Avid Adopter

29 - Strings

It had been roughly half a year since Dust had started joining me on missions, but it was going..badly. Ever since the beginning, the Creator had been constantly engaging in battle with him, even when he was in the middle of fighting someone else! Everyone involved with the multiverse, no matter who it was, knew that Ink was vindictive; he had only given up a grudge once, and that was only because the other party had been framed - he now held a grudge against the one who had tried to frame the other. Another thing everyone knew was that if Ink did have a grudge against someone, that person was doomed to either become a criminal or a prisoner in a jail somewhere, despite how good-natured they might have been in the past; it had happened too many times to be considered a coincidence. As a result, I tried to shield my middle child from the artist as much as possible, but it was still difficult; even the blueberry and Dream occasionally blocked one of Ink's attacks to keep him from severely injuring my son, which I was grateful for. In any case, he hadn't been too hurt lately, since the blueberry had devoted much time to helping him become a better fighter. Today was a day of celebration; Error was turning nine today, and the rest of us were willing to help him make it special..it was his last birthday before the fateful day.

"Error, wake up." I softly ran my hand over my youngest's shoulder.

"Mm.." Error yawned softly; his face was buried in his pillow, which I wasn't worried about, since skeletons didn't exactly need to breathe. "Dad?"

"Yes, it's me." I woke my children up on their birthdays; they liked it better than when Killer did it, and he was willing to accept that.

"Ooh.." Error hummed, obviously thinking. "You here..not Killer..today is..birthday?!"

"Yes, it's your birthday!"

"Yay!" Error leaped up from his pillow, allowing me to get a good look at his excited expression; he was adorable.

"Happy birthday, Error!"

"Thank you!" Error hugged me tightly. "So..cake?"

I chuckled at his enthusiasm. "Yes, we'll eat cake, but later."

"Aww..what now?"

"Now, we have chocolate waffles."

Error's eyelights widened when I mentioned chocolate. "Chocolate!"

"Yes, now come on; I'm sure you'll want to have seconds, and the others are already at the table."

Soon enough, Error put his clothes on, and he was ready to go. He smiled happily when I allowed him to climb on my back for a ride; he loved pretending I was an airplane or some other craft; today, it seemed that I was a pirate ship. 

"Arr!" Error giggled. "We'll sail the seven seas of chocolate cake and conquer the shores of vanilla!"

"I'm sure we will, but you need breakfast first, Captain Error." I played along.

"Yes! Breakfast for the crew and ship!"

"Aye, Captain!"

So we "sailed" into the kitchen, where the others were eating chocolate waffles; my boys liked their chocolate. I didn't exactly want them eating chocolate every day, but on birthdays I would make an exception; there were over three hundred other days in the year, after all, and five days of chocolate wasn't going to kill them..I hoped. By the time we had finished breakfast, Error had forgotten about being a pirate; it was time for him to open his presents. In the past, we had waited until it was later to open the presents, but my boys claimed to nearly die of anticipation; I didn't want them to die, naturally, which only gave the option of letting them open the presents earlier in the day. I didn't mind it, since I loved them so much. We made our way to the living room together, where there were five neatly wrapped gifts for Error; we each gave him one. Error honestly probably would have been happy if he only got a chocolate bar, but we were intending to give him more than that; we sat down when Error was ready, and he grabbed the first gift in the bunch, which was from Cross.