"Uncle Hiei!"
One ruby eye opened and he glanced down, tree bark digging into his shoulder blades. Two girls who'd come to make up so much of his world stood twenty feet below wearing matching grins, crystal hair gleaming in the twilight. Eiri's obsidian eyes twinkled as she beheld him, hands on her hips. Ruri – the image of her mother – stood close by her sister, paper clutched to her chest.
He bit back a sigh, willing his body to move. As much as he'd enjoyed the nap, he would deny his nieces nothing:
It'd been this way since they were born.
"We need your help."
A raised brow and Ruri pushed the paper into his hand, looking decidedly ashamed. "We can't get this right–"
"And if it's wrong tomorrow, teacher'll call our parents!" Eiri whined. "Daddy will lecture us–"
"And mother will be so disappointed."
One glance at the paper and his heart sank. A single sentence marked with a red two; two innocuous misspelled words:
Of course, the human failed to identify them.
It was almost laughable: a simple sentence – The cat came bac from the stor. – was enough to fill Alaric's heir with dread, littering his stomach with stones. However, one look at their trusting faces and he sighed, hand extended for Ruri's pencil.
She gave it and he studied the sentence again, rolling each word across his tongue multiple times. He was confident of the first choice – after years of combat he knew how to spell back – but that still left one word unaccounted for. Even as he stared, the letters rearranged themselves on the page, forming a language of their own.
Each shift made him sick.
Finally, he marked the paper with much more confidence than he felt.
Both girls crowded close as he handed it back, brows furrowed, contemplating. "Are you sure, Uncle Hiei?"
Anxiety choked him for a second, a sensation he hid by clearing his throat and nodding.
He was sure; pretty sure. The girls went away studying his corrections:
The kat came back from the stor.
A/N: Hiei. Humor and Family.
Prompt: Spell.
350 words.
