The Tooth Spirit
Victor was an observant man. His former line of work could be partially to thank, as it took quite a lot of skill to find divergence catalysts in some of the deeper dimensions. The skills he accrued dimension hopping transitioned surprisingly well to fatherhood. Subsequently, he noticed when his daughter was making very slight jaw motions without opening her mouth or making any faces.
"Don't wiggle it, Elle," he said warningly.
"But it's so loose!"
Victor turned away from the kitchen counter and cast his daughter a stern look. She responded by crossing her arms and puffing out one of her cheeks, but after a few moments, she gave up. She walked off and went to plop on the couch, but even at the distance, he could tell that she had resumed wiggling the tooth.
For the fifth night straight, Elle insisted that they have sticky buns. Her father had no illusions about her intentions behind the request, but he finally gave in when she asked three times throughout the course of dinner.
"So you said the tooth fairy will come once my tooth has fallen out?"
"That's right," he said.
He mixed the ingredients for the buns together and kneaded the dough while Elle stirred the glaze. He gave her the simplest task, but he kept a close eye on her and gently reminded her not to touch the sides of the pot. Though he hoped that encouraging her to be safe might distract her from her questioning, it didn't work.
"Exactly what is the tooth fairy?" she asked curiously.
There were some parts of fatherhood that he just wasn't prepared for. He had to think quickly and come up with something plausible enough for Elle to believe. She was eager to believe in things of fantasy, but she had far too many questions about them.
"A spirit," he said matter-of-factly.
She looked unconvinced. "Like a ghost…?"
"No, like the elemental spirits," he said, tough spiritology was far from being his area of expertise. "The ones from the other world."
She nodded slowly, recalling the stories she knew about Rieze Maxia, even if she only knew of it as the other world. "So…the tooth fairy comes the night after I lost my tooth…?"
"But you've got to put it under your pillow," he instructed, "and you have to fall asleep. The tooth fairy won't come if you stay awake."
"What if I wake up?" she asked, kicking her feet under the table. "Will she still come?"
He almost wanted to call the tooth fairy Milla, now that Elle was identifying the entity as a she.
"As long as you go back to sleep right away," he said.
She hovered close to the oven with each batch of cinnamon buns that went in and out of the oven, which made him regret succumbing to her requests even more.
"Elle," he began, trying not to sound too rhetorical as he spoke, "do you only want the cinnamon buns so they pull your tooth out?"
"No!" she said defensively. "I'm just in the mood for them."
"Really?"
"Of course!" she insisted.
He shook his head slightly when she whirled around to peer back inside the oven. When the buns were finally done and they sat down to have dessert after dinner, the sticky glaze did exactly what she hoped it out. She was so elated when the tooth came out stuck in the bun that it took much longer than he would have liked to get her to the bathroom to rinse her mouth out to properly clean the extraction area.
Out of all the childhood holidays that involved secretive gift giving, he quickly realized that this was by far the most difficult. Sneaking presents beneath a tree while Elle slept peacefully was a challenge, but it paled in comparison to entering her room and reaching under her pillow to retrieve the tooth and leave something behind.
When he first crept inside, she stirred almost immediately and he had no choice but to retreat. The second time he tried, he got to her bedside and started to reach under her pillow, but he was nearly certain that she moved slightly, and that was enough reason for him to recoil once again.
The most difficult part of the challenge was waiting a sufficient amount of time between attempts. He ended up doing some quick reading online about sleep cycles – something he probably learned some years ago but forgot – and opted to wait at least forty minutes between attempts that caused her to stir.
The third attempt was his closest; he was able to reach all the way under the pillow, but quickly realized that finding a tiny, tiny baby tooth was going to be far more challenging than he anticipated. He froze when she rolled over, away from him, and didn't dare to move until her breathing returned to normal. He very carefully retracted his hand and slunk out of her room to sulk in the hallway for another forty minutes.
It was two in the morning and his sixth attempt before he had partial success. He finally found the tooth without waking her, which just left the task of depositing the gald. He slipped ten gald under her pillow and tiptoed out of the room (in the most masculine and dignified manner possible) when he started to have second thoughts.
Is ten gald really enough? How much are parents actually supposed to leave?
Am I depriving my daughter?
It is her first tooth…
After deliberating all the way back to his own room, he let out a sigh as he sought out his wallet to get a few more coins for her. He couldn't help but think that Lara would have a good answer on how much was proper to leave, but as she wasn't there, he returned to her room and slipped another five gald beside the first pieces.
It was nearly three when he finally retired to his room for the night, dreading how soon the sun would be coming up. His gaze strayed to the picture he had when Elle was still small and carried in her mother's arms, unable to help but wonder what she would have said if she was still there to see their daughter.
The prompt of Elle losing her first tooth was from MusesofSiren on Tumblr. :D
The troubles of doting dad Victor.
This was supposed to be all cute but then I added some sad lines. Oops.