"Ooohhhh... He's so cute..."
"Yeah...He sure is..."
Another girl came to join the already growing group of ladies watching by the sidelines of the fencing area. Either unaware or jaded to their oggling, Zel instructed a new student on proper sword handling, as other students dashed back and forth across the pounded dirt arena.
"I wish I could take sword instruction from him..." One of the girls sighed.
"So why don't you?" A little girl came up and asked.
"Why?! How is a lady like me supposed to do something as rough as swordplay?"
The little girl hmphed and crawled through the wooden fence barring the ladies from the fencing arena. As if tuned to the sound of her little feet, Zel turned and smiled. The girls leaning on the fence sighed and practically lost consciousness.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Blair ran up to Zel.
"Hi, Blair." Zel smiled, picking up the child.
Some of the girls conscious enough to hear this ran away crying.
"Daddy, what's with all those wierd ladies at the fence?"
"Pay no attention to them, Blair. That's what I always do. So, what are you doing here?"
"Because Mommy can't leave the shop, she told me that she wanted me to come here so that I could tell you that we have to buy groceries today."
"That's a mouthful, Blair. Alright. When the lessons are over we'll go shopping."
"Oh! Oh! Can we buy candy?"
"Sure, Blair." Zel set her down. "But first, I have to finish teaching."
"OK." Blair sat down on a log discarded from a nearby wood pile and watched the practice scuffles, and clang of swords from the more advanced students. She pulled out a piece of dried fruit from her skirt pockets and munched happily. - Until about a minute later when her appetite had completely emptied her pockets. "gulp That's funny...? I thought I filled all my pockets really big today... Daddy?"
"Hold on a minute, Cye." Zel turned from a student. "What is it, Blair?"
"Can I play too?"
Zel smiled. "OK. Get a wooden sword over there and you can copy what I tell Cye."
"Yay!" Blair jumped up and ran back with a practice sword. "Can I fight Cye when we're done."
"I don't know, Blair," Zel's face was stricken with apprehension. "He's been training for a while now, and you've just started..."
Blair began to either hold her breath or be on the verge of tears...one couldn't quite tell with her.
Zel waved his hands, dismissing his former statement. He quickly added, "Um, how about if I see how you do first, then decide whether you should fight or not. Is that alright?"
"Ummm..." Blair looked up. "OK."
Zel breathed a sigh of relief. "Good." But still, there was that fatherly apprehension.
"WHA - AHHH! oof!"
"YAAAYYY! I WIN! I WIN!" Blair jumped up and down, still holding her wooden sword.
Cye tried to get up from the dust.
Zel shook his head, trying not to laugh. "I think the lessons are over now."
"Are we going shopping?"
Zel nodded. "Put your sword away first, Blair."
Zel scooped up his little girl, with one arm, the other, through the hoop of a basket filled with produce. As they walked away from the fruit merchant, Zel handed her a large strawberry.
"Hey, Daddy...What did that lady selling the fruit mean by 'You could have anything else of hers with her compliments'?" Blair chomped on the strawberry, waiting for an answer.
Zel gulped and started turning a little scarlet. "Nothing. Blair, was there anything in particular your mom wanted us to buy?"
"Oh! Oh! Pie! She said she wanted pie!"
"Heh-heh. Figures..."
"And bread and cheese and sausage and chocolate and - "
"Your mommy didn't say that last one, did she?" Zel asked, still carrying her through the marketplace.
"No..." Blair looked down at her berry-juice soaked, little hands. "But she would!"
Zel let out a laugh. "Yes, she would."
Blair looked over the assorted trays in the confection shop. Before she could make a move, Zel suddenly turned around from his conversation with the merchant.
"I said, only one, Blair." He warned.
"Oh, but, Daddy!"
He just gave her a look.
"Hmph." Blair returned to mentally cataloging the different chocolates for next time.
Zel bent down to her 3 foot height. "Which one did you choose, Blair?"
"Ummm, Daddy?"
"It's still just one, Blair."
"Ohhhh." Blair stuck her tongue out at nothing. "Ummm..." Blair hopped sideways across the displayed goodies. Back and forth, before finally pointing out one piece. "That one!"
The confection shop worker handed the bag of chocolate over the counter to Zel. Blair watched the chocolate being passed, not quite noticing the looks the lady behind the counter gave Zel. She started talking in a strange, slow manner that Blair didn't understand. "And sir, if you'd like anything else of mine - "
"Let's go, Blair!"
"MOMMY! WE'RE HO-OME!" Blair came through the magic shop's door, carrying a pie almost as big as her, covered in a large cloth napkin.
"You don't look so happy to see us, Lina." Zel came in hauling the basket of groceries.
Lina laid her head down on the shop counter. "I just thought you were that new shipment of reprinted spellbooks. I've been waiting all day for those!"
Blair hopped up on her stool behind the counter. "Look, Mommy! We got pie!" Blair's little hands set down the large pastery on the counter.
"You'll feel better once you have some, Lina." Zel commented, putting away his sword.
Lina looked up. "Hm? What's this?" Zel set down a small bag in front of her.
"Chocolate. I heard from a good source that you might want some." He smiled.
Lina smiled back.
"Look, Mommy! I had some too!"
Lina's eyebrow twitched. "I...see that...Blair..." Lina pulled out a napkin and whiped the chocolate and berry juice from Blair's sticky finers. "Zel, why didn't you have her wash her hands?"
"Daddy and I were too busy running away from the ladies that stared into space when they talked to us. And they blinked their eyes a lot. Like this." Blair smiled and made her eyelashes flutter.
"That's batting your eyelashes, Blair." Lina turned an accusing look to Zel.
"Nothing happened!"
"Tell me, Blair. Did your daddy..."
Zel gulped.
"Turn all red?"
"Yup!"
Lina started cracking up. And soon, Blair followed.
"What's so funny?!" Zel demanded of the two girls, as he turned scarlet once again. "One of these days you'll grow up and know what it's like!"
"What do you mean, 'One of these days I'll grow up'!?" Lina hollered.
"Lina, you know I meant Blair."
Lina looked down at her little girl, with wavey indigo locks, whose laughing began to calm. "Well of course! My daughter is going to be a real beauty some day!"
Blair only watched with big ruby eyes.
"Honestly..." Zel came over to Lina.
She froze, seeing that evil smile of his, which allowed him to wrap an arm around her waist.
"To think that I meant you were not grown up." He whispered in her ear, squeezing her tightly.
Despite his whispering, Blair heard something about her mom being very grown up, before Zel lead her mother away to the back. Apparently, Blair had inherited her mother's good sense of hearing, but about the only thing her ears understood or recognized, was that Zel's tone of voice was the same as the strange ladies they were running away from earlier today.
Blair shrugged her shoulders and turned her attention to the pie on the counter.
Long indigo hair fluttered in the wind and gently fell.
"She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen..."
"She's just so cute..."
Blair stopped swiping her father's old sword and turned her back to the wooden fence. It was the most annoying thing, needing to stop everything to hide her crimson face.
Zel walked by, chuckling.
A bright red still staining her cheeks, she yelled, "I don't see what's so funny, Father!"