Disclaimers and other miscellany: If it's a proper noun and in this story, it is not mine -- hey, even if it isn't a proper noun I probably don't own it! Unless you have an interest in my DVD collection or my collection of used chemistry textbooks, don't sue me. This story takes place when Valgaav is physically about four years old and is a semi-sequel to "M is for Mace, N is for Namagomi", although no knowledge of that story is required to appreciate this one. Last but not least, thanks to my sister Elysia Erianthe for giving me ideas!
Rated PG for crimes against pottery, pyromania, and little Valgaav's obsession with biting.
The Many Melodies of Destruction
by Viviane Latour
"...Happy birthday to Valgaav, happy birthday to you!" Filia sang. "Now make a wish!"
Wish? Bah. To little Valgaav, candles were much more fun.
"VALGAAV! Put those down! You are going to destroy my counter!" He looked up from his wax-melting fun just in time to see Filia snatch the pair of candles from his hands and stick them back on his cake.
"Now, blow them out."
Blow out his wonderful candles? Why would he do that? Valgaav liked fire! He grinned as a delightfully fiendish idea came into his head. He remembered a time when that blonde friend of Filia's singed the ends of his hair and his easily-agitated redheaded companion had bopped him over the head for it... He grinned angelically.
One singed golden dragon coughed as the aroma of charred birthday cake filled the air. He continued to smile as if the top of his birthday cake wasn't still on fire.
"Valgaav," Filia grunted as she alternately dumped tea on the flaming dessert and pounded the flames with her mace, "I don't care if you are the last of the ancient dragons, if you ever pull a stunt like that again, you will be coughing up smoke for the rest of your life!"
Valgaav raised an eyebrow for a millisecond in response, quickly thought about how she would go about carrying out this threat, decided that his incisors were sharp enough to be adequate self-defense, and carried out the crowning glory of his trick: he slapped the figure closest to his tall stool, which promptly grunted in mild discomfort. Unfortunately for the figure, Filia recognized his grunt and he suddenly found himself being escorted outside at mace-point as she mumbled something about trash needing to stay outside or something to that effect; Valgaav was too busy snarling to pay much attention to what she was saying.
As Filia attempted to pound the visitor into the ground outside, Valgaav grabbed his gift off the counter from beside the smoldering mush that remained of his cake. Aside from being slightly charred and splattered with that tea-cake-ash conglomeration, the plain wooden box with "My First Mace" painted in bright blue letters on top was none the worse for wear. He considered for a moment how to open it. He could use his nails, they were extra-sharp today because he had successfully evaded Filia's trim-and-file sessions for a week now, but there was the problem of splinters. He could always burn it open, but that smelled bad, and the cake odor was beginning to give him a bit of a headache. He had one last option, which he considered for a moment, and then quickly set to work upon.
He spit an iron nail onto the floor. Unlike wood, those things tasted disgusting. But nails or no nails, his beautiful new mace was freed from its organic trappings, and so, giant magnifying glass in hand, he proceeded to inspect his new toy. He hefted it -- it was of a nice weight, tapped it -- solid iron of a very high quality, and checked the spikes on the end -- unfortunately, they were rounded for children's use. How was he supposed to learn the finer points of mazoku beating without a properly spiked mace? Oh well, it was only a matter of time before he graduated to an intermediate mace and he could refine his skills then, he figured. But for now, this was a very nice mace despite the conspicuous lack of sharp points. Only one thing remained for him to do with his already-cherished gift: try it out.
Valgaav stood in the middle of the showroom and thought for a moment. There was just so much in this room that was out of his mace's reach or required it to be spiked to be able to cause a respectable amount of damage. He thought of his favorite bashable toy -- a contraption with keys and a mallet that Filia had referred to as a xylophone -- and an idea came to him. He looked around the room again and saw hundreds of different xylophone keys lining the walls, begging to be bashed with his mace: keys of every imaginable size and shape and even color that he could make beautiful melodies with! He raised his mace and began to swat.
CRASH! SMASH! TINKLE!
What wonderful sounds these were!
CLATTER! SHATTER! JINGLE!
Even fire cannot compare to the joys of this!
CLINK! CLANK! CLUNK!
Oops, knocked a mace off the shelf...
C! D! E! F#!
He would write it down if only he knew how to write music!
G! A! B! C!
Rats! He was out of xylophone keys!
"VALGAAV! You have a secret death wish, don't you?" Filia bellowed over the miscellaneous small tinkles that still echoed in the showroom. Valgaav promptly returned from his reverie to find himself surrounded by pottery... pieces? He really was a dead little dragon this time. He began to wail as Filia dragged him from the room by his ear.