Life Lessons
Shikamaru learned the valuable lesson to never let his daughters out of his sight when they were seven years old.
He had thought, since each was a small ball of energy and destruction, that they would be able to keep each other in check and would know better than to, say, accept candy from strangers. Which they did know better about, he could credit them for that. But they were incapable of keeping each other in check because one was just as bad as the other when it came to something fun.
He had let them run off on their own at the beginning of the festival, happy to have some time alone with Temari for a change. The married couple had milled around the festival grounds, enjoying their day off from the Terrible Twins (as Iruka had frustratedly nicknamed them upon their arrival in the Academy), but when night had fallen, he began to wonder where they were. Neither had come by at any point demanding more money for games or food, neither had come running up and insisted that he carry their massive teddy bear prize, neither had come up complaining that the other had dumped sno cone syrup down the front of their kimono.
The peace was really quite worrying.
Temari, too, was fairly unnerved by their absence. Slightly after their usual dinnertime, they went in search of their daughters, prowling the festival grounds in search of any signs of destruction.
Shikamaru was the one to find them both. Part of him was proud of Shikako's quick thinking (it was obviously Shikako's thinking, because no other seven year old could spot a loophole like she could), part of him was horrified, and yet another part was amused beyond belief.
Below a sign reading "COTTON CANDY -- MAKE YOUR OWN -- FIRST IS FREE", Shikako stood back and watched her twin sister preparing her free, make-your-own cotton candy. Shikako's entire right arm was encased in a large pink cloud of fluffy sugar; she was nonchalantly nibbling at where her fist should be, left arm clamped around the insanely large teddy bear he was sure one of them would win. Samara was gleefully swirling both arms around in the cotton candy maker, the vendor looking ultimately distressed.
Once he dragged both girls away after a profuse apology, he shot an accusing stare at the blonde-haired, brown-eyed half of the twins. She gave him a bored stare in response.
"Didn't say anywhere that we had to use the sticks," she said with a shrug.
Author's Notes: True story, this. My friend Padfoot and I, back when we were eleven or twelve, were at a festival that had one of those free, make-your-own cotton candy things. Padfoot went to get the stick and I gleefully pointed out that they didn't say a thing about the stick. We wandered off about fifteen minutes later with sugar-coated arms. XD
Shout-outs
Blue-Fire310: X3;; I've been entertaining the thought of those four as a team for a while now. They just work. I'll have to throw in Chouji and Lee next time to make it into a real fun-fest.
Kaeru Soyokaze: :offers tissue: Thank you very much!
Darth Suna: You win again, luv. It's what you get for helping me create a monster(s).