Day 1 of OCtober, as requested by @grumpy-jedi from beyond the Tumblrverse:
Sibling prompts: pillow fight for Audie and the gang
Violet stepped out of the bedroom she shared with her sister Audie, clutching a twist of curls to her head in hopes of finding her missing hairpin out in the girls’ common room. She quickly abandoned that hope at the chaos beyond her door, barely dodging out of the way when a wildly giggling Lottie plowed past her, waving a pillow over her head, pursued by an even more wildly roaring Ginny wielding a pillow of her own.
A dainty shriek preceded Zaniyah running past, ducking around Violet to take refuge in her doorway. “Sun and stars, Zan, what is going on?” Violet demanded, raising her voice to be heard over the clamor of Itzli sisters.
Zaniyah clutched at the back of Violet’s skirt and wailed, “Audie took my pillow!”
“What in Eora does Audie want with your pillow?”
Audie herself came running to answer that question, rhetorical or not, with a shout of “Victory!” as she swung the pillow she was carrying around behind Violet. Possibly it was Zaniyah she was aiming for; Violet, however, took the brunt of the blow, while Zaniyah detached herself, ducked back into Violet’s own bedroom, and slammed the door against the assault.
“Ow!” Violet protested, none too seriously; it was a pillow, and Audie’s blow was playful, though it did catch her by surprise enough to make her lose her hold on the twist of hair. “What was that for? And Zan, I’m not done in there! I’ve still got to get my hair up, and he’ll be here any minute!”
Audie snorted and thrust her pillow into Violet’s arms. “Who cares if you wear it down this time? Come play with us!”
Violet arched an eyebrow at the sight of Ginny and Lottie now chasing little Eréndira around, trading feather-softened blows. “Not that this doesn’t look ever so enticing, but...I really can’t, Audie. It’s important to Anselm, and I don’t want to embarrass him.”
Audie huffed and scowled. “His clan’s gala? That’s for the old people. I don’t see why you have to go. I don’t see why he does, either; he’s still in school too.”
“But for his last year, and…” Violet sighed. “Oh, what difference does it make? That’s just what being betrothed is.”
Ginny ran by. Audie paused for an attempt to wrestle the pillow away from her, until Eréndira ran up to wobble her pillow, nearly as big as herself, at Audie in so merry an attack, Violet couldn’t help but smile. Her sisters were having fun, she had to admit. At least someone was. But that hairpin wasn’t going to find itself.
Then Audie, halfway through hoisting Eréndira up onto her shoulders amidst a flurry of giggles, looked up at Violet with a gleam of mischief in her eyes that Violet knew all too well. “Anselm’s picking you up here?” she asked.
“Yes. And very soon. Have you seen my hairpin? The one with the --”
“Walking home from school with Corbus as usual, right?”
Violet shrugged. “Probably.”
The mischief spread to Audie’s grin. She set Eréndira down and clapped so loudly the younger sisters all stopped their rampage and turned to look at her. “Okay, everyone, new plan!” she said. “We’re gonna let Violy finish getting ready. And then we’re gonna set an ambush!”
Anselm frowned when Corbus opened the door of the Itzli home and no Violet was waiting for him there. Her classes at the calpulli school ended an hour earlier than his; surely that was ample time for her to get ready for the gala. The schedule was tight enough as it was, fetching her before going home to freshen up himself. He thought he’d made that clear, but his usually punctual betrothed was nowhere in sight.
Corbus gave him a shrug, eloquent in its opinion of sisters, and an apologetic grin, then hollered into the quiet house, “Violy? You ready?”
There was a distant murmur, a faint chorus of giggling from upstairs. After a moment, the voice of his betrothed: “Almost! Sorry!”
Anselm sighed. More giggling followed Violet’s response. Leave it to her mess of sisters to stall her on such an important occasion. “Can you hurry?” he called up petulantly. “We don’t have all day.”
“Yes, but…” Her voice trailed off, leaving a hush in the wake of the giggling. Then finally she called again, “Actually, could you come up here? Corbus too?”
They exchanged a glance; Corbus shrugged again, less eloquently. This was unusual. In the Itzli household, the girls generally kept to their common room and the boys to theirs, outside of meal times and such. Anselm had spent many a day throughout his childhood playing with Violet’s brothers on their side of the upper story, but seldom seen the other wing. He doubted Corbus had visited it often, either, considering Audie’s vigilance in her grudge against her brother. He certainly looked intrigued now at the invitation. “Fine,” Anselm sighed again, for Corbus’ hearing; to Violet, he hollered, “This had better not take long!” as the boys made their way up the stairs.
It was quiet when they reached the door to the girls’ common room. Corbus knocked, then called, “You ready now?”
“Yes!” Violet called back, something odd about the timbre of her voice. “Come in, please!”
So Corbus pushed the door open. Anselm peered over his friend’s shoulder, seeing a room much like the one the boys shared, currently looking like a storm had passed through, leaving toys and hair ribbons scattered in its wake. No girls in sight, though. “Violet?” he called, terse with irritation.
“In here!” she called from one of the rooms surrounding the common room, its door slightly ajar. “If you could just give me a hand, it’ll be quick, I promise.”
He huffed and strode forward. Corbus kept stride with him, laughing, “Wait’ll Mum sees this mess! Someone’s gonna be in troooooub--”
But at that moment, the someone who was in trouble was Corbus, and Anselm too, as they reached Violet’s door and suddenly a giggling flock of Itzli girls descended upon them from every other doorway, swinging pillows.
Anselm ducked. Corbus suffered the worst of it, anyway; his sisters swarmed him, feathers flying with every swat, but he was roaring with laughter to match theirs. Someone tossed him a spare pillow, or maybe he snatched it away from one of them, and he was giving as good as he got within seconds. Anselm was backing away from the occasional blow that swung wide of Corbus to threaten him when a pillow landed in his arms in more of a shove than an attack. He looked down to see an Itzli sister with braids swinging wild, the littlest or maybe not quite littlest one, giggle at him and then turn and run, glancing back as if expecting him to pursue. He blinked at her, scowled at the pillow, and looked up to see Violet watching from her doorway, hiding a smile behind her fingers.
She looked, for all he could see, more than ready to grace his arm at the gala: lovely and elegant in her best dress, with her golden hair all piled up in braids and beads and the hairpin he’d bought her. For a moment he forgot to be angry. But then, remembering the time, he tossed the pillow aside and demanded, “Seriously? A pillow fight, now?”
Her hand fell along with her smile. “Oh, Anselm,” she whispered. “They were just having fun.”
“Fine for them,” he grumbled. “We don’t have time for --”
A thwack of featherweight nearly bowled him off his feet. He staggered around to see Audie grinning from ear to ear, raising a pillow in a gesture of triumph or perhaps in readiness to strike again.
“Enough of this,” Anselm growled. “Violet, we’re going. Now.”
Audie stuck out her tongue at Anselm’s back as he dragged her sister away once again. Corbus, on the other hand, was in no hurry to shorten the fight, and she wasn’t about to let him win this one. Violet’s betrothed was a problem for another day, but Corbus still owed Audie big-time, and from the corner of her eye he was just about to swing at her again, so -- with her fiercest yell, she turned to resume the fight once more.
