"Little Miss Muffet" Bryce Cousland looked down upon his youngest daughter as she giggled in anticipation.
"Sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey;" Elissa sat facing her father on his knee he began to skitter his hand up her arm and she sucked in her cheeks in her attempts to hold her tongue under her fathers glinting eyes
"Along came a spider," his hand transformed into a rudimentary spider as he incorporated the puppetry into the rhyme, the spider now hanging between them. His daughters eyes shining with the same mischievous glint as her fathers.
"And sat down beside her..." His progeny jumped in excitement as she recognised her cue.
"And she said "Begone hairy legs!"" Elissa bouncing on his knee her hands changed from spiders to come up and tickle the laughing child who was now wriggling in joy as they sat in the corner of the castle study.
They cared little as the door of the study opened revealing Nan as she came to collect the giggling mess.
"I do wish your grace would not fill her head with such unladylike language, or get her quiet so excited before she is to be put to bed." Nan always had a slightly abbrasive candor. No matter who in the family she was talking to and the Teryn took her warning in good humour.
"My dear woman, if it was an easy job we would be able to get anyone to do it, but instead we need someone of your moral fiber." He smirked again at his daughter as he lifted her cuddling her quickly before placing her in the waiting arms of the her nanny. Who did nothing more than snort in response to her employers retort.
"Time for bed young mistress. Bid his Grace good night."
"Good night father." She suppressed another laugh as her father's hand once again transformed into the spider.
"Good night pup, sweet dreams." he kissed his daughters forehead before she was taken from the study by her minder.
Elissa was seen as a child of good temperament, by those in the castle. As much as Nan chided the child, she, like the rest of the family was always a polite and dutiful, rarely misbehaving. At least not intentionally.
To Nan's eternal exasperation her natural curiosity meant that while she could not be described as naughty she had a certain knack for finding and doing things that while off limits had no express rules forbidding them. Fergus had never been this much trouble, as soon as the boy had been given his first sword he could always be found with the knights bothering them for extra lessons and pointers. Elissa would go missing for hours on end only to be found by one of the servants sleeping in a box behind three locked doors with no clear passage in. At but 4 years of age she was brought home by one of the knights who had found her wandering the town square intently watching the locals in the market after she had made her way into a wagon heading there from the castle simply to see where it went.
Nan had suggested leashing the child to prevent such misadventures and while her mother seemed for a second to give it serious thought her father had laughed harder than he had in a long time.
"Leash her? You may as well leash a Mabari pup! Besides a pup will never stray far from its mother, she always finds her way back." He continued to laugh quietly about the suggestion for a few days and took to calling his young daughter Pup.
"Husband you have your son, why must you insist upon turning our daughter into another?" Eleanor tutted, scooping up the girl who had again been returned to them, covered in mud after discovering the joy of wallowing in the pig pen on a fresh spring day.
Fergus was grinning as his mother rebuked his younger sister who simply smiled up at her mother unfazed by the commotion she had again caused.
"Of course she would never say so but this has your handiwork all over it young master Fergus" Fergus blushed a little as his father watched his face.
"Father whatever do you mean?" Fergus was four years older than his sister and although he would never do anything to harm his younger sibling he had a way of telling her facts which to her became ideas. Today's was that pigs covered themselves in mud to combat the heat. To the young Elissa it was a concept that was so ludicrous it had to be tested.
"I'm sure you do not. I think that you too can make your way upstairs. A bath would not go astray." Fergus simply smiled at his father before following his mother and sister out of the dining room. This was going to eat into his training time was all he could think to himself.