002: VALAUNTS

"Maruken, what's sex?"

Maruken stared at his youngest brothers. Identical twins. Weird things that he never came across too much. Apparently they were part of the house, in the same way Reilkav and his father were part of the house, but Maruken's mind had never classified them any higher than 'furniture'. They were like statues. ...Moving statues. ...That talked. ...And vaguely looked like him. ...But nevertheless, they were statues.

Had they just said something?

Oh well.

Maruken went back to staring at the sunrise.

Later, he blinked and turned around to look at the empty spot where the twins had been standing two hours before.

"What'd you say?" he asked.

It would be another two hours before he realized that the twins weren't there.

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"Vangar Vangar Vangar Vangar Vangar Vangar Vangar Vangar."

"Fgnhhhgffng." (Fuck off.)

"Vangarrrrrr. Vangar. Vaaaaaangar. Vaaaaaaaahn. Vaaaaaaaaaaahngar. Stupidhead."

"Fghsffgghhffhng!" (Fuck off, you little bastards!)

Something shook Vangar's shoulder urgently. He ignored it.

A moment later, he heard the sound of something getting thrown out of the window. There was a horrifying shattering of glass on the street below. Vangar sat bolt upright with wide, blood-shot eyes, heart coming to a stop.

Glass. Shattering. Out the window. Twins. His room. His things.

He added all of it together and came to one conclusion, right before the twins gave it to him.

"Vangar, that was your last bottle of wine. By the way, what's sex?"

Vangar rolled over in bed and stared at his wide-eyed little brothers through the second-worst bed hair on the face of the earth. The worst was Reil's.

Cats were constantly getting lost in Vangar's hair.

They got strangled to death in Reil's.

Vangar shoved his face into the pillow and wondered if closing his eyes would make the twins go away.

"'What's sex'?" he muttered. "Here, I gots a better question. What's six o' clock in the morning to ya?"

The twins looked at each other. Korch raised an eyebrow. Chavsk shrugged. That was odd. If Chavsk didn't know something, that meant no one did.

"I dunno," Korch said. "'S trick question, right? 'Cause it ain't six in the morning, 's ten in the morning, we just checked."

Vangar was busy getting his hair out of the way. Now it was somewhat more tame. In the sense that it was no longer trying to puncture his eyeballs, at least.

He stared at his brothers some more.

"What don't kill ya only makes ya stronger," he said, after a long pause. "Got that?"

"Sure," Chavsk and Korch said, thinking they were going to learn what this weird word they got from their next-door neighbor meant.

Instead they learned what 'six o'clock in the morning' was.

Six o' clock in the morning, they learned, was annoying-little-brats-getting-thrown-out-the-window-by-a-raving-insane-Vangar time.

'Six o'clock in the morning' was a lesson that by now, everyone but Maruken and their father had learned. Maruken, because he was too big to fit through the window, and their father, because he probably would have levitated back in by the power of sheer rage.

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The twins were not stupid. Weak, possibly, but only because they hadn't grown into either of the two Valaunt builds – the freakishly strong build, like Maruken and Vangar, or the silent and cold and cunning build, like their father. They would get there eventually, but not until it was too late.

However, living with people like Vangar and their father had already given them a good sense of survival. When they wanted something, they went to Maruken first, because Maruken was the nicest one in the family and was generally helpful – if you were willing to wait for two hours. Then they went to Vangar, because Vangar tended to give answers immediately, unless it was 'six o'clock in the morning' as they had just learned.

Vangar was a drunkard and the general consensus was that he would grow up to be a wifebeater – or possibly a husbandbeater – and a pedophile (though he claimed it was only when he was really really drunk). He threw his younger brothers out of the window, kicked (most) little children in the street, and threw puppies off walls and stomped on their twitching bodies afterwards.

But he was infinitely preferable to the second-oldest son of the house.

Chavsk and Korch limped around to the front and sat on the stairs, nursing their scrapes and bruises. It had not been a far drop. That was because Vangar lived in the basement, and the window was exactly level with the ground. That had been their father's idea, who insisted that he knew nothing of certain people throwing people out windows, but made him move to the basement anyway.

Though their father could stop Vangar from breaking people's legs by chucking them down two stories, he could do nothing to stop a certain someone else from breaking people's legs with their bare hands.

But Maruken wasn't going to answer for another two hours, 'six o'clock in the morning' wasn't going to stop until about three in the afternoon, and there were no other options.

There was nothing for it.

The twins trudged back inside and wound their way into the smallest, darkest, and loneliest room in the whole house.

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The door was shut, and deceptively quiet.

Chavsk and Korch stared at it for a long, long while.

"You first," Chavsk said.

"I was first last time," Korch whined. "And--"

"I'll be first the next two times."

"That's what you said five times ago."

"Promise!"

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay." Korch inched towards the door, with his back against the wall, moving sideways.

When he reached the door, nothing happened. Chavsk had stopped breathing. Korch had, somewhere along the way, stopped breathing, blinking, and, quite possibly, living.

Korch swallowed, and reached for the doorknob.

The door exploded open with a bang, splintering wood and spilling light into the dark corridor.

"FUCKING GOT YOU, VANGAR—oh shit."

"Fsgghkkhkhhhh," Korch said, from somewhere on the ceiling.

Reilkav Valaunt, second-oldest in the family, emerged from his room in all his fiery, wrathful, terrifying, and legendary five foot two glory.

He blinked at Korch, and then blinked at Chavsk, who was doing a surprisingly good job at fusing himself into the wall.

"...Who the hell are you?" Reilkav asked, scratching his head.

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"WHADDAYA MEAN, I'VE GOT FOUR BROTHERS? NO ONE TOLD ME THIS!"

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"Oh wait, you were the squirts who killed mom?"

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"Wait, I had a mom?"

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"Wait, I have a dad too?"

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"HOLY SHIT, I'M ACTUALLY REAL? WHAT THE – OH MY GOD! HANDS!"

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"Hey wait, I coulda sworn I was a girl five minutes ago! But now I got this thing in my pants--"

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"Well, 'scuse me for not knowing! Not my fault Vangar locked me here since – since – since...who's Vangar?"

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Fifteen minutes later, when Reilkav was finally fully awake and his memory fully returned to him by dreamland, the twins finally asked their question.

"Selka from next door gave us this weird word that we don't know yet though Korch says he hears it around mostly when Vangar is in the room and it's called sex except we don't know what it is and do you know cause we really want to cause Selka says she's gonna pay us if we find out before tomorrow," Chavsk said, all in one breath.

Reilkav stared at him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes going blank.

"The answer is beer," he said, after a long moment.

"Huh?" Korch cocked his head to his side. If it was 'beer', he was sure that Vangar would've known that, even at six o'clock in the morning.

"'S answer to everything, ain't it?" Reilkav asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Even to 'what does sex mean'?" Korch asked, clapping a hand over Chavsk's mouth before he could spew off another long chain of complete and utter nonsense.

"Wait, what?" Reilkav's mind was still somewhere in dreamland, catching up.

"Sex."

"I like sex."

"What is it?"

"'S good."

"Yeah, but...what is it?"

"Wait, what?"

"Sex. Think it's spelled...ess...eee...fgghnnrrr. Yeah."

Reilkav scratched his head, apparently giving the question some real thought. Then he blinked, and asked, "Who are you again?"

Korch stared back. Then, out of the corner of his mouth, he hissed, "Chavsk, can I throw you out the window?"

"What? Why? What'd I do?" Chavsk looked panicked. He had lost a toenail in Vangar's throw, and it still hurt like all hell. Not to mention the nail that had been sticking in his side while he'd been trying to merge into the wall a few moments before.

"Nothin', but it makes Vangar feel better, so it'll probably—"

"WHERE'S VANGAR?" Reilkav roared.

"HE'S NOT HERE! PUT THE WARDROBE DOWN!"

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Another ten minutes later, when Reilkav really really was fully awake, and his memory really really was returned to him by the dreamland, and he was acting like his normal self – which made Chavsk and Korch both want to throw themselves out the window – they asked the question again.

Reilkav stared at the ceiling, chewing on what was probably a splinter out of someone else's skull.

Then he said, with the air of one of those really educated scholar people, "Korch. Take your dick, and stick it into Cha—wait! Shit! I got a better idea—er, I mean—what sex really is..."

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Six o'clock in the morning had stopped. Vangar was pulling his shirt over his head when the twins stuck their head into the room.

"Vangar."

"Yeah?"

"Reil told us what sex is."

"Huh?"

"He said...we gotta take this sword...and shove it up your ass."

Vangar stared at their slightly worried faces.

Six o'clock in the morning came back with a vengeance.

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A/N: Argh. I know. 'S been done before. But it was the best way I could think of to introduce all (most...) of the Valaunts. D: