The rain pounded loudly against the roof of their small house, interspersed with brief flashes of lightning and the boom of thunder.
From her place before the front screen door, Miku heard a small whimper from the bedroom of the house's other occupant. With a concerned frown, she softly shut the front door, turned on her heel, and walked quickly down the hall. Pushing the door open, she didn't hesitate as she made her way towards the blanket covered lump on the bed.
"Rin-chan," she sang softly, "Mama's here now. The storm can't hurt you, see? You're safe."
With a sniffle, Rin peeked out from under the blanket.
"Promise, mama?"
Miku nodded with a hum.
"Mhm. Do you wanna watch a movie with me till the storm passes?"
Rin nodded with a small murmur of agreement.
"Okay. You go sit on the couch and I'll be out in juuust a minute, okay?"
Another sniffle. "Okay, mama."
Rin crawled out of her bed, still dressed in her favorite orange patterned footie pajamas, and dragged her feet out the door. Miku picked up her discarded pink blanket and grabbed the blue pacifier that'd fallen out of it. As an afterthought, she grabbed her Little's white stuffed rabbit, too, just in case she decided she wanted it. Rin always regressed a little farther back than normal when she was scared, and turned to the bunny, Shicchan, for comfort.
Miku exited the room and returned to the living room, where Rin was huddled in the corner of the couch with her hands over her ears.
"M-mama..." she whimpered, "R-Rin-chan's s-scared...!"
Quickly, Miku rushed to her and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. "Ssshh, it's alright, Rin-chan. Look! Mama's gonna put on Hello Kitty-chan! Rin-chan likes Hello Kitty-chan, ne?"
Rin sniffled, bringing her hands down to pull the blanket tighter around herself. "Mhm..."
"And! And Mama brought your binky, and Shicchan, too!" Miku announced with a grin. She held the plush rabbit up so it was covering her face and went into her falsetto.
"No more being scared Rin-chan! Shicchan says 'be happy'! Mama will keep Rin-chan safe, and Shicchan, too!"
With a smile, Rin held out her arms. Pleased with herself, Miku placed the bunny into them and then held out the pacifier in offering. The blonde opened her mouth and let her pop it in. The tealette turned the TV on and then the DVD player, remembering at the last moment that Hello Kitty's Animation Theatre was already in there from earlier that day. With nothing left to do now but wait, she sat down on the couch and wrapped an arm around Rin as the blonde curled up into her side.
"Watashi-tachi no umareru, zutto zutto mae kara..."
OoO
"Mukashi mukashi, aru tokoro ni..."
Rin had fallen asleep at the beginning of Hello Kitty's rendition of Kaguya-hime (their favorite out of all of them) and Miku was surprised she'd lasted so long. With a yawn, Miku looked up at the clock mounted on the wall and noted that it read approximately 2:05am.
More importantly, though, the storm had passed while she and her Little girl were immersed in the mostly G-rated fairy tale antics of Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel (though she always forgot about the ending to Shiroyuki-hime. Seriously, being forced to wear literally red-hot shoes for the rest of her life? No thank you!) which in turn meant that Rin could sleep on her own now.
And Miku knew she could easily carry her to her own bed- Rin was naturally a smaller, lighter girl and Miku herself was pretty fit.
But did she want to?
No. Not particularly.
Because even if they were both adults, Rin-chan deserved the happy childhood she was deprived, especially when that meant warm nights curled up next to her Mama.
So instead, Miku grabbed her android phone off the armrest and used it to snap a quick pic of her Little's adorable sleeping face, then laid back for a good rest herself.