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Oh yeah! Gajeel was ready. He’d been working hard, practising his roar, rehearsing his part like the S-Class father he was and he was ready!
“No!” Raja stomped her little foot with all the sass her five-year-old body allowed.
“No?” Gajeel questioned. “You don’t wanna play pretend anymore?”
Look, just because she’d asked to play pretend literally five seconds ago didn’t mean she still wanted to play pretend, and that was okay. He wasn’t disappointed. It was one of his favourite parts of parenting, sure, but it was Saturday, the whole family was home, and Gajeel lived for days like these whether they played pretend or not.
“No!” The light of his life repeated, this time with an emphatic hand gesture. She pointed to where Levy was gathering the dishes from snack time. They’d worked together to make chocolate cupcakes and there was nothing sweeter in the whole world. Saturdays ruled. His family was everything.
And then his baby girl broke his heart.
“Mama’s the dragon today!”
Her tiny finger pointed to Gajeel.
“Papa’s a princess!”
On that bombshell, Raja hurried over to her dress-up box and began rummaging. With a smirk to Gajeel, Lily accompanied her and was summarily given the role of stage manager, then laden down with multiple lengths of fabric, an armful of sparkly jewellery, and a blunted replica of his own Musica sword. That last had been Lily’s birthday gift to Raja last year and she’d proclaimed it to be her favourite present ever. The cat had been smug about it for weeks, the furry bastard.
“Hey, pretty princess,” Levy cooed next to his ear as she sat on the couch next to him. “I hope you practised your melodic sighs as well as your powerful roars.” The laughter in her voice was just another piece of the Perfect Saturday puzzle. Gods, alright, he’d do anything to keep his girls happy.
“I’m gonna sigh like no princess has ever sighed,” Gajeel declared, kissing the top of her head and springing to his feet. He’d played a lot of roles through his life but this one was new and required special preparation… probably. “You ain’t never seen a princess like me!”
Lily chose that moment to drop a pink tiara onto his head. It smelled like apple juice for some reason.
(Pre-schooler. The reason was always: pre-schooler.)
“I’m sure that’s true,” Levy giggled, straightened his crown, and winked. “Don’t forget she likes the princess to talk in rhymes.” Damnit. He found the rhyming hilarious when Levy had to do it, less so when he himself was on the hook. Levy’s eyes sparkled with sweet, sweet retribution. She took the horns offered to her and went to stand in the hallway, awaiting her cue.
“Papa Princess! Up! Up!” Raja cried, throwing a length of iridescent fabric at him and tugging him over to the coffee table. Gajeel tied the fabric into a toga-dress around his chest and stepped onto the coffee table. Even knowing the table could take his weight (his and Levy’s weight combined, in fact, plus some energetic movement), he moved gingerly. Why did it look so damn high from up here?
“It’s two feet, Black Steel,” Gajeel muttered to himself, adjusting his dress and getting into character.
“The dragon’s hench’um locked you in the tower! Oh nooooooo!” Raja continued with such melodrama that Gajeel had to bite back a smile.
“Oh no!” He echoed. He pitched his voice up an octave and sighed melodically. Or attempted to, because what did that even mean? “Locked up all alone in a tower, uh… on my own for hours and hours,” he said sadly, clutching his hands in front of his chest. Raja had a sixth sense for lacklustre playtime performances; Grey had been permanently banned for his shitty embodiment of the moon that one time.
“Don’t be afraid, Papa! A brave knight from Minstrel comes to rescue the princess from her tower!”
Raja still pronounced her Rs as Ws, especially when she got excited, and it was the most precious thing Gajeel had ever heard. Levy was working hard to model the correct pronunciations but today wasn’t about that. Today was about playing and bonding and, apparently, Raja showing off her new knowledge about Minstrel. Their daughter had inherited Levy’s brains for sure.
With a dramatic swoon, Gajeel bought himself time to come up with a rhyme. Damnit. The worst thing about the rhyming was how catchy it was!
“Oh, brave knight, it’s been so long! Please rescue me – you’re kind, capable, and strong!” He could hear Levy giggling in the hallway and thought his blush must look quite fetching with his dress and tiara.
“I am kind and cable and strong! And I’m from Minella, the Captain City of Minstrel!” Raja lifted her Musica sword above her head and Gajeel bit his lip to hold back his laughter. “But what is that in the sky? Ahhhh!” She shrieked gleefully as the door burst open and Levy flew in, borne along by Lily and his Aera wings. “Dragon!”
“Ahahahaha!” Levy cackled, curling her hands into claws and hissing like a pissed off kitten. Her horns were slightly askew. Flaring like a pair of leathery wings behind her was the yard of black cotton that had, in its brief time in their home, been a vampire’s cape, a stormy ocean, a perilous sinkhole, and a giant shark. Gajeel would never underestimate their kid’s creativity. “I’m a big dragon and the princess belongs to me! I’ll eat you both alive!” Levy finished her declaration with a surprisingly full-throated growl.
Gajeel blinked in surprise.
Was that sexy? Damnit, why was that sexy?
“People can’t be-long to magic creatures,” Raja said seriously, lowering her sword and shaking her head. “No legal presents.” Oh, Gods help them, she’d been listening to Shadow Gear picking apart the Creatures of Minstrel case. Over Levy’s shoulder, Lily exchanged a look of dread with Gajeel. Levy herself looked thrilled.
“Yes!” She squealed. “That’s right, there’s no legal precedent!”
Gajeel cleared his throat meaningfully and fluttered his eyelashes when his girls looked at him.
“You gonna let the dragon eat me, brave knight?” He asked, then, at Raja’s unimpressed look he added, “uh… this might be a big fight?”
“Right,” Levy said, raising her hand-claws again. “Yummy princess is on the menu tonight, ha ha ha!”
“But how will you eat us… when you have no teeth?!” Raja yelled, levelling her sword at Levy with a triumphant grin, all thoughts of legal precedent gone, thank fuck. Gajeel didn’t think he could rhyme his way through a courtroom scene.
Watching Levy flounder and then flourish as she played at being the toothless dragon from their daughter’s imagination made the mild embarrassment of being Papa Princess entirely worthwhile. After an imaginary trip to the dentist, where Raja promised to make Dragon Levy a denture if she let Gajeel go home to Minstrel – without a lawsuit! – their little girl declared the princess saved and yawned the enormous yawn of the all-tuckered-out.
“I don’t know where she gets her ideas,” Levy whispered, gently closing the door to Raja’s bedroom. She was fast asleep within, cuddled up with Lily and the plush shrimp that had earned Droy the much coveted and very temporary title of ‘favourite uncle’. Jet was still sore over it; he’d been the previous favourite for a solid month after taking Raja out for ice cream. Lily had been planning his comeback for weeks; it included puppies.
“Probably all the books you read to her when you were pregnant,” Gajeel whispered back, leading Levy by the hand to the living room. They collapsed onto the sofa and Gajeel pulled her in to settle against him. “It must’a sunk in.”
“If that were the case, our dragon playtime would be much less family friendly,” Levy pointed out with a mischievous grin. Her hands stroked over Gajeel’s chest and drifted downwards. “Though I wouldn’t mind being eaten alive by this dragon.” Her tone was equal parts playful and suggestive and Gajeel immediately shuffled her hips upward to his face.
He couldn’t think of any better way to spend naptime.
Saturdays were the best.