#Mac is about to set the hat on fire XD

[siixkiing]

"I know I know, I left you speechless with how good I look in it~"

...

He's judging you so much right now.

[butternuggets-blog]

OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER

@baldwin-montclair @adowobsessed @sylverdeclermont @lady-lazarus-declermont @nicki-mac-me @thereadersmuse @kynthiamoon @adowbaldwin @profoundme444

Part Eight

Summary: Baldwin de Clermont manages to upset an ancient hag. He wakes up.. different.

'Mummy, may I please feed Apollo some fish?' asked Philip.

Diana and Matthew shared a glance. They had known this day was coming, but they didn't have to like it.

'Apollo?' Gerbert and Domenico echoed.

Baldwin sighed and hid his bowl of porridge beneath the table as Diana plastered a cheery smile on her face and nodded.

'Of course darling'

The griffin burst from Philip’s side onto the table, scattering plates and flipping Domenico’s scrambled eggs into his lap. Philip dissolved into a gale of laughter, while Gerbert watched the familiar with a mixture of awe and poorly-disguised greed.

‘AH-AH! Down!’ Diana frowned, sternly pointing her finger towards the floor. Phillip smiled and patted the side of his chair.

‘ ’Pollo, sit!’ the familiar perked up at the sound of its name and leapt across to squat beside its master. Phillip dropped some of his sardines into Apollo’s gaping mouth; the griffon chewed delicately on them, then swallowed.

‘And do you have a familiar?’ Gerbert asked, voice dripping with syrupy sweetness as he turned towards Rebecca. She stared at him over her cereal.

‘A pterodactyl’

Domenico let out a loud snort of derision.

‘Yeah, right’

He glanced Baldwin, then Diana and Matthew, as the silence stretched.

‘..right?’

The snowfall in Sept Tours had been unusually heavy that year. Both the castle and the surrounding village were covered in white, long thin icicles hanging from the edges of roofs and cars being swallowed up by snowdrifts.

The twins had been barred from going outside until Marthe borrowed Apollo and Corra, using them like intelligent flame-throwers to melt the iced-over pathways through the gardens. Now Becca was running around trying to find her bobble hat and gloves; Phillip was hopping awkwardly as he tried to pull on his boots and wrap his scarf around his neck at the same time.

Baldwin would never admit it, but for the last few weeks he had been using Diana as a human weather barometer. If she looked outside in the morning and decided to wear a coat, Baldwin would quietly copy her. 

He didn’t have to today. Marthe had been on a shopping spree, and dropped off a thick black coat, beanie, gloves and scarf. She’d bought similiar items for Gerbert and Domenico as well, although instead of a beanie, Gerbert was sporting a russian-style fur hat with earflaps.

The twins went hurtling out the front door, screaming with delight and launching themselves face-first into the nearest snowdrift. Domenico slipped on the slick pavestones almost immediately, reflexively grabbing the back of Baldwin’s jacket as he fell, dragging Baldwin down with him.

Gerbert chuckled as the two men, cursing loudly, untangled themselves.

‘Be careful; you wouldn’t want to break something would you?’ he smiled. Baldwin ignored him and headed off after the twins, while Domenico paused, a slow grin spreading across his face.

‘Don’t you da-’

‘Oops!’ Domenico spun Gerbert’s wheelchair around and pushed. It sailed forwards a good metre or so before careening wildly off the path and into a mound of snow.

Gerbert let out an indignant scream of fury but it was muffled by a mouthful of ice. Coughing and spluttering, he managed to half-crawl forward on his elbows until he could turn onto his back, facing up towards the sky. Now he just had to get up the energy to flip the wheelchair off him.

‘Oh, that’s disgusting!’ he grimaced as the snow that had slipped down the back of his jacket began to melt. He spread his arms out and tried to wriggle so that the moisture warmed up and evaporated faster.

The ghost of his childhood suddenly giggled in his ear. If he scraped his arms up and down, then-

No. That was idiotic.

...still...

Gerbert craned his head forward. There was no one else around.

If anyone spotted the impressions in the snow he could pass it off as him flailing, trying to push himself up.

He checked again. No one was watching.

Gerbert chuckled quietly to himself, and made a snow angel.

***

In spite of himself, Domenico was actually having a lot of fun.

He had reluctantly, then enthusiastically, helped Phillip make a snowman (Becca and Baldwin’s snowman was three times smaller, but much smoother and compact), then halfway through setting up a tobogganing jump and a small igloo Domenico managed to sneak up behind Baldwin and dump a handful of snow down his back.

The garden would be his grave.

While Baldwin frantically built a miniature Hadrian’s wall, Becca rolled snowball after snowball, reaching cautiously above the barricade to lob them at Domenico and her brother. They were bunkered down in a shallow crater, having forgone proper shielding in order to focus on making ammunition.

‘Slightly to the left Rebecca!’ Gerbert called out. He had wheeled himself to the top of the toboganning jump and was parked there, occasionally shouting advice.

‘SHUT UP OLD MAN!’ Domenico pegged a snowball towards Gerbert; the shot went wide, sailing over Gerbert’s head. He ducked down to avoid a snowball to the face from Baldwin, and whispered in Philip’s ear. The boy nodded enthusiastically, giggling.

There was a loud swooshing noise and Apollo launched into the air, bee-lining towards the other fort.

‘AERIAL ASSAULT!’ Philip and Domenico screamed. Baldwin swore and threw himself over Becca, who looked absolutely furious. Apollo made a noise like a cat being sick, and a volley of snow balls rocketed down, thudding into Baldwin’s back.

Becca, wriggling a hand out from beneath her uncle, aimed carefully. A column of fire suddenly erupted beneath Apollo, lightly singeing its feathers and sending the startled griffin pinwheeling back towards its master, shrieking loudly.

Marthe ambled into view, serenly taking in the chaos before her.

‘Lunch time!’

Gerbert wheeled himself back towards the castle, the twins and Baldwin shoving each other and arguing as they trailed along in his wake. Domenico, staying behind for a moment to pretend to re-tie his shoes, glanced furtively around to make sure no one was watching, lay down on the ground, and gave into the childish urge that had been buzzing around the back of his skull for the last hour and made a snow angel.

****

The tobogganing slope worked well. Really, really well.

Too well.

It had originally been a giant mound of snow, compacted by hand and shovel. There were pockmarks and it crumpled slightly around the edges after each use, but it held itself together.

Then Pip froze it.

Now there was a solid, nearly indestructable toboggan slope-shaped iceberg sitting in the middle of the lawn. Pip had immediately rushed to the top; the speed with which he went whizzing off the end was enough to launch the toboggan into the air and carry him an extra five metres, cackling hysterically.

Baldwin went and fetched the riding helmets.

After that there was no stopping the twins. Becca and Pip pushed themselves off the top of the slope more and more aggresively, while Domenico pushed a series of makeshift treebranch markers into the ground to see who’s toboggan flew the farthest.

Pip even extended the top of the slope so they could get a running start. In hindsight, this was absolutely the moment Baldwin should have put his foot down and been the responsible adult, but he had a two metre lead on Domenico and wasn’t about to let that crawly little git win.

Hence, the snow shoes.

Baldwin strapped the metal spikes to the bottom of his boots, careful not to cut himself. He put his toboggan on the slope in front of him, ground his heels into the ice, and tensed.

‘Ready..’ Becca raised her mittened hand in the air, ‘Set....GO!’

Baldwin sprinted forward, throwing himself onto the toboggan as just as it tipped over the edge. The extra boost of power from the jump caused the toboggan to shoot forward, gathering speed at an alarming rate until it reached the end of the slope and launched into the air.

‘OOF!’ Baldwin gasped as the breath was knocked from his lungs, the toboggan landing hard on a frosted-over patch of ground. Marker after marker whizzed past, the twins chanting and whoops of joy turning into concerned yells as Baldwin overshot the final marker and went careening up and over a hill, straight into the treeline.

Baldwin grit his teeth, cursed, and pulled on the brakes. He missed a rapidly approaching oak but the toboggan flipped, throwing him clear. He went rocketing into a hedge, skidding to a stop on the other side bruised, bleeding, and lying half-buried in a snowdrift, but alive.

‘Ow..’

He flexed his fingers and toes; nothing seemed broken. Relieved, and slightly out of it, he gingerly spread his arms and did a small snow angel to celebrate.

Author’s Notes

- Luna the pterodactyl is not canon in this story. Becca was f**king with her new uncles ^^

- I don’t think familiars in the ADOW universe can breathe elements, but I don’t care

- Marthe and Alain have zoom-lens cameras and absolutely took photos of Gerbert, Domenico and Baldwin making snow angels XD