14 January 2013
Lady Isabel Sanguini laid her book down on the table as Hiroaki's voice rose in the Music room.
Her skirts rustled softly, as she walked to the door, and looked in.
"Circe! You are a witch! You should be burned at the stick!"
Hiroaki was sitting on the floor, shaking a small fist at his twin while she sat primly at the piano. Her soft pink skirt was spread about her, and her little shoe encased feet swung back and forth.
"Hiroaki, it's "stake" not "stick". To burn at a stick would be trivial and useless" Circe's little voice, talking in such a grown up tone nearly made her mother snicker.
"You know what I mean! You think I'm stupid, don't you?" Hiroaki scrambled to his feet, little fists balled up at his sides, his red eyes flashing.
Circe stretched and ran her little fingers over the piano keys, "I think you are a great many things, brother. And stupid might be one of them"
Hiroaki cried out in frustration, and began to shake the piano's bench while Circe hung on for dear life.
It was time for a Mother's intervention.
"Children! Hiroaki! Circe! Enough, enough of all of this" she entered the room, her voice instantly freezing her children.
Both turned to face her sheepishly.
"Hiroaki, what happened here?" She walked towards her son, and straightened his clothing, wiped dirt from his chin and ruffled his downy white hair.
"Well, Mother, Circe was-"
"I was not anything!" Circe declared, earning a 'look' from her parent. "Did I ask you yet, Circe?"
The little girl looked down, "no mother"
"Than keep quiet while your brother speaks. He will give you the same respect"
Circe nodded, her cheeks a flushed pink under her embarrassment at the reprimand.
And Hiroaki's triumphant look could hardly be mistaken.
"As I was saying, Mother, I was playing, and Circe came up and pushed me off the bench so she could play! I told her, nicely, that she was a mean rude witch and than she called me an ugly, fat headed, stupid blood sack! And then I bumped into her bench and than you came in"
Isabel lifted an eyebrow, "and all that is truth?"
Hiroaki nodded, and than hesitated, and his gesture turned into a half nod-half shake. "M-most of it is, Mother. I might have had a bit of fancy dress added to it"
Isabel thought so, and she turned towards her daughter, who was glaring angrily at her twin.
"And what of your side, Circe?"
Circe cleared her throat and smoothed the pink frills of her dress, "Mother, I came in, and Hiroaki was playing Beethoven's "The Tenpest", but the D Minor was all wrong! And so, I had to naturally correct him. He got mad that I am, of course, the better musician, and fell off the bench. I did not push him, Mother. Than he called me a witch and said I should be burned at the stick. I corrected him, yet again" Circe laughed, "he sure does require a lot of correction, doesn't he, Mother?" But her smile faded when she found no amusement from her mother, and she returned to her account, "and than he asked if I thought he was stupid, and I told him I thought he was a great many things, perhaps stupid too. He started shaking my bench then, he did not just 'bump' into it. And that was all, Mother"
Isabel sighed and rubbed her temples. "Oh my children, why do you fight so?"
Both looked grieved at causing their mother sadness, and they both hugged her, little arms wrapping around her neck. "We're sorry, Mother. We really are. I shouldn't have said those mean things to Hiroaki, even if they are true" Circe whispered. "And I shouldn't have shooken Circe's piano bench, even if she is a stuck up bloody nose"
Circe sighed, "shaken. Shooken is not a word"
Hiroaki stuck his tongue out, "I just made it"
"Now, now, both of you" Isabel embraced her little ones. "You must stop fighting. Someday, all you might have is each other. Me and your Father won't last forever. You need to love each other, understand?"
Both nodded, and Circe looked at her mother with tears in her pinkish red eyes, "B-but Mother, you aren't going somewhere, are you?"
Isabel smiled and hugged her children more fiercely. "I hope to stay for a long, long, long time yet, my little loves".
Sibling squabble-Monday • Opuss № I