Post by Princess Katie on Aug 19, 2008 20:29:36 GMT -5
“No, you can’t go outside. Look how horribly sunny it is. It wouldn’t be fair to your sister, to leave her in here while you two go romping around,” Pia said, over her morning glass of blood, frowning at Alexander and Armand.
Alexander frowned, “But Mooooom, Genn has Finola to play with.”
Alex was arguing? How weird. “Good idea. You two play with Finnie too. And be careful, she’s delicate,” Pia gave him a mild version of The Look. It was too early for arguing with a kid.
“You boys should listen to your momma,” Illie said with all the sweetness that Pia lacked. She shifted the sleeping baby Hugh to her other arm and handed Armand a plate of fresh-from-the-oven cookies. “Here, you can take these. Share them with your sister and Finnie.” She added, mostly for Alexander’s sake.
Alexander stomped off to find Genevieve and Armand sighed before thanking Illie then running off after Alex.
Pia frowned at Illie. “Do you know how to make cocktails? God knows I need one.”
---
Genevieve blinked up at her brothers from her sitting position. She cradled an aging Gavotte to her chest, Finola sat criss-crossed, constructing something elaborate looking out of Popsicle sticks, paperclips, and glue.
“I thought you were going outside?” Genevieve asked asked, obviously suspicious, letting the sitchety old cat free, and standing up, with her little hands on her hips.
“Mom told us it wasn’t fair for us to play outside while you were stuck inside,” Armand said, offering her a cookie.
“So we have to amuse you two all day,” Alexander added, snottily.
Finola looked up from her lacework of wood, metal, and paste. “I do not need you to entertain me. I don’t even know if you could, if you tried.”
Ooh. A challenge?
Alexander smirked at her, “Oh yeah? Come on. I’ll show you entertainment, Rainbow Brite.” He grabbed her cool, porcelain hand, dragging her off in the direction of the main stairs. Genevieve and Armand exchanged an ‘uh-oh’ look before Genn took her big brother’s hand, and they jogged off after Alexander and Finola, hoping nothing disastrous would happen before they could intervene.
---
“Where are we going?”
“Just hold on, one more flight of stairs.”
“That’s what you said fifty-three steps ago.”
“Yeah…well, for real this time.”
Finola clearly distrusted Alexander’s sense of distance, but allowed herself to clink up the stairs behind him, her little bare porcelain feet making chiming noises against the spiral staircase. She could hear her other cousins, a flight below, yelling for them to wait up. She glanced over her shoulder, catching a brief glimpse of Armand as they rounded the circuit of stairs again. It was no wonder that she barreled into Alexander’s back when he skidded to a sudden stop at the landing of the staircase, as she was still half-turned to look over her shoulder. She would have toppled backward, all the way down the stairs and shattered into a million shards of Vicceri, but Alexander just barely snagged her by the front of her frilly black dress. He pulled her forward just in the knick of time, and she toppled onto the carpet, unharmed. Her hair turned a wave of just about every color, before fading to a solid white for a moment, and she sat, stunned, in the middle of the hall.
“Geez, Grace! Watch where you’re going! If you break, I’m going to get in sooo much trouble!” He said accusatorily, before dashing off down the hallway, pausing only briefly to yell over his shoulder, “Come on!”
Finola was still sitting, stunned, when Genevieve and Armand caught up to her. Armand helped his cousin up and Genevieve fixed the bow that held back Fin’s kaleidoscopic hair.
“You okay, Finnie?” she asked gingerly, linking arms with the other little girl. Finola didn’t have much of a chance to reply, because Alexander poked his head around the corner, expectantly.
“Come onnnn, slowpokes!”
They followed him to one of the spare rooms in one of the tallest towers of the castle. The room was dusty and stale, filled with artifacts from regimes past; cobwebs coated every inch. There was a lock on the door, but it was mysteriously melted off. Clearly, it was not a room their parents wanted them playing around in.
Of course, that would hardly stop them.
“See, look. I found this a while ago, it’s full of all kinds of neat junk!” He said proudly, brushing cobwebs off of a taxidermy alligator. Genevieve shuddered and reached for Finola’s hand, but Finola was already halfway done with disassembling an ancient clock.
“Look, Genn,” Armand called from across the chamber. He gestured to an old wardrobe, stuffed with dresses and shoes in various states of moth-eateness. She was immediately over the creepiness of the room, piling on old pearls and slipping on elbow-gloves that reached her armpits. She plucked a fat spider off of a tarnished tiara, placing the creature gently on the windowsill, before crowning herself and spinning infront of the dusty wall-mirror.
“I’m a Princess!” She declared. Armand looked amused.
“Genn, you’re already a—“
He did not get to finish, as he was jabbed in the ribs by a dull fencing Épée.
“Hey!” he shouted, slightly offended, but barely surprised.
Alexander shrugged, the absolute definition of nonchalance. “Sorry, it just seemed to me like you were looking to fight.”
“Oh, really?” He asked, grabbing another fencing sword from its dock on the wall. The two boys proceeded to do boyish things, hacking and slicing the swords about, and stirring up a good deal of dust. Armand was much quicker, he succeeded in poking Alexander several times in the chest, driving him backward toward the fallen grandfather clock that Finola so intently inspected.
In a desperate attempt not to loose, Alexander drew his sword arm as far back as he could, preparing to deliver a real wallop to his brother. Unfortunately, as he did so, the edge of the sword caught Finola right in her right temple.
The cracking sound resonated in the cavernous storage room. A hairline crack started where the sword made contact with her face, spreading into a spider web of cracks as her face contorted into an expression of fright. She clutched her face, hoping to stop the spreading of the cracks, but it was a little late. Pieces of her face began clinking to the floor, her entire cheek and right eye falling away, and Finola let out a panicked “Alex!”
“Oh no!” Genevieve squeaked through her hands, scooping to pick up the shattered pieces of Finola, whose body was dishearteningly still, slumped over the fallen grandfather clock. “SHE’S DEAD!” Genn wailed, absolutely horrorstruck.
“She’s not dead, she’s not dead!” Alexander insisted, though even he didn’t sound like he believed that.
“We have to get her to Mom and Aunt Illie. Genn, pick up the pieces as quickly as you can, and follow us downstairs. Alex, grab her arms.” Between the two boys, they managed to carry Finola down the several sets of stairs, and back into the kitchen. Genevieve followed them, bawling and picking up the trail of porcelain they were leaving behind them as more bits flaked off of Finola’s crumbling face. By the time they reached the kitchen, Finola was missing her entire face, from ear to ear, forehead to chin.
Pia choked on her cocktail as the kids ran into the room, breathless and frightened. Genevieve was the first to talk, though it was more of a gurgle than a real sentence. “Mooooooooooommmmmm, Alexander killed Finola!”
“No! It was an accident!”
“Well, it’s still your fault!”
“She can’t be dead, she’s broken before!”
“Not like this, Murderer!”
“Shut up!”
Pia clamped a hand simultaneously over Genn and Alexander’s mouths, effectively silencing them both. “ILIANA!” She screamed to the next room, where Illie was playing with Hugh. Illie, her maternal senses tingling, was already coming through the door. She passed Hugh to Pia and sprinted to the foyer, retrieving a bottle of ceramics glue.
“It’s okay, Finnie,” she cooed, taking her daughter into her lap, “We’ll fix you up, good as new.”
Pia sent Alexander a look that could peel paint, “If you knew what’s good for you, you’d be half-way to getting your Dad and Simon by now.”
A Few Hours Later
After a bottle and a half of glue, lots of swearing, and a heavy handed sprinkling of swear words, the four adults had managed to reconstruct most of Finola’s face. Simon held Finola his lap, a decidedly grey tone to his hair and eyes. As soon as they had her mouth finished, she proceeded to scream and flail, writhing in either agony or fear.
“Well, at least we know she’s alive…” Pia remarked, over Finola’s shrieks of bloody murder. She was answered with two dirty looks and a sort of dingy look from Illie, who couldn’t quite muster up a full-on dirty look, even in this situation.
A Few More Hours Later
Finola had given up screaming about two hours after her mouth was fixed, calming down considerably when her eye was repaired and she could see where she was and what was going on. By the time they got to her right cheek, the cracks on the first-glued parts of her face faded to very light lines, while the more recently repaired bits still had heavy lines.
“Hold on, sweet girl,” Illie encouraged, taking Finola’s little hands in her own, “You’re almost done.” She was only missing a pinky nail-sized piece from her right cheek. Except…there were no more pieces left. They checked the table. They traced the kids’ route, lifting up rugs and looking under vases. The King and Queen were crawling around on their hands and knees, searching for a flake of ceramic skin.
“Gennie, you were in charge of gathering up the pieces, did you know where it might be?” Illie asked sweetly from underneath the oaken table in the junk room.
“No, Auntie…” Genevieve answered, reaching her hand underneath the wardrobe, sending spiders scurrying out in odd directions.
The entire royal family (except Finola, who was rather traumatized and sat sniffling on the couch, and Hugh, who used the whole ‘baby’ excuse to opt out of looking) spent a great while, poking around in the dust and cobwebs, to no avail.
This did not sit well with the already ill at ease Finola.
“Honey, it’s only a little chip!”
“But I neeeed it!”
“Fin, be a big girl.”
“It makes you look tough. Like a pirate.”
“I don’t WANT to be a pirate!”
“It’s cute Finnie, like a beauty mark.”
“No! Now my head is off-balance! It’s going to fall to one side!”
“No it won’t.”
“Your mom has stitches all over her face, and you think she’s pretty, don’t you?”
"It's not the sammmee!"
“It gives you character!”
Because, being made of porcelain and having color-changing hair doesn’t provide character enough.
Alexander frowned, “But Mooooom, Genn has Finola to play with.”
Alex was arguing? How weird. “Good idea. You two play with Finnie too. And be careful, she’s delicate,” Pia gave him a mild version of The Look. It was too early for arguing with a kid.
“You boys should listen to your momma,” Illie said with all the sweetness that Pia lacked. She shifted the sleeping baby Hugh to her other arm and handed Armand a plate of fresh-from-the-oven cookies. “Here, you can take these. Share them with your sister and Finnie.” She added, mostly for Alexander’s sake.
Alexander stomped off to find Genevieve and Armand sighed before thanking Illie then running off after Alex.
Pia frowned at Illie. “Do you know how to make cocktails? God knows I need one.”
---
Genevieve blinked up at her brothers from her sitting position. She cradled an aging Gavotte to her chest, Finola sat criss-crossed, constructing something elaborate looking out of Popsicle sticks, paperclips, and glue.
“I thought you were going outside?” Genevieve asked asked, obviously suspicious, letting the sitchety old cat free, and standing up, with her little hands on her hips.
“Mom told us it wasn’t fair for us to play outside while you were stuck inside,” Armand said, offering her a cookie.
“So we have to amuse you two all day,” Alexander added, snottily.
Finola looked up from her lacework of wood, metal, and paste. “I do not need you to entertain me. I don’t even know if you could, if you tried.”
Ooh. A challenge?
Alexander smirked at her, “Oh yeah? Come on. I’ll show you entertainment, Rainbow Brite.” He grabbed her cool, porcelain hand, dragging her off in the direction of the main stairs. Genevieve and Armand exchanged an ‘uh-oh’ look before Genn took her big brother’s hand, and they jogged off after Alexander and Finola, hoping nothing disastrous would happen before they could intervene.
---
“Where are we going?”
“Just hold on, one more flight of stairs.”
“That’s what you said fifty-three steps ago.”
“Yeah…well, for real this time.”
Finola clearly distrusted Alexander’s sense of distance, but allowed herself to clink up the stairs behind him, her little bare porcelain feet making chiming noises against the spiral staircase. She could hear her other cousins, a flight below, yelling for them to wait up. She glanced over her shoulder, catching a brief glimpse of Armand as they rounded the circuit of stairs again. It was no wonder that she barreled into Alexander’s back when he skidded to a sudden stop at the landing of the staircase, as she was still half-turned to look over her shoulder. She would have toppled backward, all the way down the stairs and shattered into a million shards of Vicceri, but Alexander just barely snagged her by the front of her frilly black dress. He pulled her forward just in the knick of time, and she toppled onto the carpet, unharmed. Her hair turned a wave of just about every color, before fading to a solid white for a moment, and she sat, stunned, in the middle of the hall.
“Geez, Grace! Watch where you’re going! If you break, I’m going to get in sooo much trouble!” He said accusatorily, before dashing off down the hallway, pausing only briefly to yell over his shoulder, “Come on!”
Finola was still sitting, stunned, when Genevieve and Armand caught up to her. Armand helped his cousin up and Genevieve fixed the bow that held back Fin’s kaleidoscopic hair.
“You okay, Finnie?” she asked gingerly, linking arms with the other little girl. Finola didn’t have much of a chance to reply, because Alexander poked his head around the corner, expectantly.
“Come onnnn, slowpokes!”
They followed him to one of the spare rooms in one of the tallest towers of the castle. The room was dusty and stale, filled with artifacts from regimes past; cobwebs coated every inch. There was a lock on the door, but it was mysteriously melted off. Clearly, it was not a room their parents wanted them playing around in.
Of course, that would hardly stop them.
“See, look. I found this a while ago, it’s full of all kinds of neat junk!” He said proudly, brushing cobwebs off of a taxidermy alligator. Genevieve shuddered and reached for Finola’s hand, but Finola was already halfway done with disassembling an ancient clock.
“Look, Genn,” Armand called from across the chamber. He gestured to an old wardrobe, stuffed with dresses and shoes in various states of moth-eateness. She was immediately over the creepiness of the room, piling on old pearls and slipping on elbow-gloves that reached her armpits. She plucked a fat spider off of a tarnished tiara, placing the creature gently on the windowsill, before crowning herself and spinning infront of the dusty wall-mirror.
“I’m a Princess!” She declared. Armand looked amused.
“Genn, you’re already a—“
He did not get to finish, as he was jabbed in the ribs by a dull fencing Épée.
“Hey!” he shouted, slightly offended, but barely surprised.
Alexander shrugged, the absolute definition of nonchalance. “Sorry, it just seemed to me like you were looking to fight.”
“Oh, really?” He asked, grabbing another fencing sword from its dock on the wall. The two boys proceeded to do boyish things, hacking and slicing the swords about, and stirring up a good deal of dust. Armand was much quicker, he succeeded in poking Alexander several times in the chest, driving him backward toward the fallen grandfather clock that Finola so intently inspected.
In a desperate attempt not to loose, Alexander drew his sword arm as far back as he could, preparing to deliver a real wallop to his brother. Unfortunately, as he did so, the edge of the sword caught Finola right in her right temple.
The cracking sound resonated in the cavernous storage room. A hairline crack started where the sword made contact with her face, spreading into a spider web of cracks as her face contorted into an expression of fright. She clutched her face, hoping to stop the spreading of the cracks, but it was a little late. Pieces of her face began clinking to the floor, her entire cheek and right eye falling away, and Finola let out a panicked “Alex!”
“Oh no!” Genevieve squeaked through her hands, scooping to pick up the shattered pieces of Finola, whose body was dishearteningly still, slumped over the fallen grandfather clock. “SHE’S DEAD!” Genn wailed, absolutely horrorstruck.
“She’s not dead, she’s not dead!” Alexander insisted, though even he didn’t sound like he believed that.
“We have to get her to Mom and Aunt Illie. Genn, pick up the pieces as quickly as you can, and follow us downstairs. Alex, grab her arms.” Between the two boys, they managed to carry Finola down the several sets of stairs, and back into the kitchen. Genevieve followed them, bawling and picking up the trail of porcelain they were leaving behind them as more bits flaked off of Finola’s crumbling face. By the time they reached the kitchen, Finola was missing her entire face, from ear to ear, forehead to chin.
Pia choked on her cocktail as the kids ran into the room, breathless and frightened. Genevieve was the first to talk, though it was more of a gurgle than a real sentence. “Mooooooooooommmmmm, Alexander killed Finola!”
“No! It was an accident!”
“Well, it’s still your fault!”
“She can’t be dead, she’s broken before!”
“Not like this, Murderer!”
“Shut up!”
Pia clamped a hand simultaneously over Genn and Alexander’s mouths, effectively silencing them both. “ILIANA!” She screamed to the next room, where Illie was playing with Hugh. Illie, her maternal senses tingling, was already coming through the door. She passed Hugh to Pia and sprinted to the foyer, retrieving a bottle of ceramics glue.
“It’s okay, Finnie,” she cooed, taking her daughter into her lap, “We’ll fix you up, good as new.”
Pia sent Alexander a look that could peel paint, “If you knew what’s good for you, you’d be half-way to getting your Dad and Simon by now.”
A Few Hours Later
After a bottle and a half of glue, lots of swearing, and a heavy handed sprinkling of swear words, the four adults had managed to reconstruct most of Finola’s face. Simon held Finola his lap, a decidedly grey tone to his hair and eyes. As soon as they had her mouth finished, she proceeded to scream and flail, writhing in either agony or fear.
“Well, at least we know she’s alive…” Pia remarked, over Finola’s shrieks of bloody murder. She was answered with two dirty looks and a sort of dingy look from Illie, who couldn’t quite muster up a full-on dirty look, even in this situation.
A Few More Hours Later
Finola had given up screaming about two hours after her mouth was fixed, calming down considerably when her eye was repaired and she could see where she was and what was going on. By the time they got to her right cheek, the cracks on the first-glued parts of her face faded to very light lines, while the more recently repaired bits still had heavy lines.
“Hold on, sweet girl,” Illie encouraged, taking Finola’s little hands in her own, “You’re almost done.” She was only missing a pinky nail-sized piece from her right cheek. Except…there were no more pieces left. They checked the table. They traced the kids’ route, lifting up rugs and looking under vases. The King and Queen were crawling around on their hands and knees, searching for a flake of ceramic skin.
“Gennie, you were in charge of gathering up the pieces, did you know where it might be?” Illie asked sweetly from underneath the oaken table in the junk room.
“No, Auntie…” Genevieve answered, reaching her hand underneath the wardrobe, sending spiders scurrying out in odd directions.
The entire royal family (except Finola, who was rather traumatized and sat sniffling on the couch, and Hugh, who used the whole ‘baby’ excuse to opt out of looking) spent a great while, poking around in the dust and cobwebs, to no avail.
This did not sit well with the already ill at ease Finola.
“Honey, it’s only a little chip!”
“But I neeeed it!”
“Fin, be a big girl.”
“It makes you look tough. Like a pirate.”
“I don’t WANT to be a pirate!”
“It’s cute Finnie, like a beauty mark.”
“No! Now my head is off-balance! It’s going to fall to one side!”
“No it won’t.”
“Your mom has stitches all over her face, and you think she’s pretty, don’t you?”
"It's not the sammmee!"
“It gives you character!”
Because, being made of porcelain and having color-changing hair doesn’t provide character enough.