~ Shards of Opal ~

Junior's second hunting trip took place after the child had learned her father was a human, and it went about as well as the first hunting trip had... which is to say: not very well at all, as the child did not seem interested in accomplishing her primary task during the outing.

Carmilla tried to get her daughter to hunt for animals, even going so far as to promise she could keep them as pets if she would just stop playing with grass and leaves and go catch something already. Junior cheerfully ignored her mother's instructions, no matter how irritated Carmilla became, and continued to gather up handfuls of grass, leaves, bugs, sticks, and even a dead bird that she happened to come across.

Eventually Carmilla gave up on trying to get her child to do anything other than exactly what the child wanted, which was apparently to play with vegetation and a half-rotted bird carcass.

Ruby (Junior's pet fox), who had come with them, went and caught several baby bunnies, which he brought back to Carmilla.

"At least you know how to follow directions," Carmilla said to the fox, as she scooped up her daughter (along with Junior's armload of forest junk), the bunnies, and Ruby. "Time to head home."

Hector was not the least bit surprised that the hunting trip hadn't gone as Carmilla had planned. He was surprised, however, when his daughter presented him with the things she'd gathered.

"Here, Papa!" Junior said proudly, handing him the mess of plants, bugs, and bird corpse.

"Oh, you brought me some... grass. And... leaves. And a stick. Some worms... and a dead bird."

Hector was certain his confusion showed on his face. Why, other than the simple reason of her being a child, would his daughter bring him these things? Out of all the things she'd brought him, the dead bird was the most confusing, since Junior was quite vocal about not liking her father's reanimated pets.

"It food's food," the child explained proudly.

Unsure what that meant, Hector looked to his wife for an explanation.

Until this point, Carmilla had been equally confused about why Junior wanted to collect plants and bugs, but after hearing the child's explanation, she thought she understood her daughter's reasoning.

"Well, since you're not a vampire, it seems that she brought those for you... to eat."

~oOo~