#pocketinferno

“And then, she just jumped at me all teeth and rage! ” Faustus exclaimed waving his arms around, imitating the “attack” he suffered during his latest mission. The kids around him hanging on his every word and gasping on the parts that he almost died accordingly.  Archimedes just rolled her eyes at her brother´s performance and smiled fondly, debating with herself if it was worthy to tell her brother audience than the “furious sirens” that almost managed to kill him on his retrieval mission of an “ancient artifact” were just messing with him; but decided to keep it to herself, after all the children seemed to be enjoying the tale, and they have been behaving well this past few days, so maybe it wouldn´t hurt so much to lose an hour or two of classes.

When he finished his story, she cleared her throat and said “Well I´m sure that after that amazing anecdote, Faustus must be exhausted, so I´m going to make sure he gets a well deserved rest”. She smiled at her brother and started to drag him to  The kids whinned about it, but they knew they were lucky that Archimedes let them hear the hole story. 

When they finally arrived to Archimedes workshop, she turned around and smirked at her brother “Really? When have you ever meet a bloodthirty siren, brother?” At his flushed face, she couldn´t stay quite anymore an laughed. “Faustus, maybe you should reconsider your profession, you made a better story teller than a Collector if I´m honest” A light punch on was all the answer she got. 

After she was able to calm down, her brother spoke, “Well, that Siren was out for my blood, you know? If you ask for an opinion you have to brace yourself an accept it”. He grabbed one of the many books laying around his sister workshop and started turning the pages. “Even you wouldn´t try to gut me for giving an honest opinion when asked, and god knows you have a horrible temper my dearest Leo”. When he didn´t hear a answer he glanced to his sister to see her petrified and with a frightful expersion, he signed and grumbled “Seriously? Leo, it´s fine, there´s noone else here” Seeing her face turning from scared to furious he realized that maybe he should have said it in a more, tactful way. 

“Fine? Are you NUTS?! You know damn well what´s at stake if someone learns those names Faustus, there´s a reason why they are secret you dead brain! More to us, because even if we are now part of an organization that accepts people with supernatural blood in them, they might be people here that might not! And I will to not experience a "Salvation Process” or anything similar again, thank you very much". She was fuming, every time they spoke those names was an chance to lose everything again, why he didn´t understand that?

He just stared at her, with his sad face that came every time they spoke aout that topic, “Leonora, it´s fine here, I already told you this. Here we are safe, we can be ourselves without worrying about if someone will try to hunt us down, sure the job ain´t the safest there is, but at the end of the day the fact that we are safe here remains.”  He hugged her, and let her go until he felt  her relax again, he smiled and ruffled her hair. “Also you forget you dearest brother here wouldn´t endanger you! I checked the workshop before I said it!” He felt her body stiffen again. “And you didn´t thought that maybe, just maybe if you had said that at first, you would have saved me a heart attack?”  His pause and a small whispered “I forgot you can´t see auras” was enough to make her blood boil again

She pusshed him away, and moved further into her workshop. God almighty, her brother was just so forgetful sometimes. She sat on her chair and put her hands on her face to calm down. “Daniel, one of these days, you will forget that you need to breath to stay alive I swear”  "Well, I´m sure that with those great ears of your´s, you will hear me slowly dying and come to my rescue, so I´m not that worried about it".  She wanted to tell him that no, she woudn´t go rescue him for something so idiotic but even she knew that was a lie; she would be there in less than a minute and she hated how he sounded so glad after hearing his birth name again. She was also happy to use it again but the risk it was to pronounce it wasn´t worthy on her eyes

She sighed and put her hands down, and glanced at him. Yup, there it was her dearest brother leaning on a pile of books looking as smug as a cat that has just catched a bird. a swift kick to the pile followed by a small shout of pain was enough to make her happy again. She cleared her throat and said “Well, if you´re done hurting my poor books, I would like to actually start on why I disturbed your small performance.”

Ah grumble was all she heared. “ I have two news. One: You have another mission tommorrow morning so you do need to rest. So please give me your belt so I can restock anything that it might be missing.” A whine and a whispered “Why? What did I do so does old goats like to torture me like this?”  followed her brothers hand as it gave her a leather utility belt. She gave a quick check and saw that the only missing thing was that pain killer paste and the holy water bottle needed to be refilled. “Thank you , now the second news I have for you is that I´m appealling the decision of the council so I can be re-located to your branch, is next friday if you want to come and support me.”

A silence followed and when her brother finally got up from the floor he was glaring at her “No, Leo if I go it will be to make sure that you stay under the teachings of the Dealers, so don´t ask me to go.” She was opening her mouth to say something when he grabed her arm. “Leo, it´s for your own good, you´re not build to that work, and even if you were, I will not allow it.”  He left her arm go and walked right to the door, not before turning and saying “ I will really appreaciate it if you could leave me a tube filled with pain killers later this afternoon Archimedes.” Said that he closed the door and left.

Leonora stayed there, what the hell? Didn´t he see that if they were together both of them would be more protected? Or maybe it was that he didn´t trust her to be able to complet the tasks? Well fine, she will prove to him an everyone else that she could do so much more beside her brother instead of dealing with diplomacy and deals between the partners of the company. She just needed a chance. 

But meanwhile, she needed to made that pain killer and to refiil the bottles of the belt, She realized after filling the belt that she didn´t have enough to later give her brother, she fancied the idea of letting him suffer but quickly dismissed it, maybe he really needed the paste and it would be awful of her to let him suffer. 

She started to gather the ingredients neccesary for the paste when she heard a small popping, followed by the sound of wings. She rised her head and saw a small letter, flying above her desk like it was completly normal for it to be there. She reached slowly to it, what if it was a trap? Or maybe one of those new ppranks the kids keep making? When she touched it she expected it to blow up or maybe even bite, not to act like nothing happened.

She decided then that maybe it was a normal letter, delivered in a really weird way, but she had seen  clouds delivering once a bunch of letters to the kids in San Valentines, so maybe the wings were just for decorative purpose. She grabbed it and looked at it better. A wax seal with the emblem of a star with wings. Braking it she found a letter directed to her, an invitation to a tournament and the chance to win a wish without restrictions. She was about to discard the letter as a joke (A very elaborated one, and if she found out the kid that pulled it off she would have a talk with they because with these much talent they could be doing so much more than flying letters)  until she read the name at the bottom.

Alcor The DreamBender, Master of the Dreamscape, The Twins Star, had sent her a letter. The most feared demon of histroy was invting her to a competition, and if she was correct, it wouldn´t be with normal humans or even mortal beings. She was about to tear the letter when she realized that these was the chance she was waiting for. If she won she could prove her brother and everyone else what she was capable of, not to mention the prize it was offering. With a wish with no limits she could fix everything that was wrong with her and his brother, no more fear, no more risking their lives, maybe they could even get their parents back.

A small part of her was screaming that it was too good to be true, but at the moment she didn´t cared, she grabed her brothers belt and a silver knife she was going to use to make the paste, then grabbed a pen of her desk and signed Leonora “Archimedes” Viteri. 

After entering into homestuck-secret-santa I was given the lovely pocketinferno and was given the pleasure of writing 

This

Everyone is welcome to read it, leave comments or anything else! 

Merry Christmas to everyone and especially you, pocketinferno!