Nodding Off (Private; Atlas and Beyril)

Ezra raised an eyebrow at her, a slight smirk curling the edge of his mouth. "It makes life a little more interesting. And it makes me a hell of a storyteller."

"And if anyone has stories, it's Ezra," Harrison intoned, his own lips breaking into a grin. "He's gotten into more messes than I can count and he's dragged me into several of them."

"Like the incident with the obstacle course at summer camp," Ezra snorted, his laughter devolving into near-tears. The laugh was infectious and Harrison was soon laughing with him, leaving each brother in hysterics.

Addy grinned, "I'm interested now. I'll trade you. One of mine for one of yours?"

Ezra nodded to Harrison, leaning in as the meister cleared his section of the table. "Every year, from the time we were 8 until we were 14, Ezra and I were sent to a summer camp in Washington. It would run about two weeks and had the typical summer camp activities: swimming, tetherball, hiking, the like."

"One of the options," Ezra continued, "was an obstacle course. Rope swings, rope ladders, all of that nonsense. We broke off into teams to navigate the course. Naturally, Harrison and I operated as a pair. It started just fine, but uh..."

"It ended in chaos," Harrison said ruefully. "Ezra and I didn't make many friends during our childhood. Contrarily, we made several enemies, usually because Ezra started trouble and I would fight to dig him out of it. This time was no different. Some kids decided to push and we pushed back."

"Grand total was two black eyes, a sprained shoulder, and one kid hanging by his ankle from the rope swing," Ezra muttered. "That was a new record for us."

Addy smirked, patting Harrison's shoulder in a sort of, "I'll get back to that later" and sitting back down. "I don't think I've really ever picked fights with anything that wasn't a witch." she mused, propping her feet back up, "I've not ever really had friends myself though. My dad and I moved around a lot, after, ah... After mom." she looked down at her toes while she spoke, telling the story out into the open rather than to any one of them, "And I got in trouble a lot. I'd just get mad at nothing. And what with the whole... magicking thing, I didn't have to touch anyone to hurt them. Which no one in public schools understood. This one kid, when I was in fourth grade, used to pull on my hair a lot. I had pigtails then. He used to tease me because my parents never came to parent-teacher meetings, or he'd steal my books and hide them." she smirked, looking back up at the brothers, "So I lit his desk on fire. We came here after that."

"Who do I know that would do something like that?" Harrison mused, his eyes alight with amusement as they swiveled to find Ezra.

"I wouldn't have set his desk on fire," the weapon retorted defiantly, leaning over his plate and hastily stuffing a forkful of chicken into his mouth. "I would have shet him on fire." He hesitated, chewing slowly. "Ish, uh... gulp ...it's not easy being ostracised. Having a difficult social life and home life is tough shit. We would know. Somewhere down the line, though, you find people you can tolerate. Maybe even people you like. Cling to them. Seriously, you do not let those people go." Somewhere in the speech, the weapon's eyes hard darkened, his gaze burning with a passion to match his words and a hint of pleading beneath even that.

"Ezra is a right pain in the ass," Harrison intoned, toying with his pasta absentmindedly. "But when it would hit the fan, he was all I had. You need people to fall back on."

Addy shrugged, "It's always kinda just been me." she tapped the side of her head with her index finger, looking down at her empty plate and picking up the scattered bits that had fallen out of her taco, "Dad's not quite been there for a while, if you know what I mean. I manage well enough."

"Neither has Ezra," Harrison quipped, leaning to nudge the weapon with his shoulder. Ezra shot him a scowl, but it quickly gave way to a grin as he pulled his drink to him.

"Having people does have its benefits, occasionally," the younger brother admitted, trailing his fork through the bed of rice on his plate. "Being independent is lovely, but having someone take some of the weight off of your shoulders every once in a while is a much-needed relief. I know how to tend to bills and such, but Harrison is so prone to initiative that I rarely have to deal with them. I can't protest that."

Addy laughed, "That's really all dad does anymore. Just the technical stuff." she slid her plate to the middle of the table, "The mend holding good so far?"

"It's doing well enough," Harrison admitted, raising one hand to trace along the seam of his shirt, fingers carefully tracing the stitching beneath it. "I had some help getting it sewn up...the burn is my primary concern now." His eyes had fixated on his brother before the words had even left his lips, brows furrowed in a tight glare.

Ezra peered up at him, cheeks full of food, fork already poised for another scoop. "W-what?"

"You burned the absolute piss out of my shoulder," Harrison noted sternly. He had set his fork to one side and was popping his knuckles one by one, shrugging to look away.

"I made a judgment call and you are now suffering from a burn instead of gangrene," the weapon said simply, sipping his drink with deliberate apathy. "You're welcome."

Addy smirked, looking over to Ezra, "And the coat?"

Ezra's brows furrowed, his lips setting into a thin line. "A casualty of my brother's negligence," he said with a slight edge to his voice. "And you fixed it, which I will continue to thank you for. I feel more than a bit naked without it."

Addy grinned a bit, raising a brow in a hybrid joke and suggestion, "Then I wonder how you'd feel naked. Or would you still wear the jacket with your birthday suit?"

Ezra rolled his eyes, flicking a stray grain of rice across the table. "Okay, Technical Terry. I don't feel naked without it, but my outfit feels...incomplete if I'm not wearing it."

"That jacket isn't the type of leather he's into in a birthday suit setting," Harrison murmured under his breath, ducking left lazily to avoid the lump of rice careening past his head. The mushy ball struck the shoulder of a nearby meister, scattering the grains like debris that showered over the table. Ezra hastily dropped his spoon into his bag, digging for a book with feigned determination.

Addy quickly covered her mouth with her hand to muffle a laugh as the meister who had been struck wheeled around on their feet to look at the table, an angry setting to their brow as they looked at Harrison, "What was that for, asshole?!"

"Hm," Harrison snorted, turning to face the seething meister with a detached curiosity. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. My brother said you hadn't gotten your servings of grain in for the day and he's very proactive about civil service." He shrugged innocently and nodded to Ezra, who rose from his backpack with a nervous grin.

"If it's all the same to you, we can forget about the grain," the weapon intoned, raising his hands in mock surrender. "But you're still not allowed to leave the table until you eat your vegetables."

The meister immediately took a swing at Ezra, Addy falling back up onto the floor and scrambling to her feet.

Ezra ducked away from the punch, staggering from his seat to the cold, tile floor. A low growl escaped him as he righted himself, dropping into a low stance before lunging at his attacker. His shoulder slammed hard into the meister's gut, arms wrapping around his torso as Ezra lifted him off the ground completely before slamming them both down onto the table.

"Addy, stay back," Harrison intoned, stepping to place himself between her and the skirmish. "He can handle this."

Ezra groaned as the meister spun with him, sending the tangled pair to the floor with his aggressor straddling him. Heavy fists rained down on him in rapid succession, sending blood to the tile. Desperately, he threw one hand forward, catching the next punch in his palm.

"Yeah," Ezra hissed through gritted teeth and bleeding lips. "I've got this locked down."

Addy raised a brow, "We could stop this in like two seconds." she offered him her hand, "A frozen meister is a meister who can't beat the shit out of your brother." she proposed, side-eyeing Ezra with concern.

Harrison furrowed his brows, a beat passing before he nodded in reluctant compliance. "He hates when I meddle, but he'd have less of a winning record without me." He extended a hand, gripping Addy's with firm delicacy. "Let's get this over with."

Addy didn't waste a second, the elegant white staff forming in his hands, geometric cage forming around the lightning opal at it's core. The cool smooth birchwood at the handle sent chills along the skin, a moment frozen in time for a brief second as the sound of another punch meeting flesh broke the spell of it.

Harrison wasted no time admiring the familiar elegance of the staff, whipping it in a wide arc and scattering tendrils of glimmering mist towards the meister. The fog reached to the pair with sentient purpose, spreading into a thick haze between Ezra and his attacker, who was rearing back for another punch. A white-hot flash blurred the scene as the blow descended, blinding Harrison to the scene. Groaning, he blinked the world back into focus.

"What the hell is this," the meister spat, pulling at a thick sheet of ice in which his arm was encased. His punch had passed through the mist right as it froze, locking his forearm in the crude wall as a white-knuckled fist trembled inches from Ezra's bloody face. "Release me or you're next when I'm out."

"I don't suspect you'll be out anytime soon," Harrison retorted simply. "Not unless you plan to breathe on that ice and thaw it manually."

Addy sent a slight spark up Harrison's arm, "I could always amplify that if you want." she teased, almost as though she were seducing him, a slight lilt in her voice, coy and knowing of her own capabilities, "You've got more than just ice with me around."

Lightning, huh? As much as I foresee myself enjoying that, I would say that we've handled th-

"Oi!" A voice called from across the cafeteria. Harrison rounded to find the source, eyes settling on a lean, young woman standing at the far end of the hall. Her hair fell in lazy auburn waves, though her eyes were surveying the scene with cold calculation. "T'hell do you think you're doing with my partner?"

"I was teaching him how to punch," Ezra mumbled through busted lips, a defiant sneer still etched into his face. "As you can see, he's getting the hang of it."

It's about to get more interesting, if you'd like to just keep it on the backburner. She remarked, sarcasm even evident in the telepathic communication they shared while she was shifted.

"I've got it, Julia," the meister hissed, though even he was nursing a bruise under one eye. "I can-"

"Yeah, yeah, you have it handled, I'm sure," she barked, striding intently to kneel beside him. "Honestly, Marco, you'd pick a fight with your own reflection if you thought it looked at you wrong." She sighed, shaking her head in obvious disapproval. "Let him go," Julia ordered, standing tall to round on Harrison.

"That's my brother he picked a fight with," Harrison said tersely. "When he agrees to a cease fire, I'll thaw the ice."

"It wasn't a suggestion, poindexter," Julia hissed, her eyes flashing a dull, metallic sheen. "That is my partner frozen into an ice block. I need him to work effectively and, as such, he is an investment...one that you are jeopardising."