#55 Lies

Tsuki was a brilliant child, and as such she spent mush of her time asking questions of her uncles and parents about how the world around her worked. She also had a strange, strong sense of self-purpose, attempting to fill her days not with toys and fairytales as most little girls her age did, but with facts and figures.

Misa often told L she was worried about their daughter because of this, but L would brush off her concerns by simply telling her that Tsuki was a great deal brighter than most children and really, the best thing they could do for her was to allow her access to the knowledge she was inclined to seek.

So it happened that it was a rare day when Tsuki would not be spied in the investigation room of L's building, curled up at the foot of her father's chair, reading some book or another with dense writing and no pictures. L would sometimes mention that her little black pigtails were tickling his toes and she would lower her head closer to the page without a word.

Some days, when her father was out in the world solving crimes that required his presence, she would instead sit between Matt and Mello's own desks, never so close as she was with L, but she seemed content in their presence, and never bothered by their conversations about criminals and the clicking of their keyboards.

One day, Matt happened to glance down at her and noted with some concern how thick the book was, and how small the printed words. Something inside him told him to say something, distract her if only for a little while from the logical world she immersed herself in.

As it was, only one way of distracting her came to his mind.

"You should put that book down for a while, moonbeam, your eyes'll be worse than mine if you're not careful."

(matt was in the habit of giving people nicknames, Moonbeam was Tsuki's own 'Matt name' as she called it)

The little girl looked up at his with her great black eyes and blinked twice, "But I want to finish it. There's a fascinating study of…"

Matt groaned to himself, "I'm sure it'd really interesting, but don't you ever get bored of all that? Want to hear real stories? With Dragons in them and stuff?"

The incredulous look on her small face made Matt wince as Tsuki spoke. "I don't want to hear stories that aren't true, there's so such thing as dragons, or fairies. Those are superstitions brought about by-"

Matt cut in quickly, he'd had plenty of experiences of Tsuki's long lectures. It was as though she wanted the world to know of how intelligent she was, but didn't know when to stop. "Ok, Ok, I get it, no dragons or fairies… why not?"

L's daughter pouted and folded her arms. Suddenly she was the mirror of her mother in a sulk. "Because making things like that up is lying and lying is wrong."

Mello sniggered from his own place at the computer bank. "She makes a good point… a weird one, but it's good."

Matt, however, was not so easily swayed, and in one swift movement picked Tsuki from the floor and placed her on his lap. "All right then, I'll tell you a real story, one that actually happened. Will that be enough to keep you from the book for a while?"

She was so surprised at the sudden movement from floor to knee that the little girl could only nod.

"Ok, so… call it 17 years ago, but it was probably a bit more than that, I was a kid about your age…"

Tsuki's eyes widened a little. "Uncle Matt was my age?"

Suddenly feeling as though he was older than everyone in the world was, Matt continued, "Yeah. I lived in Spain when I was a little boy, in this tiny little village by the sea. It was so small we all knew each other and shared everything. No-one ever had any reason to fear." He cleared his throat, "And one thing I always did with my mum was go to the beach after school finished for the day, and help her pick up chunks of Peridot. Do you know what that is?"

Tsuki nodded, "It's a green gemstone. Who left it on the beach?"

"No-one, it was made in the rocks and the sea washed it up for us. We'd pick bags of it, and there was a man in the village who could polish it up and sell it to a proper jewellery maker, so we made a little money out of it. Only mum and me ever went to pick it because there were a lot of little caves where it tended to get stuck, and I was the smallest boy in the village, the only one who could ever fit in those caves."

Tsuki's eyes were wide and fascinated, totally absorbed in the story now. Matt could almost see it playing out behind her eyes.

"One day, I got stuck." He said casually. "as I was climbing into this particularly narrow cave, I got stuck fast. One end in the cave and the other out. I was scared out of my mind, the tide was coming in you see and I knew that soon the cave would fill up with water and I'd be drowned. I screamed and screamed."

She gasped, "Didn't anyone try to help?"

Matt nodded, "I heard afterward everyone in the village was down there, but at the time I thought everyone must have run off home, I couldn't hear their voices through the cracks in the rock, certainly not over the sound of the water starting to fill the cave." He paused a moment to think. "I remember how I saw the pebbles of peridot floating closer towards me and I thought that at least I'd drown somewhere pretty."

Tsuki bounced slightly, enchanted, "And then? And then?"

Matt smiled, "There was a big cracking noise, part of the cave entrance broke from around me and I popped out like a cork." He nodded in a worldly fashion, "Someone thought to break the cave wall from around me enough to let me wriggle out."

With that, he lowered the child back to the floor, "Go find your uncle Near and see if he'll let you play something, eh?"

Tsuki nodded with rapt eyes. "And Uncle Matt will tell me more stories tomorrow?"

Matt nodded and watched her leave, smiling to himself before Mello remarked, "Peridot doesn't get formed on the beaches near where you lived, its from volcanic islands. And as I recall you weren't that small a kid."

Matt shrugged, "What do a few lies hurt?"

====NOTICE===

The last five chapters of this Drabble Challenge are as yet without titles!
I've decided to hold a contest to fill them in.

Anyone whom wishes to enter may submit either a piece of artwork or writing.

The art must be of something (an event or OC) from either of the two drabble challenges I've written.

Written submissions must be either continuations of drabbles or involve an OC from the drabble challenges

The winners will be given the chance to choose the title and is they so wish, pairing/events of the final five drabbles to this collection.

I will keep posting this notice until chapter 95 just to make sure newcomers to the fiction see it.

Please send the submissions to me in a PM with the header 'Contest submission' or email me at the address in my author profile.

Good luck! : ) -Esk