Just a bit of silliness

[maculategiraffe]

I guess you could consider this part of "Lee", as it's the flashback Holden plunges into immediately after Lisa's last line in the last chapter. I was just going to sort of nod to it with a paragraph in the next chapter of Lee, but I'd gone ahead and written out the whole thing for fun and I sort of thought it was fun and I might as well post it. So. Yes. Silliness.







Holden watched from the couch as Valor slung a leg over Yves, mounting him matter-of-factly; Yves stayed on his hands and knees, steadying himself under her weight for a moment before he rose, with her arms tight clasped around his neck, and took off at a gentle lope around the room.

"Faster, steed!" Valor yelled from his back. "The forces of evil do not sleep!"

Holden tried not to cackle out loud as Yves caught his eye; his daughter's round little face was utterly serious. Where in the world had she picked that one up?

"Down," Valor ordered when Yves had reached the hearth that was doubling as the villain's lair, where her doll was tied to the poker with kitchen twine. "Now you're the bad guy."

Yves seated himself compliantly on the hearth and bared his teeth at Valor in an exaggerated snarl.

"No," said Valor irritably. "That's silly."

Yves sobered and lowered his eyebrows at Valor.

"Release my child, evil giant," Valor commanded in a ringing, heroic tone, fairly impressive for a five-year-old girl.

"No," said Yves darkly. "Soon my foul plan shall be complete, and all of humanity shall writhe with its foot beneath my neck. I mean its-- uh, you know. The other way around. And if you lift a finger to attempt to destroy me," he added, resuming his menacing tones, "your innocent child's life shall be forfeit."

Valor reached for the doll, and Yves moved to block her.

"See how my minions await my merest gesture," he addded, gesturing vaguely to the left, "to seize her and hurl her into the fiery depths of my-- volcano."

Valor peered at him. "You don't have a volcano."

"I might," Yves said. "You don't know."

"You don't."

Yves sneered expressively at her. "Would you stake your only child's life on that?"

"She's not my only child," said Valor loftily. "I have two."

"Would you stake your only-- blond child's life on that?" Yves amended, which seemed to impress Valor as a rhetorical direction. "Surrender, and rule with me! Your strength, courage and resourcefulness shall serve you well as my consort!"

"Never!" Valor shouted.

"Oh, come on," Yves wheedled. "You could smite all our enemies, and throw them into the volcano. And you would be the Evil Queen of the Planet. It would be fun."

"What about my mom?" Valor demanded.

"Your mom could be Evil Queen Dowager," Yves offered. "And you could wear a sinister black crown, carved like a snake biting its own tail, with emeralds for eyes."

Valor considered this. "Can I see the crown?"

"Then you consent?"

"No!" said Valor, startled. "Never!"

"Then you must be prepared to sacrifice your child to your stubborn heroics," said Yves, and turned to the doll. Valor grabbed the poker, doll and all, and took a swing at Yves, which he ducked nimbly.

"Valor!" said Holden sharply, unnerved by the near miss; the poker was heavy enough to hurt Yves, even in a child's hands, if she swung it carelessly enough. "Put that down."

Valor raised the poker again.

"Right now, Valor!"

"Hey," said Yves, lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Don't hit me, Miss. You're the one who made me the bad guy."

Valor scowled at him, the poker still poised above her head. "You took my baby."

"Yeah, and I think she's getting dizzy up there," said Yves, jerking his chin at the doll that was still tied to the poker.

Valor hesitated long enough for Holden to come up behind her and yank the poker, a touch abruptly, out of her hand.

"You do not swing this around, young lady," he said firmly. "You could seriously hurt someone."

Valor stared up at him for a second, then collapsed to the floor, red-faced, quivering, and beginning to draw in an enormous breath.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Holden muttered; Yves was leaning solicitously over Valor, who pulled violently away from his comforting hand. "Here it comes."

"MAMA!" Valor screamed in an earsplitting siren wail.

"So now I'm the bad guy," said Holden into the interval afforded by her next breath. "Because I don't want you breaking Yves'--"

"MAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Your mama's not here right now, honey, you know that," said Yves. "She went with Alix to--"

"I WANT HER!" Valor screamed, tears splattering down her crimson cheeks.

"She'll be home soon, Miss--"

"You can't reason with her when she's like this," said Holden, annoyed.

"I WANT HER NOW!" Valor shrieked, so loudly it seemed she might damage her throat.

"And it's awful to want something so much and not get it," Yves said softly, as if to himself, not looking at either Holden or his hysterical daughter. "It's like somebody's being mean to you."

"THEY ARE BEING MEAN TO ME!" Valor roared. "DADDY HURT ME!"

"I most certainly did not hurt you!"

"Where are you hurt, honey?" Yves asked, ignoring Holden. "Show me."

Valor held out her right hand, apparently willing to suspend her screaming to better air her wrongs. Yves leaned down and kissed the small pink palm.

"Mama will be home soon," he promised, "so you can show her--" he tapped her palm-- "your gaping wound, here. But until then, do you just want to be mad at the whole world for a little while, maybe just until Mama gets home?"

"Yes," said Valor emphatically, and Yves, nodding as if this made perfect sense-- and really, who was Holden to say it didn't-- reached a hand to Holden to be helped up from the floor. When Holden had pulled him to his feet, he led Holden back to the couch; Holden sat back down, watching his small daughter as she continued to lie on the floor, though at least she wasn't screaming or kicking. Yves curled up beside him, resting his head on his master's shoulder.

What didn't make much sense, Holden thought, was that Greta was the one Valor screamed herself hoarse for. Yves was the one who played with her most, participated in her silliness and answered her nonsense as if it were sense, or matched it with nonsense of his own. And Alix was the one who worshipped and petted and coddled the child within an inch of her life. Holden would never forget the time, at Argounov's, when he'd found cool, sweet, self-possessed Alix hiding in a corner and sobbing her eyes out because-- as he'd finally gotten out of her-- she'd never be able to have children.

"Don't tell-- him," she'd begged quietly when she'd calmed down a little, with the special emphasis on the pronoun that they all seemed to fall into when speaking of their owner, the he who ruled their lives. "He'd feel so awful. He wants to give me everything and he can't ever give me-- that."

He had, though. Given her a child-- as Holden wouldn't ever be able to-- and so had Greta, who had replaced Argounov as Holden's bitterest rival for Alix's affection, until Valor came along. But Alix didn't love Valor because she was half Greta and half Nikol Argounov. She just loved her because Valor was her little girl.

But despite Alix's unstinting devotion, there was never any doubt who the mother was when Valor threw herself down on the floor like this. That was always Greta. Greta, who didn't even seem to talk to her much, who pulled her up on her hip when she was clingy and went about her business, like any mother. Any good mother. Or so Holden would assume; he admitted to himself he hadn't actually seen a lot of those in action.

"Thank you for rescuing me, by the way, master," Yves said in his ear. "It would have put a real crimp in my plan for evil world domination if she'd brained me with the poker. When I rule the world with an iron fist, you can be my evil consort. I'll even have that cool crown made for you, if you want."

Holden grinned reluctantly. "You're crazy."

"So you've told me before," said Yves, snuggling closer, "but I'm not convinced. I think I'm just too much of a genius for you ordinary mortals to comprehend. Hence the whole world domination thing."

"Stop talking," said Valor loudly, from the floor, and Holden rolled his eyes.

"But we're plotting against you, Miss Valor!" Yves called back to her, as if across a great distance. "We have to talk to do that!"

"That's not funny!"

"I bet it would be, if you weren't mad at the whole world until your mom gets home!"

There was a pause, and then Valor said, "Well, I am!"

"I know!" Yves called. Holden was grinning again.

"How come you're so good with kids?" he asked Yves curiously; it was something he'd wondered before, watching Yves' ease with elaborating on Valor's fantasies, his deft, playful defusing of her tantrums, the reluctant responses he could coax out of her even at her most thunderous. "You told me once you never had any younger siblings."

"Oh," said Yves absently, "I don't think it's that I'm particularly good with kids in general, master. It's just that Miss Valor--" He stopped, and Holden, turning to look at him, saw that he was blushing. "Uh--"

"What?" Holden asked, amused.

"Um," said Yves, grinning sheepishly, "don't hit me or anything, master, but I think I'm good with her-- because she kind of takes after you."