“Damn it, Allura, you’ve got to stop locking them up. Where is she?” He stuck his head out of the room. “Never mind, I’ll follow the yelling.” He set off to find wherever his daughter had stashed her current caretaker.
“Maybe you should hire competent nannies,” Allura murmured as she focused on the needle and thread in her steady hands. She deftly speared the needle and set to work on the stitches. She’d had a lot of practice cleaning wounds over the years. Her first patients were her dolls and then her baby brother—which was promptly stopped by Devin and Miranda. Babies are not test subjects, they’d had to reiterate more than once.
“The nannies are not for you,” Miranda scolded, though it was without any sort of authority.
Allura had never responded to scolding. Or rules. She always did just as she pleased, but with such well-reasoned, indisputable logic that it was impossible to argue with her. According to Devin, children didn’t usually have an aura. Or if they did, it was fuzzy and constantly shifting. A strong emotion might create some color, but nothing that lasted until their personalities were more settled. Allura had developed a defined, rigid wavelength of ‘sensible azure,’ as Devin called it, by the time she was three.
Devin returned with a squirming toddler in his arms. A smiling boy with blonde hair and tawny skin. His eyes were a sparkling shade of lavender.
“What happened to mommy?”
“She was reckless and irresponsible—” Allura started, but Miranda quickly cut her off.
“I’m okay, Finn.” Miranda sent Allura a glare that silenced her for the moment, at least.
“That’s a lot of blood,” Finn said, craning his head to see the injury. “Can I see?”
“No. You’re too young,” Allura snapped.
“You’re not the boss.”
“I am when I’m with a patient.”
“Mommy’s the boss.”
“And…I think it’s nap time,” Devin said, turning with Finn in his arms, who twisted to stick his tongue out over Devin’s shoulder. Allura was oblivious to the insult.
Devin bounced Finn a few times on his shoulder, a flurry of giggles filling the room. “You didn’t fall asleep in the library again, did you?”
Finn spoke through his laughter, “Maybe.”
Devin’s sigh could be heard even as he ascended the stairs.
Allura finished and Miranda began to clean up the mess. Allura was brave and proud, but she was also nine.
“Darling, you know I’m the strongest person in the world, right?” The little game Miranda had started once Allura was old enough to understand Miranda’s work for the Watchmen. The dangers had been a hard subject for Allura to grasp. They had joked that Miranda was the strongest person in the world, so she would always come home. Allura figured out the lie about a year later.
“The strongest in the world,” Allura repeated.
“And I will always do whatever it takes to come home to you.” Miranda held out her arms and Allura finished reorganizing her case and snapped it shut. Looking at the floor, Allura climbed onto the couch and snuggled into her mother’s side.
“I know.”
“But you still get scared?”
“Yes.”
Miranda started to stroke her long dark hair. “That’s understandable. My work is definitely scary. But it’s also what I need to do. And it’s not your job to worry about me, darling.”
“I worry about lots of things,” Allura said, voice tiny.
“I know. Do you want to play that game? The distraction game we talked about for when your worry gets too big?”
Allura nodded. And together, they both searched the room for things that would be the grossest to eat or make the best weapon or that would make the silliest hat.
It wasn’t the same sort of childhood as Miranda’s. Her children were given freedom to be themselves. And though they received the same education as the other children in the Garrison, Miranda didn’t enforce the lessons and her children’s manners were not what the social elite would consider ‘up to standards.’
She still wasn’t certain how much of her guardian blood was in her children. Their strength had never seemed greater than any other child. But she still sent both of them to training three days a week. Allura hated it, but Miranda wouldn’t be swayed from the necessity of learning how to defend herself. Finn loved every second, showing a real flare for combat despite his clumsy toddler bearings.
