Or whatever kind of relative that box on wheels really was.
"Go back you moron, go back home, can't you see you'd drown if you stay there?"
The boxy thing was unmoving as a statue, staring blankly at nothing.
Not even him.
What was wrong and where was that batty old female Car that was supposed to be taking care of him, anyway? She was supposed to be the housekeeper, damnit - what was the use of a housekeeper who wouldn't keep house?
He'd first met this particular - relative - at one of his countless relative's innumerable parties he'd been forced to attend along with his parents. He'd been trying to find some spare nook he could slip into so he could do his homework - even that was better then putting up with his parents and their friends, most of the time - when he'd come upon a rather oddlooking room, with baby bars all around, and - a one-box-on-top-of-the-other shape on wheels with back wrap-around windows on just the left side, that stared at him.
And pedal-toned.
He'd spent the rest of the evening reasonably profitably, doing his homework while rolling spare tires at the whatever-it-was. A elderly female Car that was somewhat smaller then he was had come in for a bit, duster in hand, and had dusted the boxy thing as well as the room at large, talking all the while, which had made him stare till he realized it seemed to enjoy the attention. A bit like a meow with meow-toys, now that he thought about it.
He'd come back the day after that, and the day after that, too - the places that he could get some privacy were few and far between, at this particular relative's house. The boxy thing wasn't talking, though it didn't seem to mind listening to him, and he managed to get most of his homework done, too. And the servant woman didn't seem to mind either, murmuring You'll take care of him, wouldn't you, Master Muruta? as she went about her chores.
And then the dreams had started, playing tetris against a white background, except that it wasn't really tetris, it was like on of those building-block things that little children played with, except that it moved, and -
And he wasn't quite sure what happened after that, except that one day, he'd fallen asleep next to the box, it seemed, and when he woke up, three days later, he woke up with the Master Mechanics fluttering about his bed and nobody would tell him what was supposed to have happened. And it wasn't like he could remember anything, either - all he could remember was the white grid, and trying to get the debris away from one square, because it was too heavy and was weighing everything down, well pretty much everything was too heavy about the box (whatever that meant), but -
And the box was gone, it's room empty, when at long last he'd managed to get away from his Mother and the techs long enough to check. It's Father had sent it away, his Mother had said...
So it must have been a dream, when he thought he heard it call him, Mu-Ru- Ta, because the box really didn't talk at all, really, but -
But then he'd found the box again, two years later, or rather, the box had found him, because there had been this voice, calling from across the river near this most boring of his parent's summer villas, Mu-Ru-Taa, and it had been a pain finding a way to ford the creek, but he'd managed it. The box was living with the old female he'd seen before, in this rickety little manor house in the middle of nowhere, and -
Well, it was talking, now. That was a big difference, Muruta Azrael supposed. It also seemed to be a he, which was good to know, as he hadn't been quite sure if it even was a Car (as in Intelligent Vehicle in general) to begin with, before...
But now, the little box on wheels (never mind that he actually was a bit bigger then Muruta himself was, all things considered) was standing without even a raincover in a raging storm, with blank, blank window-eyes, and there was no small housekeeper car in sight.
On the other side of the river.
Muruta Azrael swore, then. Is a small family car descended from minivans, damnit, not a serious offroader or a circus car or a boat or something that even be remotely suited to this -
This...Insanity.
And then he grabbed the ladders, and started lashing them together, in the pouring rain.
Some turning points are very easy to spot, afterwards. Some, not so much.
"Lordy, Lord Axcel Djibril you moron, are you planning to kill yourself - "
It was a wonder he'd managed to scramble over the river in one piece. Muruta grabbed his 'cousin', pushing him up the road.
He managed to figure out just why the old female hadn't come when he found her body in front of the telly, core gone all cold.
You'll take care of him, wouldn't you, Master Muruta?
And some turning points are almost impossible to spot at all.
Even to the people who lived through them.
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(Posted Fri, 29 Dec 2006 15:36)
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