“Come on, we’re going to go have some fun,” Kol said to his niece. It was mid-afternoon and he had the day off while she seemed to be mostly finished up with her training for the day. It was a nice day, and they hadn’t spent much one-on-one time together much recently. He’d found her at the base after a visit with Davina and decided to convince her to make an afternoon of it.
He’d been walking through parts of the Village several days ago and had noticed a few spots he’d not visited yet. One of them being something that involved carnival booths and outdoor game show spectacles both of the traditional and very, very non-traditional variety.
“You know that you want to spend some time with your favorite uncle.”
Atlantis was just weird, weirder than home if that was possible. Ever since she got her memory update, Hope had been a little bit quieter and hadn’t actually told many people about it, or what she had done at home. So when Kol showed up trying to talk her into doing something she played that she was too tired, but she knew he’d eventually talk her into it.
“Who says you are my favorite?” She teased, truth be told, Kol was her favorite Uncle and the one she trusted the most, she knew trust and Kol going together wasn’t usually how people thought about him, but it was how Hope did.
“Like it’s even a competition,” he said with a smirk. Even if he wasn’t confident about his favorable place in his niece’s life, and he was very confident, he still would have said it anyway. “Let’s have an afternoon off and let you forget missions and training and all for a few hours.” He nudged her gently. “I’ll buy you an ice cream. Or something shiny and fun.”
No, he certainly wasn’t above bribery. This was why he made an excellent uncle. He gave Hope a look. “When’s the last time you can say that you took an afternoon off. A real afternoon off.” He knew she had friends and had fun on her off hours, but there was something to be said for skipping a training or a shift for the day and letting yourself unwind.
“I’m not 6 Uncle Kol, I’m pretty sure it’s around 10 that ice cream bribery starts to go down,” she teased with a small laugh. She liked that he tried and cared enough to try.
She opened her mouth to answer but nothing came out, sometimes she hung out with Tilly or one of her other friends but Hope didn’t really do the take time off thing, she was too serious about things and she didn’t really feel like she could. She wasn’t the kind of person that got time off to just have fun, that was for other people.
“Okay, you got me, I don’t do the take time off thing, and just because I love you, I’ll take the afternoon off! Even if it might get her in trouble she was pretty sure Kol could fix that too.
“Well, I didn’t get to buy you an ice cream at any of those ages, so I have a lot of making up to do, yes?” Besides, ice cream was something most people enjoyed, right? Though, not him specifically, of course, unless they had blood in their list of toppings.
“Brilliant.” Kol grinned and guided her forward to the exit. He wasn’t going to waste any time lest she try to change her mind. Soon they were outside and on their way towards the Village.
“You lot have been busier with training than normal, haven’t you?” Kol wasn’t an agent, but he’d heard rumblings about missions that seemed more secret than normal. The city hadn’t been affected by any particular world that he could tell, so that made these missions all the more curious.
“Make it a spiked float, and then we are talking,” She said glad she was of legal age in Atlantis, not that it really mattered with her vampire family.
Hope shrugged. “I don’t know, I think there is something up but it’s not like we actually hear a lot about it,” she didn’t like that. “But after the,” she didn’t even say the words. The arena and being the last alive did more to her than she would ever admit. “I guess Bellamy is more a trial under fire kind of guy sometimes, and Tracey is great, but yeah, we are training a lot.”
“Now that’s the kind of ice cream treat I can get behind.” He might even try to taste one of those as long as the maker went heavy on the spike and easy on the cream. Kol would have hardly cared if Hope was of legal age or not at this point. She’d seen more in her years than most adults had - even some vampires.
She didn’t have to finish that statement for Kol to know what she meant by it. “I suppose it’s in the team’s best interest to be prepared.” There didn’t seem to be much information being passed around even from an education on what was going on standpoint. While he was generally fine to help out when called upon, it was best that Kol wasn’t an active agent. He didn’t typically do well following orders or respecting protocols.
They walked through the city to the Village area and eventually arrived at their destination: The Fighting Fun area. “So, what first? Carnival booths or something a little more exciting?”
Hope nodded. “Yeah, it is best that we are ready for whatever is coming, and it seems like teams change enough with people coming and going.” She didn’t mind that much, but sometimes she felt like everything was a little bit up in the air, but she supposed that was pretty much her whole life too.
Looking up at Kol she smiled wondering for a second what life would have been like if she had been able to see her father and vampire aunt and uncles growing up more, instead of just phone calls and facetime.
“Come on, something more exciting, of course, besides, it wouldn’t be fair with our skills to the booth owners!” She teased smiling and nodding towards on of the rides that looked to take you in all different kinds of directions.
“If they wanted fair, they shouldn’t have set up shop in the middle of a city with dozens of individuals with enhanced abilities,” Kol said, raising his brow in amusement. “Besides, that only makes it more fun because we’d win.” Maybe there were some booths with extra difficulty given the nature of a lot of people in Atlantis.
“What about one of the game shows? I hear there’s a Price is Right. Or the one with the little creature that take all of your money - the whammies. Oh, I once watched several episodes of one called Double Dare. Trivia and challenges.” He motioned around at some of the signs. “Or if you see one that interests you more, we’ll go with that one. Then the floats.”
“And make some poor person go broke!” She added with a small laugh. Hope hadn’t really ever done this kind of thing before. Sure, there were some things at school for events, but nothing like this.
“What whats? Whammies?” She didn’t know what he was talking about, nor did she know what Double Dare was but it sounded like something that someone should watch or play with not their uncles. Hope looked around carefully. “I’d suggest family feud but I think we’d need more of the family for that.” She shrugged. “There is Game of Games,” she suggested. From the clips she remembered seeing it was really intense.
“Whammies. The little demon that you don’t want to land or else they’ll take your money and points. Though, probably not a smart idea; one of us would likely smash the thing.” Family Feud? The initial image was amusing, but Kol shook his head with a laugh. “Those are dangerous words, love,” he said lightly. “We Mikaelsons feud enough on our own.” But they would need more family in order to make that work. Unless the game provided stand-in versions of them instead.
“Game of Games,” he repeated. It must have been a newer show because he didn’t immediately recognize the title. “Let’s go for it.”
Hope just shook her head, she really had no idea what he was talking about or how they took money or points.
“Come on, cheesy t-shirts and trying to remember everything from thousands of years? What could possibly go wrong?” She asked clearly joking. The last thing they needed was for the Mikaelson family to stop getting along.
“Yeah, it has a little bit of everything, and I think it’ll even keep you on your toes,” she teased. “No yawning!” She warned.
“What could possibly go wrong are likely someone’s famous last words.” Probably his mother’s centuries ago. What could possibly go wrong by turning your children into immortal demons dependent on blood to survive? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.
“I’ll do my best to stay alert.” he promised as they headed off towards the game. He was ready for a challenge, and the explanation of the game seemed just that once they were given the basics of it. They were going to be assigned the game called Scary-Go-Round. Sounded like fun to him. Soon, it was their turn and they were set up with a full audience watching them just like a normal game show.
“So, who’s going first?”
Hope laughed, he was probably right. Famous last words.
There was a lot about the game that she wasn’t sure how it would go. Her uncle was a lot faster than she was but she was also a lot smaller and good at dodging things. She opened her mouth “I think I-” she paused. “Actually you can go first.” She said as she let the worker show her to where she’d get to launch balls at Uncle Kol while he moved the large balls.
“READY, SET, GO!” A voice sounded out. Hope waited carefully launching the balls with more strategy than just on a whim.
“Bloody hell,” he said to himself as he climbed up onto the platform and prepared to cross the small obstacle course of spinning circles to collect the large balls on the other side. Hope was ready to blast him as he went. When the start sounded, he was off to a good start quickly across the first spinner and made it to the second but the direction suddenly changed and his quick movements worked against him. Still, he managed to grab the first ball and headed back across the board to drop it where it was supposed to go.
It was actually quite harder than it looked, even for a thousand year old vampire with enhanced abilities and speed. All the while, Hope hit him over and over again with the smaller balls to try to knock him off course. He hadn’t fallen yet, but it could be distracting. The second ball was collected about like the first but he was tripped up on the way to get the third and found himself spinning and spinning on one of the spinners. Back up on his feet quickly, though, he collected the last one and worked his way back to the start.
The last ball was dropped into the chamber, and he laughed after climbing down. “Never in a thousand years did I think I’d ever do something like that.”
Hope was having a hard time aiming towards the end, watching his expressions she was struggling because she was laughing so far, as he fell down she nearly fell over herself laughing. It was just strange watching him spin round and round like that.
When he spoke she nodded. “I really hope that it is recorded somewhere!” She finally got out after laughing.
Knowing it was her turn she headed to the start of the course and took a deep breath waiting to hear the sound to go.
“You’re a nice shot,” he said. Although he wasn’t exactly sore from the couple of falls, Kol did feel a little wobbly on his feet. He blamed the back and forth spinning of the course. He could tell she was having trouble holding in her laughter, and he was glad. That was the entire point of the outing today. To have a good time with his niece and to make sure she had fun without worrying about training, the different perils of Atlantis at times, or even of home.
He readied himself with the shooter now that it was Hope’s turn to brave the spinning course. He probably should feel bad for shooting objects at his teenage niece, but she was tough and besides, they hadn’t hit with too much force. The horn sounded, and he immediately began loading up the shooter and fired off a couple of balls at her to see if he could knock her off her course.
Taking a deep breath Hope dashed forward, ending up running in a full circle and nearly falling as a ball hit her shoulder, finally she made it to the second one and to the ball. It took her a while to get her balance again to get back and drop it off. She managed the first ball and went for the second tripping and going down to her knees for just a second. Leaping up she jumped over one ball Uncle Kol shot at her and managed to land without totally whipping out. Getting the second ball back and dropping it she started out for the third, by the time she got to it she was pretty sure she’d be feeling dizzy for the next week. Pausing for a second to get her breath she nearly fell again just as she made it to the other side dropping her ball in as the buzzer sounded.
Her cheeks were flushed as she pushed back a little sweat from her forehead. “I don’t think that’s something anyone ever thought about doing,” she admitted as she caught her breath.
After it was all over, Kol grinned. “No, it’s really not, is it?” He paid no attention to their individual times but simply looked to see where they were to be going next. “I can admit, as long as you can keep a secret, that the game may have been harder than it looked initially.” Because when would any Mikaelson have thought they’d be spinning around on a platform while trying to collect large, red balls?
There was a place for them to participate in some trivia, but Kol wasn’t sure if that qualified as something more exciting. “Do we try our minds at trivia or call this game a success and get those floats? I think we’ve both earned the extra spike to them.”
Hope laughed. “Secret is safe with me,” Hope never thought she’d ever do things that were fun like that anyway so she was just excited that they got to do something fun.
“Um, I think we should just get those floats,” she decided. Trivia sounded interesting but she was pretty sure Uncle Kol knew a lot more than she did about some of the topics that might come up. He’d been around for some of the history.
“Extra spike it is!” She laughed, letting him lead the way.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Kol said with a smile and motioned forward before ushering the both of them through the rest of the crowd and between the other games that were being played on stage to the exit. He had very high suspicions that there were plenty of cameras that caught them on film, but he supposed that the experience and game itself that was played could have been a lot worse.
Once they were back outside, he nodded. “As for the extra bit of spike, I think I know a place.”