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It is a quiet, lazy summer day.
Once all the day’s work is done, one of Giotto’s favourite part-time begins: spending time with his family.Elena had the idea to bake for dinner and has, through a mixture of cajoling, coercion and pure charms, managed to rope Daemon into helping her in the kitchen, with the dough.Alaude has more or less volunteered to procure the apples, because, as he says, he doesn’t believe Knuckle or Ugetsu have the eyes for it and Lampo is sleeping so soundly under the apple tree that only an apple on the head has probably any chance of waking him.
Giotto wouldn’t put it past Alaude to do just that, but it is a harmless thing, so he doesn’t mind staying where he is, a few feet away, on his back, with his head pillowed on G’s thigh.The sun is warm on his face, a gentle breeze is blowing and the grass is warm where he lets his hands idly card through it.
If he had to choose Paradise, this would be close to it.With his eyes half lidded, he watches Knuckle trying to catch the apples Alaude lets drop down, not annoyed enough yet, to aim for Lampo, asleep under the tree, or Ugetsu, who has reclined on the other side and is merely dosing in the sun.Judging by Knuckle’s animated movement, it is extremely fun, and a good exercise, to catch apples with Alaude, who is throwing a bit more accurately from time to time, but Giotto feels lazy and content, with no intention to move, unless G’s complains about Giotto being too heavy and his leg falling asleep.He must have dosed off for a bit, because when he next comes to, it is to Alaude landing with a muffled thump, Daemon snarling for the apples and G shoving him off his leg, because the weighs more than a sack of wet floor, get off me.Giotto laughs lightly and gets up, because Daemon had a mission today and Alaude hadn’t, so one is tired and the other restless and they are perfectly fine with taking it out on each other.So he goes, making peace between his people, and hopes Alaude is kind in waking the others, or leaves it to Knuckle, and Daemon doesn’t fall asleep in the kitchen and that Elena can lift his spirit a bit more, because the mission needed someone of Daemon’s skills, but that doesn’t mean it does not take its roll on him.But Giotto pushes that thought away for a while, instead willing himself to remember the sight of Daemon as he is now, snarling and in a mood, yes, but also covered halfway in floor from what looked like a food fight.
Giotto imagines that and the way Elena is crafty and cunning in the strangest ways at times and most likely won, and the way a bit of dough clung to the edge Daemon’s mouth, like a kiss gone awry.All these things and all these people fill his heart with warmth and make his breaths into laughter.There is no place he’d rather be and, in this moment, he is the luckiest man alive.