BVQA: Sorry for the temporary lack of updates. I'm back now!
Danielle danced around her room a month after the court case. Her iPod blared in her ears and she was starting to get dizzy, but she didn't care. The walls of her room turned to a black-and-white blur and the electric green canopy above her bed loomed closer. The word tilted and she found herself hitting the springy mattress, bouncing above the white DP symbols and coming to rest with her face in the green pillow. She rolled over and saw the little pinpoints of light that marked the 'stars' that Jack had so carefully installed in her ceiling.
"Can't be tamed. . . I can't be changed. . . I can't, can't be tamed. . ." She warbled, then the door to her room burst open.
"That's what you think, sissy!" Danny said, then ran over and snatched the earbuds from her ears.
"Hey!" She snapped, but Danny was already racing through the house. Dani followed, slipping into ghost form with barely a thought. She flew through the door and past an annoyed Jazz, who was yelling something about Danny having scared her half to death.
"No, that would be me!" Danny yelled. In the brief instant it took to turn around to say so, Maddy had entered the hallway to be met by a speeding ghost kid. The past month had given her experience with that sort of thing, so she merely stepped to the side and allowed him to slam into the wall. Danny landed on the ground with a thump, and Dani snatched her ipod back. Maddy raised her eyebrows, surprised but not panicking. Danny's ghost form had become a frequent visitor.
"Phantom?"
Danny smiled weakly up at her. "Guilty as charged."
Maddy rolled her eyes and appeared to be suppressing a smile. "When did you get here?"
Danny stood up, checking the wall for a dent. "Well, the ghosts seem to have figured exactly what today is, and they fled in terror lest I get really annoyed with them. So, with nothing else to do, I headed over to see my favorite little sister on her special day."
Dani scowled, but she was barely suppressing laughter. "More like steal your only little sister's ipod."
Danny shook his head slowly back and forth, a chastising look on his face. "Now now, Dani, it isn't stealing if I fully intended to give it back."
The conversation probably would have gone on longer if Danny's duplicate, as Fenton, poked his head out of the kitchen.
"Cake! Oh, hey Phantom." He said, as if he had just noticed his ghost half. Dani rolled her eyes. What a drama king.
Then she headed downstairs to get cake.
LINE BREAK
The whole family was seated around the table, plus Tucker, Sam, and Youngblood. Dani had insisted Youngblood had to come since he had invited both her and Danny to his birthday party, or, more accurately, deathday party, next week. This didn't, however, stop both Dannys from giving him laser death glares from their respective spots at the table. Apparently, Danny still wasn't forgiving him for kidnapping all the parents and making people think he was crazy, although most of the kids in Amity Park would argue that the night without parents had been the best night of their lives and that Danny really shouldn't have rescued them.
Maddy waltzed into the room bearing a ginormous chocolate cake. Thirteen little green, black, and white candles glimmered like the stars.
"Happy birthday to you. . ."
Somebody flicked off the lights, and only the glow of the candles lit up the room. Somehow, everyone's faces looked warmer in the light, less sharp, as if years had been worn away from everyone present and they were replaced by the carefree children they'd been a long time ago. Even Danny, battle-scarred and always tense and worried, smiled at her, his face clean of lines.
"Happy birthday to you. . ."
Dani stared into the flickering lights, wondering what there was that she could possibly wish for. She had a home, a loving family, friends, Vlad wasn't bothering her, she'd been invited to a party by Youngblood, of all people, and. . . oh, yeah, there was that. But that was so impossibly impossible, she didn't even think she could wish for it. . .
"Happy birthday dear Dani. . ."
Dani closed her eyes and watched the afterimages of the flames glow green on the inside of her eyelids. She took a slow, deep breath, feeling her lungs stretch and pull in the amount of air she'd need for a ghostly wail. Not that she was planning on using her most ultimate power. She would, however, need to blow out all the candles or her wish wouldn't come true.
"Happy birthday to you. . ."
Dani blew out slowly, gently quenching all the candles. The flames shrank and died, all except the last one. . . it stayed, stubborn, as Dani began to run out of air. She forced herself not to take a breath, she needed this extra bit of luck badly.
She finally needed to breathe. The candle still hadn't gone out.
LINE BREAK
Dani sat on the couch opening gifts. Danny, in his ghost form, handed her a black bag spilling green tissue paper. Dani accepted it and peered into its depths. Something metallic glinted up at her as if winking. She tugged it out. . . and gasped.
"Wow. . ." She whispered. A tiny silver ghost dangled on the end of a slim silver chain, one eye blue and one eye green. The blue eye was unmistakably ghost ice, which never melted except from the heat of ectoplasm and matched both half-ghost's blue eyes perfectly. The other appeared to be stable ectoplasm, something that was time-consuming and energy-draining to make, but worth it. The silver ghost was sitting, knees to her chin, as if contented to be near Dani.
Dani smiled and slipped the necklace on. Words could not describe her happiness.
"Protect it, and it will protect you." Danny said.
Then, of corse, the front door blew in, showering everyone with bits of wall. Dani cupped her hand around the tiny silver figure, shielding it from the debris. A small shield formed around both of them, and Dani looked up, surprised. She'd never created a shield without meaning to before.
The people responsible for crashing her party stepped through the door, and Dani gasped.
BVQA: Yeah. I know. Cliffy central. Anyway, that's all for today. Carry on!
