Chapter the Eighth: All's Fair in Love and War (part I)
raaaaaaaaaawrchildren. Also, baby Baralai is cute. ... okay I do enjoy the random little tidbits about the war. I don't know why but it is so hard to motivate myself to write about children. o.O
I still want to smack Raidal for referring to Eliazar so informally. Maybe I'll be able to work that into part two.
Oh. When Evangeline calls BUS it makes me crack up. One of my NaNo group's favorite hangouts is a Panera on the corner of two streets, and the meeting room has windows so you can see the streets. There's a city bus that drives by, and our group has picked up the habit of shouting BUS at the top of our lungs every time it does.
I have no idea how much of this is actually, like. In character for their age. Fffffffffff-
Also:
Yellow-fronted canary
Blue-gray tanager
Binturong (and another because this picture is epic)
Chapter the Eighth: All’s Fair in Love and War
We are living our lives, abound with so much information…
Come on, let go of the remote; don’t you know you’re letting all the junk flood in?
I try to stop the flow, double clicking on the go, but it’s no use; hey, I’m being consumed
Loading, loading, loading, quickly reaching maximum capacity
Warning, warning, warning, gonna short circuit my identity
…
We’re all trapped in a maze of relationships
Life goes on with or without you
I’m swimming in a sea of the unconscious
I search for your heart, pursuing my true self
~ Persona 4, “Pursuing My True Self”
It was Monday, and like on all previous Mondays, it felt as though the magic of the weekend died with the dawn. Mary liked school, she really did, but, well… It was still school, and it was still Monday. There was something about this weekend in particular, too, that Mary didn’t want to let go of. Everything had finally started to work out, and now it felt as though life reset itself back to its old ways and habits. And so, it was with an unhappy heart that Mary woke up that morning.
“Cheer up,” Elia said, a bright yellow-fronted canary sitting on her bed stand. “We get to see Baralai today.”
“Yeah…” Mary flushed a little as she tried to pick what dress to wear. “Elia, pink or white?”
“Pink.” He nodded decisively. “You’re not feeling top notch, so if you like how you look, you’ll perk up.”
“Okay.”
With her morning ritual complete, pink dress on, red ribbon in her hair, and Eliazar the stoat around her shoulders, Mary headed downstairs for breakfast.
“Mornin’, Mary,” Kieran said without turning as she came down the stairs. “It’s supposed to be warmer than the weekend, so -- ” He glanced over and then performed a double take, stopping in mid sentence. “What is…”
“Huh?” Mary blinked. Eliazar sat up curiously, and she made the connection. “Oh! This… I found this form this weekend.” She smiled sheepishly. “Looks like Mother’s, huh?”
“… Yeah, it does. Surprised me…” Kieran shook his head as if to clear something from it. “What’s it called?”
“It’s a stoat. Isn’t it pretty?” As if on cue, Eliazar fluffed his soft brown fur and put on a cute face.
Kieran laughed. “Yeah. Where’d you find it?”
Mary settled down at the table with her bowl of cereal, and Eliazar scooted down her arm to go poke noses with Evangeline. “I met someone with an invisible dæmon, and she was a stoat.”
“What?” Kieran looked up, spoon halfway to his mouth. Evangeline’s ears stood up straight. “Who? How…?”
“He said he was a friend of Mother and Father’s,” Mary said, pushing around the cereal in her bowl. “Really close. Father left him a letter asking him to look after us and everything…”
Because Mary was looking down, she didn’t notice Kieran pale, but Eliazar did. He tilted his head as Evangeline turned her head to look at her boy. Mary, sensing Eliazar’s confusion, glanced up. “… Kieran? What’s the matter?”
“Mary, what did he look -- ”
“Bus!” Evangeline cried suddenly, ears upright.
“Ah! I took longer getting ready than I thought!” Mary dropped her spoon and it fell to her bowl with a clatter. She leapt to her feet, picking Elia up with one hand and pushing in her chair with the other. “’Bye Kie I love you see you later!” She kissed her brother on the cheek and ran for the entry hall, where her shoes and backpack waited for her, leaving Kieran shell shocked and confused at the breakfast table.
.~.~.m.b.~.e.~.b.lai.~.r.dal.~.~.
“Mornin’, Mary, Eli!”
“Morning,” Mary and Eliazar said in unison.
Baralai and his older brother Raidal sat together on a bus seat, the younger wedged in the corner next to the window and the other sitting aisle-side and smiling broadly at the girl and her dæmon. It was Raidal who greeted them; Baralai’s forehead was pressed against the glass and his eyes were closed. The brothers looked very similar -- olive skin, dark eyes, white hair, pretty features. Raidal was bigger, though, and not just because he was in eighth grade where Baralai was in fifth; reportedly, he was taller at that age than his brother was currently. And, besides that, Baralai was… well, more effeminate in appearance, much to the pleasure of his peers and his chagrin.
“How was your weekend?” Raidal asked as Mary took her seat behind the brothers.
Mary paused, then smiled back. “Good.” Wonderful, Eliazar sang in her head, changing forms to a blue gray tanager to flutter his wings cheerfully and chirp a little tune.
Raidal’s smile widened. “Good.”
Baralai made a soft sound and stirred at the noise. Raidal glanced over, grinned, and nudged him. “Hey, wakey wakey, ‘Lai.”
Baralai tried to give him a dirty look, but it just came across as a pout. Raidal sniggered and poked him in the side again, making him wiggle.
“Stoppiiiiit,” he whined. Mary giggled, and he blinked. He straightened so he could turn his head to look over the seat. “Oh…” He rubbed the heel of one hand into an eye. “Hi, Mary.”
“Morning, Baralai,” she said, smiling.
“Mornin’.” He shifted so he can see her better, and then blinked blearily at Eliazar. “Pretty form…”
Eliazar fluffed his blue feathers and raised his head proudly, making Mary and Raidal laugh and coaxing a small smile from Baralai.
Bus rides to and from school were always fun, and it was the only time to really spend time with both of the brothers at once. Their school encompassed both an elementary and a middle school, but the younger and older kids were kept separated by both the building layout and schedules. On rare occasions, the three of them (plus Eliazar) would get together on Friday afternoons and go to the park or a toy store, but that was the most they had ever done outside of school. Mary would have liked to spend more time with (Baralai) them, but the boys lived under the care of an otherworldly temple, and after school and on the weekends, they underwent religious lessons, practice, and training, so they didn’t have enough free time to leave the temple and explore the city with her. She didn’t have much of a choice but to settle with what she could take and make the best of it.
That was part of why she liked school so much. There were friends to spend time with, things to learn, crafts to do. There wasn’t any time to feel lonely because there was always something going on that required her full attention.
Especially at recess, which always started with a call to war.
“Yuuu- niiiee! Gippal put leaves in my hair agaiiin!”
War was very serious business. It always started pretty much the same way: Gippal, a boy in the other fifth grade class, had a habit of picking on Rikku, a third grade girl who would then come running to her cousin Yuna, who was in Mary’s class. The girls of both classes would then gather together and attempt to reproach Gippal, but by that time the boys of both classes also gathered together to defend their peer, and that was when war officially broke out, typically with girls on the offensive and boys on the defensive.
This was because the girls had the power to infect the boys with cooties. (This, however, didn’t work in reverse, as Prime Kander figured out how the girls could protect themselves from boy cooties. Mary didn’t quite understand the details of how it worked, but it had something to do with girl spit and wood chips.) Thusly, warfare consisted of the girls chasing down the boys and kissing them on the cheek (both, if the boy is an absolute menace. Gippal usually got kissed on both cheeks, on the rare occasions the girls managed to catch him).
Mary didn’t often participate in war and neither did Baralai, so they usually spent their time playing away from the equipment. The swingset was their particular haunt, and they pretended that they were birds or airplanes or kites or angels or fairies, flying in the endless sky, with Eliazar darting around them in his favorite bird form of the moment.
“Hey, Mary?” Baralai asked, arms outstretched like an airplane as his swing swooped up.
“Yeah?”
He paused, his eyes focused on the playground battlefield. Zazi Nomura and Willow Malone had cornered Willow’s twin brother August, but suddenly Gippal and Aesir Kerori launched an attack and August escaped in the chaos, peeling away only to be caught by third grader Kairi Engel and fourth grader Ender Bravura.
Baralai’s swing fell back. “You know how last week Secla wrote me a note?”
“Yeah?” Secla Reave was one of Baralai’s best friends in their class.
“He…” Baralai’s arms dropped so he could hold the chains and twist the swing so it swayed.
Mary let her feet drag in the wood chips, blinking. “What is it?”
“… Never mind.”
Little Naminé Godsafe was crying again, and her friends the Hamilton siblings (Sora, Roxas, and Xion) didn‘t look like they knew what to do. Devyn Myde, a boy from the other fifth grade class, slowed as he ran past, then doubled back. He leaned over and said something to her, and she giggled a little.
“Boys don’t like boys, do they?” Baralai blurted suddenly.
“Huh?”
“I mean.” Baralai stumbled over his words. “I -- You know how, um -- You know how Tidus likes Yuna?”
“Yeah?”
“Boys like girls, right?”
“I guess so…” Mary swung her feet. “But.”
“But?” Baralai dug his heels into the woodchips, pulling his swing to a stop. He was staring at her with wide expectant eyes.
“Well, I mean. I have a friend -- he worked for Father, right? -- and he likes boys. So…” Mary shrugged. “I’unno. I never thought it mattered.”
“Oh…” Baralai blinked and looked back out at the battlefield. Mary followed his gaze -- sure enough, he was looking out at Secla, who was running at top speed from Elma, a girl from the other class. “I… I see.”
“Why?” Mary let her swing slow to a stop. “What did Secla say?”
“He…” Baralai fidgeted, trying to poke the fingers of one hand through the swing chains. “He said in the note that he likes me.”
“Oh.” Mary couldn’t see Elia above, but she could feel his form change; he was now a binturong clinging to an overhanging branch of the gumball tree behind the swingset.
“Yeah…”
“Well…” Mary fought the urge to bite her lower lip. “Do you like him back?”
Baralai was quiet for such a long time that Eliazar anxiously curled his tail around the branch. “I dunno,” he muttered at last. “I haven’t really thought about that.”
Mary nodded, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Out on the playground, Gippal was dashing full pelt from Yuna and Rikku. Paine, stealthily hidden behind the tall slide, leapt out and tackled him to the ground, triggering an epic life or death wrestling match. Yuna and Rikku stood on the side of the battle and cheered Paine on.
“I dunno,” Baralai said again. “He’s fun…”
Mary nodded again. He’s kind of cute, too, she couldn’t help but think.
“And I do like him. I mean, he’s one of my best friends. But I’unno if…”
“If you like him like that?” Her heart relaxed.
“Yeah.” Baralai kicked at the woodchips under his feet.
“Well, that’s okay,” Mary said, tilting her head. “You just have to think on it.”
“Yeah…”
They fell quiet for a moment. Baralai kicked at the ground to start swinging again.
“Baralai?”
“Yeah?”
“What’ll you do if… you do like him back?”
“I dunno. I’ll figure somethin’ out, though.”
You should tell him, Eliazar thought.
No, Mary said firmly. How could you say that? That isn’t right.
I know, but… Elia climbed out further on the branch he sat on. It’ll give him the choice, you know?
Choice of what? Mary shook her head and kicked up her swinging, too. Don’t be selfish, Elia. He’s got enough on his mind. There’s no reason to add anything else.
He huffed and didn’t reply, leaving Mary and Baralai to spend the rest of recess passing comments on the progress of the war. Naturally, by the time Miss Harper blew the whistle to call everyone back to class, the girls won, and they celebrated noisily on the way inside as the boys walked together to hurriedly discuss battle tactics for the next war.
.~.~.m.b.~.e.~.b.lai.~.r.dal.~.~.
“Hey, Baralai, wanna skip afternoon lessons today?”
Baralai and Mary stared at Raidal.
“W- Wait -- What?” Baralai gaped. “But -- ”
“I don’t feel like going back yet.” Raidal shrugged. “Mary, Eli, how about you guys come with us to go to the new candy store?”
“Sure…” Mary paused. “You know, Raidal, you don’t have to say Eliazar’s name, too. We’re the same person, so -- ”
“Yeah, but Eli’s his own self, too, isn’t he?”
“I…” Mary frowned a little. “But -- ”
“C’mooon, ‘Lai,” Raidal wheedled, jumping around his brother. “I know you think lessons are boring, too.”
“They are, but -- ”
“Look, a whole bunch of us are going!” Raidal smiled. “It’ll be us four plus Nooj and Lucil and Elma. It’ll be fun!”
“Yeah, but…” Baralai frowned now, too.
Raidal leaned down to look Baralai in the eyes. His expression was pleading. “We never get to go out with our friends. Don’t you want to come hang out with us?”
Baralai searched Raidal’s face for a moment, but Mary wasn’t surprised when he nodded and said okay. Baralai really looked up to Raidal, and Mary had never seen him say no to anything Raidal asked. They really loved each other, and while it made Mary happy to see it, it also made her feel… well. It didn’t matter, anyway.
“Awesome!” Raidal straightened, beaming. “Okay, we’re meeting up at the end of the block. Race you there!”
“No fair, you have longer legs,” Baralai complained, but Raidal only laughed and took off.
Baralai looked at Mary with a “I just got peer pressured” kicked puppy expression and she nearly awwwed and petted his (soft looking) hair. “How come this always happens?” he muttered.
She patted his shoulder comfortingly.
“Well, we’d better hurry,” Eliazar said. “Or they might leave without us.”
“Yeah.” Baralai sighed, scratching the back of his neck.
I still want to smack Raidal for referring to Eliazar so informally. Maybe I'll be able to work that into part two.
Oh. When Evangeline calls BUS it makes me crack up. One of my NaNo group's favorite hangouts is a Panera on the corner of two streets, and the meeting room has windows so you can see the streets. There's a city bus that drives by, and our group has picked up the habit of shouting BUS at the top of our lungs every time it does.
I have no idea how much of this is actually, like. In character for their age. Fffffffffff-
Also:
Yellow-fronted canary
Blue-gray tanager
Binturong (and another because this picture is epic)
Chapter the Eighth: All’s Fair in Love and War
We are living our lives, abound with so much information…
Come on, let go of the remote; don’t you know you’re letting all the junk flood in?
I try to stop the flow, double clicking on the go, but it’s no use; hey, I’m being consumed
Loading, loading, loading, quickly reaching maximum capacity
Warning, warning, warning, gonna short circuit my identity
…
We’re all trapped in a maze of relationships
Life goes on with or without you
I’m swimming in a sea of the unconscious
I search for your heart, pursuing my true self
~ Persona 4, “Pursuing My True Self”
It was Monday, and like on all previous Mondays, it felt as though the magic of the weekend died with the dawn. Mary liked school, she really did, but, well… It was still school, and it was still Monday. There was something about this weekend in particular, too, that Mary didn’t want to let go of. Everything had finally started to work out, and now it felt as though life reset itself back to its old ways and habits. And so, it was with an unhappy heart that Mary woke up that morning.
“Cheer up,” Elia said, a bright yellow-fronted canary sitting on her bed stand. “We get to see Baralai today.”
“Yeah…” Mary flushed a little as she tried to pick what dress to wear. “Elia, pink or white?”
“Pink.” He nodded decisively. “You’re not feeling top notch, so if you like how you look, you’ll perk up.”
“Okay.”
With her morning ritual complete, pink dress on, red ribbon in her hair, and Eliazar the stoat around her shoulders, Mary headed downstairs for breakfast.
“Mornin’, Mary,” Kieran said without turning as she came down the stairs. “It’s supposed to be warmer than the weekend, so -- ” He glanced over and then performed a double take, stopping in mid sentence. “What is…”
“Huh?” Mary blinked. Eliazar sat up curiously, and she made the connection. “Oh! This… I found this form this weekend.” She smiled sheepishly. “Looks like Mother’s, huh?”
“… Yeah, it does. Surprised me…” Kieran shook his head as if to clear something from it. “What’s it called?”
“It’s a stoat. Isn’t it pretty?” As if on cue, Eliazar fluffed his soft brown fur and put on a cute face.
Kieran laughed. “Yeah. Where’d you find it?”
Mary settled down at the table with her bowl of cereal, and Eliazar scooted down her arm to go poke noses with Evangeline. “I met someone with an invisible dæmon, and she was a stoat.”
“What?” Kieran looked up, spoon halfway to his mouth. Evangeline’s ears stood up straight. “Who? How…?”
“He said he was a friend of Mother and Father’s,” Mary said, pushing around the cereal in her bowl. “Really close. Father left him a letter asking him to look after us and everything…”
Because Mary was looking down, she didn’t notice Kieran pale, but Eliazar did. He tilted his head as Evangeline turned her head to look at her boy. Mary, sensing Eliazar’s confusion, glanced up. “… Kieran? What’s the matter?”
“Mary, what did he look -- ”
“Bus!” Evangeline cried suddenly, ears upright.
“Ah! I took longer getting ready than I thought!” Mary dropped her spoon and it fell to her bowl with a clatter. She leapt to her feet, picking Elia up with one hand and pushing in her chair with the other. “’Bye Kie I love you see you later!” She kissed her brother on the cheek and ran for the entry hall, where her shoes and backpack waited for her, leaving Kieran shell shocked and confused at the breakfast table.
.~.~.m.b.~.e.~.b.lai.~.r.dal.~.~.
“Mornin’, Mary, Eli!”
“Morning,” Mary and Eliazar said in unison.
Baralai and his older brother Raidal sat together on a bus seat, the younger wedged in the corner next to the window and the other sitting aisle-side and smiling broadly at the girl and her dæmon. It was Raidal who greeted them; Baralai’s forehead was pressed against the glass and his eyes were closed. The brothers looked very similar -- olive skin, dark eyes, white hair, pretty features. Raidal was bigger, though, and not just because he was in eighth grade where Baralai was in fifth; reportedly, he was taller at that age than his brother was currently. And, besides that, Baralai was… well, more effeminate in appearance, much to the pleasure of his peers and his chagrin.
“How was your weekend?” Raidal asked as Mary took her seat behind the brothers.
Mary paused, then smiled back. “Good.” Wonderful, Eliazar sang in her head, changing forms to a blue gray tanager to flutter his wings cheerfully and chirp a little tune.
Raidal’s smile widened. “Good.”
Baralai made a soft sound and stirred at the noise. Raidal glanced over, grinned, and nudged him. “Hey, wakey wakey, ‘Lai.”
Baralai tried to give him a dirty look, but it just came across as a pout. Raidal sniggered and poked him in the side again, making him wiggle.
“Stoppiiiiit,” he whined. Mary giggled, and he blinked. He straightened so he could turn his head to look over the seat. “Oh…” He rubbed the heel of one hand into an eye. “Hi, Mary.”
“Morning, Baralai,” she said, smiling.
“Mornin’.” He shifted so he can see her better, and then blinked blearily at Eliazar. “Pretty form…”
Eliazar fluffed his blue feathers and raised his head proudly, making Mary and Raidal laugh and coaxing a small smile from Baralai.
Bus rides to and from school were always fun, and it was the only time to really spend time with both of the brothers at once. Their school encompassed both an elementary and a middle school, but the younger and older kids were kept separated by both the building layout and schedules. On rare occasions, the three of them (plus Eliazar) would get together on Friday afternoons and go to the park or a toy store, but that was the most they had ever done outside of school. Mary would have liked to spend more time with (Baralai) them, but the boys lived under the care of an otherworldly temple, and after school and on the weekends, they underwent religious lessons, practice, and training, so they didn’t have enough free time to leave the temple and explore the city with her. She didn’t have much of a choice but to settle with what she could take and make the best of it.
That was part of why she liked school so much. There were friends to spend time with, things to learn, crafts to do. There wasn’t any time to feel lonely because there was always something going on that required her full attention.
Especially at recess, which always started with a call to war.
“Yuuu- niiiee! Gippal put leaves in my hair agaiiin!”
War was very serious business. It always started pretty much the same way: Gippal, a boy in the other fifth grade class, had a habit of picking on Rikku, a third grade girl who would then come running to her cousin Yuna, who was in Mary’s class. The girls of both classes would then gather together and attempt to reproach Gippal, but by that time the boys of both classes also gathered together to defend their peer, and that was when war officially broke out, typically with girls on the offensive and boys on the defensive.
This was because the girls had the power to infect the boys with cooties. (This, however, didn’t work in reverse, as Prime Kander figured out how the girls could protect themselves from boy cooties. Mary didn’t quite understand the details of how it worked, but it had something to do with girl spit and wood chips.) Thusly, warfare consisted of the girls chasing down the boys and kissing them on the cheek (both, if the boy is an absolute menace. Gippal usually got kissed on both cheeks, on the rare occasions the girls managed to catch him).
Mary didn’t often participate in war and neither did Baralai, so they usually spent their time playing away from the equipment. The swingset was their particular haunt, and they pretended that they were birds or airplanes or kites or angels or fairies, flying in the endless sky, with Eliazar darting around them in his favorite bird form of the moment.
“Hey, Mary?” Baralai asked, arms outstretched like an airplane as his swing swooped up.
“Yeah?”
He paused, his eyes focused on the playground battlefield. Zazi Nomura and Willow Malone had cornered Willow’s twin brother August, but suddenly Gippal and Aesir Kerori launched an attack and August escaped in the chaos, peeling away only to be caught by third grader Kairi Engel and fourth grader Ender Bravura.
Baralai’s swing fell back. “You know how last week Secla wrote me a note?”
“Yeah?” Secla Reave was one of Baralai’s best friends in their class.
“He…” Baralai’s arms dropped so he could hold the chains and twist the swing so it swayed.
Mary let her feet drag in the wood chips, blinking. “What is it?”
“… Never mind.”
Little Naminé Godsafe was crying again, and her friends the Hamilton siblings (Sora, Roxas, and Xion) didn‘t look like they knew what to do. Devyn Myde, a boy from the other fifth grade class, slowed as he ran past, then doubled back. He leaned over and said something to her, and she giggled a little.
“Boys don’t like boys, do they?” Baralai blurted suddenly.
“Huh?”
“I mean.” Baralai stumbled over his words. “I -- You know how, um -- You know how Tidus likes Yuna?”
“Yeah?”
“Boys like girls, right?”
“I guess so…” Mary swung her feet. “But.”
“But?” Baralai dug his heels into the woodchips, pulling his swing to a stop. He was staring at her with wide expectant eyes.
“Well, I mean. I have a friend -- he worked for Father, right? -- and he likes boys. So…” Mary shrugged. “I’unno. I never thought it mattered.”
“Oh…” Baralai blinked and looked back out at the battlefield. Mary followed his gaze -- sure enough, he was looking out at Secla, who was running at top speed from Elma, a girl from the other class. “I… I see.”
“Why?” Mary let her swing slow to a stop. “What did Secla say?”
“He…” Baralai fidgeted, trying to poke the fingers of one hand through the swing chains. “He said in the note that he likes me.”
“Oh.” Mary couldn’t see Elia above, but she could feel his form change; he was now a binturong clinging to an overhanging branch of the gumball tree behind the swingset.
“Yeah…”
“Well…” Mary fought the urge to bite her lower lip. “Do you like him back?”
Baralai was quiet for such a long time that Eliazar anxiously curled his tail around the branch. “I dunno,” he muttered at last. “I haven’t really thought about that.”
Mary nodded, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Out on the playground, Gippal was dashing full pelt from Yuna and Rikku. Paine, stealthily hidden behind the tall slide, leapt out and tackled him to the ground, triggering an epic life or death wrestling match. Yuna and Rikku stood on the side of the battle and cheered Paine on.
“I dunno,” Baralai said again. “He’s fun…”
Mary nodded again. He’s kind of cute, too, she couldn’t help but think.
“And I do like him. I mean, he’s one of my best friends. But I’unno if…”
“If you like him like that?” Her heart relaxed.
“Yeah.” Baralai kicked at the woodchips under his feet.
“Well, that’s okay,” Mary said, tilting her head. “You just have to think on it.”
“Yeah…”
They fell quiet for a moment. Baralai kicked at the ground to start swinging again.
“Baralai?”
“Yeah?”
“What’ll you do if… you do like him back?”
“I dunno. I’ll figure somethin’ out, though.”
You should tell him, Eliazar thought.
No, Mary said firmly. How could you say that? That isn’t right.
I know, but… Elia climbed out further on the branch he sat on. It’ll give him the choice, you know?
Choice of what? Mary shook her head and kicked up her swinging, too. Don’t be selfish, Elia. He’s got enough on his mind. There’s no reason to add anything else.
He huffed and didn’t reply, leaving Mary and Baralai to spend the rest of recess passing comments on the progress of the war. Naturally, by the time Miss Harper blew the whistle to call everyone back to class, the girls won, and they celebrated noisily on the way inside as the boys walked together to hurriedly discuss battle tactics for the next war.
.~.~.m.b.~.e.~.b.lai.~.r.dal.~.~.
“Hey, Baralai, wanna skip afternoon lessons today?”
Baralai and Mary stared at Raidal.
“W- Wait -- What?” Baralai gaped. “But -- ”
“I don’t feel like going back yet.” Raidal shrugged. “Mary, Eli, how about you guys come with us to go to the new candy store?”
“Sure…” Mary paused. “You know, Raidal, you don’t have to say Eliazar’s name, too. We’re the same person, so -- ”
“Yeah, but Eli’s his own self, too, isn’t he?”
“I…” Mary frowned a little. “But -- ”
“C’mooon, ‘Lai,” Raidal wheedled, jumping around his brother. “I know you think lessons are boring, too.”
“They are, but -- ”
“Look, a whole bunch of us are going!” Raidal smiled. “It’ll be us four plus Nooj and Lucil and Elma. It’ll be fun!”
“Yeah, but…” Baralai frowned now, too.
Raidal leaned down to look Baralai in the eyes. His expression was pleading. “We never get to go out with our friends. Don’t you want to come hang out with us?”
Baralai searched Raidal’s face for a moment, but Mary wasn’t surprised when he nodded and said okay. Baralai really looked up to Raidal, and Mary had never seen him say no to anything Raidal asked. They really loved each other, and while it made Mary happy to see it, it also made her feel… well. It didn’t matter, anyway.
“Awesome!” Raidal straightened, beaming. “Okay, we’re meeting up at the end of the block. Race you there!”
“No fair, you have longer legs,” Baralai complained, but Raidal only laughed and took off.
Baralai looked at Mary with a “I just got peer pressured” kicked puppy expression and she nearly awwwed and petted his (soft looking) hair. “How come this always happens?” he muttered.
She patted his shoulder comfortingly.
“Well, we’d better hurry,” Eliazar said. “Or they might leave without us.”
“Yeah.” Baralai sighed, scratching the back of his neck.