Ha ha ha, yeah, I don't know. (But on the other hand - what the! I'm posting a second thing? Only week after I posted something else?! Since when does that happen?)
untitled
by Bryony
Blessed silence.
Zechs let out a sigh and glanced down at his feet, where two small girls were industriously working on removing his shoes and socks. Marguerite looked back at him with a small smile that, to the untrained eye, appeared completely guileless. By now, he knew better. Penelope, the younger, was focusing her full concentration on his laces, her stubby fingers not quite dexterous enough to manage them with ease. Such angelic names for such little monsters, he thought sadly, not for the first time. They were good Peacecraft names, both of them, taken from his great aunt and grandmother. But now…defamed. The good women would be turning in their graves, surely, to see what had become of their namesakes; their legacy.
"First we're going to paint your toes," Marguerite announced.
"Fine."
He would agree to almost anything if it meant extending his moment of peace. This, apparently, was the only thing these girls could agree on, cooperate over, ever. All else brought screaming fits, or fist fights that he would be called upon to intervene in and put right. It made his head spin and pound, the perpetual shrill of high pitched voices.
He reached, finally, for his book. Let them do as they would to him.
Perhaps, after all, he should have gone with Noin. She had left him there at his own insistence, having declared that this parent-teacher meeting required the presence of at least one of them. He himself didn't see the point, after she had convinced him to attend one earlier in the year. What more could there possibly be to say about a six year old's progress with drawing unicorns?
Marguerite was obsessed with unicorns: he was familiar enough with her habits to know that without further input from her teacher. One had to know their enemy, after all. It was the most basic battle strategy, almost the first thing they were taught at Lake Victoria. When her lessons began to contain things of importance, like the philosophies of Kant or Nietzsche, or even basic calculus, then perhaps Zechs could begin to take an interest in what her teachers had to say about her aptitudes.
And if he had chosen to go, it would have meant accepting Mariemaia as their babysitter. Paying her. A teenage girl whom they had once fought to overthrow. Treize Khushrenada's daughter. He took no issue with Une choosing to raise her on her own, of course, but he had no intention of inviting her bad influence over his own heirs.
Frankly, they were corrupt enough already.
He had begun, almost, to relax when tiny Penelope flung down the marker she was wielding in her grubby paw and declared, "I want to play hairdresser." He might have cringed if he were a lesser man.
It was their favorite game, these creatures which had somehow sprung forth into being from his loins. And he was their favorite subject. It should not surprise him that it should be so, he supposed, being as he was the only one in the household with hair that reached past his shoulder blades, but it was nearly too much to endure. But refusal now would only bring a return to chaos.
"Fine," he said again, reaching deep into his well of patience, and they scurried off to collect their instruments of torture.
He meanwhile examined the damage that had been inflicted on his feet.
The girls did not have access to real nail polish, for which he should be grateful, really. His nails had instead been colored in with red and purple marker, the scribbled patterns extending up his feet and back around his ankles. It could be worse, he decided. He could accept this, scrub it off later on, after they were finally - finally - asleep.
They returned then, the girls, his daughters, and laid out the various implements they had brought back with them. Hairbrushes. Combs. Scrunchies in every imaginable size and color. Barrettes, the same. A pair of scissors, which Marguerite held up with barbaric delight.
"No," he said, pointing at the offending item in clear warning.
"Daddy," she protested sweetly, the word grating against his already raw nerves.
Noin had taught them that one.
Why, he wondered, couldn't they refer to him using something with a bit more dignity. Father or - at the very least - Papa?
"We need them," Marguerite continued, her voice lilting upwards into an ominous whine, "to be like in a real salon." Beside her, Penelope pouted up at him, too, her lips forming a perfect, tremulous Cupid's bow. He would not be fooled.
"No," he repeated even more sternly, glaring them into submission. The scissors reluctantly disappeared from sight. Better. He could still assert himself when it truly mattered, at least. He hadn't been entirely unmanned by these small invaders to his peaceful home. He settled backwards and allowed them to once again do as they would, ignoring as best he could the feel of their sharp little hands and feet digging into his tender flesh as they climbed and crawled all over him to get access to his face and hair. Quiet giggling and muttering punctuated the quiet, but he maintained his focus on his book through sheer determination, moving it back and forth from hand to hand as one eye or the other became blocked by an insistent hand or face as they poked and yanked him back and forth.
All in all, he thought it was going rather well, until he heard it, unmistakable in the quiet of the room.
Snip.
At the same time, a sudden weight seemed to disappear from his head.
No. Oh, no.
He surged to his feet in horror, carelessly tumbling two tiny bodies back onto the cushions of the sofa. "What did you do," he hissed at Marguerite, who looked back at him with deceitful innocence. Deceitful, yes, for he could plainly see one of her hands clutching the forbidden pair of scissors, and in the other…
In the other, a sorry clump of platinum blond hair.
Her lower lip began to wobble, but he would not - could not - be moved.
He had wanted to employ a full time governess to instill in his children the same discipline with which he had been brought up. Noin had protested, and he had obliged her, and now this - this was the result.
"You look pretty, daddy," Penelope piped up. His own child - making a mockery him.
He bit back his cruel reply and reminded himself that he would never strike a child, especially his own. He had a solemn duty to uphold, and uphold it he would, right to the bitter end. He strode to the nearest mirror to survey the damage with his own two eyes.
It was as bad as he feared.
They had been into Noin's makeup, for a start, and there was poorly applied blue eyeshadow streaking half his face, as well as a smeary red smile. And then, the glitter. Everywhere. But the worst of it was undeniable. Undeniable, and unfixable. A missing hank of hair just over his right temple. The rest of it had been artlessly teased into a tangled, unruly mess, half up, half hanging limp and bedraggled. But none of it could hide the missing clump. He might as well have been stabbed and left for dead.
Behind him, the blood traitors giggled again, remorseless.
He had cradled each of them in his arms after they'd been born.
He - he hadn't even wanted children; it was Noin who had suggested, shyly, that maybe it was time they stopped using birth control. He had agreed because it was high time he did something that would make her happy, and because he had known that this would have been the expectation of his forebears: that he continue the family line, the Peacecraft lineage. And then when Noin's belly had eventually begun to swell and grow, so had his dread.
But he had done his duty to his family and to Noin, and he had held these squalling creatures in his arms, and helped prepare their meals, and watched over them whilst they slept; had overseen their many - too many - bodily functions; had sheltered them, clothed them, protected them from harm, had carried out every paternal duty. He had looked these tiny things in the eye day after day and told himself, these are my children, had looked for the joy and the love and every feeling that was expected of him. And now, this. The last vestige of his dignity, stripped away at the hands of these girls who, try as he might to find it in them, instill it in them, seemed possessed of no civility, no respect for authority or heritage, no respect for him.
In truth, he couldn't even see himself in them. Their eyes were both Noin's. And their hair, though blonde, was darker than his, more like Relena's than his own. He could discern nothing of his own sharp features in their round faces. Would it have been different if one of them had been a son? At times he was grateful for their unfamiliarity, but tonight, in this moment, it meant that the alienation he felt from them was complete; almost profound.
It was with cold satisfaction, then, that he loomed over them and spoke words designed to strike fear into their hearts:
"Just wait until your mother gets home."