|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 11, 2010 22:30:10 GMT -5
The wilderness stretched out endlessly around them as they drove deeper into the mountains, a mix of evergreen conifers and barren deciduous trees, lifeless but for the makeshift caravan of family members, Tristan's beat-up station-wagon trailing closely behind the sleek new sedan.
The first sign that they were nearing their destination was the blanket of fresh snow, despite the clear skies, and somehow leaving the road completely clear. It was Grandmother Volkova's handiwork, naturally. Every Christmas since he could remember, there had been snow.
Even Hitoshi had to smile slightly at the familiar sight. He squeezed Alex's hand, glancing back at the other boy.
After not much longer, the car turned down a long gravel drive. The house, as they drove, became more clearly visible. The architecture was eclectic and seemingly mismatched, varying from normal suburban style walls to bricks to stucco, including a wall of stone that might have come straight out of Dunehelden. The house was at least four stories tall and looked poorly balanced, like a strong breeze might topple it over, though it had been standing since before Tristan was born.
Slightly past the house was a small barn, which might have once been red, but beneath the bright splashes of color and artwork covering the wood it was impossible to tell.
An old, rickety looking swing set stood off to the side of the barn. A tree, half as tall as the house and probably decades older, was home to a large tree house and a tire swing.
Behind the house, barely visible from where they were, a lake was completely frozen over, the light reflecting in the glassy surface.
In front of the house stood an evergreen tree several stories high, decorated in large glittering lights and streams of fluffy silver and green garlands and frosted over with snow. A star, glowing softly, topped off the tree.
The station-wagon pulled under the carport, and Tristan hopped out and began unloading the trunk. Rudeth and Rivienne had already gotten the sedan half-unloaded.
Hitoshi hopped out of the car, slinging his bag onto his back. He leaned against the car for a moment, enjoying the chilly air and the feel of the snow beneath his feet. It was nice to be back here again, though the feeling was a bittersweet one. With both Thrall and Yao missing, Carmen visiting his parents, and Yuuki pulled completely out of Dunehelden, it was going to be a very small Christamas.
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 11, 2010 23:01:30 GMT -5
Alex stared wide-eyed at the whole setup. It took him a moment to open the door while staring at the giant fluffy tree; then he grabbed his bag and leapt out, following Hitoshi.
"This is amazing," he breathed. "Thank you so much for inviting me. Your grandmother did all this?"
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 11, 2010 23:32:59 GMT -5
Hitoshi smiled, nudging the screen door open with his foot. "All of it," he affirmed. "My grandfather helped with parts, when he was alive. He helped build the house, and he built the tree house alone. But the snow, the tree... all of that was my grandmother."
The first room was the den; Rudeth had already wandered off to put away his things, Rivienne and Tristan were busy talking to their mother, and Hitomi was catching up with Sofie.
"Would you rather have your own room or double up with someone?" Hitoshi asked. "There are three guest rooms, there's the living room, and the library upstairs has couches. Tristan and Rivienne are taking a guest room each. Hitomi and Sofie want the living room so they can watch movies. I'll probably take the library. You can have the guest room, if you want, and I'll share with Rudeth, or you can room with someone else."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 11, 2010 23:37:22 GMT -5
"Uhm..." Alex shrugged. "The library sounds fun and we can stay up talking, the guest rooms have actual beds, Hitomi's fun... unless you have an opinion, I guess it's up to Rudeth or someone."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 11, 2010 23:55:50 GMT -5
Hitoshi began leading him up the steep, narrow staircase. "You can spend the first night in the library, if you want. We can look through the books some. My grandparents have a lot of books that Dunehelden doesn't."
He glanced back. "If you decide you'd rather sleep on a real bed or watch movies with my sister, though, I won't mind."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 11, 2010 23:58:49 GMT -5
"Don't be so modest about your company," Alex smirked. "Besides, I can watch movies with Hitomi without sleeping in there."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 12, 2010 0:30:53 GMT -5
Hitoshi smirked. "Be careful. I accidentally mentioned what you said about your hair. I think she's going to try to braid it or something."
Hitoshi stepped into the hallway when the reached the third floor. "The main thing up here is the library. There are a couple of storage rooms and things, too, though."
Hitoshi pushed open the door to the library. Shelves lined the walls, all filled to the brim with books. In the center, two couches faced a little coffee table. A stack of blankets was beside the couch.
Hitoshi dropped his things near one of the couches, then tossed two of the blankets onto the other couch for Alex. He grinned. "Make yourself comfortable. Dinner won't be ready for another hour or so. We have until then to get settled."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 12, 2010 0:41:22 GMT -5
Alex blinked. "Braid it? Good luck."
He dropped his things beside the other couch and went to wander around the room. "Amazing house... you have books on magic here? Oh my." He ran his fingers over the spines on the first shelf that caught his eye. "So many, too."
He took out a slim, hardbound old volume in red leather and opened it. It was written in something using Cyrillic characters, with occasional notes in something unrecognizable. He replaced that one.
"I want to read them all. Where would we even start? I guess there isn't an index."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 12, 2010 18:25:33 GMT -5
Hitoshi smirked. "None of the ones over there are in English. My grandmother might have something lying around that could translate them for us, but I'm still chipping away at the ones I can understand. There are a lot in Gaelic, some in Latin..." He peered at the spine of the one Alex had picked up. "That one looks Slavic, so it's probably one of my Grandmother's. There are some in Japanese, too. Those were my mother's."
Hitoshi plucked a book from another shelf, thumbing through it. There was a semblance of order to the room, as though some one had tried to alphabetize and given up halfway through. They seemed to be arranged mostly by things that were similar, though what constituted similarity was rather inconsistent.
"What exactly are you looking for? There's an encyclopedia on magic, but it's about twenty years old so some of the theories are a little out of date. There are a few books written for beginners... Some philosophical things of my grandfather's, and some technical things... We have a few old almanacs lying around, I think."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 12, 2010 18:40:59 GMT -5
"Your grandfather wrote philosophy? There's philosophy of magic?" Alex latched onto that bit and perked up, looking at Hitoshi with wide eyes. "Is it any good? I mean- you know what I mean."
"Show me?" he grinned. "Oh, or we should maybe wait, I don't want to bring in some old book during dinner and get it dirty."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 12, 2010 18:56:53 GMT -5
Hitoshi smirked. He had a feeling that would be what caught Alex's attention. "Not books, per se, but...journals. They're handwritten, so they're a bit hard to read in places. The earlier ones ramble a bit."
Hitoshi pushed a step stool against one of the shelves, climbing up. He pulled a few weathered brown hardcover books from the top shelf, then hopped back down to the ground. "It's more interesting to read them in order. He started writing nearly immediately after he began practicing magic."
Hitoshi handed the first book to Alex. The cover was plain and slightly damaged; the pages were yellowed with age.
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 12, 2010 19:47:34 GMT -5
"Oh..." Such a wonderful idea that was. Alex held the little volume in his hand and ran a finger over the edge, opening it carefully. On the back of the front cover was the name "Ceallach Gilespi" in thick, spiky pencil, faded and then gone over again in black pen; there were a few sums and what might have been a grocery list on the first page, but on the second there were several squat, spiky paragraphs of writing.
He wandered his way over to one of the couches and sat down, head in the book the whole time.
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 12, 2010 21:48:17 GMT -5
Hitoshi smiled, grabbing a book from the shelf and sitting on the floor, leaning his head against Alex's knee. The book wasn't particularly interesting, and after the long car ride and having to wake up before sunrise, dozing against Alex took priority over reading.
After about half an hour, Sofie came to fetch them for dinner. Hitoshi slid something into the book to mark his place, then followed his cousin downstairs.
The table in the dining room was large enough to fit the entire Gilespi family at its peak with room still for guests. The table was covered with a very elaborate dinner. The rest of the family was already gathered, most of them sitting down. Hitoshi took a seat near his sister.
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 13, 2010 0:41:31 GMT -5
Alex stroked Hitoshi's hair idly between bouts of reading. The whole atmosphere of the place made him inexplicably happy. He hadn't got very far in when Sofie came up, and he simply sat the book down and followed Hitoshi in to dinner.
...That was more kinds of meat than he'd seen anywhere before.
He took a seat beside Hitoshi and smiled to Hitomi and to Rivienne.
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 13, 2010 1:38:39 GMT -5
Dinner passed largely without incident, particularly compared to all previous family gatherings. Grandma Volkova insisted Tristan needed a haircut, which somehow turned into Rudeth and Hitomi debating whether or not it was possible to drive car blindfolded if you knew the road well enough.
After dinner Hitomi and Sofie made for the front door, though Rudeth seemed uncharacteristically content to stay inside with the adults and talk. Hitoshi glanced up and smiled.
"She's going to let the snow melt tomorrow. She won't do it again until Christmas day. We can go outside, if you want."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 13, 2010 1:54:46 GMT -5
"I'd like to do that." Alex smiled. "It's beautiful out there. Let me get my jacket and hat."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 13, 2010 2:18:51 GMT -5
Hitoshi grabbed his gloves and coat from the library, grabbing one of the blankets just in case.
Outside the snow had stopped falling, though it was several inches thick by now. Hitomi and Sofie were working on snowmen, using a box of random junk for accessories and facial features. The German shepherd was making attempts to eat bits of the snowman and seemed particularly enamored with Hitomi's scarf, much to her chagrin.
It was strangely calm, from how Hitoshi was used to Christmas. Without Rudeth and Thrall hurling snow at one another -- with Carmen joining in a bit more violently the moment someone got his sketchbook wet -- it didn't feel quite the same.
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 13, 2010 2:22:18 GMT -5
Alex strode through the snow, wrapped up so that only his eyes were visible. He looked up at the sky, hazy and blue and quickly getting darker.
"Let's go for a walk before it gets too dark out?" He touched Hitoshi's shoulder briefly, then began dashing towards the area behind the house.
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 13, 2010 2:31:45 GMT -5
Hitoshi chased after Alex, the snow crunching softly underfoot.
The barn wasn't too far off, or the tree house. He wanted to show them to Alex at some point, but not necessarily at the moment. He was content to let Alex lead him for now.
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 13, 2010 2:34:23 GMT -5
Alex ran through the snow at a steady pace. The air was freezing, and he didn't feel like walking too much. The trees around were all filled with white; he headed first towards the barn.
He slowed down as he walked up to it. "What was in here? Or is, I guess."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 13, 2010 2:45:45 GMT -5
Hitoshi slowed down behind Alex. "There haven't been animals in there since my grandfather died, I think, and that was years before I was born. Right now it's basically empty. My sister and I used to play in the barn when we were younger, though. Rudeth and Thrall said we weren't allowed in the tree house, so Hitomi, Sofie and I claimed the barn."
Hitoshi pushed the door open. There were several stalls, a loft above for hay, and some old forgotten things that probably belonged to the children who played in it -- a girl's hat covered in flowers, a plastic horse missing one of the legs, and a few solitary legos.
"It's a little warmer in here without the wind."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 13, 2010 2:47:36 GMT -5
Alex walked around in the barn, smiling as he came to the hat. He picked it up and walked back over to Hitoshi. "Whose is this? Looks like it's been here a while... and it doesn't really seem like Sofie's thing, from what I've noticed."
"It must have been nice, having a big family."
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 13, 2010 3:09:39 GMT -5
"Hm." Hitoshi looked more closely at it. "It might have been Hitomi's, but I don't remember. It looks like the sort of thing she would wear, but it's been years since we were all out here together." It might have been Rivienne's -- it looked old enough -- or even his mother's.
"It was nice sometimes. Sometimes it was easy to disappear; other times they were inescapable." Hitoshi took a seat on the floor, throwing the blanket over his shoulders and leaving room for Alex to join him. Alex was probably much colder than him. "You know, I don't think you've ever talked much about your family, even when I was visiting for Thanksgiving. You basically know my life story."
|
|
|
Post by Alex Meriweather on Jan 13, 2010 3:15:29 GMT -5
He shrugged and sat close to Hitoshi, huddling up under the blankets, half because he was cold and half because he was beginning to expect there would be a lot of that 'not escaping the family' coming up.
"My family's pretty boring... I wouldn't know what to say. It's just my mom, my dad, and my brothers who all moved out before I was adopted. What do you want to know?"
|
|
|
Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Jan 13, 2010 3:56:19 GMT -5
Hitoshi pulled Alex closer and wrapped his arms around the other boy. "I guess I'm just not used to things being that simple," he replied. "I keep expecting, I don't know, a clone or a cannibal second cousin or something. I'm not exactly used to 'normal'." Hitoshi smirked.
Hitoshi was silent for a moment. "Is there anything about me you've been wanting to ask? I know I tend to be evasive about things."
|
|