Chereads / Of the Stars, Sun, and Moon / Chapter 14 - Ering's Playmate

Chapter 14 - Ering's Playmate

If one were to see what was going on inside Ering's head, they would know the reason for her first word to be "Friend" wasn't because she was familiar with the word. She merely mimicked her mother's mouth movement, curious about what she was trying to say. Breda had been trying to get her to say Mama or Dada for a few days but she simply took no interest in the word, she knew who Mama and Dada were after watching her older brothers and listening to what they said. Of course it wasn't the case that she had some form of pride and disdained being looked down on, she was too young and immature to develop thoughts like that. Instead it was a true feeling of curiosity about that similar sized intruder to her domain.

She was a little upset about her mother's scolding and separating them, she had only wanted to play after all. Her undeveloped brain was simply incapable of realizing that someone so active might be weak. After her mother's shock subsided and she placed her down again to roam, Ering once again sought out her "Friend" in order to play, this time a little more gentle so her mother wouldn't scold her.

Arc was still very annoyed about her presence, but decided to play along with her thinking it might be a nice change of pace. Maybe he would finally have something useful to do, one week exploring the same room meant he no longer had anything else to discover.

Once Ering had his attention, she made some sort of flapping motion with her arms and hand that roughly resembled beckoning. She began to crawl towards her mother who was seated at the table on the far end of the room, reaching her after what felt like an eternal 5 minutes, she was still slow compared to Arc. The benefits of a fully formed and educated consciousness couldn't be disregarded when it came to training towards a goal, not to mention the experience he had in the subject prior, though he could remember almost none of it, a strange feeling.

Once they arrived, Ering shuffled up to leg of Breda's chair and made some more movements and grunts to grab her attention. She played along, still happy from her earlier display. "Wut is it? Wud do you want widdle Ewing?" Her baby voice made Arc cringe inside, he preferred his father's direct way of speaking to him. "Do you want to play? Wud do you want to play wif?" Ering seemed quite pleased with it though, she was giggling nonstop." Breda got up and walked over to a basket he had seen before, but he didn't know what was in it.

She started to pull out different toys and dolls, asking Ering whether she wanted them in the same annoying voice. Even when Ering shook her head no or protested, she would drop the toy on the floor, each time shooting a glance towards Arc, trying to see if he would react to any of them. She was disappointed by his disinterest in these toys favored by her children, she was determined to find something he would play with, exhausting almost everything in the basket. Toys and dolls of all different kinds littered the floor, knotted ropes, little wooden carts, tops and even a little wooden ball that made noise when shaken. She even went so far as to give a small demonstration of how they were played with trying to pull his interest. She wasn't even concerned with her own child anymore as she was satisfied early on by a cart and a small painted wooden doll.

Breda felt utterly defeated. None of the toys she had accumulated through four kids seemed to satisfy this boy. In a final fit of frustration that was quite uncharacteristic of her, she knocked over the basket, a bunch of small wooden blocks of varying shapes and sizes escaping from its opening as it tumbled.

Arc's eyes lit up as he thought, 'I could use those.'

To her surprise, it was this final plaything that caught his attention. Why were these dull blocks that none of her other children even looked at so interesting to this baby. Not one to miss out, and maybe answer her own question, "Does widdle Awc want to pway wif the blocks?"

'Holy shit that voice is annoying,' he cursed internally, 'but I need those blocks.'

Thus, swallowing his already damaged beyond repair pride, he mimicked Ering's motions and noises to the best of his ability, replacing her grunts with attempts at cursing her, which didn't sound at all like a curse.

Correctly taking this as affirmation, Breda gathered up the thirty or so pieces of wood and brought placed the pile in front of the now sitting Arc, carefully watching what he would do with them. She was VERY curious about what this odd little burden of hers liked to do with himself.