The relationship between Brina and Eupa developed swiftly after the bath thing. The murderer was better at playing, especially pretend games, and Brina loved to watch her juggle or bend and twist in her contortionist knots. Brotz caught her sneaking Brina treats and Brina started napping in the den on Eupa's cushion, with or without Eupa. She got Brina a special bathtub in her size for a Finding Day present, a celebration that was her idea, since they didn't know the day she was born. Brina called Eupa for help often enough that it made Brotz jealous. She taught Brina the acrobatics as soon as the she started showing interest. Brina started stealing her dresses and she demanded a cowl and belts to wear like Eupa. The dark woman was a hero to Brina, to Brotz's utter horror; but Eupa had no interest in corrupting the child and did her best to hold back even her swearing.
He was relieved, but it was easily the last thing he ever thought he'd see her do. Short of actually having a child of her own, this was the exact opposite of everything he knew her to be. She unmade life, she didn't help it grow and develop, especially not with storytime and treats. It was a show of literally everything decent about the woman.
So he let the twins guide him for the most part, tempering what they told him with questions at the Harpy to double check when he wasn't sure. Some stuff that sounded absolutely mad to him was normal up here, like letting children run around without clothes and shoes, certain foods that were treated as "for children" and "not for children", and where they were supposed to sleep.
Other times, he didn't ask at the Harpy and didn't want to know if they thought it was normal because he didn't care.
"RO!" He caught her at it again, and he was gonna thump her this time.
He heard her say, "I'll handle your Daddy."
"Brina, don't eat that!" he cried, trying to look past as Ro blocked his view. Brina simply smiled at him with the insectoid leg twitching on her lip, and Ro got in the way.
"You really wanna fight about bugs?" He challenged, planting his feet and standing tall.
Ro, six inches shorter and half his weight, pressed her chest to his. He didn't move, instead lowering his head to fix her with a hard stare.
"She needs to know!" Ro pressed.
"No, she doesn't," he growled. "I didn't like the root plants but I let it go, but bugs is too far."
"Why?"
"It's disgusting!"
"To you! I don't know what the hells– they probably told you that so you'd go buy their food instead of finding your own"
"Eating bugs is gross!" He couldn't believe he was having this argument. He was sick at the idea, it didn't make sense to him that someone would like it so much they'd fight about it.
"They're our first prey! I can't imagine a people that wouldn't learn to hunt bugs!"
"No!" He pushed her back, already annoyed.
She tried to push back, but Brotz didn't so much as shift his feet. "No," he growled again.
"She likes them! You can't decide something is gross to someone else!"
"She's my child, I will decide, and I said, no!"
"She needs to know!"
"It's better she knows," Eupa chimed in.
"Not you, too!" he bellowed. He knew she'd have the same attitude as Ro, but it still felt like a betrayal.
"Better she knows than doesn't, if she needs it," Eupa insisted. "If we're lucky, she'll never need it, but if it comes down to eating or starving, it's better that she knows. We should be teaching her everything we can."
Brotz felt the annoyance bubble up. He had been sitting on a question for months, afraid to bring it up because he wasn't ready for the war, and here she was making his argument for him. "You wouldn't be holding that line if we were talking about school," he growled at her.
Eupa's face fell blank as she apparently considered the idea. "I might," she said simply, pointing her chin at him.
Ro wheeled on Eupa with her eyes wide. "Why?"
"She needs to know," Eupa said with a shrug.
That. Helped. "You really mean it," he said to Eupa, mouth turning up. Her agreeing with him made him feel better about the school idea, one he hadn't proposed because he knew they'd hate it; but it made the bugs argument feel worse.
"She doesn't need to know anything at a school that we can't teach her!" Ro objected.
"Reading all by itself," Eupa argued.
"You–"
"I. Am. Illiterate," Eupa snapped. She wasn't, but she was so aggressive about it that they let her pretend to forget. "And no matter how not-illiterate you think I am, I couldn't teach reading."
"Aside from reading?" Ro demanded.
"That's enough, but she could use the contact with other kids, the local people are going to be her local people and she needs to get to know them, no matter how remote we keep ourselves."
Eupa crossed her arms and planted her feet, fixing her eyes on Ro. "She's human, and civilized, no matter what we do. She'll need to know how to read." She turned to Brotz and fixed her feet similarly. "Civilized or not, she is human and does need to know how to get food she doesn't need weapons to get, or fire to cook."
The fire in his belly finally petered out and Brotz was left feeling dejected and stupid.
"I hate when you're right," Ro moaned.
Eupa turned around and let her arms drop. "That shit aside, it's still more up to Brina than us. C'mere, kid!"
Brina had been waiting at the corner of the house. Brotz saw the little head duck around the corner as if to hide, then she sauntered over with her hands folded in front of her mouth.
"Alright, kiddo," Eupa declared, and she knelt next to the child and put an arm around her. "Me and Daddy and Ro-Ro are trying to figure out what all we should be teaching you–shut up, Ro–so now we know what we can offer, you can pick. Do you wanna learn the bugs– shut up, Brotz– Do you want learn the bugs to eat? And hunt?"
Brina checked Brotz's face and he looked away at the same time Eupa moved into her line of sight. "I'm asking Brina, not Daddy. Do you like the bugs?"
Brina was silent, but Brotz assumed she was nodding.
"You like hunting them with Ro-Ro?"
Again, he was sure it was a silent nod.
"Alright. Then we will continue those lessons. Shut up, Brotz. Now. How about school? Ro! Shut! Up! Do you know what school is?"
Brotz listened carefully. The ways she talked to Brina seemed to be too advanced, but she did better than him, so she had to be doing something right.
"Okay. School is a place you go to learn stuff. Ro."
Ro paced away and growled under her breath.
"Ro-Ro doesn't know the stuff they teach at school, so she thinks no one should need school," Eupa "whispered". "Ro-Ro also had lots of friends in our village, and we know Brina doesn't have lots of friends in the forest."
Brotz scowled as he realized that even he had more friends at Brina's age. Granted, they were his owners, but there were two.
Brina wagged her head and Brotz knelt with them. "Do you think you would wanna go somewhere without us for a little bit on some days? To learn to read and meet new people? Other kids your age?"
Brina hesitated adorably, swaying on her toes. "Wissout you?"
"Just for a little while, almost every day," she promised. "I'll probably lurk outside until I'm happy you're safe there."
Brina was pleased to hear that, and she bounced happily on her toes. "Yay! Yes! I want go to school!"
"Alrighty. Now me and Daddy will figure out school for you, and you can go practice hunting with Ro-Ro."
Brotz watched her stand up and brush herself off and resisted the urge to smack her when she smiled toothlessly at him.
Of the three of them, Brotz was the most exposed to a school system, which might as well have been a thousand miles away. He understood it as a place noble children went to learn basics that weren't under Nanny's jobs, mostly reading and math. He had no idea what else went on.
He did know he wanted Brina able to read. She could already do math, as the twins were keen on her knowing, but the reading was a hard stop for all of them.
The guys at the tavern pointed him toward West Yaluk academy, apparently specifically welcoming to the children of adventurers, young magicians, and anyone else with lifestyles that could invite disarray or sudden disappearances. The building itself was reinforced and Eupa said magical all by itself, and of the students in the open courtyard at the beginning of the day, enough were human-like to feel like he wasn't dropping her somewhere she would look completely out of place.
She came home the first couple of days excited and talking about the orc-human girl and a halfling boy, with some side mentions of one little girl's dress.
The third day, Brina seemed a little less energetic until they got home and Eupa cheered her up.
The fourth school day, Brina came through the school door glowering. Brotz had never seen Brina glower, and under the concern, it amused him to see that she was imitating him.
"You okay?" he asked, sweeping her to his shoulder.
Rather than start crying, she bit her lips and ducked her head. He pulled her off his shoulder and to his chest to let her bury her face. She held the sobbing in, but his shirt had wet patches before she lifted her head.
They were most of the way through town before Brotz felt he could put her back on his shoulder, where she sat pleasantly and waved at familiar faces while they traveled.
"You okay?" he asked again as they stepped into the trees.
"I hate Mierta!" she shouted, crossing her arms and bouncing where she sat on his arm.
"Mierta? The one whose dress you liked?" That was where he heard the name from, anyway.
"She's a asshole!" Brina cried.
Brotz didn't laugh, and then he didn't want to. "She's mean to you?"
She nodded aggressively. "She's a asshole!"
Brotz nodded firmly, but he couldn't imagine how this was going, if the girl was chasing her during play time or what, he didn't know anything about school. It didn't help that his first answer to the question was fighting. "Did you talk to the teacher?"
"She just yelled at me!"
Brotz assumed she meant the Mierta girl and he kissed her head and hugged her lovingly. "I'm sorry you're having trouble with a classmate. Did Ferrin help? Peony?"
She calmed considerably, so they must have.
"I'll talk with the other grown-ups and see if I can help you find a good answer. You might be right about her being an asshole."
Nothing to be done about assholes, Brotz determined. Eupa drilled it into his head and she only had to teach Brina a few times to call her an asshole before Brina understood the criteria for asshole behavior.
Eupa greeted them at the door and frowned when she saw their expressions. "That little Mierta shit again?"
"You heard?" Brotz asked.
"She told me during baths. I said Brina should punch the brat, but she said she doesn't wanna." Eupa shrugged helplessly.
Brotz shrugged back. "That's my answer, too."
"I don't wanna fight!" Brina cried.
"We heard you," sighed Eupa, but she was obviously pained to say it.
~
Brotz had regularly been stumped by parenthood, but this bully was the realest limit he found yet. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't follow Brina around at the school and glare at the kid every time she looked at Brina. He couldn't get the adults to interfere in a way that would genuinely prevent the little shit from going behind their backs.
The frequency dropped, but Brina came home at least once every three school days in a mood, glowering and slumping and pouting, not wanting to talk or eat. They talked to her about the bully's motives, Brotz sought out the girl and her parents at drop off (no luck), and they discussed what could be done to make bullies stop, but even with a bully in the house, they couldn't figure out what to do.
The teacher knew and could stop the girl when she caught them, but there was only so much catching and stopping to be done. Brotz didn't want to push the fighting thing like Eupa was, but only because Eupa was. He didn't know what to tell her, either.
He knew already why the Call Beads were heating up, and he started for the school before the actual "call" took place.
He kicked himself the whole way there. He should've insisted. Eupa should've insisted more. Should have taught her a hold, how to pin down an opponent, something, dammit.
He wished he was wrong, but the assistant was at the door and frowning, leading him in without a word.
He didn't know why he was nervous, except that he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He was usually pretty good at figuring it out, but this was so far out of his norm that he didn't know what to expect.
Headmistress Lyre was a tall blue-gray orc woman with no hair and red eyes. She wasn't an adventurer herself, but she had a strong air and Brotz liked her.
Her office was near the front door, and Brotz was led inside with little ado.
Brina turned to look at him when he came in the door. Her cheek was scratched, and so was her chin, little red lines in the warm brown skin that set a piercingly hot fire in his belly. He hadn't been that mad at anyone but Eupa in years, and only a few other people in his life. As well as the scratches, Brina's hair was undone into a mess of poof and dark brown curl, she had ink splattered all over her, and some of the lace on her dress was coming off.
The source of the damage was sitting in the other chair, backed by her parents. Brina said Mierta was pretty, which was funny for someone that Brina obviously didn't like, so he wasn't surprised to see that she looked like a little doll of a person. At the moment, she wore a twisted, hateful scowl on the precious apple-cheeked face, fit for the villain she'd revealed herself to be. She was missing a shoe, and her strawberry blond ringlets were askew but not like Brina's. She held a metal cup of ice in tiny bruised hands.
Brotz tried to keep himself calm, but even the Headmistress fixed her posture defensively as he lumbered to his daughter's back. He would have been sorry, but he was less sorry than he was satisfied to see the other adults in the room lean away from him. He hardly remembered that he didn't like dealing with dwarves or officials, he was too busy trying to swallow the rage.
It was quiet for a bit too long, and Brotz got a chance to look at the girl's parents. Both were handsome Subterranean dwarves and Mierta seemed to have gotten her pick of the looks. Her almond-shaped eyes were her mother's, her bulbous nose was her father's. The strawberry blond belonged to him, the curls to her. His beard was artfully braided and beaded and maintained, where hers was trimmed more simply with her mustache leading into two braids on either side of the twin braids on her chin. Her hands were singed black, too, she was probably the smith of the pair. The toddler on the mother's hip smiled at Brotz and waved, and Brotz forced himself to return the gesture for the kids' sakes.
"'Lo," Brotz managed to rumble to the other family, but he couldn't bring himself to be any more polite right now. It was getting easier, he was still breathing carefully and trying not to look at Brina, but he did give her his hand to hold to her chest, and she hugged it fiercely.
Mierta's dad put on his broad, painfully fake shopkeeper smile and greeted Brotz with a sweeping bow. "Nice to meet you, sir! I'm Ferio." His bass voice was charming, and Brotz was now sure that he was the frontman for their store. He wanted to slap the beads out of his beard.
"Brotz." Brotz didn't bow in return. He was grateful that he was not good with words. If he had been able to express himself, he'd upset someone and get Brina kicked out. He glanced again at the little girl in the chair and tried again to come up with new words. "We have heard about Mierta a few times at home." It was an understatement and not what he wanted to say. He was supposed to be teaching Brina how to act, he reminded himself. "Brina says that Mierta doesn't like her."
"She doesn't!" Brina interjected heatedly.
"'Cos you're always makin' stuff up!" Mierta cried in response. Brina took in another breath to keep going, but Brotz gave her a reassuring squeeze and pet her arm with his thumb. She settled for hugging his palm to her chest. He saw her look up at him, but she still looked angry and Brotz felt another pang of rage in his heart when he saw the scratches this close. They were only scratches, Brina had done worse to herself just climbing a tree, and that didn't help him feel any better.
Brotz finally got his eyes to focus on the Headmistress, who looked very tired with the girls' argument, and she glanced up at him. The other family were exchanging looks, and Brotz could almost hear them communicating like that. He was glad that the little brat Brina hated so much came from a place of love. Gave her a chance to get better.
The other two looked up at Brotz, too, but rather than talk to him about it, they both moved to Mierta's sides, and the mother petted the girl's back lovingly, copied closely by the toddler. That fire in his belly was hot, even as small as it burned. He was used to consuming rage, but this one was small and in his center and very tightly focused.
"Why do you say she's making things up, gemstone?" Ferio seemed to want to make this right, but Brotz could tell he was trying to defend his kid as much as Brotz was ready to fight for Brina.
Mierta would not be soothed. She bounced hard in the chair, flinging an arm at Brina and nearly striking her father. "She's always talking about her weird faerie hunter werecat spirit lady mom and her invisible aunt!" she cried. "She's got the purple eye already, she doesn't have to make stuff up!" She threw herself into the back of the chair and crossed her arms again. Mierta was on the verge of tears. "She doesn't have to make stuff up!" she repeated. The girl's mother straightened her curls, and she glanced pointedly at Brotz but didn't say anything.
The girl's parents and Headmistress Lyre exchanged looks, and as one they redirected to Brotz, silently asking if Brina was telling the truth.
The fire got hotter. It didn't matter, no schoolyard lie was worth a vial of ink and two dresses, certainly not enough to actually fight over. That little shit hurt my daughter and you want to know what Brina did!?
Brotz held it in. Instead of arguing with them, he tried his damnedest to lead by example as the twins often told him to do (especially since their examples were horrible). Brina's puppy eyes glittered imploringly, and he pet her again. "The first one's kind of off but I know who she means and it's not as far off as you think. Ro's not her mom, but she's werekin, spirit-bound, hunter, and faerie, yeah, all those are true. Not in that order. The invisible aunt isn't invisible, she just knows a trick to get out of sight."
The shopkeepers maintained their smiles through the explanation, but Brotz saw Ferio's broad face light up after a few moments. The charming dwarf man leaned over the arm of the chair to hug his daughter briefly before he turned to face Brotz, standing firmly between them. "Oh, I see. You were adventurers before you came to Tinian." He turned to his daughter, putting his back to Brotz and trying to hide that he was nervous. "Mierta, my diamond, you can't just call people liars just because you've never heard of the things they're talking about. Even if they sound impossible."
The mother turned to address Brotz, giving a low bow from the other side of Mierta's chair, and the toddler on her hip imitated. "We're very sorry. Our shop goes back hundreds of years and she thinks it's boring. We knew she had an ongoing fight with the other adventurers' children, there are two that we know about, we didn't realize there was a new one. Do you need us to pay for the dress?"
Brotz didn't know what to say. He wanted to say a lot of things, and the immortal wanted to pop all of them one good time in the heads, even the Headmistress, and he had to hold it back. "It's alright, money's not a problem," he managed. He had to turn away from the other parents before he threw someone through a wall. Headmistress Lyre was visibly frightened and determined to hide it. He wasn't doing anything on purpose, though, so he didn't know what to stop doing. "Can we have separate classes this time?"
"Indeed." Headmistress Lyre looked to Mierta's parents, then to Brotz, then to the girls. Her stern expression stayed steady as she folded her hands on her desk and leaned forward again. "You are both suspended," she told them. Brotz heard Brina suck in a breath to argue and he thumped her chair before she got started. "Two days," she said to Brina. She pointed to Mierta. "Five days for the ink and starting the fight."
Brotz made eye contact with Ms. Lyre to "ask" to go, and she gave the smallest flick of her finger to direct him to the door. "See you in a couple of days," Brotz managed breathlessly, and he lifted Brina off the chair and put himself between her and everyone else in the room, trying not to loom. Brina trotted ahead, apparently as desperate to leave as Brotz. It gave him an excuse to do the same, massive boots thumping steadily along with Brina's rapidly tapping slippers, echoes carrying down the smooth blue walls. He tried to breathe the fire from his lungs, but it was still being stoked, even as they got outside. He was going to need a fight after this, that was hard.
Waiting at the gate, Brina bounced on her toes. She was keeping her face calm with nothing short of admirable self-control. "You okay, babygirl?" He knelt to hold her tight her to his chest. She barely squeaked a confirmation and he scooped her into his arms to carry her out of town.
Brina was silent and still with her eyes fixed in front of them when she lifted her head at all. He'd learned lately that Brina was concerned with how she came across in public (an old attitude he forgot having), and she was holding in the tears. She was doing well, but he wanted to hurry.
She waited until they got to the treeline before she released the tears in a flood. Brotz enveloped her in his hands to press her to his chest. "Oh, baby girl, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
"I'm okay," she whimpered, burying her face into his neck and clinging tight, clutching at his back. "She's so mean, and she scared me, and it hurt, and I didn't know what to do!"
Now Brotz was annoyed with Brina, but he kept that to himself, too. "We said you needed to learn to fight." He hoped she took that well, at least. She clung to his massive chest with her head over his shoulder as she sobbed pitifully. "It's not easy to do. We can teach you how to stop someone from hurting you, okay? We don't have to teach you to hurt anyone else, but we need to teach you some holds and stuff, okay?"
"But I don't wanna fight!" Brina wailed, and the tears began anew. Her voice became wild and unsteady as she continued into his chest. "I don't wanna fight, but she pushed me and she jumped on me and threw ink on me and pulled my hair!"
Ro appeared a few feet from them, having heard the tears, and Brotz turned to let the hunter hug Brina from the side, pressing the child between her guardians. Ro pet the girl's untamed hair sweetly and rested her furry head next to Brina's, pushing their cheeks together. "You don't have to fight, but we want you to know how if you decide to." Ro's voice was soft and soothing in a way that Brotz wasn't used to, it was a lot like Eupa's version of the same voice.
"That little shit hurt you, didn't she?!" Eupa bellowed as she shot through the trees, practically leaping onto Brotz and Ro in her efforts to get to Brina. "That– – brat!"
Brotz grabbed Eupa's arm to stop her before she got started, and she pouted at him, but took the hint. He still didn't let go until Brina stole one of Eupa's arms to hug to herself.
They held Brina together until the weeping stopped, and Ro rocked back and gave her a good lookover. "You did good." She kissed Brina's forehead and smudged something that smelled sharp and bitter on the scratches. "First real fight, huh?" she teased with a fang-baring smile. "I wish you'd let us teach you before that happened, but you did good."
Brina sniffled and leaned to hug Ro. "You guys are so mean," she whimpered. "I don't wanna fight, you guys are so mean when you fight."
"We really are, even when it's just a game," Ro agreed, and she kissed Brina's head and nuzzled their cheeks together. "I understand that you don't want to fight, dear one, but you will have others that want to fight you, and we want you to be able to fight back. You did do good, this time, but we can teach you how to stop them, and you can choose to fight or not."
Brina had never heard them say it like that before. "Choose?"
"Yes, dear. You need to learn how to fight so you can decide if you want to, instead of simply being unable to. You don't have to if you don't want, but we want you able to if you want to. We'll teach you. You know how me and your Aunt Eupa always play? We don't really hurt each other."
"You guys try to kill each other," Brina objected. "I've seen you both choke each other."
Eupa snorted a laugh and turned to hide her face when Brotz glared sternly at her. "That's just our version of play, we're sisters. We won't teach you to choke anyone." Ro couldn't contain the smile. "Maybe a chokehold when you're older, but for now we just want to teach you how to get in control of the fight and the other person. Okay? That way, if you decide to fight, you can and if you decide not to fight, you'll know what to do. Okay?"
~
Even with the end of the Mierta saga, it remained true that parenting was the most challenging thing Brotz had ever done. Seven years in the arena? A famous showman with no losses. Playing pretend hero? He needed demonstrations from his murderer housemate. Fighting from sunup 'til noon the following day? Pushed until midnight after a nap. Teething nights? He'd rather go back to combat. Wrestling an ice giant? Bring on another one. His baby's bad cold? He woke up with someone else handling it. Toppling a genocidal regime? The hard part was keeping Eupa from genocide-ing both sides of the war. Watching his child's magic make its first appearance during a game of hide and seek…?
"One! Two! Three!" Eupa called, sending Brina and Ro sprinting into the woods. Brotz waited with Eupa to be "base". He was supposed to wander around, but he had a bad habit of following Brina when he tried, so he was facing the other way and letting the purple flickers vanish from sight.
"You gonna actually make it to the hundred count this time?" Brotz teased. She always got impatient and stopped around the eighty mark. Ro insisted that hundred was a good number, but they never needed more than fifty.
"ShutupTwelve! Thirteen!"
Brotz chuckled softly and listened to Ro thunder off into the woods. She was not particularly nimble, choosing to teleport when she needed to move quietly, and even he could track her by the noise. He suspected it was to help cover up Brina's– the twins tended to cheat on her behalf.
"Twenty-six, twenty-seven!"
Eupa's eyes narrowed at Brotz when he grinned at her. He could already hear it in her voice, she was getting bored with the count. "And you're a professional assassin," he mocked.
"Yes– Thirty-one! Which means– Thirty-two! I am– Thirty-three! Already– Thirty-four! Tired of— Thirty-five! Waiting. Thirty-six! Thirty-seven!"
Brotz could imagine that was true. "Glad you're out here, anyway. It's been a long time since Ro and Brina were home at the same time, this was a good idea."
Brotz finally looked to see if he could find any traces of their family. Ro tended to blend in anyway, except when she didn't, usually because her ribbons were bright red and flapping somewhere. He always wondered how she hunted with those, but apparently they stopped making such a fuss, or maybe beasts couldn't see them.
"Sixtyonesixtytwosixtythreesixtyfour," Eupa continued, but she was going so fast there was no way to understand without knowing her count. Brotz snickered and waited to see how long it took, absently walking toward the path.
She made it to seventy-nine, which was shorter than usual, but she had a point– she was using all her patience at work.
"Ready or not!" she called into the woods, trotting off as loudly as she could. She could hardly make the leaves crunch under her feet on purpose. Ro's quietest was Eupa's loudest– except her mouth.
"Alrighty, kiddo, let's see how you're doing," she announced, following Brina's blatant tracks up to a tree root, then into the tree itself. "Good job," she said, but there was a landing spot and more disturbed leaves ahead. "Not so good," she announced.
Brotz chuckled and looked ahead for any glimpses of purple. Nope.
"Alright, now you've lost me. Great job, Brinarini!" Eupa called into the woods. "Time to stalk my sister," she then said, turning to face the west and stomping off.
It was a feint, of course– Eupa wouldn't announce she was chasing Ro, as Ro would hear her. Brina bought it every time.
Brina flit through the trees in the distance, and Brotz sucked a breath. If she knew where he was, it was gonna be close. If she was just wandering, she was doomed to being tackled and tickled.
She knew where he was.
Brotz had to force himself to stay still, instead of moving toward Brina, and he spun where he stood to look away into the trees until the noise started.
Brina ran as nimbly as she could through the forest. The big man worried for a long time that she was going to hurt herself, but growing up here, learning to run between the trees when she was barely the size of his boots prepared her well for the gangly scramble she developed, bounding and leaping at odd angles and slipping through tiny spaces, narrowly dodging and sliding marvelously.
She's gotten so big, Brotz couldn't help but think, watching her measure up to Eupa's collar in a dress that was too big when they made it and too small now. Brotz stood watching the pair approach as they bounced and dodged at speeds that made him flinch. Brotz could hardly keep up with the sight. Flying skirts and cloaks and arm warmers were flickers of red and purple flitting between the gray and brown. He braced himself to catch his daughter as she got closer, listening to Eupa sing-song, "Gon-na catch-a Breeeee-na, gon-na eat-her leeeegggs oooooooooff!"
"Don't be creepy!" Brina cried as she slid in the leaves and struggled to get her feet under her. Eupa burst through and slid next to her, missing on purpose and grabbing at Brina's cloak as the girl leapt toward her father–
And vanished.
Eupa shot to her feet, looking wide-eyed at Brotz as he spun to face the crackling leaves immediately behind him. Brina had staggered and fallen as though she jumped over there.
Ro was already at her side, but Brotz and Eupa were too stunned to move, staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed
"What happened?" Brina asked, looking at her guardians, clearly trying to determine if it was time to panic. Brotz struggled with his face for several long moments to wipe it clean of incredulity, but apparently Eupa's wasn't so good at hiding her thoughts. Brina turned to Ro and started crying, throwing her arms around the lioness's neck.
"Eupa!" Ro scolded, pulling Brina into a tight hug. Brotz lumbered over to Brina, sure Eupa was already gone. "She didn't mean to make that face! You know how Aunt Eupa gets when she doesn't expect things, even when they're good things like this! Remember how weird she got when you made her that birthday gift?"
Brina sat up and looked at Ro with wet eyes, seeing the genuine cheer and taking heart. Ro wiped the tears away with her thumbs and kissed her forehead. "But this isn't just good, it's wonderful! You just did magic for the first time!"
Brotz almost choked and Ro pulled her in for a hug, forcing Brina's chin over her shoulder so the vicious expression would go unseen, baring her teeth and glaring at Brotz as she swayed with the distressed child. If looks could kill, they'd be having him for dinner.
The news did seem to make Brina feel better, but she was still slow to ease out of Ro's hug until Brotz put his hand on her back and pulled her into his arms. "You teleported," he told her, stepping back to show her where the disturbed leaves ended and started ten steps along. "That thing Ro-Ro does when she disappears and reappears," he added, and he smiled for her. "This is great, it just scared us for a second." He held the smile as well as he could, but the fear was still clutching his heart in its clawed grip. Ro was still looking at him like that, so he didn't show it, but all he could do was wonder…
