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Today Yttrium discovered Cadbury mini-eggs. And much to my complete surprise, he doesn't like sweet things. O_O Seems to prefer sour. So I made him some of my lemon juice. That ReaLemon stuff squirted into water. He really, really enjoyed that.

He got his hands on several of my broken pencils and started drawing. He created these incredibly swirling patterns over everything.

Did I mention he wasn't using any paper?

Though I was loathe to do so, I had to wash the pencil marks off the walls and my computer. I gave him one of my small sketch books -- it's still huge, being about the same size as he is, but he can turn the pages just fine. I look forward to scanning some of his stuff soon.

He's also been showing Lemon how to use the pencils and everything, but she prefers my crayons. ^^ So maybe when I scan, I'll scan something they've both worked on. Yttrium does the lines and Lemon does the colors. I'm so pleased they get along so well!

Next I have to determine if Yttrium can write, and if so, encourage him to start journaling with Corvus and I. And speaking of Corvus, he avoid Yttrium like the plague. ^^; I guess that's fine. I really couldn't expect the two of them to get along, could I?

But Etoh and Fianna dropped by briefly to show me Marcel, who's grown, and I got a picture of Yosef from the other Em.




Yosef's a real cutie. ^^ The other Em reports that he gets along with Draco well. I kinda wish I were over there instead of here... It's a lot more complicated in this apartment. As for Marcel, Etoh says he likes to play knight. They're encouraging him to learn from the Castle Guardmaster in that regard.

And that's all the news from the apartment, where all the men are morose, the women are cheerful, and the children are... deranged.

Corvus gave me some feien blooms today. And a big surprise. One feien bloom was for a special order, and the other feien bloom...

"I think I've been a little out of sorts of late," Corvus said to me, "so I'd like to apologize and make it up to you." And then he held out this cabbage leaf. "I admit I'm not the easiest person to live with, but I'm going to make more of an effort from now on to get along with everyone. Including your new fairy."

My jaw dropped to the floor. That cabbage leaf, it turns out, is yet another leaf-mimic feien bloom.

"My gosh! Corvy, you didn't have to!"

He smiled, the first time in weeks. "But I wanted to. I understand now that even if there are others around, our bond stays the same. So this is my way of apologizing."

"Thank you!" I picked him up and held him against my cheek, which is the closest I can get to hugging him, really. He didn't seem to mind.

I think this means things are back to normal now. No more high drama, I hope, just nice living together.

... Except Yttrium drew in my dictionary. I told him when I said draw only in books, I meant ONLY IN THE SKETCHBOOK. I didn't yell or anything, I just said it very seriously and clearly so he understood. I don't think he understands that what he did was wrong, just that there was a new rule. ^^;

It's really nice to work on the computer with Yttrium and Lemon drawing next to me. Yttrium is really good with her. He doesn't yell at her or correct her, he just really encourages her in her coloring. I really need to do some scans or their stuff soon. It's pretty wild! I'm going to suggest to Yttrium that he try drawing something specific. I love his random scribbling and the curves and swirls, but I think he'd be good at drawing actual stuff, too. He's very creative. He made a little house for Colin out of some PostIts by folding them up into a houselike shape. Griswald declined a house when offered. I'm not sure, I think Griswald's a bit depressed of late... Corvy's been up in the closet and poor Griswald's stuck down here with Colin, Yttrium, Lemon, and Tarpeia... and he really just seems to want to keep to himself.

Corvus made amends with me, so why not Griswald? I wonder if I should intervene or let the situation resolve on its own somehow?

I got two of Yttrium's pics scanned, here they are!

Swirly pencil doodle
http://www.drowtales.com/galleries/y/y1.jpg

Swirly pencil doodles with colors by Lemon.
http://www.drowtales.com/galleries/y/y2.jpg

Will scan the things he did of Lemon later. ^^

Much badness. San and Aileron stopped over to give Corvus a gift for Easter. Well, I thought okay, Corvus has been making a lot of progress on his getting along with people...

Actually, I admit I wasn't really thinking at all, but I wanted to know what Corvus wanted to do.

And Corvus said he wanted to stick to his word when he last saw San, which was a promise to bring her pain, or something along those lines. So he went out there.

Once they revealed it wasn't an emergency, I really shoudl have turned them away, honest. What was I thinking? But I already admitted I wasn't, so...

Corvus, of course, couldn't maintain the level of coolness he'd been exhibiting for several days now, because seeing both San and Aileron immediately ticked him off.

And then they turned up with a puppy.

Now, maybe letting them through the door was a bad idea, but bringing another pet was even worse. If I'd have known that, I would have turned them away ten minutes before they arrived.

I have been very good about not buying new pets since Corvus first exploded on the issue. I love and respect him, so I want to show him that I can refrain from something for his sake. The only exclusions are Kymaeras, which I'm free to pursue with my breeding interests since Corvus never has to deal with them anyway, and pets expressly for Saisai or Talos or any of the others, since they don't live inside this room. Two Bloomlings is the limit, One 'noko in this apartment is the limit, One Chalcedony Gryphon, One Mendel, One Typo Gremlin, One Piffle, and, of course, no new Pixacats. And, obviously, two feien. I'm sticking to this best I can.

Because Corvus hates new pets.

And here come San and Aileron, probably at the top of Corvus's kill list, with a new pet. So Corvus gets angry and loses his head.

I think I would have intervened if Kancho hadn't heard the commotion and done so. He was more or less familiar with the situation. As custom, his instinct was to accept the gift, since that's proper protocol for Houses, and where he's from, denying a gift can be an act of war. So at first he goes, "we accept." He, of course, thinks it's just some egg (we already got one of those from Tosten) or other little trinket, since feien are fond of such things. But when he sees it's a Pixapup...

When Kancho first came out, Corvus gave a brief explanation which consisted of, "they hurt me, I told them not to bother me, and if they did I'd bring them pain." Which is a piss-poor translation of the Rhea, but as usual, Rhea wasn't meant to be translated.

At first Kancho went for the hospitable angle, but when the Pixapup was revealed, he decided he'd do Corvus the favor of taking that request to heart.

As far as Kancho's tongue-lashings go, that one was light, but he didn't stop until there were tears welling up in San's eyes and Aileron was majorly pissed. I was just standing back applauding him for doing what I could not. I mean, if I did that, I might lose my reputation at the shop. I certainly would have trouble getting feien to trust me. I'd basically end up in Corvus's position, which I must avoid at all costs. Because I'm the shopowner and all and good tidings are my prerogative.

Well, when all was said and done, I went and apologized to Corvus and told him how San and Aileron looked when they left. I thought that might cheer him up, but it didn't really. I also apologized for not being the one to intervene. That didn't cheer him up, either.

"I'm tired," was all he really said, and turned over and went to sleep.

I feel really terrible about the whole thing... it seems all I can do for Corvy is screw things up.

Gosh, I've been so busy of late... so much stuff to do! And I guiltily admit to picking up the Sims a bit. I haven't played it in ages! It was no nice to play again!

But that's not the big news. The big news is, that cabbage leaf next to my monitor?

MY NEW FEIEN EMERGED!

I was playing the game, and had just lost one of the Sims to a fire (including a cat that wandered onto our property; some poor Sim is mourning the loss of the cat and has no clue the cat's dead) when suddenly the cabbage leaf started to glow. "Corvus! Corvy!" I went excitedly. "IT'S GLOWING!"

So Corvus poked his head out from the closet and swooped over to watch. I picked up the cabbage leaf and my hands were trembling with excitement! I could scarce contain myself! And then -- shwee! With a little puff of air, Simon arrived!

He lay on my hand for a moment, staring up at me and Corvus, before finally going, "Hullo," and sitting up.

"Hullo," I echoed. "I'm Em, and this is Corvus."

"Who?" he went, looking around in confusion.

"Ahem!" went Corvus.

Little Simon scrambled partway up my arm (Corvus was on my shoulder) and looked closely. "Oh! Pleased to meet you."

"Hmph," went Corvus.

Then Simon looked over at me some more. "I'm sorry, I haven't got a name," he said simply.

"That's fine," I told him. "We can come up with one later. Are you hungry or anything?"

"Yes, actually."

Corvus took that as a signal to fly back to his little home and bring back the last of his grapes. He plopped them on my tablet.

Simon tracked the motion with his eyes, but didn't seem to follow it very well, and when Corvus put the grapes down on the tablet, he squinted at them a moment, then climbed off my arm and went over to them, crouching and looking at them.

It was then that I realized: my feien has an eyesight problem.

We shared the grapes (I ate all of four) and Simon asked a few questons about where we were and what we liked and everything. Simon expressed a keen interest in the computer, though all he could make out was a giant glowing box. I asked him how he felt about the name Simon; he liked it, so that was that.

After "dinner," (it was evening at this point) I put my glasses down on the table. "Simon, tell me, what does it look like when you look through these?" He kneeled, put his head behidn the lenses, and gave a surprised "Oh!"

"Corvus, y'don't suppose y'could..." I started to ask.

"Just a moment."

It's such a good thing Corvus has such a high dexterity. He took some wire and a pair of my old glasses, extracted two small lumps of glass, and sat down with Simon to make a pair of glasses. After a lot of experimentation (and a lot of me holding up fingers and asking Simon to read things on the computer screen), the glasses were as near to perfect as non-scientific means can get. Simon thanked Corvus profusely, which seemed to make Corvus quite happy.

Then Simon asked for something to write on. I showed him the journal, which pleased him, but he said he wanted something smaller to carry with him. He asked if I could cut up one of the pages into smaller scraps, so I did, and then he asked for some string, whch we gave him, and finally he used a bee stinger to poke holes through the paper and thread the string through. Voila! A little notebook! Then he asked Corvus for one of his feathers and some ink. He slit the tip of the feather and voila, quill.

I can tell I have a really amazing feien here. He wastes no time and gets right down to work, and he's ingenius! He thought eating the grapes was messy, and asked Corvus to make a little utensil set, so Corvus did that, too... Actually, I'm rather surprised at Corvus's behavior. He does seem to like the new feien for a change. He's very impressed with Simon's intelligence, that's for sure. While they worked, Corvus told Simon a bit about the other feien. I was able to make out some snippets:

Tosten and Gogol: Excitable nitwits, to be avoided.
Seamus: "Dangerously unhinged, manipulative little brat," don't trust him under any circumstances.
San & Aileron: "Don't even bother with them, they're always off with each other, don't have the time for the rest of us it seems."
Sunil: Seems fine enough, but be wary anyway.

To all this, Simon asked, "Are there any feien worth knowing?"

"Arturo," replied Corvus. "He's level-headed for a fool, and quite trustworthy."

"I'll remember that," said Simon, and the conversation moved on.

The topic of genetics and genetic mutations came up, and Simon expressed interest in the subject. So at that, Corvus recommended Simon go by the shop and read the info posted there. Simon only just left, and Corvus is making some more utensil sets, so...

Events had occurred at the shop that were important, meaning only one thing:

A report to Corvus.

Arturo, fresh from the shop, had made his way immediately towards Em's apartment, covering the distance fairly quickly. Thankfully, the bay had decided to behave that day and only smelled faintly polluted, but the balmy night ruffled his feathers the wrong way and made his hair poof out awkwardly. He hated going outside, but he had a duty to Corvus, and he had to fulfill it.

Landing in the sill, and seeing the blinds drawn, as usual, he sighed and tapped lightly on the sill.

The tapping was answered not by Em, but by a juvenile feien with dark blue markings, short purple hair, dark blue horns curling around his ears, and... glasses? He stared helplessly at Arturo through the glass a moment, then turned away and yelled, "Corvus!" back into the room. This was followed by a, "There's someone at the window!" Then the little feien looked back at Arturo once more.

The blinds rustled slightly and Corvus appeared. He took one look, waved his hand, and the window slid open. "Good evening, Arturo."

"Evening, Corvus," Arturo replied, nodding curtly. He peered over Corvus' shoulder, where the new be-spectacled juvenile remained. He raised an eyebrow and asked, with all of his usual sarcasm, "Is that the cabbage patch kid?"

Corvus snorted. "His name is Simon." The juvenile, now identified as Simon, looked at Arturo rather blankly, wondering if he was supposed to have a particular reaction to the introduction.

"Simon." Arturo repeated, entering the room. "Pleasure to meet you, Simon. I'm Arturo." With introductions thankfully out of the way, Arturo turned to Corvus and sighed. "I'm afraid I have news that you'll find rather disappointing, summoner."

"Oh? Out with it, then." Corvus crossed his arms. On his wrist was Ares' black friendship bracelet.

Arturo eyed the bracelet, recognizing Ares' handiwork, and idly toyed with the red and white one around his wrist. "Sunil and Seamus, after duking it out - I think - have forgiven one another. She landed a nice punch on the back of his head and he passed out earlier, and unfortunately, I was stuck playing nursemaid. He's fine, Sunil is fine, and they're fine with another." Arturo reported, monotone.

"Damn," said Corvus, frowning.

"Actually, I did get that impression," offered Simon, looking at Corvus with wide eyes. When this received no response from Corvus, Simon shrank back slightly, hoping he hadn't offended Corvus again.

Arturo noted Simon's reaction with mild curioistiy, but kept his attention on Corvus. "I hope this doesn't ruin any future plans you had?"

Corvus waved his hand, jostling the bracelet. "Not particularly. I can always adapt to fit the changing situation. It simply means I'll have one less ally than I wanted. More a problem for Sunil than myself."

"And for what, exactly, do you need allies for? Planning to wage war?" Arturo asked, expression blank.

"Hopefully I can manage with a simple coup," replied Corvus nonchalantly. Simon just watched the two adult feien in awe.

Arturo barked out a short laugh. "You are, simply put, the most ambitious feien I know." he muttered, shaking his head. Strangely enough, it sounded like a compliment.

Corvus took it as such. "Thank you," he smirked. "It's nice to be appreciated for a change."

Arturo jerked a thumb towards Simon and raised an eyebrow. "And is he to be included, somehow, in your so-called 'coup'?"

"Uh, am I?" asked Simon, adjusting his glasses.

"Not in any specific sort of capacity," Corvus said.

Arturo shook his head slowly and crossed his arms across his chest "Never mind, Salad," he said, smirking, "I'm sure you and I both will be, eventually."

"Right, well, if that's all," said Corvus, sounding annoyed, "I'll be getting back to what I was doing."

Laughing at the annoyance he detected in Corvus' voice, Arturo simply shrugged and readied his wings for flight. "Anything you need from the shop, Corvus?" he asked politely.

"No, I have Simon to run my errands now, thank you."

At that pronouncement, Simon's eyebrows shot up with surprise, but still he kept quiet.

Arturo's eyes slid over to Simon and he raised an eyebrow at the poor juvenile. He was destined for an interesting ride. "I'll leave you to it, then," Arturo said, nodding a good-bye towards both the feien. Then, in a soft rustle of feathers, he had left through the window.

"Well, that was rude!" exclaimed Simon a moment later. "He didn't even say goodbye! And I'm to be your errand boy, am I?"

"Did you or did you not offer to tend to the shop in exchange for the genetic research responsibilities?"

Simon frowned. "I did."

"Then the least you can do is maybe bring me back the, oh, odd item every once in a while, or carry messages."

Eyes downcast, Simon nodded. "Yes, sir."

Corvus rolled his eyes. "For gods' sakes, stop looking so upset. That's hardly a death sentence. Step back." With a wave, the window was closed once again. Without a word, Corvus flew back across the room to his closet shelf.

Simon watched Corvus departure and sighed, floating down to the desk.

"Are you quite alright?" asked a voice. Simon looked down and saw a small white cat with a black scarf.

"Yes, perfectly," he told it.

"Don't mind Corvus, he's usually like that, even with people he likes. And he does like you, a great deal, else he wouldn't have bothered with any of the things he's done." The cat's tail twitched slightly.

Simon crouched down to be more on level with the Pixacat. "Really? Do you know him well then?"

"Quite," said the cat. "I used to live with him. I expect I will again in the future. I'm quite certain he's no longer mad at me, but I wouldn't want to upset him if he is. He's very touchy." Simon nodded. "Oh, Simon, we have something for you down here."

That was a surprise. "You do?"

"Yes. I think Em was wanting to give you this herself, but as she's been busy of late... Aorta?" The cat turned its head and called down to an open drawer. A pup, slightly smaller than the cat, poked its head out. "Simon, meet Aorta."

"Hullo," said Simon.

"Hi," said Aorta. "Surprise?"

"No, I've decided the wait may be too long. Simon, this is a Pixapup, and he's yours. Em got him for you." While the cat spoke, the Pixapup ventured further out of the drawer, fnally seating itself a few inches away and looking up at its new master. The cat continued, "I wouldn't recommend bringing this up to Corvus any time soon; Aorta isn't really supposed to be here. But he is, and now it's your job to take care of him. Don't worry, Aorta can tell you what to do."

This speech, however informative, meant nothing to the confused feien and his new dog. Griswald sighed. "For heaven's sake, take him over to your area of the room. I'm sure you'll be good friends."

Aorta stood and walked closer to Simon, who put out his hands and picked Aorta up. "Woof," went Aorta.

"Thank you," said Simon, "I think."