Out of a pink and mint green fluffed room erupted a squealing, half-dressed two year old playing a perfect game of Catch Me If You Can.
She dove behind a couch arm, keeping low and peeking from the side. One bright blue eye taking in her surroundings with surprising perception. She didn't understand why, but she felt him before she actually saw him. A wiley beast from the air, he came to pounce, but like a gauzy sprite, she darted towards the kitchen in a zigzag escape pattern, another fury of squeals bubbling over uncontrollably.
She rounded the corner and slipped through the door with as little fanfare as she could muster, slipping amongst the cabinetry. Her grisly attacker burst through the swinging double doors exhaling a disgruntled growl.
He stalked up to the refrigerator poking around at it's contents before securing it's premises. Closing the door with an airtight slap, the predator began rapping on each cabinet. Not long after he started, the soft whine of a door caught his attention, but he did not look. He continued rapping on cabinets, quickly opening some, and spying, from the corner of his eye, on the farthest sink cupboard closest to the door. Each time he looked, a single eye would disappear back behind the cabinet door. When he was at the opposite end of the kitchen, she crept out as he rapped extra loudly, adamantly keeping her focus on her chaser and slowly closing the door again.
She mad dashed into the dining room, her follower snapping his attention towards the kitchen door. Pursuer gave chase into the soft lit dining room; the sound of small feet delicately smacking against tile, giving away her location. He rounded the table slowly at first, when he realized she was matching his pace, he flashed half-way around the table just in time to see airy wisps of blue hair seemingly seep underneath the table.
She swiftly moved among wooden legs in silence, stopping only when she had a great table leg between her and her father. Slowly he bent downward, a rain of dark mane falling into view before a questioning and crooked eyebrow. A confident smirk tugged at his lips. Surely, she was trapped.
Bura was very aware that by the time she wound her way towards any exit he would be there to swoop her up with no escape. He would grab her and bring her to the room with the spouting water. And she would have to sit in it!
Vejita could see his only daughter's eyes searching furiously for a way out, and he found that this one time, he possibly would have enjoyed knowing what was running through her young mind. He waited patiently for her to either come to a solution or admit defeat, a choice he would have never mercifully bestowed on any other opponent but she. At her age, his son would have left an obvious map of destruction in any room he flurried through. Had he chosen to the dining room for a battle ground, the table would have gone to pieces in his attempt to use it as a weapon against him. The thought alone was amusing. Then it was gone.
He noticed a spark of a small fire emerging in crystalline eyes. With a surge of unrefined force, Bura burst towards her father with a chair as shield, attempting to fend him off long enough to escape. Vejita, of course, easily dodged the attack, letting the chair scrape noisily by. He was nonplussed at the event and looked down critically at his youngest.
"Did you really think that would work?"
Tiny hands yet marred by any battle (so long as Vejita could help it) were clenched into even smaller fists. Arms stiffened at her side, Bura's baby face flushed into a practiced pout. Her beady mouth opened to inhale the start of her retaliation (a feature much alike her mother's, Vejita noticed) and exhaled the following "NO FAIR!" with the stomp of her tiny foot to accent it.
"The life of a warrior is never fair. In most battles you will find yourself at a disadvantage and you must make good on your strategy or suffer the consequences."
"NO BATH!"
"Child, I am warning you. Either bathe by the comfort of your own will, or be washed until you wrinkle."
At this Bura's eyes grew impossibly wide, mouth agape. Moisture began forming underneath her irises while her shock turned into the heart clenching tug of saddened lips. With no effort, Vejita's daughter sobbed "WONT" and managed to defeat him with a weapon that would remain his one true weakness. (A strategy she would later master as she matured.)
Gently, he carried her off the floor, white flag waving at full mast when she laid a teary cheek against his shoulder, searching for comfort at
the crook of his neck.
Mother would later come home to find her daughter dirtier than she left her, fast asleep atop a conquered father.
She went for the camera.~
