4: His Not-So-Little Girl

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3rd Person
Skulduggery drove to the cinema . He carried his frail daughter into the old building with Tanith and Valkyrie following him. As he walked passed Kenspeckle's assistants they passed gave Skulduggery a look of sympathy, he ignored it. His daughter, October Pleasant, was going to be okay. She was unhealthily underweight, but her magic was keeping her alive. She was going to live. And if he didn't, Skulduggery would be gone soon after. He barged into Professor Kenspeckle Grouse's lab. Demanding that he help October.

"Alright, alright. Put her on the bed." The professor grumbles. He quickly examines her and starts injecting her with different coloured liquids.

"She should be fine, detective. She's just exhausted. Years of being experimented on and tortured will do that to someone." The professor says.

"Thank you, Professor Grouse." Skulduggery says relieved.

Kenspeckle Grouse was shocked at the skeleton detective's behaviour. He seemed so... broken, yet so emotionless, all at the same time.

Skulduggery crawled into the bed and held his daughter close. He missed her. Thoughts were still battling in his empty skull. Holding October, his not-so-little baby girl after many, many years gave him the same feeling as when she was born, when Skulduggery's late wife gave birth to the precious being in his skeletal arms.

Skulduggery experienced a warm, loving, protective tenderness that would have made him smile, if he had lips and muscles. He ran his long fingers through her hair, well, what had fallen out if the plait that had been in her hair for centuries. Surprisingly, not much had fallen out. He whispered sweet words to her, sweet worlds like honey. The skeleton detective vowed to protect his not-so-little angel with everything he had. No matter what it cost him.

October stirred. She wiggled out of Skulduggery's grip and opened her eyes. She saw her father and snuggled into his arms. Her black hair was still in the plait her mother had done all those hundreds of years ago. October stopped ageing at 17. She was 300 and something years older now though. She didn't really know. She lost count.

She thought of her childhood. She thought of her mother. Her beautiful mother. Her mother was an Adept. Her father is an Elemental, as is October. October never had her thing, whatever it was called. It should have happened when she was 20, maybe 21, where she had to decide on only one magic discipline. She never did though. She was pretty sure that she'd e able to do any one now.

She was a natural born Adept. She could run up on walls and ceilings, open locks. Her father's extremely attractive friend, Dexter Vex, had taught her energy throwing. She could do an unusual amount of Adept magic. When October was 11, she saw her father and his friends Erskine and Ghastly do Elemental magic. And to say she was attracted and intrigued by it would be an understatement. She got her dad to show her how to do basic things. Fireballs, pushing at the air, 'walking' on water, working with water currents, and so on. She learned the hard way. Her father had taught her the basic and he would do these things himself so she could look and learn. Then, he would make her jump into the sea at night, during or just after a rough storm, and make her save herself from drowning. The only time that he had to jump in save her was when a Sea Hag had tried to claim her.

"Uh, does she want a hairbrush or something?" Valkyrie asked Skulduggery. Valkyrie didn't know whether to speak directly to October after all of that trauma she must've been through.

"October? Do you want to brush your hair?" The frail girl's father asked.

"Okay. Is there anywhere I can clean myself? I feel as gross as I did after that damned Sea Hag when I was 12." October said.

"Val, take her to the shower here." Skulduggery says.

"Should I get Fletcher to take me home so I can get her some clothes? They'll probably to baggy and the bottoms would be too short though, since I weigh a healthy weight and am shorter than her, and she's unhealthily skinny. All I have that would fit her is a black dress. Bit at least that's something, right?" Valkyrie suggests.

"Yes please. Here's some money," Skulduggery says to Valkyrie, giving her some money, "go and buy her some underwear, a small size though. I don't know about girl's shopping and clothes."

Valkyrie leads October to the shower and gives October a hairbrush. Valkyrie shows her everything and leaves to give October her dress and to buy her some underwear, after calling Fletcher to take her everywhere she needed to go.

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