ladynero (ladynero) wrote in gen_challenge, @ 2008-05-03 00:21:00 |
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Current mood: | bouncy |
May 3rd Prompt
Chasing the Rainbow
Prompts: Trinity Blood, Abel Nightroad, Learning to be a child
Dedicated again to the one who requested the prompt. Hope you enjoy it.
*grins* This game I made up while driving on the highway, but it's still simple enough that anyone can play it.
Sighing in frustration, Cardinal Catarina Sforza dug through her desk drawers, searching for the latest report from her agents. She knew it had to be here somewhere, and she needed that report to verify a few facts before sending it to be filed. Jerking open a drawer, she shoved papers out of her way to uncover a large, green velvet bag tied with a golden cord. She blinked in surprise as she pulled it out, the velvet worn in spots where the contents had rubbed the flock off, and she bounced it a few times in her hand, the contents making the soft noise of metal on metal. A smile blossomed on her face as she quickly undid the complicated knot with practiced ease and upended the bag, spilling the contents across her desk.
Two dozen jacks, each a color of the rainbow, bounced across the paperwork, their worn edges revealing dulled metal where stone surfaces had worn the bright laquer away. A six sided dice rolled out to land with the six pips showing, and she barely managed to grab the rubber ball before it bounced off her desk. Catarina’s smile grew as she stared at her jacks, the dice resting innocently between the metal toys. It had been quite a while since she had played ‘Chasing the Rainbow’, the game she had made up on the spot to show Abel how much fun playing could be when he had expressed a disinterest in the more simple Onesies.
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Young Catarina Sforza stared at her guardian angel, a velvet bac in one hand and a determined look on her face. “What do you mean you don’t want to play Onesies?”
Abel Nightroad shrugged and returned his attention to the rainy day outside the window. “There is no point to practice hand/eye coordination just to pass the time,” he said, blue eyes tracking the rain that slid down the glass.
“That’s not the point,” she protested, resisting the urge to stomp her foot. Really, he could be so irritating at times. “The point is to have *fun*.” The blank look that he gave her was surprising, as if he had never considered having fun for fun’s sake. “What games did you play when you were little?”
“I didn’t. There was no time to play games,” he replied with a shrug before returning his attention to the window, and she could only stare at him. No time to play? What kind of life did he have before he rescued her? After all, *everyone* was able to play when they were kids. Even she got to play despite learning everything she needed to take her place in society some day.
Nodding once, she decided that it was time to teach him how to play, and the perfect game just came to her. She got into one of her junk baskets and found a six sided dice, a pretty green swirly one with gold pips, as she finalized the rules of her new game. She wouldn’t tell him that it was a new game, because that wouldn’t be any fun. Walking back to Abel’s side, she grabbed his sleeve. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Abel asked as she switched her grip to his wrist and pulled him out of the rooms.
Catarina smiled up at him and dragged him down into the ballroom. “We’re going to play together. If you’re going to be my guardian angel, then you have to learn how to play.”
Before he could protest again, she pulled him down to the floor with her, and quickly upended her the bag, spilling the jacks across the floor as she caught the bouncing ball in a casual motion. “All right, this is different from Onesies. It’s called ‘Chasing the Rainbow’.”
She picked out six of the jacks, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, and held them in her hand as she grabbed the dice. “The object is to get one of each color in your turn. That’s a rainbow. You roll the dice to figure out how many tries you get to get a rainbow. If you don’t get a full rainbow by the end of your tries, the jacks go back into the center. Once all the jacks are gone, the person with the most rainbows wins.”
“Wins what?” he asked, absently tucking his long silver hair behind an ear.
Catarina shrugged. “You just win the game,” she replied before grinning. “Of course, if you want, we can play for favors. Like, if I win, I get to brush your hair for you or if you win, I’ll do something you want me to within reason.”
He looked nearly ready to agree so she decided to use the ultimate card she had. “No whining and no complaining for the favors, and no super fast reflexes for the game.” He had been trying to get her interested in learning how to defend herself but she always had an excuse to get out of it. This was giving him the ultimate control to get around her excuses.
“All right,” he agreed. “We’ll play on an even scale. I won’t use my Crusnik reflexes, and when I win, you’ll have to start training with me.”
Grinning, she picked up the dice. “Highest number goes first,” she announced, throwing the dice and getting ready to start the game.
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Shaking her head, Catarina scooped the jacks back into the bag. It had taken almost three games before Abel had laughed and another two before he was having fun, making silly bets with her like wearing her hair in pigtails or standing on one leg while bellowing a silly song at the top of her lungs.
She tied the gold cord around the bag again and was about to slip it back in the drawer when she hesitated, gray eyes flickering to the sunny day outside her window. The report wasn’t that important right then, just a follow up of the mission, and she honestly didn’t have anything that needed to be done right that minute...
A flicker of silver caught Catarina’s attention, and she looked up as Abel wandered past her window, strolling aimlessly through the gardens like he always did when he was there. Grinning, she grabbed the velvet bag and hurried out of her office by the French windows.
“Father Nightroad!” she called, and he turned to look at her with his usual smiling mask on that turned into a genuine smile when he saw her. She smiled and held up the bag when she stopped in front of him. “Wanna chase rainbows, Abel?”
“You have to ask?” teased Abel, offering his arm, and she took it with a giggle, the velvet bag filled with friendship dangling from her hand as they went to find a good place to play.