(no subject)
Just a cute little story; I can't post it on Tumblr yet because they're down for maintenance at the mo'.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” The words were spoken in a rush by an excited ten year old. He was trying not to run, but his excitement couldn’t be quelled. The child had purple hair, which defied gravity and chose to spike upwards. Due to his albino trait, he wore an oversized black sweater over grey jeans. He was short for his age, and often acted a few years younger than was expected of him. Even now, as he jumped down the landing step, looking for the woman that he had called “mommy”, a sigh could be heard in the living room. He ran into the living room where his subject, a blond woman, sat and was reading a book. The woman wore a black mesh top over a red tank top, and black shorts. Her blond hair reached down to her shoulder blades, and was pulled back with a red and black hairclip.
As his sneakers squeaked to a stop, the woman closed the book. “For the last time, kid, I’m not your mom.”
Though her words were only a minor correction, they managed to chastise the child as well as a scolding would have. At her words, his expression fell.
“O-oh… Right. I’m sorry Miss QB.” He lowered his head and looked at his shoes, which were peeking out from under his pants. All the child’s energy from earlier seemed to have been zapped by the woman’s statement. From the corner of his eye, he saw the book get placed down on the couch next to him, and the woman’s hand come towards him. Instinctively, he flinched.
“You’re forgiven,” said QB as she gently placed her hand on his head, patting down part of his hair. “Now, what is it that you were so excited to tell me?”
The child looked up at her, unsure. He didn’t know whether or not to tell her, or if perhaps he should wait for another day. “……..It was nothing, Miss QB.”
“Nothing?” she queried, her blue eyes playful. “Nothing wouldn’t have you slipping up and calling me your mother again. You may as well tell me what was said, sweetie.”
“It really wasn’t though!”
QB gave him a stern face. “Don’t lie to me, sweetie.”
“But-“
“I know that you’re not telling me the truth.”
“Fine,” he said. QB waited for him to go on. She didn’t say anything, but her expression was patient. The child looked at her, trying to find some sign of approval or disapproval, but there was none to be found. He took a deep breath. He looked down at his feet again, tried to gather some courage, and then looked up at her again. In a quiet and unsteady voice, he asked, “Would you like to learn how to dance from me?”
“Would I like to-what?” QB laughed.
Though his hopes were already down, he felt them sink even lower at her reaction. He looked away, muttering, “See, it was nothing. Just a stupid question.”
QB stopped laughing and smiled at the child. She took one of his hands and pulled him towards her. He looked up at her, at first unsure, then confused, and he tried not to get hopeful when she looked ready to speak again.
“If you think that you have moves that you can teach me, sweetie, then I don’t see why not. But I must warn you-my people are not often dancers.”
The child’s face lit up. In a fit of excitement, he jumped up and hugged QB. “Thank you Miss QB! Thank you thank you thank you!” When she finally managed to pry him away, he added, “Let’s begin right away!”
“Right away?”
“Yep! Come on, get up! Don’t be lazy, Miss QB!”
To no one in particular, she echoed his comment with an amused tone. “Lazy, he says. And who’s the one sticking to the training regime?”
“No time for talking Miss QB! Up up up!” And the child climbed onto the couch and began to push her to get her up. Smirking, the woman finally stood up. The child hopped down and looked around the house for a place to practice. Finally, he decided that the small, empty space between the kitchen, the hall, and the living room would have to suffice. Grabbing her hand, the child led her towards that area. “This area will have to do for now, Miss QB.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep! Now, we do some stretches first…”
After half an hour of warm-up, most of which ended up being suggested by her, the child declared that she was now ready to learn how to dance. He was trying to think of what to teach her first while they stretched. During the warm-ups, she had expressed discontent for uniformed dancing and for interpretative-including ballet. But he knew that he could try to find something to teach the woman, something that went more towards her personality and lifestyle. His first thought was something social, since she seemed to enjoy going on dates with many, many men.
“Miss QB! Do you know any waltzes?”
The woman blinked at him before answering. “No,” she lied. Social dances like the waltz or the tango were about the only acceptable forms of dance that could be found on her planet, but she did not want to disappoint the kid more than she already had. “I’ve seen it, and have tried to mimic the footwork, but it never seems to work out for me.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Okay, so I’ll teach you that first, so that way you can go dancing when you go out!” QB resisted rolling her eyes or telling the child that it was more than dancing she did when she went out. Not that it would have mattered-the child was completely focused on teaching her dance.
Grabbing a chair, he stood on top of it so that he was now level with QB. “Let me see you try to waltz on your own.”
Though the woman felt a bit silly and awkward at dancing alone in front of someone else, she faked a horrible and ungraceful step for a waltz. She moved between steps too fast, so that she ended up tripping over her feet for a moment. Her hands were in the wrong place, and she seemed to jerk between the gentle swinging moments. The embarrassed flush on her face, though light, was quite real-she wasn’t used to the thought of messing up on something so simple and silly.
“Hmmm… You’re supposed have your hands up, like this,” the child motioned for her to come over to him, and she did. He helped hold her arms and hands into the correct positions. “And then your left foot is supposed to be over here…”
“You say that he’s self-taught?”
“Mmhmm. He tried to teach me how to waltz when he was ten, and I let him, despite already knowing the dance.”
It was seven years later. QB sat at a round table with several other people. There was her adopted mother, Raven-a scary looking woman who took a liking to the already grown QB shortly after meeting her. This was in part because Raven felt that QB had reminded her of herself. Raven was in a long black gown with a split up the side and white in the middle; her black hair held a silver tiara in it. To her right sat a tall, blond man with pale skin-her husband, William. To Raven’s left was her sister Selena, who wore a much brighter, pink, and just as beautiful dress as her older sister. On the other side of Selena was Selena’s husband, Dark, a tanned man with purple hair. They were all watching the grown child that QB was talking about dance with one of the many female relatives that the table shared.
Selena giggled. “That’s adorable. Wouldn’t you agree, Dark?” She elbowed her husband, who seemed to have his eyes elsewhere.
“Hm? Yeah, sure. Don’t the parents usually teach the children how to dance?” he added when his wife gave him a reprimanding stare.
“They do,” said QB. “But I had no desire back then to do more than I needed to to keep the child alive. I wasn’t lying when I had told him that my people were not ones for dance. Creativity was stifled if it was not expressed through means which Raven would approve of, and only social dances were taught as the acceptable ‘art forms’ for dance. But he looked so upset when I had told him the styles that I had no interest in learning that I did not want to take away from him a chance to find something that I would be supposedly interested in.”
“So you lied to him, to make him feel better?” Raven teased, but the tease had little effect her subject nowadays.
“I did. You should have seen him try to dance on a chair, though. He refused to get off until I ‘accidentally’ kicked it.” At the shocked face from Selena, QB added, “Don’t worry, I was holding onto him when I did that.”
Selena shook her head and giggled. “That’s quite the cute story, QB.” Then, with a glance to her husband, she added, “You know, I think I feel like dancing again after hearing that. How about you, Dark?”
The man had looked restless until she said that. At her suggestion, he immediately got up. He held out his hand to his wife, to guide her onto the ballroom floor. “I had thought that you forgotten all about it,” he joked, earning him a playful slap on the shoulder as they entered the crowd of dancers.
“……You know, for someone who said that family wasn’t for them, you’ve adjusted well from when I first met you.”
“What do you mean, Raven?”
“I mean that you’ve integrated yourself into our society. You’ve accepted my offer for adoption, long after you adopted the child through our system. I’ve found you enjoying the social events far more than when I first asked you to attend the Vampire’s Ball. If you didn’t insist on living outside our world, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wound up adjusting to the life of a noble. You know, we could still make you one… You’d have a nice place wherever you like, preferably near William and I or the castle, and there would be plenty of room for the both of you to live together--”
QB shook her head. “As I’ve said before, I appreciate it, but no. I much prefer the quiet life that we have in our current location, and I don’t like to be tied down.” I’ll have to break bonds with you soon enough, QB thought to herself. I can’t be tied to anyone or anything. The kid… he’s been an exception.
Raven was about to speak again, her mouth partly open, when she stopped. QB watched her. She noticed that Raven was looking at something behind her, and that was when the blond felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, QB noticed that it was her adopted son. Though his hair wasn’t as dark as it was when he was a child, growing lighter over time, and he now wore black-rimmed glasses and was dressed up rather fancifully, it was still easy to recognize him as the child that she had taken in.
“Mom, may I have this dance?”
There was a small roll of the eyes. “What do you think?” QB asked him as she stood up.
“Oh, well, if you don’t want to dance, Mom…” but his smile betrayed any semblance of being hurt. He held up his arm.
QB gave him a much more noticeable set of rolling eyes as she put her arm through his. “Come on.”