Empires of Saturn, Part One

Chapter 8, Friendship Circle

Chpt. 8 Friendship Circle

Laying in his bed, propped up slightly against a pile of pillows, Crassel was looking out of the window in his room, giving him a view level with the ground outside underneath the overhanging deck a floor up, a small, scrubby plant bed beneath with mulch all around the scraggly weeds his mother called landscaping.

He was down here to avoid his parents, who were currently upstairs fighting, so it seemed, as them seemed to often do. Not even dressed for the day yet, he was down here without a care in the world, for the moment at least. He looked at all the random things he had in his room, just to see if there was anything stimulating.

A bookshelf with tons of books he'd never read on it, a light blue beanbag chair which he'd stolen from Castor as a prank and hadn't given back since he evidently didn't want it, a desk Andrew Quinterion and Courus had made for him, with a chair he'd taken from upstairs and a lamp Proxima had given him to go with it, an old, nice dresser from his dead grandmother, a nightstand with a smaller lamp on it, along with some trinkets of his, and then his bed, which had been rebuilt twice now, as they never seemed to do it properly and it kept breaking.

His ceiling fan was flat, plain, and boring, with nothing interesting about it at all, but he supposed some of the pictures he had in here were nice, and a blue rug, so there was still that. He had a painting of Earth and Luna as seen from space, a real photo one of his old classmates had taken of him and several of his friends which was a really good picture, and probably Crassel's favorite, a drawing of him and Proxima holding hands while walking down a sidewalk at the edge of Crown, right on the border of the ocean. Castor had taken a picture of them right after they'd gotten engaged, and Courus had promptly drawn it with incredible skill.

Crassel was a somewhat decent artist himself, having been taught by Castor, but neither of them were even close to Courus, who seemed to have the natural talent for historical level sketching. Granted he was a fantastic painter too; he just did it less since it was messier.

Currently, he was debating between getting out of bed to go get something to eat, but risk getting involved in his parents' arguing, or staying here and waiting for something to happen, whenever it may be. He had slept in, to some extent, though mostly he just hadn't gotten out of bed yet, despite being awake for hours, but either way he suspected Castor would be around soon.

Suddenly he heard a loud gasp from his mother and the sound of ceramics breaking upstairs, jolting him upright. He quickly grabbed the blankets to throw them out of his way, but he hesitated, hearing laughing now. Not hysterical, maddened laughter, but actual, deeply embarrassed, amused laughter, from his mother, yet again.

Crassel looked up at the ceiling with a puzzled expression, wondering if he should go up or not, but he decided simply not to, since their fighting had abruptly ceased, and he was still hearing both of them, meaning neither had just committed murder or anything. Shaking his head, Crassel reached over to his nightstand and picked up his phone, looking at it.

A message from Courus from a little while ago: I hope you like feathers. Come to Centauri's house sometime.

A message from Proxima from this morning: Don't ever let Courus or Alpha use your coffee brewer. Just don't do it.

A message from Castor about an hour ago: Hey bud. You up yet?

Something about those three made Crassel smirk, so he decided he may as well respond now.

To Courus: Sounds fun. Did he get a new bird?

To Proxima: Dually noted. Don't ever let them use your blender either. Lids are important.