Prince or Jester

A knock at her door announced her brother's arrival. He entered afterwards and leaned against the wall with his arms folded in front of him while he took in the sight of his youngest sister sitting on the bed with a drawing pad in her arms. She glanced up and met his pale blue eyes as he came in.

Her brother was what one would normally call attractive and even more so when he was casually dressed in a t-shirt and jeans like now. Much like her older sister, the two of them were commonly fawned over by her classmates for their exceptional looks. His shoulder length dirty blonde hair and those sometimes-icy blue eyes were eye catching. Add in the fact that he was slim, but muscular due to his time at a dojo where he could be fond practicing martial arts, he acquired a noble type of grace in his every movement that could capture one's fantasies. A natural prince charming or white knight.

If he wasn't her older brother, she would probably be star struck by his appearances, much like the college girls who would chase him on campus. Yet she was his sister and more importantly, she knew how much of a sneaky, crafty fox that he truly was at heart.

Still though, she adored him. He was her older brother after all and one of the few people in the world that she respected. Returning her eyes to the sketch that she was finalizing and inking some lines on, she furrowed her brows as she wondered why he had come here.

"So... is that it? What you are going to submit?" he asked as he uncrossed his arms and kicked of the wall as he stepped closer to the bed to look.

"Yes," she softly replied.

Moving so he could look from the side, he remarked, "Another dragon?"

"Yea, the one in my dreams."

"Oh? I don't think I've seen this one before though. It has feathered wings this time?"

Naturally, Jasmine had shared the source of her inspiration with him. He had seen most of her sketches, paintings and drawings as she was growing up and most of them had looked to be European dragons with four legs, two membranous wings, and seemed to be the type you would find mentioned in stories fighting knights.

"I felt that they were right this time."

"You felt they were right? Didn't you see it in your dreams?"

Jasmine shook her head, "No, not this one. It hides." She paused as if she thought of something before continuing, "It is like it doesn't want to be noticed, but sometimes, I feel like we are connected."

At this remark, Ethaniel raised his brows with a little bit of surprise. "Connected? Like, it is you?" he carefully asked.

She shot him a warning look, but then glanced off in thought and then silently nodded before returning to the drawing. It did have a kind of attraction to it and she was speaking the truth when she said it felt connected to her. However, it had been awhile since she had dreamed of this dragon.

"Speaking of dreams, I had an interesting one the other night."

"Oh?" Ethaniel then sat on the edge of her bed and continued, "Feel like sharing?"

She shifted her golden amber eyes up to her inquisitive brother and smiled. "It was about angels!"

Caught off guard by the surprise, he exclaimed, "Eh!?"

Chuckling, she continued, "Yup! Angels. Yet they were a bit different than what I had expected."

"How so?"

"Well, how do you think angels should act?" she said with a playful smile.

Ethaniel ruminated over this a bit before cautiously answering, "If angels are the messengers of God, then they should be... I don't know, holy? Righteous?" He looked to her questioningly.

"That is how you might expect them to act but get this. One of them, Raphael, was rather scandalous and seemed to be more interested in chasing skirts. While Michael was like some hot-headed punk in my dreams."

Ethaniel burst out laughing and asked with a meaningful grin, "So this Raphael... was he as charming as me?"

She scoffed and punched out at her brother. Which he dodged by leaning back while he giggled like some schoolgirl. "How unsightly!" she quipped.

He really was ruining his cool, prince charming image in front of her. How would her classmates react if they saw her brother like this? Then again, how would they ever see him like this as he was always serious, refined and exuded a cold aura of an intellectual when he was on campus. Still, it made her secretly happy that he would jest and play with her like this. It was one of the reasons she would be excited to see him when he was home. For he would treat her like a friend instead of a child who needed to be parented, like how Krystal would often treat her.

"Anyways, I wanted to bring you something," he escaped her reach by getting up from the bed and reached into his jeans pocket. Carefully pulling out a small silken pouch, he tossed it towards her for her to catch.

"What is this?" she asked as she opened it.

"A kind of good luck charm, if you will."

Opening the pouch, she dumped its contents into her hand. The cool, smooth jade hit her palm and she looked it over and notice the phoenix relief carved into one side of the pale green stone.

"It's beautiful," she murmured as she studied the necklace.

He grinned, "I'm glad you like it. I know you like your dragons, but the phoenix is a symbol of rebirth in some cultures and the empress in others."

She barely registered what he had said as she studied the carving carefully. It was a lovely piece and although she had heard about dragons and phoenixes in some literature, she paid little attention to the mythological bird before. However, one word in her brother's comment had caught her attention.

"Rebirth?"

"Mmhmm. The phoenix in Egyptian mythology specifically says that they are immortal and combust into flames to be reborn from the ashes in an eternal cycle," he explained.

Her eyes widened as she replied, "Really?! Why hadn't I known before."

Smiling, he leaned forward and teasingly said, "That's because you don't study enough!"

She scoffed and grabbed one of her pencils off her bed and threw it at him as she yelled, "Go! Get out of here!"

Ethaniel laughed as he dodged to the side and escaped out the door while Jasmine was left grumbling to herself, "Prince? More like a court jester."

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Her mother would arrive later that night and other than visiting her room to wish her goodnight, she didn't say anything before heading straight to bed. Jasmine didn't blame her for she knew her mother was often too exhausted from work to be much of a parent. It was probably for this reason that her older sister would take on the responsibility of acting more like a mother than her actual mother.

Still though, Jasmine wished she could see more of her mother around the house. Thankfully, her dad was around a bit more often and tended to have the weekends off, so it wasn't like she was neglected. However, since her parents worked the kind of jobs that they did, one could more accurately say she had been raised more by her older siblings.

Gifts like the jade phoenix pendant from her brother were not unusual. It was one of the ways that Ethaniel would dote on her, his youngest sister. While the relationship between Krystal and him would be best described as competitive.

As the weekend continued, this sibling rivalry could be seen in how Ethaniel would be asked about his performance at the university campus to have Krystal interject about some academic achievement she had in school. She even announced that she was going to be going on a date and when their father asked her brother about relationships, he shirked away and would claim he was more invested in his studies, much to Krystal's chagrin.

When Jasmine heard this, she couldn't help but think to herself. 'Ethaniel? Date? Ha, that would ruin his image in the campus girls' hearts. They see him as too brilliant to be reachable and even when they come onto him hard, he just dances out of their reach. There is no telling what is on his mind.'

The antics went on and before one knew it, the weekend came to an end. Her brother left home again, and the next school week quickly approached.