falling cranes

"I didn't give you an invigorating elixir just so you can play with your imaginary friend! Do your homework!, Ophelia!"

"Yes, mum!"

"Why did Asmund have to die? He left his kid with us, too," thought So-mi.

"I guess I'll have to do all the house chores around home now," thought Julian as he began making breakfast.

"Asmund isn't here anymore, Julian; I don't want those pets here anymore. They remind me of him..."

"I'll take care of them, don't worry."

"I never said I was worried!" So-mi retorted, a light blush on her cheeks.

"Hey, Ophelia, do you remember my dad and mum?"

Ophelia thought for a bit. "I remember Uncle Asmund as a pale fellow. He was the one who took care of the house and us. ... But I also remember him being depressed a lot. What a way to die, hey? Death by jelly bean."

Loud honking came from the front of the house. Julian jumped out of the rocking chair and flew to the front door. A large truck was parked outside. The paint on the side read, "Billy's Bees" with a giant cartoon bee winking at him. What is this, Julian thought.

Then, out of the passenger seat came Asmund with a giant smile stuck to his face. "Julian!" he called as he came running to greet the fairy. "Look at what I bought!" These two burly men with chest hair sticking out of their low-collared shirts climbed out of the cab and proceeded to unload the cargo: bee boxes.

"Bees?" Julian mumbled.

Shaking with exuberance, Asmund laughed and said, "Bees! Yes, bees! We will have an endless supply of honey, Julian! Just imagine it. We can use it, sell it, use it as glue. We can do anything we want with it!"

Julian sighed. "Briefly ignoring the fact you're deathly allergic to bees, it was still a bad idea to get this... wait, you bought these bees right? You used So-mi's money?" The light dimmed him Asmund's eyes as he realized the full impact of what he had done.

"Well, it wasn't all my sister's money... yours, too. From your gardening ventures... and a little bit of mine, from fortune telling..." Asmund trailed off and both were silent for a few minutes.

One of the men came to the pair, asking where to put the boxes. "Oh, they can go in the back... next to the workshed..." Julian quickly replied but trailed off in the end as he remembered something. When the man turned to leave Julian quickly whispered to Asmund, "So-mi is home, you know. There's no way she won't find out about this." Then came the thunder, as if on cue.

"Asmund!" A shout so sharp and piercing even the beemen stopped putting on their gear to watch the following scene. Shortly after, a very angry So-mi came stomping around the corner of the house. "What is going on here?" Asmund's figure grew very small quite fast.

"Um... uhh..." he stuttered and So-mi sighed. She glanced at the beemen briefly and then looked back at her brother.

"You can't take them back, can you?" Asmund nodded his head in agreement. "What were you thinking? Who will take care of them, Asmund? You clearly can't; the risk is too high. And I am too busy with work to deal with bees." Julian was about to speak up but So-mi spoke first looking straight at him, "I don't want to force Julian into taking responsibility for Asmund's willful thinking."

"I don't really mind," Julian said, attempting a smile.

So-mi looked straight at the beemen, their hair black and curly. "What are you looking at? Get those boxes to the back, now." She spoke with a firm, professional voice and at once the workers continued on with their task. She turned back to her cowering brother. "Don't worry about it, too much. But expect to be paying back every single cent to Julian and I." With that, she returned to her workspace.

Julian let out the breath he had been holding. "Goodness, Asmund. You do a lot of strange things sometimes," he commented. Asmund laughed awkwardly before leaving and heading into the house. No doubt to cry in his room again, Julian thought.

In the end, Julian was a little cheerful about his new responsibility as beekeeper. He and Asmund shared some of the housework, but it was Asmund who did most of the cleaning and cooking, and taking care of the pets upstairs. So-mi's growing obsession with studying alchemy had slowly but surely taken over his once vegetable-rich garden, and they now share the task. It felt a little nice to have something only he was in charge of. The bees. Taking care of the bees. Beekeeper. Julian laughed as he thought of So-mi being his little bee, buzzing about with work, armed with a singer that could harm anyone. He was taking care of her, too. Julian liked that idea, and he walked off to inspect the newest edition to the family.

Author's Note
Came up with this after rereading the post about the Lee family.
I read Julian's bio and was thinking, "What were you thinking, Asmund?" and then thought it was a good idea for a story. Anyway, that's it for now.

Tired and beaten, he stumbled through the front door of the room. With each footstep he took, dried and caked on mud fell from his boots. With a shudder, he dropped all his equipment on the floor next to the door.

Shortly after him came a woman with pink hair. She quietly closed the door behind her and shuffled aside the dried mud with her boots. "You're leaving a mess."

He sighed, exhausted, and climbed onto the only bed in the room. He sat up with his back against the wall and kicked off his filthy boots before pulling his knees into his chest. "I don't care."

"We're going to be stuck here a while, so I'd like to keep it at least livable," she said disapprovingly.

"But we'll move on eventually. After we get the job done, we'll just head somewhere else. ... Where's the next job?"

She frowned. "That doesn't matter right now, does it?" He wasn't looking at her; he was looking straight ahead at something she couldn't see. "Let's treat your wounds now." She grabbed the small pack of herbs from the only desk in the room and made her way to the bed. "Come here." She spoke with a gentle voice as she patted the edge of the bed.

He looked at her with cold eyes. "I won't use magic on you, I promise. Just good old bandages for you!" Like a caterpillar, he scooted forward to the edge of the bed and crossed his legs. She proceeded to tend to his wounds with a herb salve and some bandages.

She finished quickly and put the medicine away before setting up their equipment for the next day. She had left briefly to get a broom so she could sweep the floor of the dirt, and when she came back she saw he was asleep on the bed already. She smiled and said, "This man..."

She pulled out her journal and filled it with the day's events, but before she could finish he spoke to her:

"Alienne?" She turned around.

"Yes, Hallor?"

"Come to bed."

She smiled, then. "Gladly."