"Grass is green, it's just the way it is" Kyle said to Sarina, "Also, Sarah and Sarina have three letters in a row common."
Kyle entered the house, unlike the girls he did not have a desire for lemonade but for water instead. He was just trying to get hydrated plus the cake is going to have a bit of sugar in it anyways. Before he could use the sink though, Kyle's impulses told him to ask Mike for permission. "Hey Mike? Is it alright if I use your sink to get tap water?"
Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree."Lemonade?" Mike queried, raising an eyebrow. "What kind of kids are you, don't you all drink soda and caffeine? There's coke and sprite cans in the fridge, as well as a water spout. And I think orange juice and milk, can't remember."
Felix took Sarah's hand and hopped up. His stomach growled loudly upon standing, and he clutched it. He needed food.
Mike smiled.
"Oh, and there's also pot roast in the stove."
Felix went wide eyed at that, and proceeded to drag everyone inside for the roast, damn the cake, he was about to have some meat.
Chris rather glibly commented on Mike's accusation, saying, "Well, I did have a Mountain Dew, but I left it at the counter of a store we visited. Oh well, I've been trying to keep off soda anyway." Pulling the lemonade out from the fridge, he poured glasses for everyone. Well, almost everyone. Kyle apparently wanted water.
Chris kept eying the Pot roast as it cooked. "Ok, so how are we going to split the roast?" Chris said, taking a drink from his glass. Obviously if it was still in the stove it wasn't quite ready yet, so Chris went and grabbed Felix's gift, handing it to him. "Here, probably best to give this to you before you cover yourself in roast juices and cake crumbs."
Sarah started to set up the table after taking a sip of the lemonade that Chris handed to her. After all the races of the day she certainly needed it.
"I guess we'll all pick take a piece from it. Since I'll have a big piece of cake afterwards I'll serve myself just a little bit of roast"
"Oh, and I guess I'll, too, give you your gift now Felix"
edited 27th Jan '11 12:22:21 PM by daltar
Sarina pulled out the fifty dollars she had been returned earlier by the shopkeeper. "Oh sweet green slips of paper. Parting is such sweet sorrow." She kissed the bundle, wrapped it in a rubber band, and threw it to Felix.
"Happy birthday birthday boy. I even gift-wrapped it for you. Appreciate it and make sure not to forget my birthday."
"Oh, guys, come on, I haven't even had a chance to blow out the candles yet!"
Felix set down his bag on the couch in the living room and traveled to the kitchen, he got Chris's gift first. Weapons of Legacy, rather appropriately, from the D&D series, and one $20 PSN card.
Felix didn't play D&D, personally, but he was interested in the lore. And the pictures were cool. He kept a hidden stash of the books up in his room.
"Awesome, thanks Cad." Felix could never really call Chris "Cador." He liked the shortened "Cad" better.
He then got Sarina's gift next. "You sure Sarina? The last thing I honestly need is more money."
"Want me to lower your allowance so you can take it then?" Mike said as he wandered into the room. Mike wore a white labcoat with black pants, shirt and boots. Thin, frameless glasses adorned his cleanly shaven face, and his long black hair was worn in a ponytail.
"Nah, that's cool. I'll take the fifty Mike." Felix said with a nervous laugh.
"That's what I thought." Mike slipped on some oven mitts and pulled out the pot roast, placing the pan on a ceramic plate on the dining room table. He then pulled out a butcher knife, seemingly out of nowhere and, rather dramatically, cleaved the pot roast in half with it.
Blinking a couple times at Mike's swift actions involving the pot roast, Chris remarks, "Right. Stupid question I guess. Anyway, let's eat!" Chris quickly grabbed a plate to get his helping of food. Chris was a rather hearty eater, but he didn't stuff himself. He was going to wait until the cake to do that.
Sarah's gift was a nice new jacket, a little inappropriate due to the current weather but she thought it would look nice on him. Besides he would surely give it some use later in the year.
Sarah served herself a piece of roast and felt her mouth water once she got to see it up close "It looks delicious, Mike. It's a new recipe?"
Felix's talk about money caused Kyle to think "You don't want money Felix...okay...personally I wish I'd only get money on my birthdays..."
Looking at the technique Mike put into the cutting, Kyle went into fanboy mode. "Wow! That's amazing! Have you practiced with a sword?"
The awe processing Kyle made him forget to grab some of the pot roast.
edited 27th Jan '11 6:05:39 PM by JustaUsername
Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree."Not at all Sarah, it's just a roast like any other... With maybe a few herbs and spices thrown in." Mike said, his eyes looking toward the upper right and an innocent smile on his face.
Mike served up another slice of roast and answered Kyle's question. "No, but, when you're a cook like me, you learn your way around knives. Speaking of, don't think I didn't notice that boxed sword Felix, try not to cut an arm off or something."
"Yeah, yeah." Felix said, pulling up a chair and grabbing a plate of roast. He didn't even wait to chow down.
"You're such a tease... come on, what's the secret Mike?" Sarah asked as she started to dig into the delicious roast. The flavor was too rich for her to be able to make out just what was the secret ingredient... not that she minded. It was way too good for her to worry too much about anything other than filling her tummy for a while.
Chris quickly got his portion of food and began snarfing it down. "Oh, this is really good. I really should get the recipe from you. My mom would probably love trying it." Something that's always been true is that Chris was a fast eater. Finishing a bit before everyone else, he pulled out the book he'd gotten at the store, and tried reading through it a bit.
"Heh, why such an interest in the roast? All it is is some onions, garlic, pepper, oregano, basil, sweet potatoes, white wine, mushrooms, and broth. No big deal." Mike said. Getting himself a slice.
No sooner than he sat down, the doorbell rang.
"Ah, I got it, probably more friends here for the party." Felix said, getting up and heading to the door.
The house was decorated for a party, paper plates and cups were in the kitchen, large bags of chips were waiting to be open, an iPod stereo was waiting to be played, and the Xbox was on and waiting, with Modern Warfare 2 in the console. It was Felix Sander's -one of the most popular kids in school- birthday. Chris, Kyle, Sarah, and Sarina weren't the only ones who knew about it. Brandon, Jesse, Zack, Jake, Vinny, Calvin, Alan, Alison, Travis, Alex, Darian, Patrick, and a whole bunch of other people knew as well, and were invited.
The next 5 hours would be insane.
The stereo started blasting tunes and the living room's Xbox soon found players. Felix got a slew of sweet presents, Video games, clothes, comics, gift cards and so on. The back yard and patio became a dance floor and gossip and talk started filling the house while food was quickly consumed. Eventually, Guitar Hero was busted out, which Felix declined, because, quite frankly, he sucked at Guitar Hero. He could sing though, not that he ever got the chance to. It was fun, exciting, and the house got so trashed.
10 P.M. hit and people started leaving. Mike started cleaning up while Felix saw his friends out. Eventually, it was back to Sarah, Chris, Kyle and Sarina again. As let the last persons out he turned to his friends.
"Heh. Oh man, can you believe Patrick on Guitar Hero? 4 stars on Through the Fire and Flames. Unbelievable."
"Hey Felix?" Mike called from the living room as he was cleaning up. "Come here."
Felix went to see what Mike wanted.
He had, in his hands, the stand and the blood.
"What is this?"
"Oh... Um... It's... uh... it's... fruit juice?"
Mike gave him a flat stare and slightly raised an eyebrow. That was a lie, and he knew it.
"Right, and the Red Sox have a chance at the World Series. What is it?"
Felix bit his lip, he might as well.
"It's... It's blood."
Mike gave him an even flatter stare and slightly raised his eyebrow even more. That sounded more like the truth.
"And why do you have blood in these... interestingly decorated vials?"
"...We're... supposed to drink it."
Mike's eyebrow was in danger of disappearing into his hair. He shook his head.
"It's going to be salty, and you might get sick. But I'm not gonna stop you if you really want to drink it. Where did you even get it?"
"A store."
"What store."
"The one without a name."
"..."
"..."
"...I must be drunk or something."
"You did drink a lot of beer, that's true."
Mike set the blood on the table. "Just... I hope you know what you're doing." With that he went to the kitchen to start cleaning.
Felix sighed, he'd almost forgotten about it. The shopkeeper, the store, all came back into his head now. He walked over and gingerly pulled the black vial out of the stand. He swirled it, the liquid inside jostling with his movement. He looked at his friends.
"Only one way to find out..."
He nodded to the back door and took his vial outside. If they were going to become dragons, the backyard was at least going to be the best place to do it, so the house won't get wrecked even more.
Sarah was sitting and relaxing in the backyard now that the party had mostly died down. It was a pretty fun while, even though she wasn't too great at them she had managed to have a good time. Felix helped with that, and a lot.
Just as she thought that she saw Felix walking towards them with a familiar package on hand. Sarah took a last sip from her glass before setting it down and turning to face Felix.
"So, we're really going to drink it... Alright then. But if things turn out badly I'm calling the nice bath upstairs"
After the kiss Sarah felt a little better about this idea. With a slight smile on her face she pondered which of the vials to take for herself. She thought of the blue one but Sabine had been talking about it on the way here. At least that's what Sarah thought Sabine was referring too... though to be fair it could be almost anything.
"Hmmmm... I'll take the white one" Sarah said finally, picking up her vial carefully with both hands. She doubted anybody else would want that particular color, though Sarah liked it.
Once the party really got underway, Chris quickly started feeling slightly uncomfortable. He had put the book away at about that time, and managed to usually be one of the people playing on on the various consoles that Felix owned. During the few times he wasn't, he simply pulled out the case from his backpack that he had checked earlier. Inside of it was Chris' DS Lite and games, and he'd simply spent his idle moments playing the mini-games on Kirby Super Star Ultra.
Once things finally died down and the people he didn't know very well left, Chris felt like he could relax again. Putting away his DS Lite Case, he looked at his friend and his girlfriend. Seeing Felix holding the blood and Sarah picking one of the vials, Chris felt a flash of anger before remembering that what he'd said earlier was a moot point. After all, the man ended up giving Felix the vials for free. Mentally laughing at himself for being an idiot, he strolled over to the two, backpack in hand.
"So, we're actually going try this?" Chris said, trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up. He couldn't help but feel at least a little excited. Dragons were one of the greatest defining parts of fantasy, and definitely one of the most recognized. "Could I have the green, then?" Chris asked. He'd normally ask for the blue since it was his favorite color, but his preference to the color paled next to Sarina's borderline obsession with it.
Ash fluffed his feathers in boredom. He had chosen a comfortable perch, a tree not far away from the house in the backyard, to careful monitor the actions inside the house. The party had gone for hours, and the sorcerer was growing restless and bored. And hungry. He could go for a snack, but he had to uphold The Masquerade when posing as a bird. So there was only one way to get a snack, and one of the doves that were around would provide it.
Now, raw dove wasn't something he'd eat normally, but he was growing really bored and hungry. He took flight. He focused on the movement of his wings. There was one reason not many sorcerers chose falcons as alternate forms. Mastering the movement in an alternate form that wasn't a domestic animal like a dove or a cat was rather difficult. Hence Ash didn't know how to shapeshift other forms. He had burnt all his free time in learning how to behave like a falcon. His flight became steadier as he quickly gained height. The doves had noticed him, and were trying to get out.
But he knew it. He was faster. He arched his wings, and prepared for the dive.
Twock.
A single pigeon was hit in the dive, sending it in a erratic pattern towards the ground...and one of the houses windows. OH SHI—- Ash thought. But it was too late to fix it.
The dove rammed the glass of the window, then bounced off comically, stunned. If Ash had a lip, he would be biting it. He had hoped the people inside the house didn't notice it, but it couldn't be helped. He dove a second time, this time tacking the pigeon for good in the ground. He gathered that if he continued to behave like a falcon, they'd disregard him as an unfrequent but perfectly normal encounter with urban fauna.
He hated rushed meals, specially if it was made of raw pigeon, but this time it couldn't be helped. He proceed to give the killing blow to the unfortunate bird and then feast on it...
edited 28th Jan '11 1:42:28 AM by AtomicNut
At the party, Kyle was focused on beating people in video games. No matter what game was on, he tried to make sure he could challenge other players...even if he did lose most of the time. There wasn't much else for Kyle to do at the party anyways. If it wasn't a conversation about any of his interests, Kyle tends to not listen.
Then when the time to drink the dragon's blood, his excitement was not hard to spot. With only the colours red and black to choose, Kyle couldn't help but say "The choices left make me feel like I'm playing Roulette!"
Getting serious, Kyle announced the vial he chose. "Well, red seems like a more exciting color than black, so I'll take that one!"
Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.Sarina had taken over a couch during the party and was napping on it for the duration of the festivities. She repeatedly mumbled words of cursing in her sleep whenever someone got close to the couch so everyone stayed away from her the whole time.
Sarina woke up to the sound of something hitting the window. That something was not there when she looked up to check though. Shrugging and ignoring the chorus of rock band songs, she went back to naptime.
When the extras left, Sarina woke up right on time. She followed Felix out of the house and into the backyard. Rubbing her eyes, she mentioned her views on drinking the dragon blood. "So, we're actually going to drink an unknown liquid substance given to us for free by a stranger in a suspicious looking store.... Seems fun to me." Sarina quickly nabbed the blue vial as the others were making their picks.

"Kyle... Felix... Two letters in common. Close enough for me." Sarina then started rolling around in the grass, staining one of the few sets of clothes she owned. Mid-way through, she realised what she was doing, stopped, and scowled. "Grass stains should be blue, not green."