Title: Teasing Game

Author: Karina

Rating: PG

Pairing: Dowager Duchess Anastasia

Notes:  Challenge 232.  Baby Series 4  #153.  Takes place approximately one hour following Girls and Horses.

Spoilers: None

Warnings: Extended Length

Many thanks to ShenLong Deb for her work betaing this set of fics.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine.

Title: Teasing Game

The Dowager Duchess Anastasia observed the proceedings with thinly veiled amusement.  The horror on the faces of certain attending court officials was worthy of bursting into laughter, but she would not betray herself so openly.  Her amusement was purely a private thing, and she had a reputation to uphold.  There was precious little that could be termed amusing about Sanc's predicament, or politics, but she should have known she could trust a Peacecraft to find pleasure in adversity.

The children were delighted, of course, and most of the watching adults wore wide grins.  There was laughter to be heard and smiles to be seen, wonderful things to witness given their situation.  Most amusing to her was how that young stud Maxwell was watching the entire affair with more than a subtle hunch of his shoulders.  No doubt the memory of excruciating pain for days after THAT certain incident was the cause of his stance.

The red headed child she had noted spending considerable time with the King wore a grin that threatened to split his freckled face.  He whooped in delight as he slid down the banister, face beaming with his enthusiasm.  How long had it been, she wondered, since that child had been permitted the luxury of being a child?  From what she had heard he had accounted well for himself in protecting the delightful cherub named Jessica.

Lady Alice Darlian paused beside her, bundled heavily against the extreme cold.  Whether she approved the actions taking place before her or not the Dowager could not tell, but she was not particularly fussed if the woman was less than amused.  It might have been Relena’s presence in the affair that so shocked her, but the Dowager was not of a mind to sanction the Princess for taking her turn down the banister.

They had chosen the staircase with great care.  It was a not so grand a staircase that it claimed a sweeping curve or any particular height.  This was a beginner’s staircase, and the whole event was well supervised by adults.  As each child began their descent an adult would run beside them, another making the run at ground level in the event the child came off the railing on the drop side.  And there were copious quantities of cushions, mattresses and pillows strewn about the area.

She could have wished in her training days... Ah, how long ago had it been?  There had been no padded floor when she had learned how to ride a banister!  There had been a great deal of sneaking around so as not to get caught, but nothing in the way of personal safety precautions.  This safety net took half the fun out of the exercise!

“Overgrown children.”

There was fondness and genuine amusement in the woman’s tone and the Dowager chuckled softly.  No one had to know what she found so amusing, but she was quite certain Alice Darlian would not have been amused.  No, she would not have been smiling had she been witness to the events the Dowager had chanced upon earlier.  She had caught their gracious Princess teasing young Yuy earlier, subtly using innuendo about stallions and their ‘finer points’ in relation to similar, and decidedly human, anatomy.  The boy had been about to burst, she was sure, before the noise from this game and a subtle cough from the Dowager, had distracted the Princess.  Much to Yuy’s relief.

No, the Lady Alice would not have been amused, at all, had she caught her daughter in such a teasing game. 

End

Karina Robertson