I said indignantly, then added, "Hey, where's your sister?"
"Hahaha, I know," she laughed at me. "She stayed at home, trying to fix something or the other."
I rolled my eyes at her and gave her another bear hug before dragging her inside to see Grandma – My mother's mother because she was mum's sister's daughter. We had a happy reunion then I introduced her to Seto, Sara, Mokuba and Atem.
"What's with the hair?" she asked.
Atem blinked and shrugged, "Don't know it's always been that way."
"Oh," she said. "I'm going to call you porcupine!"
I whacked her arm, "No, you're not!" I said while everyone laughed, even Atem.
"Ow, but why? Is he your boyfriend?" she teased.
"As a matter of fact," I said smiling, "he is."
Solene stopped and looked from Atem to me and back again. "Oopsy," she whispered.
Now it was my turn to laugh at her. Atem hugged her and she said, "Hello, big brother!"
'Hyper child,' I thought as I watched Atem blink and raise a single eye-brow at me. I smiled and shrugged before mouthing, 'Go along with it.' I gestured with my hand before heading upstairs to change into my gear.
After locating my favourite black tank top and track pants I quickly scrambled into it I pulled on my hip satchel, strapped my dagger to my calf and tied my hair, expertly pushing 4 needles and a bobby pin into the high ponytail.
"Where do you think you're going?" the rich, deep baritone voice said from the door.
I turned and folded my arms before answering, "To train."
"Not like that," he answered frowning.
I sighed and walked back into my bathroom/closet and came out in a black T-shirt instead of my tank top. "Better?"
"Not really but it'll do," he said, shrugging and moving out of the door frame.
I huffed and walked downstairs (for the umpteenth time, seriously need an elevator or a slide) and back to the training circle where everyone was waiting for me. I shoved Solene from the back and she laughed at me. I winked and said, "So, whose butt am I kicking first?"
"Seriously?" Kaiba asked from the edge of the circle.
I turned to see him sitting on a bench with a disbelieving look on his face. "Yes, seriously. Why, think I can't take any of them?"
"As if we all haven't taken it in turns to whip each other's butts in training," Sthenos commented.
"You take it in turns?" Atem inquired.
"Yep," Rein said as I grabbed the chalk from Kedan and began drawing a box at the circumference of the garden. "We train in such a way that each person is pushed to their limit because we're all pretty evenly matched. We pair up at random. One person is attack and the other is defence and attack keeps battering defence at medium power so as to get the most stretch out of the training, they lose if the defence is too strong or if they inadvertently step out of the box. It's more like control and endurance training mashed together, I suppose," she ended, putting a finger to her bottom lip thoughtfully.
"Since its Daren's first time, he can just sit this out. I don't know if you three want to join in?" Kedan asked looking from Seto to Atem to Yugi.
Yugi smiled at me and said, "We'll sit this out, for now. But hey, if you guys decide to have a team match, I'm game."
I smiled widely at Yugi, he and I were completely in tuned to one another. On the other hand we were both also completely in tuned with Atem. I wasn't really up to trying to bond with the others. Maybe Rein...
"Hey! Pick a stick," Kedan said, shoving a worn hat under my nose. I plunged my hand into the tiny hat and pulled out a short blue stick. I looked around to see Kisara smiling at me, twirling the longer blue in her elegant, pale fingers.
The others all paired off and training began. Deciding that it was best not to drag the matches on, Grandfather took out his old watch and timed each match one and a half hours. Sthenos and Rein with Rein on Attack (that was hilarious) was followed by Solene on defence against Kedan (Solene's telekinetic but Kedan is stronger - older). Finally, Grandfather smiled at me and motioned to the front. I took a defensive stance as Kisara took up a readying attack position on the opposite side.
I smiled at her wryly, and she half smirked back at me.
"Oh boy," I heard Atem say.
"That," Seto said, "doesn't even begin to cover it."
Guys guess what? I relocated my writer's brain! So i finally updated it -_-. I'm ever so sorry but my exams were rather hectic. I don't know why i chose such a hectic degree - not that i don't enjoy it...
But I will try to catch up this story because it was supposed to be finished by the end of the year - yeah that's going well - and i was supposed to start world on the 3rd and last installment of the Forever series
Try to review please, even a weird emoji is fine THANX!
