InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Bing bong! Bring it on!"

Satu Niemi (_waterbaby) wrote in light_of_may,
@ 2010-12-31 21:42:00

Entry tags:

2009-08-06, leif, satu

Like brother like sister
Who: Leif & Satu
Where: Leif's place
When: Late morning

Satu knew that what she was about to do would upset her mom terribly. She didn't want to upset Linnea. She just didn't want to keep denying part of her heritage. Every day she spent time with water, trying to practice even if she couldn't make it do anything yet, and practicing her Finnish to make sure she didn't get rusty. If she could acknowledge those parts of her heritage then why should she keep denying the part that came from her father? He was dead and buried so it wasn't like he could affect her. So she wasn't doing this for him, she was doing it for herself. A little bit more power that she could have. Maybe Leif knew a spell that could help with her most recent problem.

'Maybe you could talk to Mom,' Blaistoise suggested from his perch on her shoulder. He'd enjoyed the rain of the past few days since it'd enabled her to walk around in jackets but with the heat returning he was now banished to her shoulder. Though she'd promised that if he nibbled at her pigtails again then she was going to start leaving him at home. With Slipper and Strike. 'Bet she'd be real nice about it. Maybe she'd even get rid of the thing so that you don't have to deal with it. That'd be cool. You can throw away your eggs right?'

"Don't think so," Satu muttered. She flicked a piece of lint off her shorts and rocked up on her toes, staring at the front door for a minute before pressing the doorbell. Hopefully she'd gotten the right address and this was where her brother lived. She didn't really spend a lot of time around Leif because he reminded her of Jokull, but since Jokull was dead he couldn't be so bad. That and he was the only witch that Satu knew. Valterri didn't count. Valterri wasn't all that good and Satu'd rather learn from someone who knew what they were doing. Just so long as Linnea didn't find out.

(Post a new comment)

bloodcounts
2011-01-01 06:34 pm UTC (link)

'Someone is at the door.' The thought cut through Leif's conscious in the most irritating manner possible. It was as though his familiar enjoyed waiting until he was actually relaxed before giving him reasons to be annoyed again. 'If you lowered the volume on your iPod, I wouldn't have to point out the obvious.' "Forgive me if Rachmaninov interests me more. And stop bathing in that fountain. You've filled it with grease." He glanced up from his work long enough to open the study window and wave Miakoda out of it. The way she was trying to bore holes into his skull was going ignored. "Well? Go and see who it is." He was also ignoring the muttering he received for that. She would undoubtedly keep it up for the rest of the day just to be petty. No matter, when it suited him, Leif could let a fair amount go unnoticed.

'It is your sister.' The hawk stood perched on the windowsill, staring at him as though her declaration really meant anything. She had, of course, seen the size of his family and knew that he did not view the Pitbull as his sister. Which left two others. Rising from his seat, he levelled a look at his familiar that made her ruffle her feathers. 'The little one.' "Satu," he answered with a hint of amusement. "Her name is Satu." Which she would have known if she paid attention. He was far more interested in why the littlest Niemi was at his door, however.

"You have the right address," he said by way of greeting as he opened the door. Apparently his telepathy was behaving today. Or it had focussed in on her. It was strange - he could invite complete strangers into his house, utilising manners that had been honed down to an art. He was at a loss when family came to visit. Family that was not his father, at any rate. Offering his hand to the hawk on his shoulder - he knew she liked to have a better vantage point, but she managed to make herself unnecessarily imposing - he stepped aside. "Feel free to come in. Assuming you want to, of course."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

_waterbaby
2011-01-02 05:18 am UTC (link)

Satu immediately pulled a face when the door opened and instead of a hello she got an answer to a thought. I hate it when you do that. Get out of my head, she thought as loud as she could, hoping it'd echo really loud in his head. If he was going to poke around in there then she wasn't going to make it fun for him. "And no, I didn't want to come in at all, I just came all the way over here to stay at the door." Rolling her eyes, Satu stepped in through the door and peered around at the interior. Yeah, Leif was definitely a water elemental. He didn't seem as fond of that as he should be. Dagmar was a higher level than him and she was younger. Satu'd be higher than him too when she got old enough.

'You don't really say hello around here, huh?'

"Hello," Satu said, crossing her arms over her small chest as she looked up at Leif. She hated having to look up at people. Really big disadvantage of being a kid. "So. You're a blood witch like dad was. I could be one too. Want to be. But it's not the sort of thing that mom'll buy me a teacher for. I want you to teach me what you know since you learned it from dad and he never had time for me." What she wasn't saying was that she wouldn't have wanted to learn from Jokull anyhow.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bloodcounts
2011-01-02 05:59 am UTC (link)

The corner of Leif's mouth curved up into a smirk, though not unkindly. Satu, at least, projected coherent thoughts. Not merely 'cheesecake' at ridiculous volumes. "I would if I could," was the most sincere answer she was likely to get, and even then it wasn't exactly dripping with honesty. He would if he could, but only for as long as it suited him. Otherwise, there was little point in being a telepath. 'You know it won't end well if you laugh at her.' And that was why he hadn't. Leif had forgotten what Dagmar had been like when she was Satu's age. Kajsa's adolescence was no longer a part of his memory, since she didn't actually amount to anything and never would. Unfortunately, the sarcasm of demonic water elementals at his little sister's age tapped right into Leif's more consumer friendly sense of humour.

"... Hello." Honestly, he was of the opinion that acknowledging the other person's existence was greeting enough, but apparently this instance required more. Well, it wasn't exactly a chore. It was just a touch jarring when he was greeted like he wasn't the pariah of the family. He was vaguely aware of the effect the height difference may have had. So he made a point of not merely staring down at her. Satu was his sister, not a pleb from the street or an employee under his thumb. She was also requesting - demanding, really - to be taught blood magic. Linnea would be so damn proud. "It's definitely blood magic you want to learn." More like a statement that required confirmation than a question. "I only ask because your mastery requires a human sacrifice. Otherwise, I don't see why I couldn't teach you." He was quite deliberately treating it as a business transaction, and mostly because he refused to treat her like a child. The last time he had pretended to be child-friendly, he had cursed the brat.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_waterbaby
2011-01-03 06:02 am UTC (link)

Yeah right, liar. Satu didn't believe for a second that Leif would really not read her mind if he could turn it off. Just like Jokull wouldn't have. Telepaths weren't really the sort of person you could trust to stay out of your head. Twelve and Satu was already totally aware of how true that was. "Aw look, you remembered your manners." She wasn't trying to be rude. It was just something she'd heard her mother remarking on. Leif could apparently be as perfectly polite as them when he chose to be. He just didn't seem to be able to use them when it came to the family. For some weird reason.

"I'm twelve, don't think I need to worry about sacrificing just yet." The idea should bother her more. Leif had killed someone for his magic. 'You don't have to... be a master water!' "But yeah. Blood magic. You'll teach me without telling mom." Really big point. Leif had to not tell their mother. Satu so many levels of didn't want her to know.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bloodcounts
2011-01-03 05:16 pm UTC (link)

It was a pain in the ass, actually, only having one person at that moment in time whose mind he could reach. Excluding people who walked past the house. He was alone with his own mind, what he could pick up from Satu's. And his familiar who seemed to be deliberately keeping it down just to irritate him enough that he couldn't keep his sister's thoughts out. Sometimes he thought people deliberately forgot he was untrained and couldn't stay out if he wanted. 'You make it hard to forget when you turn their thoughts back on them.' Which the hawk did on a daily basis. "I usually remember them." To those who deserve them. Although he had made something of an effort at that joke of a celebration of their father's birthday - as if any of them cared - which rather fell through with the combination of Dagmar and Kajsa in the same room. It was fun to rile the former and the latter riled him. "Feel free to take a seat, by the way," he gestured into the living room. "Can I get you a drink?" 'He only has orange juice or cola,' Miakoda added. 'Or milk.' True. The rest was alcohol.

Leif had killed more than one someone for his magic, but she didn't need to realise that just yet. He wondered if he qualified as a serial killer. Pushing that thought aside, he gave a nod of concession. "Fair enough. You only need your own blood for first level magic - and why would I tell her?" Linnea would only interfere like she had with his own lessons. 'If I am reading you accurately, your father also interfered with your elemental lessons.' Leif immediately pulled his hand out from underneath his familiar, forcing her to take flight. The feathery bitch could find herself a perch that wasn't tempted to curse her for talking about Jokull like that.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_waterbaby
2011-01-03 09:47 pm UTC (link)

"Like right there? Wouldn't mom be proud." It was sarcastic but Satu couldn't help herself. She knew that Leif and her mom didn't get along and she thought that she knew why. It was because he was definitely Jokull's son and she may have been a kid but she wasn't blind to the fact that her parents hadn't really cared for each other. And dad bled mom like he was a leech. No, Satu didn't remember Jokull fondly and didn't care if Leif knew. Better if he did. "I'll take cola; äiti doesn't let me have it much." So Leif would. She was pretty sure he'd do anything to irritate their mother. It was just in his nature like it had seemed to be in Kajsa's to annoy Jokull by breathing. Satu was glad to fall into the middle category alongside Valterri and Dagmar.

Blinking down at her hands, Satu contemplated cutting herself open. Couldn't hurt too bad if people went through it all that time. Still, she wasn't terribly fond of the idea. "What, you mean like cutting myself? That'd be great for someone to find. They'll either know what I'm doing or think I'm some emo kid." And she'd end up at the psychologist. Again. A round with the school therapist had already ended with her being directed towards a full-time psychologist. Maybe she needed to tell Linnea about that sometime. "And I have no idea; to bug her? I'm not the one who can read minds so I don't know how yours works."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bloodcounts
2011-01-04 01:43 am UTC (link)

The somewhat obviously disingenuous smile served well enough as both an answer to that remark and to mask his reaction to anything she was thinking. I've no doubt she was asking for it. Just as well that he could not project his thoughts into the minds of others. He did not need Miakoda's mental nudging to be reminded that he really could not curse his sister - or that his half-hearted defense against doing such a thing was entirely false. But what did it matter, really? It was not as though Satu had known their parents or siblings for as long as he had. She had twelve years of experience regarding their family. Leif had twenty-seven. And all I got was a bitch of a 'mother' who blesses a demonic household. He made no effort to hide the fact the cola was kept in a refridgerator beside a variety of bloodtypes. Forensics would have a field day with his kitchen. "With or without ice?"

Leif paused half-way through bringing a second empty glass from the cupboard and shrugged. "Sure. If you don't mind being a little impractical, risk unnecessary scarring and infection." One hand reached for the scotch while the other filled Satu's glass. "Honestly, I find hypodermics easier. And cleaner." As for the rest, he shook his head. "If I wanted to annoy her, it wouldn't be with something she could put a stop to by, say, grounding you. Telling her I'm teaching you to do something she hates with a passion? It's counter-productive." No, just the very knowledge that he would be getting away with teaching her youngest something Linnea actually had a fear of was more than enough for Leif. Besides which, it meant their father's influence could still smother hers in certain aspects.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_waterbaby
2011-01-06 02:27 am UTC (link)

Had Satu known how Leif was thinking about their mother she'd have been more than happy to drag her nails right across his face. No one was allowed to think ill of Linnea. She was wonderful! Okay, so there was that problem where she was pregnant and that was annoying and inconvenient but she was still very nearly perfect in every other way. Satu had her up on a pedestal and attempts to knock her off didn't go well. "With. It got way too hot." Her friends liked that the rain had stopped but she didn't. The rain was one of the only things that kept her in good spirits.

"Hypoder... what?" Big words. Satu didn't know that particular word. Maybe if she saw it spelled out then she would have. Maybe. No guarantees on words that big if they didn't deal with softball or water. Ah, no, Satu didn't want to hear that Linnea hated blood magic. Oh sure she knew that she did but she still didn't want to hear it. That meant acknowledging that she was doing something her mother would view as wrong. Instead she decided to shift the conversation. "You're demonic too, aren't you?" Linnea had only said she and Dagmar were, but something told her that Leif was too.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bloodcounts
2011-01-06 08:37 pm UTC (link)

Ice that Leif didn't actually have, he just had a firm grasp on fourth level elementalism. 'You know, if you kept the ice tray in a sensible place, you wouldn't need to bother with this.' Though the last time he checked, the cupboard was as good a place as any, and it wasn't as though he really needed pre-prepared ice cubes. Running the tray under the tap, he concentrated on freezing the cubes as it filled and dropped them into their respective glasses. It was nothing more than a party trick, but it served a purpose. "One cola," he held the glass out, whirling the scotch around his own glass. It smelled good.

"Needles." His drink was set down on the side and he pulled what looked like a First Aid kit out of the drawer that probably should have contained cutlery. "I use medical supplies." She didn't need to know that that came about because it was simply easier to bleed someone that way. "Yes." Really, it wasn't that hard to work out. "So are you." And Dagmar, obviously. Set the three of them alongside Kajsa and Valterri and it became painfully obvious unless Kajsa was having one of her moments. He just didn't quite believe Linnea didn't tell them sooner. "You'll be cursing from the first level," he pointed out with a touch of amusement. Leif loved his bloodline.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_waterbaby
2011-01-09 07:39 pm UTC (link)

Wriggling a little in her chair at the sight of Leif using his elemental abilities Satu had the immediate thought of wondering when she'd advance past him. Dagmar was past him, she knew that just like she knew that she was close to being a third level herself. At the age of twelve. That was only one level below Leif and he was in his twenties. Accepting the glass she took a long drink despite the tickling it set up in her nose. Thanks would have been appropriate but Satu didn't always show the manners that she'd had instilled in her from a very young age.

Needles? Awesome. Satu made a face at the idea of sticking herself with a needle but she supposed it was cleaner. And probably less painful. She was all for the less painful idea. Last time she checked there wasn't a person alive who enjoyed slicing themselves open. But when Leif felt the need to point out that she was demonic Satu widened her eyes and gaped at him. "Really?" she asked. "No way! That totally isn't why I said 'too' at all! I mean, why would I say too if I didn't already know that?" Rolling her eyes she took another sip and leaned back against the chair, refusing to let thoughts about the other two siblings in her head. She loved Kajsa and bullied Valterri and she didn't need to think about what they were or weren't. It wasn't important to her. "Mom told me when she found out when dad died. He'd never told her. And what sort of curses?" Visions of using them on her classmates when they deserved it went dancing through her head.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bloodcounts
2011-01-21 04:04 pm UTC (link)

Leif really had to wonder when the rest of the family was going to clock on to the fact that he did not care about elementalism. 'Never, I should imagine. Because you do.' Feeling a touch bitter when the demon in him seemed to demand more than just witchcraft did not count. Not when he was already working on his telepathy. 'So are you going to find someone to help you with that or not?' And there wasn't such thing as just witchcraft. His pride would not allow for that. Besides which, he had mastered blood magic by twenty-seven. That counted for something. "Does Blastoise want anything?" A pause. "Mia, stop staring at him."

While his sister proceeded to overdose on sarcasm, making efforts to take the rest of the room with her, Leif swirled his scotch around the glass again. It was good scotch. And Satu was far better at clearing her head than Kajsa was. Either that or she was astonishingly single-minded. He preferred the former; it ranked her higher than Kajsa. She was by default, but nevertheless. And she had wanted him out of her head. "I figured it out when I was about ten, maybe eleven." Because of the curses. It worked in his favour - no one in school ever expected the boy who was otherwise a perfect gentlemen to be both a witch and demonic. 'Or an elemental.' "Dagmar already had a go at me for not telling her, so feel free to get it out of your system now or forever hold your peace." Again, he didn't find it relevant. Nor did he actually believe Linnea didn't know before Jokull died. Though if he cared to stop to think about it past an automatic distrust towards her, there was a chance Jokull didn't necessarily find it relevant either. Or just didn't care. Retrospectively, their bloodline was rather obvious. And it wasn't as though anything could be done about it. When it came to the curses, Leif set his scotch down and gave a vague 'just a second' gesture and wandered off to search the study.

'You're corrupting your sister.'

She's asking me to.

Which was something the hawk couldn't argue with and knew enough about Leif's mind to not bother trying. He re-emerged with what looked like it had once been a child's scrap-book - because that was precisely what it was. Everything Jokull had taught him was in it. Everything he had taught himself was in his own head. "Laugh if you wish, but I was seven when I started to learn." And the hand-writing throughout - excluding any input from his father - matched his age at the time. Now his handwriting looked like Jokull's. "I think the first five pages are curses... The next three should be minor wards and defensive spells." Defensve spells that hurt.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_waterbaby
2011-01-27 08:21 pm UTC (link)

'Yeah, stop staring at me. You can't eat me.' Blastoise piped in for the first time in awhile from his perch on Satu's shoulder. He wanted to try some of the drink that she had. It was fizzy and she seemed to like it. 'I could fit in that glass.' True. Satu liked that her familiar could fit pretty much everywhere. It meant that she didn't have to worry about leaving him at home when she went anywhere. "He ate before we came over." 'Lettuce. Your bird should try it instead of staring.'

And Satu was just good at clearing her head. It came from having spent so much time around Jokull. She didn't want her father in her head and when she focused, she could make sure she wasn't really thinking about anything. Whether or not it actually worked she didn't know, but she'd been working on it for a long time. A little flare of jealousy peaked when Leif said he'd learned what they were when he was younger than her. She didn't like someone having beat her at something. One of the reasons she was here, asking for his help, was because she didn't want to be less than him. She couldn't help the psychic thing unless she went and got knocked on the head like Valterri had done, but what she could do she would. Even if she didn't want to tell her mom about it. Ever. "I'm not going to yell at you just because you're a selfish perse." That was a word she wasn't supposed to know. Blastoise nipped at her ear when she used it. Satu didn't care. She didn't. She wasn't succeeding all that much at convincing herself that she didn't care about Leif having known for her entire life without telling her. It really explained so much.

When Leif reappeared with the book, Satu reached out to take it so she could flip through. He was right, it definitely looked like a kid had started out using it. But she was a kid so it made sense. After a few minutes she looked back up. "Can I borrow this? I won't lose it. Or get it wet." Now there was a more worthwhile promise coming from a water elemental. Most of their belongings ended up going through some sort of water damage that wasn't even intentional. Satu hadn't meant to ruin her last phone. "I'll try not to get it wet."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bloodcounts
2011-01-28 06:08 pm UTC (link)

'I have no interest in eating you. You're just tiny.' Miakoda stated with what could have been a bored sigh. He wasn't as small as that siren's familiar though. That thing had been positively absurd. It was also something she was allowed to eat if her ward didn't behave herself. 'And I don't make a habit of eating the greenery.' She wasn't going to stop staring, though. Not of them could make her. Her witch was only annoyed because he could hear her running commentary on how something so small really shouldn't be a familiar. And now he was ignoring her.

At that, Leif's face tugged into a smirk. He couldn't help it. Had Linnea really not known? Not taken a look around at her beloved children and seen the obvious differences? Or did she just think that Kajsa's disposition was because she had none of Jokull's blood in her whatsoever? Only she could honestly be that stupid. "You kiss you mother with that mouth?" Really now, if there was a trait all of them shared to an extent, putting themselves first had to be it. Certainly, they all cared - again, to an extent - about the family members and acquaintances they deemed worth it, but everything was ultimately about them. Everything. "I didn't consider it relevant, least of all to you and Dagmar," he said with a shrug. "It's just there. Has discovering your bloodline really made that much of a difference to your life? That is, besides the sudden justification for otherwise outrageous behaviour. Because it made no difference to mine." Excluding, perhaps, the proof that he took after their father far more than he did his mother. Not that he had needed proof.

"Knock yourself out. I have at least two other copies." He shrugged. It was always worth having more than one cookbook around the house. Especially since the others were updated with spells he had learned from other sources. But that was a reasonable promise. There did, after all, have to be a certain level of trust there - even if Jokull's children were not overly fond of being charmers towards each other.

(Reply to this) (Parent)