The Twilight Twenty-Five
Prompt: Play
Pen name: TRDancer
Pairing: Quil/Claire
Rating: K

"Quilly, can you put Barbie's head back on?" Claire asked, holding up the two broken pieces of her doll.

"Sure, Claire," I replied, taking them from her and snapping the head back on with practiced skill. Claire seemed to have a certain fascination with ripping her dolls heads off—probably because she knew she could always have me put them back on. I handed them back to her with a sigh. "There you go."

"Yay!" she cheered, shoving the doll into the pink convertible next to Ken, who was riding shotgun, and pushing them in circles around and around the room.

I snorted. Only my Claire wouldn't have a problem with Barbie driving with her feet.

After fifteen minutes of Claire's mumblings to herself—telling a story, no doubt—and moving the dolls around to seemingly random places, she came over to me and plunked herself down with a sigh.

"Quilly," she whined, "I'm bored."

"Well, what do you want to do?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then grinned lopsidedly. "Make Quilly a princess!"

"Make Quilly a princess?" I repeated. "Are you sure Claire doesn't want to be a princess?"

"No, Quilly be a pretty princess!" she insisted, grabbing my hand and using all of her five-year-old strength to tug me to my feet and drag me over to what she called her 'beauty parlour'.

Not that I resisted.

I was quite familiar with the pink plastic chair she forced me into. In fact, I was sure I could even apply my own make-up if I wanted.

Five-year-old style make-up, of course.

Claire busied herself pulling out little pots of powder and jars of cream, along with the corresponding brushes. I closed my eyes and waited for her to command me to open them again.

Three million cold smacks of cream and three times the amount of powder later, Claire chirped, "Quilly's pretty!"

I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror. The skin on my face was at least five shades too light for the rest of me and accented by pink powder scattered all over. My eyes were every colour of the rainbow mixed together, making a sort of muddy brown colour in the middle, and my lips were a bright fuchsia.

I was pretty hideous.

But the look on Claire's face made up for all of that. She was smiling as if there were no tomorrow, her eyes sparkling as she looked hopefully up at me. I couldn't help but smile back at her. What I wouldn't do for this kid, I thought.

"What do you think, Quilly?" she squealed excitedly.

"I think," I replied, swinging her up onto my lap and making her shriek happily, "that you are the best make-up artist ever and that I am the most beautiful princess this earth has ever seen."

Claire beamed.

"You know what else I think?" I asked mischievously.

"What?"

"That someone that creates such perfection as this deserves some cake."

"CAKE!" she screeched. I laughed.

"How about we go downstairs and get some from your aunt? I'm sure she'd love to see your creation."

She nodded solemnly and I stood up, still holding her, and carried her down the stairs.

"Hey, Emily, is that cake done baking yet?" I called out as we walked into the kitchen.

"I just took it out. You guys ready to eat it, then?" she asked, her back turned to us as she pulled something out of the fridge.

"We sure are," I replied.

"Well, you're—holy Jesus!" Emily jumped, almost dropping what I saw now was a frosting container. She regained her composure and smiled. "Wow, Quil. You look... great."

"Quilly's a princess," Claire piped up.

"Is he now, precious?" Emily asked. Claire nodded solemnly.

"Hey, Claire, want to sit in one of the chairs and wait for your cake?" I asked. She nodded and I put her down in the closest one before turning back to Emily, who was now barely suppressing her laughter.

"You let her do this to you again?" she whispered.

I shrugged. "It makes her happy. Just don't tell Jacob, he'll—"

"Don't tell me what?" a familiar voice asked from behind me.

I cringed and then slowly turned around. "Oh... um, hey, Jake."

"Hey, Qui—oh. Oh." And with that, Jacob burst out laughing.

I sighed. "You're lucky I love you, Claire, kid," I muttered, ruffling her hair.

"Quilly's a pretty princess!" she insisted again, smiling up at me.

Emily's frosting container fell to the ground as she joined in with Jacob's laughter.

Review, please. :)