day nine >> yawn
#ffxivwrite2022 #ffxiv #prompt #postmsq #rosie #felstel #wolship #fel #stelmaria #fluff
warnings: toddlerfic?
general: toddlerfic
verb
- involuntarily open one's mouth wide and inhale deeply due to tiredness or boredom
- (of an opening or space) be very large and wide
noun
- a reflex act of opening one's mouth wide and inhaling deeply due to tiredness or boredom
Rosemary Molkot, aged 4, hated bedtime.
There were very few things Rosie hated more than bedtime.
Rosie cannot yet write anything besides scribblings, however if she was capable of such a feat her greatest hates list might look something like this:
THINGS ROSIE HATES
Medicine
Vegetables
Bathtime
Worms
Bedtime
The dark
Needless to say Wee Rosie did not care for her parents calling bedtime all willy-nilly, after just one single, tiny yawn.
Not even a yawn so much as commentary on the interminable banality of her modern existence. An existence laced with indignities such as—but by no means limited to—the aforementioned bedtime, a strict limit on the amount of ginger-cinnamon cookies she's allowed to consume in a day, and the time outs she must endure on the rare occasions she succumbs to temptation and chases ma's chickens into a frenzy.
A temptation she'd indulged in today, as a matter of fact.
The long, shuddering yawn was an act of protest against these injustices and should be treated as such, but her kind, ill-informed parents failed to grasp this nuance and sentenced her to bedtime.
How dare they just assume? When conclusive proof existed to show that not only was she not tired, she had never been tired, not once, in all her one thousand five hundred some odd days of life.
If only she could better resist the heaviness of her eyelids, the weakness in her limbs as da gently scoops her up from her ~~nest of blankets~~ fort by the fire and cradles her against his chest.
No doubt her inability to fight back is the result of some wicked magic of ma's; all the neighbors called her a witch and she never denied it, just laughed as she handed them sparkling bottles of sweet-smelling liquid to treat so-and-so's fever or to help their auntie's cousin's wife's niece three times removed’s milk flow freely after her baby came early.
Whatever that means.
Still, despite her parent's treachery she loved them and looping her short arms round da's neck is a surrender she accepts, even enjoys. She nuzzles close to the warmth emanating from his dusky skin and metal prosthetic alike.
“Not sleepy,” Rosie grunts.
“Aye? What ya think ma? Can she go another quarter bell or tuck 'er in ta bed?” Da looks at ma, dragging his chin over the silken fur of a tiny, tufted ear.
“Well I'm tired, certainly, and my poor chickens are exhausted. Regardless of what she says, seeing as the Princess Rosemary's servants and playmates are all succumbing to the sleep of the just, she may have no choice but to join them.”
“I love it when ya say a buncha stuff I don' understan'.”
“So you just love anything I say then?”
“Aye. 'An not just whatcha say neither.”
Rosie grumbles to herself, eyes squinched tightly against her parents' ridiculous wordplay. She's already surrendered to their impertinent demands, must this humiliation be dragged on further?
Da takes her to her room then deposits her between the sheets of her trundle bed, tucking her in, arranging her crowd of stuffed companions just so, and—after a whine from Rosie—switches on the small device he made for her. Soft orange light radiates from backside of the insect-shaped lamp, banishing the looming shadows from corners and ceiling.
”'Night, sweetroll,” murmurs da, sliding an errant lock of the small girl's shining ebony hair out of her eyes with gentle, artificial fingers.
Rosie is already fast asleep, one fang glinting as she dreams of chasing squawking chickens across the yard, unreprimanded.