demosthenes_val (demosthenes_val) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-01-15 09:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, andrew wiggin (ender), valentine wiggin |
Who: Valentine and Ender
When: Early December
Where: Their home
What: Catching up
Rating/Warning: Low/None
Status: Complete
Valentine had been taking self defence classes for nearly a month and was getting pretty good. Her teacher said she was very focused for her age which she tried not to take as patronising. But, of course, her teacher didn’t know why she was so focused. She was determined that Ender wouldn’t get hurt again. She didn’t want to let him down.
She entered the house happy to see Ender’s bag and coat but not Peter’s. She’d been hoping she’d have time to talk to her little brother alone before anybody else got home. Valentine had recently experienced a dream which she thought might be one of these ‘strange’ dreams people had been talking about.
“Ender?” she called out moving further into their home.
Ender was sprawled out on his bed, lying on his back as he played a game on his PSP. He blinked and his eyes glanced towards his door when he heard his older sister’s voice, breaking into a faint smile. “I’m in my room,” he called out loudly. He muted the game and listened quietly for a moment, his smile widening as he realized he wasn’t hearing anyone else’s voice. Turning the volume back on, Ender breathed a sigh of relief that Peter wasn’t home yet and turned his focus back to the game.
Hanging up her coat before dumping her own bag in her room she made her way to her brothers room. “Hey you,” she smiled dropping down on the bed next to him, “Good day?” she asked, checking the screen as she spoke to see what game he was playing.
“Yeah, not too bad. Aced my Math test, but that really wasn’t much of a surprise.” When she checked his screen, he smiled and said, “Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines. Figured I haven’t played this one in a while, so it might be a fun way to waste some time. So what about you? How was school?” Ender asked.
“No surprise at all” Valentine agreed before smiling, “Ah, I thought I recognised it” she shrugged before lying on her back on Ender’s bed. “School was school. I didn’t really pay much attention. I...I had one of those strange dreams last night” she admitted, “It’s been playing on my mind all day.”
When she mentioned the dreams, Ender stiffened and hit the pause button on his game. He’d had a few of those dreams too, but hadn’t really talked about them to anyone. But now that Val was having them too… “What was it about?” he asked curiously.
“I was training to get into a place called battle school but I didn’t make it,” Valentine told him, “You and Peter were there too. Peter was just as horrid as he is here” she added turning her head to look at her little brother, “We’re all super smart though even there.”
Ender quickly sat up and set the game aside as his sister mentioned Battle School. “I’ve dreamed about that too! Except I did make it in, even though they removed my monitor and I thought I’d been kicked out of the program. But… if it’s just a dream, how can we be dreaming about the same exact things? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“That is strange” Valentine agreed, “You think it’s some kind of experiment? Pretty big one if it is though, I mean so many people talk about dreams on the net.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. And if there was one thing Ender hated, it was not knowing something. Or at least being able to find out the answers he wanted. “At least in this place, there’s no Buggers… I hope.” Ender frowned and shook his head in frustration. “It’d have to be on a massive scale! Like you said, there’s so many people on the network who talk about the dreams. And some of them have said the dream stuff starts happening to them in real life.”
Valentine wasn’t keen on not knowing either and she couldn’t help wondering why more people weren’t questioning what was going on. “Who could even do that? I mean, the government would start smaller surely. One town or something but this is an entire county. And that doesn’t explain the real life manifestations - unless people are being altered somehow, objects planted for them to find...” she considered all the conspiracy theories she’d read about but there wasn’t anything along these lines.
“Exactly! It’s just… it’s completely crazy, right? But it’s out there on the network all the time. People whose bodies are changing, superpowers, all the weird stuff that happens out here all the time…” He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “But it’s not everyone. There’s lots of people in California who aren’t even on the network, or who don’t have anything strange happening to them.”
“So what makes this select group so different?” she wondered aloud, “Is there something we all share which makes up more viable test subjects? Or are we compelled to join the network because of whatever they are doing? It simply can’t be a natural occurrence can it.”
“I’m not even sure why I signed up for it,” he admitted. “I think I heard someone mention it, so I did an internet search and signed myself up. I mean, think about it… I’m not exactly the most social of kids. Right?”
Valentine nodded, "A few people have said that. And it wasn't long after I signed up that I started dreaming too" she added thoughtfully.
“It took a little while for me, but I’ve had a bunch of them now. I don’t think Peter’s having any. But then again, he probably wouldn’t tell us anyways,” he replied with a shrug.
"Probably not" she agreed, "especially since in them he got kicked out too. You know how he hates losing."
Ender rolled his eyes and quickly nodded in agreement. Most of the time, he was on the receiving end of Peter’s anger whenever he lost at anything. “Yeah, no kidding.”
Valentine tried to protect Ender as much as she could but she wasn’t around all the time and she felt like she was letting him down. She sat up and hugged him, “I love you. You know that right?”
He blinked and nodded, wrapping his arms around Val to hug her back. “Yeah, I know… why? Did I do something to make you think I didn’t know that?”
She shook her head, “No I just...I’d be here all the time if I could. I wouldn’t ever let him hurt you if I could stop him.”
“Val… we both know that Peter’s sneaky and he bides his time when he wants to get at one of us. He’s not stupid and he knows exactly how to convince everyone else that he’s not the monster we both know he is.” Ender pulled back to look at his sister. “One of these days we’ll figure out a way to beat him at his own game. We’ll stop him so he can’t keep hurting us. Yeah, he physically picks on me. But he also knows how much it hurts you by doing it.”
Valentine nodded, “I wish he didn’t. I wish I could hide it better from him. Then maybe he would leave you alone more.” If she could she’d take it all from Ender, even if it meant Peter focused solely on her. She’d interfered before but Peter was always careful. “I’m learning how to protect you,” she confessed.
Ender arched an eyebrow at that comment. “You are? How? I did a little boxing with Steve and until he disappeared, I was doing Archery with Roy. But what’re you learning?” he asked curiously.
“Self defence classes from a lady who does stunt work on films” Valentine told him, “She takes a class twice a week at one of the gyms near school. It’s kind of a mix of different martial arts I guess.”
“Cool! Why didn’t you tell me about it sooner? That sounds awesome!” He grinned, clearly excited that something like that was offered nearby. “Can I come too? I won’t get in the way… promise!”
“I don’t know really. I didn’t want it to sound silly maybe” Valentine shrugged but smiled at her brothers excitement, “I’m sure you wouldn’t. Let me talk to her, okay? It took some convincing to let her get me to join but I’m sure I can talk her round.”
“Great! And you know you’re more than welcome to come do things with Steve’s group at the community center.” He paused as he heard the door slam downstairs, then frowned as he heard Peter announce that he was home. Ender sighed and quickly put away his PSP to make sure Peter didn’t find it. “So much for peace and quiet, huh?”
“Thanks Ender” Valentine said before she sighed too, “We need to find somewhere to go that he doesn’t know about. But for now I’ll go see what kind of mood he’s in,” she said ruffling his hair affectionately before rolling from the bed to a stand and heading to fend off their brother.