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"But you still had a battle, right?" Rand asked, his eyes shining. "I've never had a battle."

"You think we could?" Rand whispered conspiringly. His eyes darted toward the outside. "There are sticks in the yard..."

"See, see!" Rand told Taka. "Angel says it's okay!" He got up, grinning, looking out into the yard as though ready to dash out the door.

"Well, that settles that then!" Angel's bright smile was definitely relieved. Glancing at his watch, he regarded Taka dubiously, but she seemed at ease in the company of this woman with...multiple arms.

The young man blinked again. He really needed to be more observant.

Taka caught his glance and rolled her eyes. Angel looked at his watch again.

"Look, I really don't want to be rude, but I have a gig downtown tonight and I should really be going soon. You be okay looking after Rand tonight?"

"What?" Babysitting for extra money had sounded like a good idea once...until she actually saw the kid. But she just threw her hands up into the air. "Sure, sure. Fine." She paused, and muttered under her breath. "Not like you're helping anyway."

Subo tapped her foot on the floor as she bit her lip, both in thought and to stop commenting on the look Angel gave her. "Huh, I can stay and help if you wouldn't mind..." she offered, forcing her foot to stop tapping.

As the pair made their way out of the door, Lind scanned the ground to look for suitable sticks. Because only the best stick would make the best sword.

Aha! The perfect stick! Lind pulled it out of the bush, frowning when he saw that it was taller than he was. His eyes lit up when he thought of an idea. So, he made his way back into the house, dragging the stick behind him.

"S'boooo?" he said hesitatnly, tugging at her arm. "Stick's too big." He held it up to her, eyes wide and begging. With a sigh, she took the stick and pointed to a spot on it. "This long?" she asked. At his vigorous nod, she sighed and broke the stick over her knee, handing both halves to Lind.

"Knock yourself out." she said, ruffling his hair and bending down to pic up the peices of bark that fell off of the stick.

With a happy cry, he ran back out of the door, putting the longer half of the stick back in the bushes, and began to pick off the larger splinters on the end.

Angel gave a sideways glance at Taka. He didn't want to set her more against him than she already seemed to be...for Sarielle's sake, if nothing else. If he was going to stay awhile - and he found he enjoyed the thought - then he wanted things to be as pleasant as possible at home.

"That might be helpful," was the response he cautiously decided upon, "but there's no need to put yourself out. I'm sure Taka is quite capable of looking after Rand."

There. He was giving her credit, treating her like an adult, right?

The blond young man found, as he slipped into shoes at the door, that he could not read the young Herald's expression. Neither did she respond.

"Well, um...I'll be back late, so...lock the door after everyone leaves," he told Taka awkwardly. Was he doing all this right? She gave him no clue. So with determined optimism, he assumed he was.

Angel gave a cheerful wave of his long fingers to Subo before setting off at a brisk pace toward town. The last thing he heard, moving out of earshot, was Taka's voice floating on the breeze:

"Where did Rand get that branch again?"

"Take this!" Rand's idea of sword fighting was that you were aiming to hit the other person's weapon, and not the other person. After all, all the cool sword fights were about the clash of the weapons, the sound of steel on steel as one pirate expertly parried another's blows...at least that was the way his mom always told the stories. There wasn't much blood in Owle's stories; once he'd asked for more and she'd told him he was too young.

In any case, Rand was making a good show of hitting Lind's stick with his own in dramatic poses, though perhaps he wasn't doing such a good job of actually fighting.