The air was stuffy and filled with the faint aroma of cleaning fluids. Underneath it lay hostility that was mossy and tangible, seeping in to the corridor with its musty stench and ages of old memories, memories that played like videos beneath the surface. Sparks flew between the boys as if they were motoring off each other. It was a feeling that Tally knew well, the steel of hatred pulsating through you, surrounded by fiery white bolts of affectionate protectiveness towards the other person. The tension in the air vibrated as it surrendered what little yield there was between the twins. They held each other's gaze like fencers, missing only foils. Tally had left hers in her room ready for Thursday. Although she was quite sure some rifles could be found in the clay pigeon club…. 

The state of wariness was rising so fast that she felt she had to intervene, before Nathan repeated her own mistakes and pissed off his brother to the point of…well, the point. Absently she let her eyes flicker over the frames of the three boys by the door to the san on the opposite wall of the corridor. Seb was a terrier; fiercely coiled, the whites of his knuckles facing her and his sharp jaw line jutting up to look at the two taller boys, challenging them. In a sharp and disjointed movement Nik's shoulders straightened, creaking with disuse like an old cupboard, his eyes glistening with emotions that swirled in angry reds as he held his stare. The twins seemed to be communicating wordlessly, and finally Nathan, his shoulders slouched, leaning against the wall sneered and turned to face her. She noted absently that they seemed disconnected.

"I suppose the shrew isn't worth it."

Shifting her weight onto her left foot, Talitha's red lips parted slowly as she contemplated a diversion, "I prefer vixen darling…or is that disdain?" She drawled. "Anyway, before we were so rudely interrupted by Lord Benedick here, we were discussing the use of 'bitch' as a term of endearment," she stepped forward unconsciously onto the ball of her right foot, as a ballerina rolling forward onto pointe, "Indeed, I know a small boy that I had to train out of it… for some reason the babysitter was getting ballsy about the whole debacle."

"Bollocks. Any child would run away from you. They're famous judges of character." Nathan snapped his gaze from his brother slowly, as though it took effort to break the scrutinizing connection between their eyes. He smirked, his eyes studying her angular features carefully.

"Actually my good sir, I hear that the boy, Luca, has been trying to escape the confines of Gloucestershire in order to visit Telos. Well… live here more likely. He spends most of his time in my room anyway. I might have to smuggle him in."

"Yeah, because that would be healthy and not at all mentally disturbing…" Nathan sneered.

"You can't say you don't know what it's like to have a brother you dunce." She snapped her gaze to Nik and caught his eye. Her mouth was frozen like that of a statue, but her eyes sparkled with hidden merriment. After a second he broke the interchange and stepped away from his brother, as if to pace an imaginary path to the other wall.

As he moved slowly like a tired dog, every movement became etched on her retina like dark shadows under tissue paper, clear and yet…undefined.  A note of bewildement entered his tone, "He's your brother?" The tension seemed to be latently dormant underneath new concerns. These seemed to be mainly involved with why Tally would have let a toddler learn how to swear.

"He adopted me. And as a wise leader should I not follow my influences wishes?"

A silence filled the corridor, which echoed only with footsteps against the industrial carpet, it's dusk pink, musty green and grey dots dancing under stilettos and brogues, creating a colour that resembled something a cat had coughed up. "It's odd…I can't quite pin down your reactions." Seb muttered almost silently after a while. Various replies reverberated between them, unspoken. Some involved cussing and accusations, some quality of opponents, and some the amount of caffeine in the bloodstream. After the short silence, filled only with the faintness of breathing and muffled foot falls, Nathan, his voice filled with mixed tones of both regions and emotions, asserted himself stonily.

"I still maintain that any creature with effective means of estimating character would flee, or face violence. Only fools and dogs can stand a bitch." He glared meaningfully at his brother as he walked to heel with him, trying to keep up with his dancing feet. Tally sensed that Nik was unwilling to let this occur. So the carefully concealed tension exposed itself again to Tally.

"Do I gather that, in your imagined majorities, one is enough for you to be satisfied in such a broad generalisation? Because if so, then I acquiesce. Because that would give an actual reason would argue that the bloody prick that accosted me earlier. Idiot appealed to be knocked against a wall by someone with an unlikely sense of chivalry. "

A look that crossed between…hey-only-I-should-get-to-do-that and humour crossed Nathan's face.

"Thinking back he should have at least been given a broken nose." Seb muttered.

"I'm surprised you let others fight your own battles." Nathan glanced at his hand. "I assumed more of a fork wielding madwoman."

"I was just gonna leave it. The guy was full of testosterone and was already wounded by my forgetfulness; I failed to remember to quake at his sex appeal. Besides… there are worthier opponents."

"Are you implying that you stake people you admire?" She didn't know who the question came from.

"No, I'm implying that I impale people who should know better, and leave idiots to do damage to themselves. To be honest, I haven't really met many gallant protectors in a while. It's always nice. Because I would have wanted to deck the guy had I not been wearing my good ring." With that, she glanced down at an irregular and bumpy silver ring. Metal shop. Year….hmm….whenever they let childlings run with soldering irons. For some reason, it always made her want to choke. She mused that she was actually getting used to having those girls around, and that perhaps they should go for a drive… One should always explore new experiences, and the girls weren't idiots like most. Who knew… maybe more. How many people could fit in a bug? As they approached the dining room to pick up coffee she hoped that they would be milling around somewhere.

Funny that. Hope, I mean.