unphiltered

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One of your father's odd little choices, Flora called them, because she found it distasteful to say anything very much more rude (though she knew the words, and had heard them said). Studs fit for a stud, said Addam, and Minoth didn't really know how he felt about this, but Addam could come up with worse, if prompted; just on his own he'd always forget. A vice only humans could create, said Azurda, and Minoth rolled his eyes and reminded the old Titan that he was just about lucky his golddigger girlfriend couldn't wear that kind of jewellry, such as it was.

Evie had identified them as handy fidgets for her chubby fingers beginning in babyhood, and even six years later, she'd perch over her father's shoulder and spin the posts in their assigned wounds, long healed but only a mite quicker than would a human's, whenever she felt like poking him, and making it known that she was there. The charms themselves were about as wide across as a toddler's thumb - just big enough to be seen in more than a pinprick of detail from across a room, but only just.

And if Papa should happen to stand, the mountain moved, Evie would flap her hands frantically until she remembered to clap palms over the nearest available handle, which was Papa's face somewhere about eyes and dark-circled cheekplanes, but he'd keep walking seemingly unencumbered until they reached the library (supposing that wasn't were they already had been), and he'd remark to Mama, "There seems to be a monkey on my back."

Minoth said this drily, as if he'd nothing to do with it and his own two hands weren't presently, patiently looped under and around two miniature knees.

Flora nodded in acknowledgement, quite serious, and pretended to inspect Minoth for attendant primates of any size and position. "Must have come over from Gormott - I certainly can't think of any monkeys that live around here."

A sniff issued from the invisible Evie. It was anyone's guess whether this was a sniff of derision or the precursor to a righteous sob - not that Evie was a crier, but things could be bothering her, at divers times.

What it was, in fact, was a tiny gasp of fear as Evie realized the next step in this pantomime: being swooped up into view and hung upside down, just for a moment.

But Minoth, thankfully, saved his daughter this undignified episode of anguish and instead bounced her up high enough to give himself time to shift both legs around his back and get Evie seated on the counter, though still close by.

"You want your ears pierced, Evie?"

Flora made an affronted face at this, but said nothing, because it was common for little girls to have their ears pierced at any age, even in infancy, and all Minoth was asking was whether she wanted it, not making a promise to have it done.

Evie, meanwhile, scrunched up her nose, contemplating. Ears...her fleshy little ears. She didn't have any particular type of earring in mind, having not seen any very often besides her fathers, and as she thought about it she rather found that she liked having the whole lobe there to tug at it, should she want to do so.

Her parents watched her fiddle with her ears and feel out each fold of cartilage patiently - well, that is to say, Minoth looked on inquisitively, mischievously, while Flora studied Minoth himself to see just what it was he'd meant by his silly question for a silly seven-year-old.

"No," Evie pronounced at last. "I like yours."

Evie had her father's wide mouth and her mother's bright eyes, thick brows that didn't jag and a prominent nose that rounded at the tip. The end states of her chin and ears, the remaining two characteristic features to mark her as this quite singular child, were as yet unknown, but it was certainly possible that she'd find herself a teenager with skinny-lobed ears that jut out all over the place in a surprise vestige of Addam.

For now, that dark, serious face remained screwed up in concentration, following a forgotten thread in a tapestry no one knew about but her. In Flora's opinion, they'd still far from mastered the waiting game that was played whenever Evie went away for a while, but Minoth was perfectly content to lean chin on fist and mirror her, until the time was right to gently interrupt, and stir back to the verbal world.

Minoth's choice of interaction on this occasion was to press the pad of his thumb against the tip of Evie's nose. Her eyes crossed to focus on it, and then she looked up and giggled, a smile splitting her face and curling her lip up to meet the delineation between knuckles. When she relaxed, Minoth took the opportunity to dimple the tip of his thumb into the shallow philtrum before removing himself.

The thought remained, however: "Hey, y'know...you could pierce that."

"Minoth!" Now Flora really did look scandalized. Evie took a little bit of her mother's ire to heart and squinted up at her father in rebuke of his dim-witted suggestion. Pierce my lip, indeed...and what, exactly?

"Well, now, I meant the editorial you," Minoth placated his best girls. "I might as well have said, one could pierce that. One such as myself, for instance."

"You'd look like an Armu," Evie said, so that Flora didn't have to. Then she sat back, still perched on the counter, and considered Minoth's face, now envisioning cosmetic changes there. She scooted back and forth, trying to get the best head-on angle (and Minoth did try his best to be troublesome about it, gyroscoping his chin about his neck even as his gaze stayed locked on Evie).

"Hmm."

"Hmm, my lady?"

Evie didn't respond, instead reaching out to grab her father's face again, though this time by the hollows of his cheeks instead of the apples, so that she could jab a finger of her own at his lip and weigh the pros and cons of altering it with ancillary equipment. Gold, like the earrings, of course, and maybe a flat ring instead of a cylindrical one. As she ran her thumbs over the bridge of Minoth's nose, Evie found the articulation point where the cartilage shifted against itself, and she made a point to listen to the muffled, squeaky sound a few times as well.

Another area of interest was the profile view. Evie tried her best to remember to be ginger as she shoved her father's jaw to rotate to one side, but she was still a bit too rough, so Minoth did give her an admonishing look, laying a cautioning hand over her knee. But all was well that was manipulated successfully, and Evie traced the line of the wrinkled forehead, the jutting browbone, the broken nose, the strong chin all with a curious finger.

Then she nodded. "Yes."

"Yes, you would do it, or yes, I should do it?" Minoth threw a glance at Flora to see where she stood on the decision, but watched Evie most closely for her careful consideration.

Evie nodded solemnly. "You should. I would."

"Well, Flora, what do you think? What if I had a septum piercing?"

"Then I couldn't do this," Flora replied smoothly, kissing him there, and Minoth, satisfied with that, shared the favor with Evie as a measure of consolation.