Underage Magic Part I: An Act of Violence Dorian closed his eyes and counted to ten. He opened them and surveyed the room carefully from his vantage point on the sofa. He could not see any clues though, so he scrambled down, looking under, in and behind things until, with a happy cry, he discovered the red and gold stuffed bunny behind the curtains. Mama had put Émilie to bed early because she was not well, and to keep Dorian amused had enchanted the toy to play hide and seek with him. It was a slightly one sided game because Tùtù could not do any searching, but Dorian was content to play seeker again and again. Tùtù could also follow simple commands such as ‘Tíng’ ‘tiàowǔ’ ‘xīnào’ should Dorian wish him to cease any given activity, and either dance or simply frolic about the room.
Dorian scooped Tùtù into a hug and carried him back to the sofa, ready to start again. He stroked the bunny’s long ears gently. He was made of silk, mostly red, patterned with red embroidery, but one panel on his head had the patterns picked out in gold, and he had a completely gold tummy. Dorian had had Tùtù for his whole life but he still looked shiny and new, and he always smiled and he was the best bunny in the whole world. Dorian released him, closing his eyes and counting to ten. He opened them and began his sweep of the room, stopping abruptly when he found Matthieu leaning in the doorway surveying him.
“Qu'est-ce que tu fais?” Mattieu asked, halfway between suspicion and curiosity. What are you doing?
“Wǒ hé Tùtù yīqǐ wán zhuōmícáng,” Dorian answered. Matthieu had shifted steadily to speaking more and more French as he hung out with the local children via various clubs. Dorian still defaulted to Chinese when at home though, and especially when talking about things connected with Mama - which explaining that he was playing hide and seek with Tùtù counted as. “Mèimei zài shuìjiào. Tā bìngle,” he added, explaining their sister’s absence, as Matthieu had been out at the park when she had been put to bed. “You can play with us, if you like,” he offered, a little warily, trying to decide whether this was a good idea. Matthieu was rough sometimes. He hadn’t hesitated to push Dorian out of the way the few times they’d tried playing ball on their broomsticks. It was part of the game, Dorian knew that, but he had decided that he did not care for games like that. And, even when it wasn’t a rough game, Matthieu could be… nasty. He was a kicker of crayon boxes. He held things out of reach. Still, they were supposed to be brothers, and brothers were supposed to play together, and he thought hide and seek might be safe enough…
Matthieu considered the offer. Hide and seek was not as lame as the majority of Dorian’s pastimes. It could actually be quite fun. He also wondered how long Dorian would stay hiding if he didn’t bother to look, and finding out had a certain appeal. If it had just been Dorian, he might have agreed. But he was nearly nine years old and he played Beater, the toughest position, on his little league team, and there was no way he was going to involve himself in a game with a stuffed bunny.
“I’m too old to play with toys,” Matthieu glared at the rabbit (which, having not been located in a timely fashion, was poking his small stuffed nose out from under the coffee table.
“Ok,” Dorian shrugged, turning back to his game.
“And so are you!” Matthieu snapped. It was true, too. He tried to imagine what people would say if they found out Dorian liked playing hide and seek with a stuffed bunny. It was pathetic. He glared at Dorian, wondering why he had to be so defective all the time.
Dorian shifted back on the couch. Matthieu was being mean again. It felt like he was getting meaner and meaner. Dorian shouldn’t say anything. If he said something, Matthieu would probably say more hurtful things. He just wanted him to go.
“And you’re a boy. Boys don’t play with stuffed animals. Or like bunnies.”
Dorian frowned. This was the trouble with Matthieu’s meanness. It was not only mean but it did not make sense. Dorian was two years younger than him most of the time (right now, he was seven already and Matthieu was only eight still for three more weeks, so right now Matthieu was only one year older than him, and ha!) - but whether Dorian was one or two years younger, he kept being able to see the flaws in what Matthieu said.
“I’m a boy, and I like both,” he pointed out.
“I meant proper boys,” spat Matthieu disdainfully. Dorian did not have a retort to that because he wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to mean. It still sounded silly, but he was not sure that arguing further was in his best interests. “You shouldn’t have a stuffed bunny, it’s pathetic. Next time I see you playing with it, I’m going to pull one of its ears off. The time after, the other ear. Then his eyes. I’m going to pull your stupid bunny apart piece by piece if you don’t grow up - stop crying!”
“Tùtù, lái zhèlǐ!” he called to the rabbit, commanding him to come back, wanting to hold him, keep him safe from Matthieu. Tùtù came out from under the coffee table, hurrying back towards Dorian but before he got there, he was jerked sharply into the air.
“Don’t hurt him!” Dorian begged, alarmed as the bunny swung through the air out of his reach, though he leapt frantically nonetheless - he could see Tùtù was too high up but he had to try. The bunny was still trying to follow Dorian’s last command, to come back, and so he appeared to struggle, marching as purposefully as he could though he was held in place.
“I can’t hurt it. It’s. not. real,” said Matthieu scornfully. As he said it, the bunny zoomed across the room. His stitched on mouth had not been animated, and so he had no choice but to continue to smile as each of Matthieu’s words was punctuated by his small, stuffed head being hit against the wall.
“Arrête!” Dorian cried in distress, following the bunny across the room, still trying desperately to reach him. “Bǎ wǒde tùzǐ hái gěi wǒ!” Give me back my bunny. He felt anger and panic rising in him, but before his own accidental magic could come to the rescue of his stuffed toy, there was the sound of increasingly hurried footsteps in the corridor, and Tùtù dropped back into his arms just as their Mama burst into the room.
“What is going on?” she asked. She had been just in time to see the bunny fall down to the waiting Dorian. She had heard what he was crying and could infer a good deal of the situation. The question was more an angry reproof than an inquiry but Dorian answered.
“He took my bunny. He took my bunny into the air and he hurt him!” he howled, running to his mother who bent down, putting her arms around him.
“Matthieu, are you using your magic to tease your little brother?” she asked sternly.
“It was accidental.” Matthieu defended himself.
“It is still not nice!” his Mama chided. She was not convinced whether or not to believe him. Sometimes children could, to a degree, direct their magic. And accident or not, the fact that he had wanted so badly to be unkind or upsetting was concerning.
“And he said he will pull his ears off!” Dorian cried into his mother’s shoulder.
“Matthieu! How could you say such a thing!” she asked, shocked. He looked like he was about to argue, and she decided the best thing to do was to separate them. She did not need two fighting children in addition to a sick one.“Go to your room. I will talk to you later. Dodo… Come on, hush hush now. Your sister’s sleeping,” she reminded him. She said it comfortingly, rather than reprovingly. In reality, Émilie’s door was well protected by muffling charms to keep the noise of the rest of the house out, especially as her bedtime was earlier. And because keeping two boys quiet seemed to be an increasing challenge. Matthieu had always been a loud, crashy sort of boy, but he and Dorian seemed more and more to rub each other up the wrong way. But she wanted to get the situation under control, and it worked to quiet Dorian, who cared so much about his little sister, and he ceased sobbing quite so dramatically.
Matthieu lurked just long enough to hear this. He surveyed the scene, watching Mama cosset Dorian and treat him like the favourite, like she always had, and knowing that, when she was done here, he was going to be in a lot of trouble.