(Flashback) A Birthday Wish (Solo)

Things don't go as planned on Rathe's fourth birthday.

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The Diamond of Kalea is located on Kalea's extreme west coast and called as such because its completely made of a crystalline substance called Skyglass. Home of the Alvina of the Stars, cultural mecca of knowledge seekers, and rife with Ethaefal, this remote city shimmers with its own unique light.

(Flashback) A Birthday Wish (Solo)

Postby Rathe on November 16th, 2011, 3:03 pm

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56th of Summer, 489

Rathe grabbed his second star fruit cake from the glass plate on the table and ducked as his mom swatted at him.

“Rathe! Leave some for your guests!” Her swat turned into a hug as she reached down and scooped him up. Her teeth were so shiny when she smiled at the boy, he wondered how she got all those stars to fit behind her lips.“I know it’s your birthday and you’re excited, but there will be plenty of cake for you later, I promise.”

He was too busy licking the sticky fruit off his fingers to really pay attention to what she was saying. The cake was so good, but it was too small. He ate the whole thing while she was talking.

“Rathe, are you listening to me?”

Rathe squirmed in her embrace. Her blonde hair smelled like the rose water she used in her baths. He thought he probably smelled like it too, since she used it to wash his hair. Rathe was starting to think it was kind of a girly smell. Now that he was four, he might not want her to use it on him anymore, but those were a lot of words for a boy who just turned four. Thinking them was enough. Instead of saying them, he reached up to touch one of the tiny blue jaso flowers she’d woven into a the crown on her head. He nearly knocked it off with his sticky fingers, but instead of yelling at him, she laughed and put him down to readjust it on her head.

“Maybe you should go wash your hands before you touch anyone else. Do you need me to help you?”

“Mom! I’m four. I can wash my own hands.”

Another one of her twinkly laughs came out of her mouth. “You’re right. What was I thinking? You’re a man now. Of course you can wash your own hands.”

Finally, she was starting to get it. The small boy puffed up his chest and pushed his way through the crowded room, weaving a path through the sea of yellow, orange, and purple fabric toward the washroom. It wasn’t easy to make it the whole way across the floor with the constant flow of hands lowering from nowhere to touch his hair as he passed. Everyone wanted to rub his head or something, just because it was his birthday. He couldn’t even see their faces, only as far as their hips, and sometimes a waist. At four, he still wasn't very tall yet, but he hoped someday that would change.

The next hand that came down to touch him, he darted out of the way of, almost knocking down Aunt Shara as he zigzagged into her side. She grunted and her thin eyebrow shot straight up, but he was out of her way before she could grab him too.
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Last edited by Rathe on November 20th, 2011, 11:07 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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(Flashback) A Birthday Wish (Solo)

Postby Rathe on November 19th, 2011, 2:18 am

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Rathe washed the sticky mess off his hands the best he could, when he came out, the flute player was playing and people in the crowd had begun to dance. His hands were dripping with soapy water, which he wiped across the front of his shirt. He realized he probably should have dried them better before he'd come out, but he was in a hurry. It was time for presents and the boy didn’t want to be late for the best part.

He found his mom and dad talking where he'd left her. Her blue eyes got big when he came up to them and pulled on her skirt. She stopped talking and looked him over.

“This isn’t quite what I expected. Didn’t I send you to wash up? Now you’re wet and we need to change your clothes before we open presents.”

Rathe whined, “I don’t need to be dry to open presents. Please! Please, please? We can open them!”

“I don’t know about that, why don’t you ask your father.”

The boy's father laughed, a deep sound that was smooth like the material of his mother’s skirt. “Hmm. I don’t know. What will people think if we let him open his presents in wet clothes?”

“They’ll think it’s my birthday so I should get to open presents anyway!”

“And you think that’s all the reason they need huh?”

Rathe wiped his nose, nodding. “Yes!”

His father reached down and wrapped his long fingers around his hand. “Come on, it’ll take just a minute. We can open presents later.”

He gave a tug on his sleeve, reigning his son in behind him. Rathe's cheeks flamed red. Back in the boy's bedroom, his father tossed him one of his newer orange shirts from his trunk, similar to the one he’d gotten wet, then he helped him tug off the old one and shrug into the new one. When he was done, he stood him up on the bed so that they were eye to eye.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown these past few seasons. You’ll be taller than me soon.”

The boy thought It was funny how his father didn’t talk much, but when he did, he always said something he'd been thinking. Sometimes he thought it was magic the way he read his mind and then his father would laugh and say there wasn’t a magic bone in him, but Rathe knew there was.

“There’s something I want to give you first, before you go out there.”

“What is it? I have to go get my presents. Can I get it after that?”

“Well, I guess you could, but I think it’s something you might want now.”

Then his magical father, with his wand-like fingers, reached behind his back and pulled out something flat wrapped in paper. The boy didn't have to wonder how his father had done it. He already knew it was magic.

He pushed the present towards him. “It’s yours. It’s going to be a while until they finish dancing. I thought you deserved to open something early for being the patient boy you’ve been today. What do you think?”

All Rathe could think about was ripping the paper off that package. “Can I open it? Really? Can I?”

He laughed. “You sure can.”

Rathe took it from his hands and tried to make the paper last, but it was too hard to take his time peeling it back. He ended up ripping it off faster than he wanted to. His small hands finally slipped inside the package and pushed away the last of the colorful paper. Under all that wrap, was a small, brightly colored book. He smoothed his hand over the sleek white mystic fox on the cover. It wasn’t just any book. He would know his father's paintings anywhere.
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Last edited by Rathe on November 19th, 2011, 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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(Flashback) A Birthday Wish (Solo)

Postby Rathe on November 22nd, 2011, 4:27 pm

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Rathe couldn’t stop looking at the book. It was the best present ever. The boy had been eager to get his hands on one, ever since he saw his older friend Chevu had gotten one for his birthday last year and had already started reading it. He’d even read some of the words to Rathe. He hadn’t understood what the swirls on the page meant, but now that he had a book of his very own, he couldn’t wait to find out.

He opened the front flap and turned to the first page. The fox’s head was peeking out of its den. Rathe wanted to turn the pages to see what would happen, but his father had other ideas.

“Does your silence mean you like it?”

Rathe nodded, never taking his shiny blue eyes off the book. His small fingers smoothed over the ridges of his father’s paint strokes and thought it must have taken forever to dry. He was so glad his father had stopped him and gotten him to open it before he’d gone out there. With the book to keep him busy, he could wait out all the dancing. Maybe he could even learn to read a word or two while the parents were still talking. That’s what he needed!

The small boy launched himself down off the bed and was stopped only by his father’s strong hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“To show Chevu what I got!”

His father laughed. “Are you forgetting something?

The boy thought he was going to explode if he didn’t hurry up and find his friend, but his dad came first. He reached up and gave him a quick hug; his short arms barely reaching around his father’s waist. The man gave his son a tight squeeze, then released him. “Go ahead, now. I think I saw him with his mother by the cake table.”

Rathe jetted out the door without looking back, clutching the book to his chest as he zigzagged back out into the room and spotted Chevu right where his father had told him he would be. He snuck up behind the older boy and tapped him on the shoulder, not giving him a chance to bow. Chevu whirled around and almost dropped the cake plate from his hand. His startled mother snatched it out of his fist with an “Oomph,” and stopped it from falling on the floor.

“Chevu …” Her eyes lowered to meet Rathe’s and laughter crinkled in the creases around them. “Ah. It’s the birthday boy. Well that explains it. What have you got there?”

Rathe kept his eyes on Chevu while he spoke. “It’s my first gift. My dad let me open it early. It’s a book he painted just for me. Chevu, do you want to see?”

Chevu looked up at his mother who nodded. “You boys go play, it’s Rathe’s birthday after all.”

The boy didn’t wait for her to say anything else. He grabbed his friend by the wrist and pulled him back along the wall where the pair sunk to the ground and crawled under one of the eating tables. The yellow cloth on the table hung low enough that it hid them from most of the room.

Slowly, Rathe peeled the book back away from his chest and held it up for Chevu to see. His friend’s lips parted in awe.

“I can’t believe your dad painted that for you. I wish my dad was a painter instead of a chef! Can I see it?” Chevu reached out to grab it, but Rathe snatched it out of the air, not ready to let anyone else touch it yet. “I’ll hold onto it. We can look at it together.”

“You can’t even read. Let me do it.”

“You can’t read much better!” After a minute of staring at each other, Rathe finally relented with a heavy sigh. “I’ll let you touch it on one condition.”

Chevu questioned him with his dark stare.

“You have to show me how to read it.”

“Right now?”

Rathe nodded. "Yeah, now.”

“Okay okay. Let me see the book.”
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