(Untitled)

[dishabille_mal]

Maldicta was chasing Olivia around the house. Admittedly, she was doing so rather languidly, since Olivia's crawl was hardly speedy. It wasn't especially coordinated, either, but Maladicta was sure this was just the girl's father coming through, and she would grow out of it quickly

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[dogbitesman]

William lowered his notes -- there was a lot going on recently, he might have to make the picture of Olivia a bit smaller -- and looked around, leaning slightly to see what was going on.

"Er... why?" he said. "What precisely is over there?"

[dishabille_mal]

"Your child," Maladicta said, tone dipping abruptly from innocuously request to sharply unimpressed.

Olivia gave a very quiet but very high pitched peal of amusement.

[dogbitesman]

"Well, obviously, I just wondered if there was something else," he said, dropping the notebook into the other chair and standing up, taking a few steps into the house. "Do I need to brace myself to change her? She's not injured, or you'd presumably be a lot more concerned."

[dishabille_mal]

"Would I have asked you over if there wasn't?" Maladicta countered, cocking her hip to one side. Olivia waved her hands toward her father's voice.

"It's not changing. Coward."

[dogbitesman]

"It's not cowardice, Maladicta was simply closer, wasn't she, Olivia?" William said, leaning over her and pitching his voice down, in the traditionally upbeat voice parents used to delight their children while reassuring them that the other parent was, in fact, incorrect.

It had proven useful enough that he'd stopped feeling silly doing the voice.

[dishabille_mal]

Olivia beamed up at her da and Maladicta smiled a little. She leaned against the crib, propping her cheek in her hand.

"Olivia, did you have something you wanted to tell daddy?" Olivia laughed until she hiccuped a little, as though Maladicta's proposition had been most droll.

[dogbitesman]

"Maybe it would be faster if you told me," William said, "since you're the only one of the pair that can talk, isn't that right, Olivia?"

He paused, then his head jerked between them rather rapidly. "Wait, is it? Olivia, was there something you wanted to tell daddy?"

[dishabille_mal]

Olivia's gaze moved between her parent's faces before landing on her father's, and then she hit the air a little for not discernible reason

"No comment," she said. Perhaps not as carefully enunciated as it could have been, but Maladicta would be damned if that wasn't perfectly passable Morporkian. She looked bemusedly at William.

[dogbitesman]

William looked elated.

"She spoke! Those were words! Two of them, two words at once, that was an actual statement!"

His grin, which had been somehow widening the entire time, slowed, stopped, and reversed about halfway. "...sorry, pardon, Olivia, no... comment?" He looked back at Maladicta. "Did she just say 'no comment'?"

[dishabille_mal]

Maladicta pressed her lips together into a line and held them shut with her teeth, because she didn't want to burst out laughing in his face. This was going to be a difficult moment for him to wrestle with. She did look a bit proud, though.

Olivia put her fingers in her mouth, so they slightly obstructed her repetition of, "Noh kawhmen."

[dogbitesman]

"Very good, dear," William said, patting her on the head. "It may work better without the fingers."

That was very good. That was putting two words together, at once, that was obviously a more intelligent move than just saying 'cat' or 'door' or something. It was something to be proud of.

"My daughter's first statement is a refusal to make a statement," he said, rubbing his forehead. "That is, um, impressively metatextual."

[dishabille_mal]

"Right?" Maladicta said, grinning fiercely.

"Who's clever," she continued, leaning down to smile fangily at their offspring. Olivia waved her feet around, as she was want to do.

"Is it you?"

"No comment," Olivia said.

[dogbitesman]

"It is you," William said, with a hopeful sort of entreaty, "you can comment on that, if you want. Would you like to, Olivia?"

[dishabille_mal]

There was an answering giggle.

"Think this is a sign of some kind?" Maladicta mused.

[dogbitesman]

"That she delights in confounding me?" William said, although he couldn't not smile in the face of, well, his daughter's giggling face. "I was rather hoping that wasn't hereditary."

[dishabille_mal]

"Sorry, darling," Maladicta said, and reached over to give his elbow an apologetic squeeze.

"I wonder if she knows what it means," she said, "or if it's just what she's picked up on most quickly. I'd like to think she has some idea, or else wouldn't it have been 'puppy' or something?"