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Swinging their linked hands around in a playful manner, his curly haired twin bounced alongside him, uttering a small giggle at his question and lightly poking at Belha, who seemed to be acting like a sulk today. “Something fun! Super fun! Maybe play…um…” she put a finger to her chin and looked thoughtful as they walked away from the horseshoe driveway and into the gardens surrounding the house. Hum, what was there to do outside? An insect fluttered by high overhead, sparking an idea. “Catch buhflies?” Ixi offered uncertainly. Looking around, there didn’t seem to be any butterflies at the moment apart from that one and it had already flitted far away.

Listening to Sanqui’s suggestion of a game, she nodded emphatically, wondering what he would pick. If she didn’t like his choice, she’d offer another of her own until they could both agree on one game. Ohh, Hide n’ Seek! She loved that one. And ditching Alice definitely sounded interesting. “Eeee!” Glancing back at the nanny quickly, she hid a mischievous squeal behind her hand and grinned back at her brother, giving him a look which clearly said ‘ready when you are’. “A-kay! Le’s stitch her! We both run…an’ I start count!” she whispered loudly.

Ixchellia only poked her tongue playfully at Belha’s hiss. Used to her brother’s constant companion, she was able to pull her fingers back out of the way in time, having learned quickly after being nipped on several occasions. He was too little to really hurt but being bitten still wasn’t that nice.

Sanqui had a point. “Yeah. …maybe they on holidays” she wondered aloud, glancing up to the heavens. That butterfly before sure had been in a hurry to go somewhere. Probably to join up with all its friends, she thought happily, imagining all the butterflies playing games and having fun on an island somewhere. That train of thought didn’t last long. She was interrupted by a light squeeze on her hand.

Returning the squeeze, she gasped and tensed up, ready to spring at the moment he did. …And they were off!

Ixchellia ran as fast as she could, trying to keep up with Sanqui even though he was a little bit taller than her. She managed quite well despite her short legs, only stumbling once or twice. The scenery of the garden went jostling by slightly blurred as they ran and she tried not to laugh at the rush of energy she felt.

Glancing back with jolts of nervous excitement, she helped to make sure Alice wasn’t chasing after them. The very thought made her pick up speed.

By the time they stopped, she was puffing and grinning breathlessly, wearing a triumphant expression. They had gone a fair distance away.

Quickly looking around, she gave her brother the ‘thumbs up’ and nodded. “Uh-huh! Here…great place! I …” she took several deep gulps of air, trying to get words out between breaths. “I count…you…hi-hide! G…gooooo!” she cheered softly, slapping her hands across her eyes. “Wu…wun….three…no, two...threeee….” he’d better hide quickly. Ixi was only counting til she ran out of numbers or got confused. Plus she had a habit of peeking when she thought no one was looking.

Ichellia tried not to peek between her fingers when she heard the sounds of his footsteps receding. It was irresistibly tempting but she managed to put the feeling aside by turning herself in the opposite direction of where she heard him running so that even had she cracked an eye open, all she would see was serene sunlit garden.

Squeezing her eyes shut a little tighter, she also pressed the palms of her hands against them as an extra precaution, continuing her count down. “…seven…ei…ninnnneee…..eight….uh….” what came after eight again? Oh, yes, right – “…ninnnneee…” hrm, déjà vu. Didn’t she just say that number? “….ten…aleven…um…fourteen, sixteen, twenty!” There, that was it. Ixi felt a small flourish of pride at herself for having counted all the way up to twenty. It had felt almost too easy, however, so maybe she did leave some out. Still, she didn’t let that thought faze her. She gave Sanqui long enough to hide and that was the main idea.

Lifting her hands away the moment she stopped counting, the small girl with the tarnished red hair wasted no time in looking around the immediate area, alerting her twin she was now on the hunt with the customary cry of “Ready or not – here I come!”

Hmmm, now, if she were Qui, where would she go? Ixchellia chewed on her lip to stifle a giggle and headed towards a wild looking creeper vine draping itself quite contently over the entire length of an evergreen hedge. Pushing her hands into it, she swept bunches aside as she searched for her brother in there. It was dark, it was messy; it was a brilliant place to hide. “Sanqui – you here?” she questioned quietly, getting no reply. Maybe he was hiding right at the back? She pushed her way deeper into the vines, ignoring the stems and leaves that snagged her. “Un, not here!” she murmured. Okay, so, maybe the vine was not the right place to start.

Seeing as the vines were not giving anything away, Ixi gave up looking in them and decided her twin was most definitely NOT in here. Turning to exit the crowded vine, she had a bit of a struggle to get back out of the sap scented tangle. They kept tripping her up or wrapping around her so tightly, she couldn't see. "Hum, vines, you let me out!" she told them in her best 'Mom' voice, which she had heard Tori use. Determinedly, Ixchellia wiggled and pushed her way back through. She kept walking forwards with vines wrapped round her face and body until the thin green strands snapped and slithered away, letting her free all of a sudden so that she promptly fell flat on her face. "Oof!'

Undeterred, she got to her feet, picked bits of vine off her person and resumed her search, odds and ends from leaves and twigs scattered in her hair. "Sanqui...you hiding...here!" she announced, peeking around the side of a tree expectantly as she jumped out in front. A ladybug scurried away from her shadow. Nope, that wasn't it.

Walking towards a flower bed thick with masses of tall flowers and a few errant weeds, she stood on tippy toe to look into them. "Found ya - oh!" No Sanqui there either. Hmm, where else could she look? She peered into a wheelbarrow, behind a sundial, into some bushes...wait! What was that? "Am I warmer or colder? Look up, here I come!" she called out playfully, inching closer towards a bush which she thought she had seen give the tiniest rustle. She didn't actually expect a reply since that would have given his position away. She was just trying to stir Sanqui into making some kind of noise.

Blinking at the bush as she drew closer to it, she thought that one of the twigs was a little odd looking. It was kind of...furry looking. "Belha? Dat you?" ...Or was it a moth? Pushing some leafy twigs aside, she looked into the bush with a grin.

Whoops, the furry thing moved away! That was either an incredibly fast, oddly moving moth with invisible wings, or it was really her brother’s hissy reptilian pet like she guessed.

Watching the previously silent bush suddenly burst to life and start dancing about, confirming her suspicions, she couldn’t help laughing softly at her brother’s attempts to escape before she saw him.

“Heyo” she parroted innocently, giving Sanqui a ‘wiggly-finger’ wave before adding the triumphant exclamation of “Found ya!” customary for all seekers who found their elusive hiders.

Remembering how she had become stuck in the ‘viny plant’ earlier, Ixchellia knelt down and held out her hands, wordlessly offering to help Sanqui out of the bush. If she could get a hold of him, she would grab either his wrists or his hands and help pull him out, walking backwards as she tugged. Otherwise, she'd simply watch him climb out of the foilage and wait til it was her turn to hide.

“Don’ get stuck, Ki” she teased, eying all the twisty twigs and branches, bustling full of shiny leaves. Not that it really mattered if he did, she supposed. It’d just be an interruption in their game.

“Mm, good hidey spot” she observed lightly, making a note not to copy it this time yet perhaps in a couple of turns when he wouldn’t expect her to.

Bushes made fine cover, so long as you didn’t move too much. Or sneeze. Sneezes always gave you away no matter where you hid. And if you tried to hold them back, they snuck up on you and were louder. She subconsciously rubbed a finger on the tip of her nose and sniffed at the thought, as though trying to ward them off.

“Hey, turn a frown up an’ down~” Ixi sang lightly, seeing her brother’s pouty face as he scolded poor Belha. She hadn’t got the words quite right, it was ‘turn that frown upside down’ but she was close enough. Letting go of Sanqui once they’d managed to extract him from the bush, she picked a few more leaves from her hair shaking her head to try and dislodge what she couldn’t see.

“Not Bel-Bel’s fault he got borned angry” she giggled, grinning toothily at the furry snake as she tossed out the nickname which she knew would probably rub him up the wrong way. His crankiness only made him that much more fun to tease, in her opinion. The disagreeable thing was a part of her brother, however and so she had a soft spot for it despite all its hissing, biting and other nasty behaviour. Besides, he was pretty cute with those pointy ears of his.

She tilted her head slightly at the suggestion of turning the bush into a fort and having a tea party there, looking around Sanqui to scrutinise the shrubbery before nodding decisively and looking back at her twin. “Yeaw, let’s do that! We c’n make a big fort with blankets an’ stuff” she agreed, thinking of how she’d made one with the laundry, a few chairs and a lot of clothes pegs one time. “An’ make special tea” her eyes gleamed when she said that. The special tea she was thinking of usually consisted of her using ingredients like honey, food colouring, cold water, rose petals and the like to make her own brews then sharing the ‘tea’ with a gathering of toys. If Sanqui wanted to join in, she would be more than happy to have him along. They always needed more members at the tea club.

But now it was her turn to hide, as Sanqui was informing her, and she hopped from foot to foot in growing anticipation, preparing to dash. She’d have to run and find a great spot where he’d never ever guess! Ixchellia tittered behind a hand at the reaction she got from Belha due to the nickname, watching him be told off again, yet her attention was firmly re-directed by her brother’s instruction to hide and she gave a high pitched “Eee!” and a jolt, turning and sprinting off away from him the moment his hands covered his eyes.

Her feet pattered over the grassy ground with small rustling noises and her head turned this way and that as she ran, looking for prime spots. Aha, there, there! He’d have trouble looking there. Glancing one way then the other, Ixchellia kicked off her shoes and tossed them far away to remove any evidence. She then hoisted up her dress and waded into the thin layer of mushy grime coating the bottom of the inactive stone water fountain. They were being cleaned today and this one was always getting clogged so it was often empty of water. “Heeee” she grinned and let out a soft exclamation at the feeling of the cool slime oozing up between her toes, continuing forward till she reached the lions and seals that formed the first tier of the fountain. She quickly climbed up them, leaving smears and footprints, grabbing the rim of the fountain’s first bowl to hoist herself up when she reached a good spot. Ixi hooked one leg over the rim of the bowl then flailed and gasped, hanging in an odd sideways position and scrambling frantically. For a second, she thought she was going to fall and then – with a determined pull and a tumble, she was in!

The inside of the fountain bowl was wet and a little gritty but all of the water had been drained out of it, allowing her to duck down inside with a gleeful grin. He surely won’t find her here. The only thing that gave her away was her footprints in the muck in the fountain’s bottom pool and the resulting trail up the stonework. She somehow had managed to spare her dress from getting dirty.

Ten minutes was a long time to wait and she was relieved to finally hear the shout of ‘ready or not’ which meant he was on the prowl. She watched him run from place to place, sometimes out of view, and enjoyed the show from her high perch, giggling at intervals.

After a while, Ixchellia yawned and huffed through her nose. She was growing bored. She also had several cramps and could no longer find a comfy position to crouch in. Peering out over the rim of the bowl, she snickered and ducked down when she spotted him eying the fountain with a considering look. And Belha knew where she was for sure. She could swear that serpent was staring straight at the spot where she hid. Uh-oh, Sanqui was going to come over here, wasn’t he?! “Eeee~!” She wiggled a little, curling inwards and trying to make herself as small as possible whilst warring feelings of ‘wanting to be found’ and ‘not wanting to be found’ arose.

Then she heard something strange. His footsteps were heading off in the opposite direction. With a gasp, she sat up straight and grabbed the side of the bowl, looking out from the fountain to see where he went. Ahh! He was walking away! No, no, that was completely the wrong place to go. She didn’t want to stay in the fountain for another ten minutes! Thinking fast, Ixa cupped her hands to her mouth and made the first sound she could think of to get his attention without making it seem like she made the noise. “Tweet tweet!” Yes, that was the way real birds sounded. “Tweet, tweet-tweet!”

Having made the loud calls, she quickly ducked down again, slapping a hand over her mouth to hide giggles of mischievous glee. Sanqui was probably so confused!