~ Shards of Opal ~

It seemed that Junior shared her father's love of animals. As a toddler, her favorite toy was a stuffed rabbit which had been a gift from Dracula. She carried it everywhere with her, and cried whenever it was out of her sight, or not immediately within her reach. The fifth word she learned to speak (after mama, papa, hi, and no) was bunya - which, presumably, should have been bunny, but was not precisely how the toddler pronounced it.

When it was taken away to be washed, the child was inconsolable. Even though she was told she would have it back the next evening after it had a nice bath and was dried in the sun, all the child could understand was that her favorite toy was gone and all the grown-ups knew where it was but refused to give it back.

"BUNYA!" wailed Junior, tears pouring down her tiny face.

Anyone who attempted to comfort her got their hand bitten... except for Carmilla, who conveniently blamed the entire bunny-washing incident on Hector. ("It's not like she's going to get germs from it, even if it's dirty!") But she was still on thin ice with her child for not stopping the bunny from being taken away.

After several hours, the child's cries had died down to a consistent low whine interspersed with plaintive murmurs of "Bunya."

The toy was still not finished drying, but Hector had come up with a solution he hoped would calm his daughter for the remaining hours until her beloved bunny could be returned to her. It took him a while to find the necessary raw materials to prepare his creation. Once it was finished, he rushed to present it to his distraught child.

"Look, Junior! It's a bunny!"

"Bunya?" the child asked, perking up immediately.

But the twitching creature in her father's arms was obviously not her beloved toy. It was a real rabbit - or, at least as much a "real" rabbit as Cezar was a real dog. Not that the child had much of an understanding about the nature of her father's powers... but she could sense that something was not right about the life force that animated the creature, even if she did not have the knowledge to articulate what was wrong with it.

After staring at the zombie rabbit for a few seconds, Junior reached out... and, BAM! She whacked it on the head so hard that its skull collapsed.

"No," the child said firmly.

Hector let out a shocked gasp and turned away, cradling the zombie bunny's limp corpse to his chest.

"How could you do that?" he asked.

"Papa no," Junior said, still in the same scolding tone.

"Nice try," Carmilla said. "But it looks like she doesn't like zombie bunnies."

~oOo~

A/N: If you've never heard a baby learning to talk... yeah, weird things with pronunciation like that do happen.