Lord Brudo lunges at his wife. Lady Avarius' eyes widen as she deftly dodges her husband. Her senses are heightened in her rage. While Lord Brudo is certainly much stronger than Lady Avarius, she is much faster than him. She chips away at him, swiping at his face with her razor sharp talons. The brute is old, but tanky, and it would take a long time to beat down the man who used to get into embarrassing drunken fistfights with his buddies, sometimes walking away with both a bloody beak and a smile on his face like a madman.
Brudo knows how to fight a fight, and knows better how to win one, but he underestimates his wife, and how old he's gotten. Arthritis is no stranger to Lord Brudo. He picks up his chair, throwing it at his once beloved and it collides with her, pushing her back several feet. Her claws dig at the hard wood floor before she tosses the chair to the side in a fit of adrenaline-based rage. She had it all bottled up and saved for him, but now it's unleashed and overflowing.
Brudo manages to land a few hits on Lady Avarius, and she'd be lying if she said they don't hurt. The tables are even, and both birds are covered in their own blood, Brudo bleeds from a wound on his head and manages to somehow stand on a fractured leg with a large gash. Lady Avarius, though not very lady-like anymore, has a broken wing from the collision with the chair, and is dizzy from a concussion.
Lord Brudo reaches for his cane, swinging at Lady Avarius' head. He smashes several pictures and knocks over a large grandfather clock. A broken chair leg lays on the floor, which Lady Avarius grabs, swinging and colliding with the cane as she retreats upstairs, fighting him along the way. They make it into one of the bedrooms, she falls backward onto the bed.
Lord Brudo: As much as this thrills me, there's to time for THAT right now!
Examining her predicament, she catches onto Brudo's crude joke.
Lady Avarius: You classless swine!
Brudo: Ha! Takes one to know one!
He swings into the bed, smashing the mattress flat in the middle and breaking the support. Lady Avarius rolls back behind it. He chases her into the bathroom. Thinking she's moved into a dead end, Brudo pursues her into the bathroom, but hiding behind the door, she pushes Brudo forward, dunking his head into the toilet and flushing it on him. (Yes she did just give her husband a swirlie and yes I am having a lot of fun writing this). He jerks back, knocking her into the bathtub where she cracks her head and he lands on top of her.
Lady Avarius: Get off me, you fat buffoon!
She manages to push her husband's weight off of her, climbing out of the tub while he struggles to stand up.
Lady Avarius: Why don't you take a shower?!
Lord Brudo: I showered LAST week!
She turns the water on him and he gets really mad. Soaked, Brudo climbs out of the shower, seething with rage. He smashes the mirror behind her and chases her back down the stairs. Neither one of them have their balance and they knock into the walls, causing several torches and candles to fall. The house catches fire from candles and it spreads like wild, up the drapes to the ceiling. Old wood from the floor splits and the poor older foundation beneath breaks underneath. Lord Brudo and Lady Avarius collapse into the basement where they both lay on the floor. They stare at each other for what could be their final moment. In an act of pure desperation they decide to postpone the fight until after they've escaped from the inferno.
Lord Brudo: *Gasping* The shutter! We need to get the shutter open!
Lady Avarius: Help me move this junk!
Stuff, pack rat junk, and old belongings are packed against the back wall to keep others from sneaking into the basement. Brudo had been paranoid about that ever since he found a couple of idiot teenagers down there doing what he considered to be "idiotic teenager things". They tear the stuff aside and push open the basement shutters, climbing from the wreckage that was their ignited house. Castle Avarius II is so old that it was practically a fire hazard to begin with. The family living there had been playing with death from the beginning.
They crawl away from the wreckage, coughing. Both of them are thoroughly exhausted from their fight, and neither are willing to continue beating each other to a pulp. They just lay there until they get the strength to get up, stumbling onto their weak and tired feet. They get up and stare at each other for a couple seconds, the fire glistens off of both their yellow orbs before exchanging some final words with each other.
Lord Brudo: I guess this is it, huh?
Lady Avarius: Yeah, I guess it is.
They stumble away from each other in opposite directions, both arriving to the same realization simultaneously
Both: THE KIDS!
Lord Brudo: Where are they? Where did they go?
Lady Avarius: They heard us fighting! I think I know where they went!
Lord Brudo: Where?
Lady Avarius: I'm not telling you!
Lord Brudo: TELL ME OR I'LL BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!
Lady Avarius: THEY WENT TO LIVE WITH "THE FAILURE"!
Lord Brudo: I knew it! I knew you'd been seeing him behind my back! Take me there, NOW!
Lady Avarius: NO!
He reaches towards her, shoving his hand in her pocket, she slaps him in the face as he pulls out a pair of inter-dimensional scissors. He slices the portal open to it's last location, pushing her through the hole as he steps through after her. His wife sits at his feet.
Lord Brudo: How fitting, garbage living among garbage!
Lady Avarius: How dare you talk that way about my baby?!
Lord Brudo points the dimensional scissors at her neck, threatening her. If she were to so much as get an inch closer, he'd decapitate her into two different realms. She backs away.
Ludo opens the door to see the ruckus and immediately regrets it. His beak drops in horror at what he sees.
Lord Brudo: You!
He runs at Ludo, grabbing the boy and holding him up in the air. After getting smashed in the head by his wife with his own cane, he drops like a rock. Lord Brudo eventually regains consciousness again. When he does, he finds that everything had calmed down significantly. His wife had been talked down in to being civil after arguing with Dennis for what had been twenty minutes or more. She just sits there, silent and drinking coffee, holding an ice pack to her head. Ludo tends to his father. He requests to do so specifically because he feels particularly guilty and that he can salvage a smidgen of good grace with his father. Lord Brudo mumbles into consciousness.
His first blurry vision is of his very worried son Ludo's saddened face. The garbage house is populated by all the residents of Castle Avarius II. The youngest is being cared for by one of the older birds and various others crash while others explore. Lady Avarius wants to continue caving her husband's head in, but Dennis wrestles her back to a sitting position, enforcing her to stop and reminding her that it's over. Brudo has exhausted every inch of anger he had toward his wife in the fight, and can barely even remember what happened. He opens his eyes.
Ludo: Hey dad.
Ludo tries as hard as he can to seem genuinely happy to see his father. Brudo just mumbles.
Lord Brudo: Hey kid. How have you been?
Ludo: Okay.
Lord Brudo: You don't sound certain.
Ludo: Well, father, a lot has changed since the last time I saw you.
Lord Brudo: Myeh... Guess I got carried away, huh? Hey, yeh've even started growing your beard. Why don't you come a little closer so I can see it?
Ludo hesitantly gets closer to his father. He leans inward and Brudo feels the long, grey beard in between his fingers.
Lord Brudo: You're getting there kid.
Brudo is still somewhat disoriented, but the ease into being civilized with his son is working.
Lord Brudo: You're starting to look like your old man.
Ludo: Really?
Lord Brudo: Yeah kinda... well on top anyway. You're still skin and bones on the bottom though.
Ludo: Oh, yeah.
Lord Brudo: Hey kid, help me up.
Ludo tries to help his much heavier father sit up, putting pressure on his back until Brudo is sitting in an upright position. Brudo feels a sharp pain in his leg.
Lord Brudo: ARGH! Pf! Ooh that hurts! My leg!
He rolls up his pant leg to reveal a gash that had been there for hours, bloody.
Lord Brudo: Oh, this is no good.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a metal flask. He takes a swig before handing it to Ludo.
Lord Brudo: Here.
Ludo goes to drink the liquid.
Lord Brudo: No, don't drink it! Pour it on my leg!
Ludo: But father, won't that hurt, a lot?
Lord Brudo: I can handle it.
Ludo: Okay.
Ludo pours the alcohol onto the wound. Lord Brudo screams in pain that he isn't quite ready for.
Lord Brudo: AH! CRIMINEY!
Ludo: I told you it would hurt.
Lord Brudo: At least it won't get infected. Now, gimme some sorta cloth. Make sure it's clean.
Ludo: Um... I don't really_
Lord Brudo: Your robe, tear off the bottom. It's too long for you anyway. It always was.
Ludo tears at his robes, cutting off the bottom that was previously excess baggage, revealing his small, bare legs and feet. At least now he can walk without tripping over it. Ludo wraps it around Brudo's leg tightly and knots it.
Lord Brudo: There, much better. Now to deal with other pressing matters.
Lord Brudo manages to stand up, supported by the cane he was clobbered in the head with.
Lord Brudo: Well, how are we gonna settle this?
He gestures to his wife.
Lady Avarius: We're leaving here and you can stay here with the trash where YOU belong!
Lord Brudo: Look, I don't want to fight you anymore, but you're not taking the kids away from me.
Lady Avarius: Excuse me? You're the psychopath that drove our son into kicking us out of our own home in the first place! If it were up to me you'd be out of their lives completely!
Lord Brudo: Well guess what? It's NOT up to you and I have a say in the matter! How about we split them 50/50?
Lady Avarius: How is that in any way fair, splitting up the kids like that? Haven't we put them through enough as it is?
Lord Brudo: Fine! What if we let THEM decide? Neither of us gets angry, or offended if they choose one over the other. Fine?
Lady Avarius: Fine!
The kids are told to stand in the middle, with Lady Avarius and Lord Brudo on each side. They're told not to feel pressure about picking which one to go with. Lord Brudo's plan pretty much backfires in his face though, as only a few males decide to stay with him.
Lady Avarius: What about Ludo?
Lord Brudo: What about him?
Lady Avarius: Like it or not, he's one of our kids.
Lord Brudo: I thought the point was that he made that decision long ago as to who he wants to be with, and that's neither of us.
Ludo: I want to decide.
Lord Brudo: Fine. Take your pick.
Ludo looks up to his mom with a very sad, sorry look on his face, guilty for the way he spoke to her last time. She looks at him coldly. She is clearly very hurt by the way Ludo called her out on her cowardice.
Ludo: I'll stay with dad.
Lady Avarius isn't surprised by the decision, but Lord Brudo is. With this. Lady Avarius takes her kids. She looks at Brudo one final time.
Lord Brudo: Well, I guess that's that.
Lady Avarius: Yeah, I guess it is. Come on kids.
She cuts open a portal with the inter-dimensional scissors and steps through. Lord Brudo sees how few of the children actually stick with him. As it turns out, he is the far less favored parent. Brudo is visibly offended by how few of his children want to stay with him. He doesn't want to let anyone know, but contrary to the rules he set forth regarding the segregation, Lord Brudo's feelings are actually hurt by how little anyone wants to do with him.