between the houses / family intro

[elijah]

[div style="margin: 0 auto; border-width:0; width: 70%; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; line-height: 1.5; font-size: 9pt;"]His name was Elijah Rosario and the first few months of his life hadn’t been great ones. While he was smothered with love with his family, given lots of care, it was obvious that something was wrong with his heart. Sometimes, it was almost as if it didn’t beat – deathly quiet, hardly alive enough to make a sound. He was a tired boy, energetic in spirit and mind but often exhausted after running around Junji’s home attempting to play tag with his siblings. It was obvious that he was...fragile. For that reason, the child would often sit out, lying around to read fairy tales that showcased princes, magic and dragons. Though it made him lonely, it put dreams in his head. He looked happy. The boy was content with imagining fantasy lands, re-envisioning the world around him, letting the universe evolve into his own playground. In his mind, he was a powerful warlock, master of magic, protector of all things good (because in his mind you were either a force of good or evil, there was no in-between). Armed and ready, Elijah had fought countless nerve-wracking battles between the dark side and the light side, parrying back and forth with his inanimate soft toys. Remarkably, as a child, one could realise the boy was quite isolated despite the ineffable affection his parents gave him. It was likely because, after a while, Elijah begun to realise just how mundane reality was. He found himself far more entertained when exploring the realm of fantasy.

It was that morning that the distracted boy had set up what appeared to be a warzone. He had dolls on one side, dolls on the other, colour-coded to show that they were oppositions. He was getting excited to begin this part of his adventure, hopping on his paws and shuffling his feathery wings in anticipating, imagining the way the battle would ensue. The war was his society versus the other and their goal was to recover Merlin’s magical book, the boy ordering his cavalry to move onwards. “They’ve outnumbered us!” the child would squeak, rolling quickly towards the back of the enemy lines and putting on a deeper voice that he assumed to be what a sinister general sounded like: “Onwards! We will defeat them because we’re evil!” Elijah jumps back to his own rows, puffing his cheeks as if everything was reaching the climax of the battle. The darkfurred boy grins from his seated position, putting a paw over his chest. “They took the bait – unleash the traps!” Nothing could stop him now; his brain was so absorbed in his fun and games. It was usually like this. Even if someone were screaming at his name for help, the words would fall onto deaf ears, strangled and dying out. His selective hearing made things all too difficult to get him to do chores and it was hard to maintain his attention for too long, the kitten becoming quickly bored by the words of whoever was speaking. He had the tendency to be quite rude, ignoring others because his brain wouldn’t stop to hear out their words.

When it came to Junji expecting the children to follow him, Elijah was a little slow to realise everyone had started moving, stick tackling at a teddy bear and biting its arm whilst dramatically ‘struggling’ on his back. He heard the Latin words the angel tended to say, brown ears perking as his baby-blue gaze followed the sound to meet his mother’s form. His nose wriggled curiously, rolling towards his side, cheek squashing against the cold ground. Parum columbas. Mama always called them his little doves. Elijah, with a soft smile across his chubby features, quickly waddles towards his wings, sheltered from the sun when he walked. His own strides were wobbled, not perfectly balanced when he tried to walk through the sand, paws sinking with the unfamiliar texture. His whiskers twitched at the smell of the ocean, the salty crisp air. He wasn’t listening to Junji at all, not hearing a single ounce of it, not even hearing the sound of the Captain’s name. His world was still closed, expansive but unshared because no one seemed to see the same wonders as he did. For the first time, the child had seen the sea. His eyes were wide, sparkling with interest that upon being nudged forward, he immediately broke into a sprint. He was stumbling with his run, baby fat jiggling as he seemed to almost trip onto his face more than once. He fell in love with the look of the sea, stopping in surprise when is paws hit wet sand.

He lowers his head, eyes staring directly at the grainy texture before a tide pulled in. He was pushed back by the force of it, flopping onto his soft belly with a yelp in surprise. Then, when about to get up, the water was being drawn back in that he fell again. ”H-Help!” he cried, getting a mouth full of sand.