The Duck Pond, Saturday Morning
Valentine hadn't realized how badly in need of air he was until after the prom last night. Being sealed away in their- his- in that room ever since Tuesday hadn't done him any good at all. And so he had packed himself up and relocated to the park, where there was quiet and air, and where paintings that were breaking his heart couldn't stare him down while he mused over a dream that felt all too real.
There were a number of ducks milling about in the pond, quiet in the cool morning air.
But most of the ducks were off to the side, quacking nervously and flapping their wings at one another, and at the intruder in their mist. One shorter, and probably hidden from view, but her voice was loud enough to carry, even over the honking quacks.
"DUCKS."
Valentine glanced up thoughtfully at this announcement.
Why yes, yes, those did in fact appear to be ducks. Many of them. Being ducklike.
So far as Valentine knew, ducks lacked the capacity to announce their duckhood. They weren't chickens, after all. Therefore, the situation required that he actually pry his behind off of the park bench in order to stand to get a better look at what, exactly, was going on.
The ducks were growing more agitated, flapping their wings harder and raising themselves up higher.
None of this seemed to phase their intruder, a toddler in an oversized black coat and a pretty white hat. She was shoving her closed fist at each of the ducks in turn, giving chase when they quacked and walked away. And growing somewhat frustrated herself.
"NO! Ducks EAT!"
Those looked to be some mightily angry ducks, right there. And heck, some of them seemed almost as tall as the little girl who appeared to be trying to...
Feed them? That was Valentine's best guess, anyhow.
Oddly enough, the ducks didn't appear to want to be fed. And there were far more of them than there were of the little girl. And Valentine was already making his way across the park in order to keep an eye on the situation, because for all he knew, they might have been carnivorous vampire-ducks.
"NO, ducks, you EAT!" the girl insisted, stomping closer to the nearest one.
The nearest one, naturally, backed away, puffing itself up so it would look scary to the potential predator. See how scary it was?
The toddler failed at Nature 101, and let out a wide, ripply laugh, clapping her chubby little hands together.
If the duck wanted to play, she should chase it. (In her slow, waddly manner.) And give it more bread. She was feeding the ducks, see?
Well, at least Valentine was somewhat afraid of the duck.
He would stand there, and he would take a few deep breaths, and he would look at the silly little girl who insisted on being eaten by mallards, and he would...
Run away?
Perhaps that would be bad. He would hold his breath and push his way through the crowd of ducks toward the little girl, and he would pick her up. One-two-three, and there they were, and he was a great hero with a little girl in his arms.
And he had no bloody idea what in the world he was supposed to do from there, while the ducks proceeded to calm down and mull around the both of them.
"Hey!" The girl looked around, surprised by the abrupt interruption. She looked over at Valentine, and then broke out in another happy giggle.
"Hi," she said. "Ducks."
In case he hadn't seen them. She was informative that way.
"Yes, those would be ducks," Valentine agreed, his hands shifting to under the girl's armpits so that he could hold her at arm's length to get a good look at her.
He decided upon further inspection that she did, indeed, look like a crazy child who wanted to be eaten by dabbling waterfowl. Of course.
"And what were you doing with the ducks?"
"I feedin'," she said, holding out the still-closed fist of bread squares. "Ducks eat."
This last was a truism, you see. Ducks? Ducks eat.
"Ducks do indeed eat," Valentine agreed yet again. This child was simply a wealth of information. A very cute wealth of information. "Are they hungry?"
Of course they were hungry, right? Hungry and terrified for their lives. And mulling about his ankles and plotting world domination, or some such thing.
"Yup," she declared. She had no idea. This never stopped her from answering questions. "Ducks go WACK WACK WACK!"
"Very good, very good," Valentine looked over his shoulder, ignoring the ducks that were now nibbling at his shoes, attempting to seek out a parent that he could quite possibly yell at. "Are you here alone, uh, little girl? Where are your mother and father hiding?"
He was fairly certain that even he hadn't been left alone so young. The man his mother bought him from didn't want him to head for the hills, perhaps.
"I not hidin'," she announced. "I feedin' ducks."
She held her fist out to Valentine, bumping it against his lips. "Eat!"
My, it would appear that getting Valentine to eat was a recurring theme lately, wouldn't it?
"Am I a duck?" It was a perfectly valid question, after all. Especially if the bread crumbs were intended for something suspiciously like the mallards that were nibbling at his shoes.
The girl giggled again. "Noooooo. You're Daddy."
He was so silly.
"Oh. Of course I a-"
Wait. He was. She. What?
"I'm who?"
She grabbed his goatee in her other hand and tried to pull down on it, cackling like mad. "Chin!"
She had, indeed, located his chin. Perhaps it was a good thing, then, that Valentine was mostly slack-jawed at the moment, because his head bobbled down along with the goatee as she pulled on it.
"Yes. Yes, it is a chin. Whose chin is it?" One more time? Please? Because that first time, that might have been a fluke.
"I got you," she announced, tugging cheerfully. She opened both hands to place them on Valentine's cheeks, clapping along as she talked. "I -- got -- you -- I -- got -- you!"
She looked at her hands. "All gone." And held them out, open, for Valentine to see.
Yes. She had lost her smushy bread squares.
The ducks most certainly appreciated that the bread was attainable without the added hassle of a crazy toddler trying to personally shove it down their throats.
Valentine was too busy boggling at the fact that there was a tiny child who had called him 'daddy,' who had been chanting and bopping away at his cheeks with her hands.
And the loss of the bread squares was an obvious tragedy.
"All gone," he agreed. "I believe the ducks have them, now."
"Where go?" she said, wiggling to look at the ground. "Ducks! Ducks eat!"
It was descriptive this time.
She giggled and looked back at Valentine, thrilled with the world and everyone in it. "Hi."
"Well, hello there," Valentine responded. And it was possible that he was astonished that there existed in the world an individual who was more attention-deficit than himself. Briefly. There were shiny things to pay attention to.
"Are the bread crumbs all gone?"
"Uh-huh," she said. "Ducks eatin'. Down there."
She pointed, and wriggled a little. "See? Ducks!"
He may have missed the ducks. They were just eating his ankles.
Valentine did look down.
And, to his credit, he didn't jump four feet into the air and take off at a run. Though it was tempting, seeing as he was being eaten alive by harmless diving birds and all.
"They're eating, yes," he said. And shuffled forward some. He would like so very much to not be devoured today. An expedient escape would be a wise idea, perhaps.
That was the moment she picked to put both hands on his cheeks and just stare at him, happily drinking him in.
"Hi," she said. "Why sad?"
From that moment on, Valentine would never doubt the observational powers of a child again.
He looked at the girl oddly for a moment, then shifted his weight to balance her on his hip. Now would be as good a time as any to get out of the midst of the ducks while he spoke.
"Somebody went away," he said, carefully not looking at the little girl, now. "I miss her."
The little girl frowned. And then leaned over to give him a kiss.
"I sorry, Daddy," she said.
And there it was again. Daddy. And it sent Valentine's heart leaping up into his throat and he turned his head around to look at the child again as they walked.
She seemed certain of it.
She barely came up to his knees. Perhaps her logic was slightly askew. Such things happened alongside youth, didn't they?
Perhaps?
"Everything will be alright," he said at last. "She made me a promise."
And then, as an afterthought, "what is your name?"
"Lou," she said proudly. She knew that. "I-I-I fed the ducks."
This was major news.
"You certainly did, Lou-who-feeds-the-ducks."
She was bloody adorable, even if she was a little confused, perhaps?
He looked at her for a moment more. Well. Her parents certainly had excellent fashion sense, with that coat and that hat and that cute little scarf. If it wasn't for the fact that it was not at all possible, he wouldn't doubt that this child was his.
It wasn't possible, was it?
...
"Are you hungry, Lou?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded. "I hunnnnnnngry." She rubbed her stomach enthusiastically and wriggled.
Well. In the toddler sense of the word, she was hungry. She'd take three bites from whatever food she was given and then mash it up with her fists and smear it on the walls. Those three bites had some important nutrients, though.
Okay. This was good to know. If her parents weren't about, goodness knows how long she'd been attempting to give the last of her food to the ducks, silly child, and she was quite possibly half-starved.
Food was one thing that Valentine could attain without fail.
"Well, then, Lou. Let's get some food into you, and then we'll see about finding your mother, shall we?"
Whoever her mother was.
"'Kay," Lou agreed easily. "'N give her biiiiiiig kisses."
Mommies got big kisses.
"Precisely." Valentine really didn't know, personally, but the child seemed to know what she was talking about.
He set her down on the ground- they were well clear of the ducks now. And he knelt down to straighten up her very stylish coat.
And that was when he finally noticed how very familiar her eyes were.
Naminé.
Lou looked at Valentine with her mother's enormous blue eyes and her father's impeccable sense of timing.
"Ducks go bye-bye."
Daddy. And Mommy. And. Those eyes. And.
And.
Ducks.
Valentine was barely aware of the fact that he was moving forward to wrap his arms around the girl in a squishy sort of hug. It simply seemed the thing to do at the time.
Lou always liked a good hug. She placed her own arms around Valentine's neck and squished back, giggling.
"Up," she requested. Why walk when you can ride a hip, anyway?
"This does rather seem like an 'up' sort of moment, doesn't it?" Valentine stood, with the little girl who had called him 'Daddy' held close to him in his arms, and he turned to head back toward the dorms.
She had said, after all, that she was hungry.
And the ducks were eying them dangerously.
And he'd managed to find himself pulled in entirely by the child with Naminé's eyes.
"Uh-huh," Lou agreed, planting a wet kiss on Valentine's cheek before moving on to more pressing matters. "We eatin' now?"
She was, after all, a Valentine.
[Again, preplayed with and coded by the awesomesauce palestshadow. NFI, if only because they're moving along, now. Skip-tra-la! OOC is always welcome, of course.]