IC Time: June 01, 2007
Location: The Round Meadow
Synopsis: Esme gives Kyler some soap
Submitted by: Esme
The largest tree in the meadow has undergone something of a face-lift since Kyler has moved in. The tell-tale signs of the strange little vampire's residence are all over the place, in the form of shinies hanging from branches. There are signs of Jasper's touches as well, however… The lack of traps, for one. The festive paper streamers strung from branch to branch were also his idea. But only Kyler is home today, sitting high at the top of the tree. He has been toying with the pda that Carlisle had given him, and has apparently discovered a function that causes it to play music. As the beepish melody floats through the meadow, Kyler stares at the pda with a slightly glazed, almost sad expression. His fingers move almost reflexively, dancing over an invisible piano, copying the notes that the pda is playing… But then, anyone witnessing this would probably just see it as more of Kyler's strange, childish behavior.
There's very little warning that there's soon to be another occupant of the meadow, barely a stirring of leaves before Esme stops in the middle, swinging a peice of string with something attached to the end in her hand. She can hear the music, and she can smell Kyler, his uncleanliness causing a slight cringe. She doesn't say anything, yet, she trusts that the younger vampire will soon note her presence.
There's a bit of a delayed reaction from the one in the tree. The music continues to play, and Kyler continues to listen as though hypnotized. It isn't until it stops that he snaps out of it. A frown tugs his lips and he starts poking random buttons to try and make it start, but it was only a fluke that he hit the right button to begin with. After a moment, with a start, he realizes that there is another presence in "his" meadow. In a flash, the pda has been hidden in a pocket, and he hops from his branch, descending several levels before catching himself with a hand, hanging there to peer at his visitor. When he recognizes Esme, however, it doesn't exactly bring a happy expression to his face. If anything, he's uncertain and wary as he drops a few more feet and comes to stand on a branch, peering down at her. "Hi," he says, simply, regarding her unblinkingly and waiting to see whether she's come as friend or foe.
'
Esme tosses the thing in her hands up towards Kyler. It's soap on a rope. "I brought a present," she gives with a crooked little grin. She's not here to be a foe, today, she's just trying to get the little monster to clean up a bit so that next time he walks in her house she doesn't have to pull the bleach out.
Kyler blinks and catches the soap, holding it out at arm's length, uncertainly. He tilts his head this way and that, and then leans forward to sniff at it, only to give a little sneeze of surprise. "Oh. Well…Thank you!" he replies, politely. He glances around, quickly and finds an empty branch to hang it on. "It'll look just…lovely right there." Though he's still not sure he understands the point of this decoration, he would never be so rude as to turn down a present. Said present seems to decide him on her attitude, and he sends a little grin back down at her. "Do you like our decorations?" he asks, cheerfully. "We've been busy. We're going to build a look-out tower at the top. Just like pirates have."
Esme offers a grin, a kind of cheeky one. "Ask Jasper what that one's for," she gives with a laugh and shake of her head. "I do like your decorations, you and Jazzy did a good job with it," she responds, mentally noting how glad she is that she didn't let her son do too much decorating around the house, if this is what it would've been like. "A look-out tower? That sounds like it'll be pretty fun, actually."
Kyler nods a little. "And Jasper said that we could even maybe get /lights/," he boasts, seeing her grins and interpreting it as admiration. "That way, we can have sparklies anytime we want. And I told him we ought to get those bits of glass that make rainbows. It's going to be /wonderful/." He scampers up the tree, suddenly, and starts rummaging around in a storage box cleverly disguised behind leaves and branches. After a moment, he drops to the ground, unconcerned as he lands nimbly on his feet with a scrap of paper in his hands. "See? It's going to be lots of fun," he responds, holding it out for her to see. It's a drawing of the tree, with several possibilities for 'improvements,' with the eventual result of a rather elaborate tree house. There are scribbled notes in the margins that are Jasper's handwriting. "Do you wanna come up?" he offers, suddenly. After all, he's visited /her/ house.
Esme hmms slightly and waits for Kyler to come back down before she takes a look at the drawing, a gleeful expression lighting up her face. Kyler doesn't know it, but he's just entered on Esme's territory. "Hang on," she gives, handing the paper back to Kyler before she rummages in her bag (she has one) and pulls out a pad of paper and a pencil. Once she has that she sits herself on the ground and quite intently starts sketching, making use of the design she memorized from Kyler's paper and then proceeding to elaborate on top of that.
Kyler tilts his head a bit. He doesn't really know what he did right, but it's much better than not knowing what he did /wrong/, really. He watches, vaguely concerned, but then shifts so that he can watch over her shoulder. As some of it starts to come together, he glances up at the tree, then down at his sketch, and then down to Esme's paper. Finally, uncertainly, he asks, "Whatcha doing?"
Esme nearly has her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth as her hand flies over the paper, a new line or shape occurring with every pass of her hand. "Do you know what an architect is, Kyler?" she questions, not pausing her motions as the tree house becomes even more elaborate, how it could possibly be made could easily be questioned, but it's Esme.
It's good that Esme asks, because he glances at her nervously when she does. "Um….No," he answers, honestly. As he watches the tree house become more and more fanciful, and hazards a guess, "Is it a fancy tree house? Or maybe a shiny or something?" Fascinated, he eventually comes to sit by Esme, his eyes flicking across the page, watching every line as it appears.
Esme smiles lightly, not looking up for more than mere seconds. "An architect is someone who designs buildings," she points out with a crooked grin. "That's what I do," she offers with a smile. "It's my hobby," is given with a nod of her head as her hand continues to flick over the paper, it never stops, actually. "It's not too fancy, that wouldn't be your style. But it's shiny," she gives, as she already knows of Kyler's fascination with sparkly things. The bare bones of this design, when it's stripped right now, is the same as what was on the paper Kyler showed her.
Kyler's eyebrows shoot up as she reveals this, and he looks at the paper, uncertainly. As much imagination as he has, it's still hard to imagine that actually becoming a /real/ place. After a moment, however, he can't help but voice one of the same concerns he had voiced with Jasper. "You know, if we build that… It's gonna be awful hard to move when it comes time…" But he's a bit timid about it all, since she seems so very happy about her design.
Esme laughs lightly. "What? You think I didn't think about that already?" she enquires, grinning, since, in the end, she /wants/ Kyler to leave the meadow. "No, when it comes to building it, it'll easily be taken apart and relocated to another place," she points out with a crooked little grin.
Kyler tilts his head slightly, looking at it. "Really?" He eyes her doubtfully, then looks back down at her plan. "Well, if you say so…" He ponders it a little, then adds, "It'd be a pain to find another tree that big, though. At least close to here." He frowns, his brow creasing with concentration, as it often does when he runs into a conflict of desires that he has trouble resolving. "Hm. Well. If you're a…archi-whosit, I suppose you know what you're doing. I bet Jasper will be happy you're helping."
Esme smiles lightly. "Hmm, Jasper might prefer to do this on his own though," she gives, before pulling the paper out of her sketchpad and folding it into a tight little square of folded goodness. "Yes, this is his task, not mine," is noted as the design, sketchpad and pencil is tucked back into her bag.
Kyler regards Esme, a bit suspiciously for a moment. "Hm. Well. I guess you'd know." He looks up at the tree, thoughtfully. "I kind of like it the way it is, really," he comments, hesitantly. "I mean…rooms are nice and all, but it's more fun with branches." He shrugs a shoulder, then dashes away, climbing effortlessly up to one of the lowest branches to sit and peer down at Esme. "I tried to come visit," he comments, randomly. "But it's all closed up. I suppose that's why people live in boxes. So they can close things out," he ponders. "Or themselves in," he adds, with a bit more distaste. "I don't really want to be closed in…"
Esme nods. "If Jasper wants my opinion, he'll ask for it," she gives lightly, knowing that her son should come and request her assistance if he wants it, she's just getting antsy with nothing left to design. "Our house is… very, very secure," she states, emphasizing both 'very's. "It's doubtful that you could ever get in to the house if and when it's secured," and that wasn't even as secure as it gets, either.
Kyler shrugs a shoulder, looking off over her head, feigning disinterest. "I didn't want in your silly house, anyhow. It's boring in there." Which is a flat out lie. Sour grapes, and all. He wrinkles his nose a bit, and glances down. "No wonder Jasper wanted to stay out here with me," he comments, perhaps a bit more biting than he intended. "If everything's going to be closed out."
Esme chuckles lightly, pretending she doesn't see through Kyler's lie. "It's not closed up, not really. Those who know how are perfectly capable of getting in and out, it's perfectly free motion. Though I could bet you that there isn't a more secure residence out there," considering the Cullen's probably have access to more things than most anyone else out there.
Kyler wrinkles his nose faintly. "Oh, so you just shut out people you don't like then," he comments, matter-of-factly. "That's okay. I shut out people I don't like, too, sometimes. Maybe not so cleverly as people who live in boxes, but it works well enough for me." He considers that for a moment, eyeing Esme, then just looks away, pretending to be quite interested in this oh-so-unusual leaf here.
Esme hmms. "Not so much people we don't like. If no one's home we lock it up, and in case there's an… um… emergency, we also lock it up then," a lot more securely, but Es isn't about to note that much. "Of course, our house isn't much of a box, in case you haven't noticed," by the wall of glass on the back of the house.
Kyler shrugs a little. "You either live in a box or you don't," he responds, regarding her as though she were being particularly strange today. "Just because yours is a fancy box doesn't make it not a box." He swings his feet, and looks around the meadow. "Living in a tree is /much/ nicer. No one ever bothers you." And he glances down at Esme again, then shrugs. "Well, not as often, anyhow."
Esme offers a light laugh. "I suppose it is a box, it has four walls and a roof, that could be construed as being a box," she notes with a slight shrug. "But I don't think I could happily live in a tree, climbing them is one thing, but not living in one."
Kyler looks down at Esme, suddenly puzzled. "Well. There's worse places you could live. And it's better than being bothered all the time by bullies." He looks back the way Esme had come, and eventually gives a little sigh. "Like I said, I don't want to be in your stupid box, anyhow. Trees are better." And with that, he pulls out the pda and starts poking at the buttons. He doesn't seem to have figured out how to work it, but he /has/ figured out that different buttons have different pitches, and with a bemused look, he starts to compose a little melody.
Esme hmms lightly as she works on composing her words in such a way. "It would very… bad…. for us to live in a tree," she gives. "My family and I, not everyone likes to play nice with us, as much as we all enjoy being outdoors, it's better for us to be able to secure our home," is given with a nod as she attempts to explain this in simple, uncomplicated words. With that, however, she falls silent, and listens to Kyler compose his melody.
Kyler continues poking at the melody, thoughtfully. "Feh. Hardly anyone plays nice with a Kyler," he points out, "But that doesn't stop Kyler from living where he pleases." Nope, he's going to sulk about being locked out, for awhile. When he gets bored with the limited notes available to him, he tucks the pda away and crouches on the branch to peer at Esme. "So who is not playing nice with the Cullenses?" he wonders, thoughtfully. "I can see not playing nice with the Rose-person, or the bully-ish one. But Jasper is perfectly nice, and Mr. Person is mostly nice, too." He's not going to comment on Esme, at the risk of setting her off.
Esme hmms. "See, Kyler, when you have a family as strong and as large as mine, you become a threat to other… families," she answers. "Not intentionally, of course, we've never become a threat on purpose, it just, happened," is given with a slight smile. "I suppose those are the best words to put it in, really."
Kyler nods, thoughtfully. "I suppose. I don't really think about those things," he comments, with a shrug. "Jasper's the most family I want." He gives a sudden little grin and with a hop, stands on the branch and starts redecorating. Because the sparklies have to be just /so/, you know. "Do you know what Bella's husband-person would like? I think I should get him a present, to be sorry, but I don't know what he'd like."
Esme nods, faintly. "Jasper is a very good person to have as family. He's made me very proud to call him my son, over the years, and the fact that I can continue to do so is a delight," she gives, her tone chipper, though slightly somber, as she's yet to hear from this same son of hers. "I think Edward will simply appreciate an apology, he's a reasonable young man."
Kyler shrugs a little, vaguely disturbed. "Yes, but…you can't properly apologize without a present," he points out, as though this should have been obvious to her. "But I suppose I'll figure something out." He gives a shrug of his shoulder, trying to toss off the concern. "If I ever see him, that is." He nudges a shiny metal Christmas ornament into place, but then takes off a bit of tinsel that had hung from the same branch. With a thoughtful frown, he climbs up a few branches, and experimentally hangs it from a branch. "Maybe I should build a nest," he comments, randomly, and then grins to himself at the thought. "It wouldn't be worth much, I suppose. But wouldn't it be funny?"
Esme smiles. "Your sincerity will be appropriate, I think. My son is very good at understanding when people are being honest with him," she notes before she gets to her feet, dusting her jeans off. "A nest would be… interesting, I suppose, but I'll let you figure out what you're going to do, I have to be headed home now."
