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Arianna: I am back, once more!
Erk: Eh. Foo.
Arianna: This chapter is my birthday present to DTN! Well, actually, it would be a belated birthday present, but, who cares? Anyways, HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY! :D Hope you like this chapter.
Latisha: All hail the great DTN!
Erk: Rather not, thanks.
Eliwood: =shoves Erk down so he's bowing to DTN=
Arianna: The story continues with Bartre and his daughter Fir! Poor, poor Fir.
Latisha: Poor, poor Karla.
Eliwood: Poor, poor anyone who has ever lived with Bartre.
Erk: Let's get this over with, already!
Arianna: Oh, alright. ONWARD!
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DISCLAIMER OF DOOM:
Erk: That's an....interesting…title.
Eliwood: Arianna's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
Arianna: I don't own FE or Forrest Gump!
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"You be a good girl and take care of Daddy, Fir." Said Karla, as she picked up her bag and headed for the door.
"I will, Mother." Nine year old Fir said, and waved goodbye to her mom. Karla was going to visit Karel, and since Bartre and Karel didn't get along very well, Karla was going alone. And that meant Fir had to stay home and take care of her dad. They would have left him with Kent and Lyn again, but they were still fixing their house from when last time Bartre had stayed with them. That was a story Fir didn't want to remember.
When Karla was just a speck in the distance, Fir sighed and turned. She cautiously walked through the hall and to her parents' room. She had to be careful, for she never knew what her father was going to do. One time he decided that he shouldn't have to wear clothes in his own home and, well, that was another story that Fir didn't want to remember. She opened the door to her parents' room and stopped in shock at what her dad was up to. "Father?" she asked, alarmed, "What are you doing?"
Bartre was wearing Karla's apron, and holding Karla's feather duster. He seemed to be attempting to dust the bedside table. But he wasn't accomplishing anything except making himself sneeze, since he was holding the duster the wrong way. "Cleaning, Daughter!" Bartre replied. Then he sneezed, causing his hand to jerk. The end of the duster hit an expensive candle lamp, knocking it onto the floor, where it shattered into trillions of little, sharp pieces. "Uh oh." Bartre understated, staring at the mess. Then he tried to clean it up by scooping the pieces into his hands. The shards of lamp cut his hands, so he threw them back to the ground with a loud curse word. Then he looked at Fir, worridly. "Don't tell your mother I said that!"
Fir took three deep breaths. Clenched and unclenched her fists. Thought of calm things like peaceful lakes and napping cats. Then she answered her dad. "I won't, Father. But why don't you go bandage your hands while I clean up the mess?" she suggested. When her dad left the room, muttering things about killer lamps and their dangerous pieces, Fir bent down by the mess. She inspected it and realized there was absolutely no way to get all the little pieces back together. She would just have to throw them away and make sure that when her mother got home she told her it was Dad and not her that broke the lamp. She was about to fetch the broom and dustpan when she heard a shout of distress from the bathroom. She rushed to the location of the shouts and swung open the door. She glanced over, up, and then finally down to where her father was lying on the floor, tangled up in a roll of bandages. "Um…Father?" she asked, hoping he would explain how he got in his current situation.
"Hi, Fir! These bandages are complicated things, huh? I just took them out of the cabinent and tried to wrap them around my hands, and ended up like this! Maybe they're possessed and were trying to strangle me! That would be scary, wouldn't it? We would need one of those excorcist thingies then, huh?" he attempted to explain. He continued to ramble about "evil spirits that possess healing objects such as bandages" and "how confusing simple things like bandages were these days" as Fir unraveled her father from the supposedly 'possessed' and 'complicated' bandages. Then he started ranting on how the feather duster was too technical, also, as Fir properly wrapped up his bleeding hands.
"Be more careful next time you want to clean, Father." Fir warned. But she knew it was no use. Bartre and cleaning just didn't mix. He had already fallen down the stairs trying to sweep, squirted himself in the eye with the water bottle when he tried to clean the windows, and somehow whacked himself in the head with the rug beater. The only chore Bartre seemed good at was chopping wood. His skill with the axe helped him chop wood faster than Karla ever could. But unlike Karla's perfect firewood, his was unevenly sized and didn't stack well in the wood holder. Since Karla would just end up having to make the firewood even anyways, she just cut the wood herself. Leaving Bartre with nothing to do but screw things up.
"I was careful!" Bartre complained to his frustrated child. "But the duster was out to get me! Did you see the way it kept making me sneeze? How does anyone clean with that thing, anyways?" Fir just sighed and glanced out a window. The sun was beginning to set, so she decided she had better start fixing dinner. No way was she letting her father anywhere near the stove! She walked into the kitchen and Bartre went with her. As Fir pulled things out of cabinents and the pantry, Bartre followed her around the kitchen, talking about random things that made no sense whatsoever to Fir. So she just ignored him. But as the water began to boil, he finally mentioned something that caught her interest.
"What did you say, Father?" she asked, "I dazed off for a moment."
"Kids these days!" Bartre complained, "Never giving adults their full attention and going off into day dreams!" Fir patiently waited until he was done ranting. "I was saying how me and your mother decided to name you Fir!" he repeated.
"Your mother and I." Fir corrected, absentmindly, as she poured the noodles into the pot and stirred them around in a circle. Bartre grumbled about "smart talking kids who always correct their parents" before he continued with his story.
"Well, after your mother had you, she went unconcious. The midwife said you needed a name. When I saw you, you looked like a little kitten. I thought about how I liked to pet kittens because they have such soft fur. So I wrote down on the paper the midwife gave me 'Fur'. When your mother woke up and I told her what I had named you and showed her the paper, she yelled at me and said I spelled fur wrong. She said it's spelled F-U-R. But it was too late, you were already 'Fir'. So that's how you were named." He finished. Fir jerked around and looked at him in shock.
"So I have to put up with all the other kids at school making fun of me being named after animal hair because of you?" she asked in a horrified voice. Bartre didn't seem to realize that this was a bad thing, so just stupidly nodded his head, grinning. Fir's shocked expression slowly turned angry. She grabbed the spoon out of the pot of cooking noodles and threw it at her father's head. It thunked him right in the forehead. He froze for a second. Then he started howling and running around the room.
"AHHH! WHAT WAS THAT FOR, YOU CRAZY GIRL? YOU'RE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER!!!" he screamed. Fir seemed to come out of a trance and realized what she had done. She grabbed a cloth that was by the sink and wetted it with cold water. She held it to his head as she apologized.
"I'm sorry, Father! I don't know what came over me!" She exclaimed.
"That's okay, dear. You must have just been taken over by the evil spirit of the bandages for a moment." Bartre said. "We really should get some holy person in here to take care of the little monster. What was that monk's name? Lucius, I think. He could do it." Fir had no idea who this Lucius person was or why her father thought that everything bad that happened was the cause of an evil spirit, but she was glad that he wasn't mad at her. She let out a breath that she didn't relaize she had been holding and as she inhaled again, a smell of smoke and burnt noodles filled her nose.
"OH NO!" she suddenly screamed, causing Bartre to recoil and fall backwards onto the kitchen table. "The noodles! They're burning!" Fir ran back over to the stove and shut it off. But the damage was done. The noodles were burned so badly that Bartre wouldn't even eat them. She slumped into a nearby chair and moaned into her hands. "Now what!?" she whined.
"We could go out to eat." Bartre suggested, climbing off the table. Fir thought about the idea, and didn't like the high chances of disaster that could come from it, but saw no other thing to do. She wanted to eat sometime before midnight.
"Okay." Fir gave in. "I'll go get ready. But…Father?"
"Yes?" Bartre asked, examining his burnt forehead in his reflection on a spoon.
"Please don't wear the apron out!" she begged.
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Fir walked behind her father into the nearby village. She followed him until he stopped in front of a small building. "Rob's Roadkill Roadhouse.' She unenthusiastically read off the small sign hanging by the entrance. "Are you sure this is the place, Father?" she asked, praying it was not.
To her dismay, he answered "Yep! Sure am!" As he opened the front door and walked inside, he commented "I ate here all the time when your mother was cooking that low-fat stuff!" When he saw Fir's eyebrow rise, he hastily added "Don't tell your mother that!" Fir glanced around at the dingy restaurant. Flies were buzzing around the unwashed tables. The people sitting at those tables looked like thugs.
"I don't know, Father. It looks a bit…unsanitary." Fir said, nervously looking at the smudged plates that a waiter was carrying a meal on. The waiter saw her staring and glared at her. Fir gave a little squeak and hid behind her dad.
"Don't be such a chicken!" Bartre chuckled. He led the way to a small table for two in a corner. Fir slowly followed, careful not to step in any food that had been thrown on the floor. When they were both seated, a surly looking waiter walked over to their table.
"Whad'd ya want?" he gruffly asked. Fir glanced uneasily at the waiter's many earrings and tattoos. Then at his nametag that said 'Bone Breaker'. Bartre was busy looking at his menu.
"It looks like you've gotten a new menu since the last time I was here!" Bartre said.
"No. We haven't had a new menu in eight years." Bone Breaker the waiter grumbled.
"Then why is everything different?" Bartre asked in a confused tone of voice. Fir politely cleared her throat to get his attention.
"You're holding the menu upside-down, Father." Fir told him in a soft voice. Bartre sheepishly grinned and turned the menu the right way.
"Let's see…..I'd like the Badger Burger special. And...hm…a cup of cherry chunk to drink." Bartre said to the waiter. Bone Breaker scribbled something on a pad that might have been the order. "What do you want, Fir?" Bartre asked his daughter.
"Uhhh…" Fir stuttered, almost twitching when the waiter looked at her. "Um, same thing as you, Father." She managed to answer. The waiter scribbled something down again, then took their menus and stalked off into the kitchen. An awkward silence surrounded Bartre and Fir's table. Bartre and Fir rarely talked, being as Fir was busy with school, and Bartre was busy with whatever it was he did. Because of this, they had little to say. Bartre drummed his fingers on the table. Fir swatted at a fly that flew in her face. Bartre finally decided to break the silence.
"So…." Bartre started. The noise made Fir jump. "How are you doing in school?" Bartre questioned. Fir gave the fly another swipe as it passed by before answering.
"Good, Father. I made the honor roll again." She announced, proudly. "And I won the Sacaen Spelling Bee.
"That so?" Bartre said in disbelief. "Why, when I was seven, I barely knew my ABC's."
"I'm nine, Father." Fir corrected, a little put-out that he didn't even remember her age. And where was he the day she won the Spelling Bee? She thought that might have been the day he had 'accidentally' chopped Guy and Priscilla's door in half and had to fix it.
"Eight, right. Sorry, dear." Bartre said apologetically.
"NINE, Father." Fir stressed. She was now more than a little ticked.
"Nine, right, right. I'm very sorry, honey. Mind slipping in my old age, I guess." He said. Fir just exhaled through her nose and rolled her eyes in a very daughterish way. She was just about to make a comment about his so called 'old age' when the waiter returned with their meal."
"Here ya go." Bone Breaker said, practically throwing their meals in front of them. "Two Badger Burgers with Cherry Chunks to drink." Then he scuttled off like a cockroach when threatened. Fir stared at her meal with a distasteful expression. The badger burger looked like overcooked liver on a bun. And the cherry chunk had bits in it of what she hoped was a cherry.
Fir glanced up at her father as he started gobbling down his food. She wrinkled her little nose. 'And he thinks that Mom's low-fat food is bad?' she thought to herself. She decided that she could survive skipping one meal. 'For the sake of a healthy stomach.' She thought as she pushed the plate away from her. The smell of it was nauseating.
"Wh rrn't ew etin'?" Bartre asked, looking at Fir's full plate.
"Excuse me?" was Fir's response. She couldn't understand a word he said when he talked with his mouth full. Bartre swallowed and tried again.
"Why aren't you eating?" he repeated.
"I'm….not hungry." Fir lied. Bartre bought it and continued eating. But not before mumbling something about kids not knowing what 'real food was these days'. When Bartre reached for Fir's plate, intending to eat it since she obviously wasn't going to, his arm knocked his cup of Cherry Chunk onto the floor. One of the thugs at another table was just walking back from the bathroom and wasn't watching what he was walking on. He stepped right onto the puddle of cherry beverage and went sliding to the floor in a very painful looking split. The whole restaurant went quiet.
"Whoops. Should have been watching what you were stepping in, eh, buddy?" Bartre said to the thug as he laughed at the pained expression on the thug's face at his position on the floor. Fir watched in horror as the thug got to his feet and glared down at her father, who was still laughing like the idiot he is.
"You think this is funny, pal?" the thug asked with such a menacing look that Bartre stopped laughing. Fir wondered somewhere in the back of her mind why men always called each other friendly terms like 'buddy' and 'pal' when they obviously weren't friends.
"You think this is my fault, buddy?" asked Bartre, getting to his feet. He turned out to be much taller than the thug had thought he was. Bartre shook a fist threateningly at him. "You can't blame me for your own clumsiness, okay, man?"
The thug swallowed and quickly shook his head. "No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I mean, sorry, sir." The frightened man stuttered. Then he scampered back to his table of fellow punks. Bartre threw some money onto the table.
"Well, we had better go, Fir." He cheerfully told the hyperventilating child. Fir wondered if her father was even smart enough to realize how close he had gotten them to getting beat up. By the way he was now whistling, she assumed the answer was 'no'. She stood up and followed her poor, idiot of a father back home. When they got back inside the house, Bartre looked at his daughter, deep in thought. At least, for him, anyways.
"What is it, Father?" Fir asked. She had never seen her father look so thoughtful before. Heck, she'd never seen him think at all!
"I can't remember if six year olds are old enough to bathe themselves or not." He responded, scratching his head. Fir froze for a moment as his words sank in. Once they did, she wanted to scream. In fact, she did scream.
"I AM NOT SIX!" she wailed. "I AM NINE! NINE! N-I-N-E!" She held up nine fingers. "This many! GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD! And yes, I'm old enough to bathe myself!" she finished shrieking. Then she stomped upstairs to her personal bathroom. Bartre scratched his head and went to find the piece of chicken her knew he had left laying somewhere around the sitting room.
A couple hours later, Fir walked back downstairs. She looked around for her father. "Dad?" she called, her voice echoing through the seemingly empty house. She heard a rumbling noise coming from her parents' bedroom. She feared what she might find this time, but she opened the door anyways. In the room she saw her father lying on the bed. He was fast asleep and snoring so loudly that a herd of horses stampeding could not have been heard over him. Fir smiled slightly and backed out of the room, closing the door again. She heard the front door open and rushed to greet her mother.
"Hello, Fir!" Karla said when her daughter came flying down the hallway and into her arms. "How was your dad today?" she asked.
"Eh." Fir replied, hugging her mother tightly. "He was okay."
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Eliwood&Erk: =staring slack-jawed at review counter=
Arianna: Umm…guys?
Eliwood: Riri, the counter's broken.
Arianna: No it isn't.
Erk: It has to be. It says 51. And that just can't be right. There have only been 2 chapters that have been reviewed so far.
Arianna: It's correct. :D I checked.
Erk: =stunned=
Eliwood: =passes out=
Arianna: I am very thrilled that I've gotten so many reviews! I hope it will keep up at this rate. :D Thank you, wonderful reviewers!
Latisha: And that means, you get to answer ALL the reviews!
Arianna: ….say what?
Latisha: GET TO IT! =throws Arianna into response panel=
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REVIEW RESPONSES
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:Inferno Hero:
As you might have been able to tell from the mention of Guy and Priscilla and their damaged door, I will be doing Guy and Priscilla. :) Thanks for the suggestion! And thanks for the review! I'm fond of the Harken/Isadora couple, too. :D
:lugiamania:
Yes, I will eventually get to Eliwood and Roy. Thanks for the review!
:Zephire the Tactician:
I continued as soon as I could. Which wasn't very soon, was it? =sweatdrop= Scary? What could you possibly find scary about two darling children like Lugh and Rei? =cough cough= :) Thanks for the review!
:SDS-Yukichan:
You didn't get hurt falling out of that chair, did you? =shivers in fear of lawsuit= Thanks for the review!
:DotDotDotMan:
I think Jaffar's twenty or twenty one. But it's hard to tell with ages. Oswin looks like he'd be around fifty and he's only in his thirties. Yes, I shall do a GuyxPriscilla chapter. Hell? Now why would an angelic demoness like me remind you of those nasty demons in hell?
Lugh: Awww! You said a bad word! You have to put a gold piece in the jar!
Shove it, kid. I'll probably be changing the rating, anyways. A G rating just sounds too pansy to me. Hmmm…PG for comic mischief, maybe. Anyways, thanks for the review!
:chel bel:
AH! PICKLES! NO! I hate pickles! They're so green and bumpy. =shudder= Kids can ber evil. Very evil. Very, very evil. Very, very, very evil. =stops and tries to remember what I was doing= Oh yeah. Thanks for the review!
:R Amythest:
Amythest sounds much cooler than plain amethyst. :) Jaffar might have to see a doctor if he passes out anymore, eh? Thanks for the review!
:SweetMisery430:
Don't worry, Nino. I'm sure they won't turn out that evil. Well, Lugh, at least. Hehe. Thanks for the review! And continue 'The Miss Elibe Beauty Pageant' sooooon!
:enangl27:
They don't try to steal stuffed elephants and fly on trapeze, do they? Hehe. Glad I made somebody happy. I usually just make people mad, for some strange reason beyond my comprehension.
Eliwood: Big word. Comp-ree-hen-shen.
Riiiiiight, Eliwood. Thanks for the review!
:FireEdge:
And Amy wasn't a brat?
Erk: She was. Believe me, she was.
Kekekeke. But yes, Lugh and Rei are slightly more interesting than Amy, because double is better, right? :) Thanks for the review!
:Ben:
Yes, it will be EliwoodxNinian. Sorry if that angers or disappoints anybody. Thanks for the review!
:Emerald-Latias:
Well, he did kinda snap. He hit his children once. And he passed out twice. But at least he didn't kill anybody. It looks like I'll be pairing Priscilla with Guy, since so many people want a Guy chapter. And Guy doesn't have anyone he could have kids with except Priscilla. Not that there aren't other Guy pairings. =cough= MatthewxGuy =cough=
:Emblem-Freak:
Hmmm....well, that would kind of ruin the whole point of the story. But maybe I could do a sibling fic, 'Moms And Monsters', since all the kids seem to be little monsters. :)
Erk: Don't make promises your brain can't keep.
But I might be able to do the both parents staying home one. Only, the mother would probably end up busy with something so the dad would mostly be the one watching the kid. Or supposed to be, anyways. You've built a whole new train of thought for me. Much thanks for the review! And for the name suggestion.
:Zero84:
Well, he didn't lose her. But he almost gave her food poisoning. I WANT THE RIBS! Just kidding. Nice speaking skills, Bartre. KAREL WANTS HIS SISTER TO MARRY HIM!? =twitch= Thanks for the review!
:edmund-defary:
What are you talking about!? I loved your story! Thanks for the compliment. :) And thanks for the review!
:Unkown-Character:
I did Bartre. I think that's proof enough to you that things shouldn't be left to me. :) Thanks for the review!
:Seventh Sage:
Be scared of circuses(evil clowns..grrr..)but not of children. They don't usually act like the kids featured in this fic. Just when they get hold of sugar. :) Thanks for the review!
:potter29vo:
I really don't know how I got so many reviews for this. I actually thought this was going to turn out stupid, I guess it wasn't. Don't be jealous! Your stories are great! And you're really good at oneshots. Thanks for the review!
:.....?:
That's probably why he passed out. The noise got to him. It's also hard to think of him being a dad. Can you imagine if your father was a feared assassin? Thanks for the review!
:The Mythical Red Lugia:
Hehehe....Roy's not a very good babysitter, is he? Um, do you want your heads back? I'm sure I could get Erk to get them for you.
Erk: Feh. Yeah right.
Thank for the review!
:AmbieChan:
Rei: MUHAHAHAHA! YES! FEAR THE MARKER OF DOOM!
Go away, Rei. What would Jaffar do with lion heads? Elephant heads are so much more useful. Yes, I'll be doing HectorxFlorina. Thanks for the review!
:SM together:
Believe me, there's a lot better things to wish for than to be like me. But thanks for the compliment. :) Hope you get feeling better. Thanks for the review!
:turquoisefox:
Oh, Roy will. Roy DEFINATELY will.
Eliwood: =gulp=
Thanks for the review!
:SamMas666:
GAH! NOT THE TUNA FISH! Eliwood will be paired with Ninian, although it's not like it matters that much since this is focused on the dads and their children and not the moms. Thanks for the review! Even though you said you were going to feed my poor face to a tuna.....
:Shinobi Demoness:
Demoness friend! :D I just now realized that. Or did I realize that before, and just forgot I realized that? I have such a bad memory. =sweatdrop= I'm going to do a Guy chapter. I can't do a Matthew one because Serra was with Erk and Leila's dead. Thanks for the review!
:TomDragonblade:
Why does everyone keep saying 'Poor Jaffar'? He had a choice whether to have kids or not. It's just luck of the draw if they're evil brats or not. :D Thanks for the review!
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Arianna: =collapses from exhaustion= Phew. If I forgot anybody, just tell me I'm an idiot and I'll answer you next chapter.
Latisha: Very good. :)
Arianna: Random Question: Why does everyone in FE assume Jaffar and Sonia were friends? In his C support with Legault, Legault says "It's just like your friend Sonia said". And in Jaffar's C support with Nino, Nino says "You and Sonia must have been friends, right?"
Erk: That is a very random question considering Jaffar isn't even in this chapter.
Arianna: That's been bothering me, so I just had to say it. Now I can move on with life.
Erk: =sweatdrop=
Arianna: Thanks for reading! Hope to see you next chapter! And once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DTN!
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Fir: Reading and not reviewing is like going to a restaurant and not leaving a tip. Please review!
Bartre: OR WE SHALL SEND THE EVIL POSSESSING SPIRIT OF BANDAGES AFTER YOU!!!
Fir: =sweatdrop= Don't threaten the readers, Father.
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