Some commissions from @mmigrainee of Cat and Captain! They did a great job, definitely recommend, their comms are open right now and they have a really unique style that I dig a lot ❤❤❤ thank you so much again!
That was just the smell of dinnertime, and maybe some bland greens to go with it.
Mischa never once cared very much for mealtimes. It was just an inevitable fact of life. One had to eat in order to move onto the next hour, and the next hour. And then before he knew it, it would be time to eat again, and so on and so on. And he only had to do it for the rest of his life.
Rather than fret over it, the boy usually took it upon himself to tour through the strange airship captain’s house. There were so many things to look it, it may have rivaled any museum in the city. The sheer AMOUNT of peculiar trinkets and memorabilia almost made it impossible to remember what one has seen and what they haven’t. And yet, somehow, the house did not look cluttered. Only extremely organized.
He took his stool with him and brought it to the foot of a cabinet that housed all sorts of weird looking items inside.
Some kind of taxidermy sculpture of a frog stabbing another frog with a tiny rapier, some sort of animal toy in a miniature military uniform, pictures of...bananas and strange red little animals with big eyes in these felted hoops… Tiny black balls that looked fuzzy inside jars of water with colorful rocks at the bottom...
Mischa scrunched his face up. He couldn’t make sense of it. There was no theme to any of this, though if he had to pick one, he’d have said ‘arts and crafts’. To a certain degree anyway. That was only the section lining the foyer all the way towards the staircase leading to the second floor. That didn’t take into account the REST of the house.
Next to the entryway, was the study and living area. A small library of sorts, as bookshelves covered every wall in there, along with more things to oogle at.
Above the mantle of the fireplace was some huge painted portrait of a ghostly specter and a hawk with silver and black feathers resting on its wrist, the two of them staring off into some swirly yellow and orange sunset. And to each side of the painting was a green flag with the silver hawk printed on it, proudly displayed.
And where there were patches of wall the shelves would NOT cover, there were usually photographs framed nicely going up as high as the captain could get them. Which wasn’t terribly high, considering the height of this room.
Pictures of soldiers and maimed battlefields out in the countryside, vehicles of war and grandure, scenes of the city in which public officials rode in their fancy automobiles waving at the masses, with a parade trailing behind them. The famous five airships hovering mysteriously in the sky above, pieces of confetti flying everywhere… Mischa knew what those were all about. He practically attended said parades by himself for as long as he could remember (once.)
There were many other things, but he grew bored and decided to head back upstairs. The captain hadn’t appeared yet, so dinner must have not been ready.
He had a while longer.
The hallway at the top of the stairs was rather plain by comparison to the first floor. There were a few scenic paintings here and there, that all looked like they were made by the same artist, but they weren’t very interesting. It was only the countryside outside of the city. And he’d seen that loads of times (maybe twice.)
To the right was his room, with all his things. And directly across from there was the washroom. And on the far end of the hallway opposite of those two, was another bedroom. The captain’s bedroom to be precise. Mischa hardly went in there during the daytime. He’d come only at night when he couldn’t sleep, which was semi-often, and he’d be too tired to look around properly by then.
He pushed the door open quietly. Only the ticking of a clock on the wall greeted him.
Up here it was completely silent. And again, like the hallway, plain.
How peculiar.
Mischa slipped inside and shut the door behind him and looked around. There was the bed, neatly made and practically perfect as always. There was a dresser adjacent to it that looked immaculate and had a mirror hanging over it on the wall.
Having a mirror seemed a bit silly. Why have a mirror when you have no hair? Better yet, why was there a hairbrush sitting there??
Ridiculous. The captain did NOT need a hairbrush.
On the walls where the window facing the front yard was, were several posters of old shows that had come to the Grand Theater in the city. Most of them were of the same piano player over and over again. Mischa DID know that the captain always did say that he was his favorite musician in the entire world. Next to the orchestra itself, of course.
By the bed though, on wall just above where you’d rest your head, there were a few more photographs, mostly featuring the captain himself.
There was always that stern look on his face throughout so many of them. The steely gaze, tight jaw, the frown certainly, and some unrelenting look of either indignation or determination. Perhaps both. Mischa often made the same kind of face without realizing it. People called him an angry child.
The more he looked though, he soon realized too, that so was the captain. He had to be. He always made comments about how he and Mischa were so much alike, right down to their big ears. It was true. Mischa touched his own ears while he stared up at a younger captain with the exact same expression he was making now.
More frowning.
Their ears WERE really big… Bigger than everyone else’s for sure.
Still, the idea that the captain had once been younger than he was now was a funny one. He didn’t look terribly different standing next to his plane in this one.
Same facial expression, less lines on his face, maybe a few less wrinkles around the eyes too. Next to him was this taller man however that Mischa had not recognized, only because all the soldiers sometimes looked the same, except for their varying heights. He and the captain were both dressed in the same uniform and standing with their arms behind their backs, with what he assumed was their plane behind them. It had two seats in it. Maybe it was his co-pilot. The captain DID tell him stories about when he was a pilot after all. Before he was an airship captain.
But he never once did mention who this man was. Maybe he didn’t care about him very much. Maybe they only worked together and that was all.
The door squeaked as it was pushed open, causing Mischa to jump in surprise.
Yaedra stood there staring at him. How long had he been doing that? Mischa KNEW he closed the door, but there was something about the captain that always made him wonder whether he did something, or not.
He waved his hand at him and pointed towards the direction of the stairs, before making a few signs. “Dinner is ready. Are you hungry?”
Mischa furrowed his tiny brows. No, he wasn’t. He had other things on his mind. “Who is this in the picture? Your plane had two seats.”
Yaedra glanced up at the photo he was referring to and came over to him.
He pulled his mobile datapad out of his pocket and started to type away, as this was going to be too hard to explain to Mischa in signs. “When you become an airplane pilot, you are assigned a partner. This was my partner.”
“You mean you didn’t fly it by yourself?”
“I flew the plane by myself. But he manned the gun behind it. You see there?” Yaedra took the picture off the wall and sat down on the edge of his bed, with Mischa joining him. He handed over the framed photo gently.
“I see. So he was a gunner.”
“Yes, he was. He was a good companion, and he kept me company.”
“Was he a friend?”
Yaedra, for whatever reason hesitated. “Yes.”
Mischa stared at him, confused. Why the pause? Perhaps he had to think about it was all. Besides, he didn’t know what it was like to have friends. He always got into fights with the other boys whenever the captain tried to take him to school. “What was his name?”
Yaedra swallowed noticeably, but just for that one moment.
“His name was Lev, and he was very brave. And a very good friend.”
“His name was lion?”
The captain smirked and closed his eyes briefly. “Yes, the man was named ‘lion.’ He was as proud as one too.”
“What happened to him?”
The smile faded as Yaedra stood back up to replace the picture back onto the wall again. “He died.”
“How did he die?”
Yaedra glanced down at Mischa again, and then picked him up to carry him back downstairs. “We fought in a war.” He signed with one and a half hands.
Mischa kind of understood. “I remember.”
“You were not born yet.”
“No. I remember you telling me stories. So it WAS real?” Mischa asked as Yaedra sat him down at the dinner table, taking his place on the opposite end to his boiled meat and boiled vegetables.
“Yes, it was real.”
“Tell me more about it. I want to know.”
Curious child, Yaedra thought to himself. Very curious. Very strange. “I will tell you small pieces, if you’d like.”
“I’d like it.”
He smirked and semi-snorted again as he stirred his bland food around.
Very to the point. Just like him. Lev would have been absolutely relentless.
