Hiya! Me again! Big thanks to those who wished me bon voyage on my recent trip and a big welcome home after. I meant to say thanks before, but I forgot. And thanks to the person who has me on authoralert. If you could please contact me so I could actually thank you I'd really like that. Not much more to say, so I'll cut it short here. –Lady PhoenixDagger *//.^*
*****
The Ichara house was a large one buried deep in the miles of dense woods surrounding the outer walls of the Keep. Four rooms were already set up for the girls and the ex-pilots, the clothing they had slept in the night before freshly washed, ironed and waiting to be climbed into. But first the rooms had to be divided up. Relena and Cathy were already bunking with Kari in her room, which was the largest. This left the boys to decide who slept where and with whom. After a coin toss, another coin toss, a large amount of yelling, a few games of twenty-one and a final pickup game of Scrabble, Heero was stuck as Duo's roommate. Trowa and Quatre shared the room next to them and Wufei got the smaller room between theirs and the girls' all to himself. Then came the lugging of about seventeen tonnes of bed linens and blankets and pillows from the linen closet, which, of course, happened to be in an area of the house that was the farthest possible distance away from the bedrooms. So they all dragged the bundles upstairs. Belle, of course, pulled the trump card of cook's duties and managed to avoid having to join in.
Later on, after a fair amount of tugging, straightening, smoothing and a little bit of "Stop bouncing on my bed, Duo", came dinner. Duo, of course, made the small mistake of asking for a glass of milk to wash down his meat, inadvertently discovering that Belle and Gil were Jewish, not to mention kosher. Relena had sat staring at her food, occasionally glancing over at Heero who rudely ignored her, and Wufei had stood up in his seat, declared that forks required no skill and therefore were for weaklings! His loud tirade was cut mercifully short, however, when Gil silently pulled a pair of chopsticks from thin air and quietly handed them over to Wufei. The Chinese boy accepted, but ate the rest of his meal covered in a thick cloud of sullen silence. Trowa had done nothing out of the ordinary, as well as Quatre, but the back of Trowa's neck kept turning flaming red whenever Kari passed him the brisket, which they learned was a type of meat that one could eat and floss with at the same time.
So this is what being in a real home is like, Trowa though, lying in bed later that night, Quatre breathing rhythmically in the bed next to his. The whole room seemed to envelope him in a cocoon of spiritual warmth; a sort of mental hug. It's kind of nice. He decided and rolled over on his side to stare at his friend, now sleeping off the excitement of the day. Tomorrow would be just as busy. Belle had already planned a trip to the mall for clothing and other essentials and the day after –Monday- would mark their first day at a new school with Misty and Kari. It was still only early September and the school year had just begun, so there would be not too many hassles. Belle had almost grinned herself to death with all her plotting and planning.
Methodically, Trowa mulled over the events of the day in his mind. The young man known as Walker Broman stuck out the most to him. His life, his struggles and his ruined face stared back out that the Silencer with eyes clear and bright as a half-sucked lemon drop. Within their depths lay a strength that was unparalleled to any that Trowa had ever seen, but deeper still, he detected a measure of incapacitating sorrow. Crippling sadness, the kind that drove sane men to the ledges of buildings, their clothes flapping in the wind, their eyes wild with fear even as they take that last step and finally push themselves off and away… This sorrow was of a breed that Trowa knew all too well. And yet this young man went on, despite his ruined skin and failing health, to care for his kinsmen of Alaryan's Keep. For this, Trowa's respect for the scarred young man was bountiful.
And he didn't even tell us the end of the story…
The people Trowa met also surfaced. Belle and Gil were nice enough, in their own quiet, cheering sort of way. At dinner, Gil had shyly revealed that he was the Head Librarian of all of the Keep's several huge libraries and promised he would show him around if Trowa so wished. And Belle, with her soft smile, had graced the table with her warmth and kindness, telling stories, answering questions, all with a patience that made her seem all the more like a mother. The decision was made, and both were found acceptable. The red-haired girl, Misty, also came to him, passed and was accepted. She was likeable, in an energetic, Duo-like way. Finally, the girl, Kari, was inspected. She was mute as well as blind, but possessed a small gem fixed to a necklace that enabled her to "talk" via the mind. Trowa had seen it nestled in the hollow of her throat when she leaned over to pass the potatoes at dinner.
Not that he had been looking, of course.
Kari had been born and raised to be a Ring fighter for Black Hood. She went under the epithet of the Black Widow since the age of seven, famed for killing her opponents –more like victims, really- in the Ring with no mercy. She hated every waking moment of it and from the age of seven on wished fervently for an early death. Her body was surgically changed at birth, much like Walker's was, to handle better the shocks of being a fighter and to similarly speed up her body's healing process. Finally, after puberty, Kari had been given a less horrific job as a constrained pinup girl and was therefore deemed "public property" of Black Hood inner society, as many of the more attractive female projects normally were. She had remained as such -not at all fortunate, but still grimly satisfied not to be killing in the Ring- until some horrible catastrophe happened to her, sending her back to fighting, though what it was, she refused to tell. The silent girl said this all in the minds of everyone at the table, her mental voice flat and unemotional as she recounted the horrors of her early life. The last part of her story made Trowa wonder a moment, for from what he had seen, though admittedly it wasn't much, Kari was still very beautiful. He suddenly found himself thinking about her lithe, strong fighter's body and full, womanly shape. Embarrassed, he felt his face redden at the mere thought of her full, pink lips and soft swan's neck.
I wonder how those lips would ta- shutupshutupshutupshutup!!
Sighing, Trowa rolled over again.
It was going to be a long night.
*****
"So, how does it feel to have a houseful of kids all of a sudden?" Zach queried the next day. He and the other wizards were sitting at Gil's kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, mainly because that's what old people did on late Sunday mornings.
"Weird." Gil flipped down the Toronto Star to look at Zach. "Duo –the one with the braid- is even more talkative than I'd initially thought. It's very different than having just Kari around."
"Tell me about it." Zach lived not far away in a little house in the forest with his daughter, her husband and their children; Darien, Walker, Ria, Tama and Misty.
Talon grinned behind his Globe and Mail. "And Belle took them all shopping?"
Gil looked pained, or at least the front page of the newspaper he had flipped back up in front of his face did. "I can just see the friction burns on my credit card now."
Nat flipped his own paper down. "And that would be why you are a heart doctor and get the big bucks while us family practitioners-" he nodded to Zach as he said this "-have only to pray for flu season."
"Please, Nat, I'm a cardiologist." Gil's warm face pinched into a frown. "Not a 'heart doctor'."
"Whatever you say, doc. How long have they all been gone, exactly?"
"About six hours."
"Ahh. Iondra can be like that, too, sometimes," Nat said, referring to his wife; an elemental who –of course- was over nine centuries old and had yet to actually buckle down and do some serious aging. Apparently, the whole eternal youth idea was a female hormonal thing.
The kitchen door opened and Heero finally staggered in under the weight of at least seven bulging shopping bags. With a grunt, he dropped them right there on the floor. The wizards could feel the vibrations as they landed from their seats. Heero blew out his breath and leaned against the wall.
"Mission…complete," he panted and sat heavily down.
Chuckling, Talon shook his head. "Hell hath no fury like a woman shopping, eh, Heero?"
"Uugh…"
"Looks like the other are here as well," Zach commented from behind his National Post.
Duo staggered in, laden with bags. "Oh, lord…" he groaned , flopping down next to Heero, dropping his bags all over the floor. "Oh, man, I didn't know I could try on so many pairs of pants in one day."
Another two hulking piles of shopping bags squeezed through the door and dropped their loads. Trowa and Quatre threw themselves down on the floor next Duo. Quatre looked completely stunned.
"I've never been in so many stores in a row in my entire life! And I have twenty-nine sisters!" He blinked in shock. "I now own more ties than limbs."
Trowa simply groaned and rubbed his fingers through the close-cropped hair at the back of his head. Wufei also staggered in, dumped off his load and sat down next to him. The floor space was rapidly disappearing. Gil moaned and plopped his head in his hands.
Cathy and Relena wandered in last, a miniscule baggie for each. The boys groaned and grumbled as the girls set down their tiny bundles on the table. Five pairs of angry eyes fastened on them.
Kari strode in last, carrying at least twice as much as each of the boys had carried. Barely even breathing hard, she set down each of her many bags and grinned. You need to bulk up, boys, her "voice" rang clearly in their minds. Only seven bags apiece? What a pity.
Talon guffawed and put his hands behind his head. "Don't be so hard on them, Kari. They're exhausted."
They still could have carried a little more, Kari declared with a saucy little mental sniff.
Quatre quickly shifted and sat himself smack in the middle of Wufei's lap before the Chinese boy could get up and try to kill her. Or at least try. Those muscles of hers looked solid, even under layers of clothing.
"Hullo, dear." Gil got up and met his wife at the door, picking past a minefield of bags full of clothes, shoeboxes and toiletries. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he kissed her soundly on the lips. Belle's customary smile widened. "Did you enjoy yourselves?"
"I did. I think we all did, despite all complaining. Did we not?"
Mumblemumbleyesmumblemumble.
"Funny." Belle picked her way through the shopping bag maze. She stood over Wufei, her large . Quatre quickly climbed out of his lap. "Your mouth says one thing, but your mind says another." The smile left her face for a scant moment before flicking back into place. "That's not a nice thing to think, child," she said softly to Wufei, who merely glared at her.
Bitch, he mouthed.
Even blindfolded, Kari managed to give the Solitary Dragon a chilling glare that could be felt right down to the very bones.
"Well!" Nat stood up with the air of someone about to lighten up the mood, even if it killed him. "Why don't you all go upstairs and put your new things away?" His voice said "please", but his eyes said "now".
Bags were hefted and the boys went upstairs, Relena and Cathy in tow. Kari hesitated a moment before following but, after a while, she went.
Belle collapsed in a chair at the kitchen table, he exquisite features crumpling. "he hates me," she whispered and softly began to cry.
Awkwardly, Talon put an arm around her shoulders. "There, there, now," he murmured, not knowing what else there was to say to a weeping woman. "Who does, dear?"
"Wufei," she said almost inaudibly, collapsing against the back of her chair. Gil knelt down hurriedly next to her, afraid she would fall. "His heart, his mind…he blames me…for his pain, for what happened to his world. He hates me."
*****
Up on the stairwell, Kari leaned against the wall, wishing for tears to fall from eyes that could no longer grant them.
That boy…has he no heart? He hurt Mother…
"I don't understand it!" Belle's voice carried up the stairs. "There's no reason, no method. Just simple anger and hatred."
Mother…Don't cry.
Kari's sightless eyes narrowed under their black binding as another sob escaped Belle's lips. What did this spoiled little boy know if hatred? What did he know of pain? Coddled and protected with a home and family, no doubt. A child who wanted too much and got it. Kari resisted the urge to spit.
Spoiled brat, she decided.
Another sob floated up the stairs, lending strength to Kari already iron resolve.
He will pay.
*****
More soon! Ja!
--L.P.D. *//.^*