Day Six of the Thirty Day Drabble Challenge:
Flame.
A cry from the other room has Max jumping out of his seat and running out of study to the living room.
Anya is standing by the table next to the window, one of her hands cradled to her chest as she sniffles and tries to hold back tears. He crosses the room in two strides and gently turns her around to face him.
“Anya, darling what happened?”
Anya and sniffs as she says, “I got too close to the candle and burned my hand.”
Max tsks and pulls her hand away from her chest to take a look at her palm to see how bad it is. The skin is bright pink and exudes heat. He sighs and picks her up, placing her on his hip as he says, “Come child, let’s go take care of your hand.”
Anya buries her face in his neck as he carries her to the kitchen. He turns on the tap and sets her on the counter. Max grabs one of the wash cloths from the cabinet and hold it under the water for a moment.
He wraps a hand around Anya’s wrist and meets her water eyes, though she still refuses to let the tears fall, and warns, “This will hurt darling, but I have to make sure the burn’s clean, or it could get infected. I’m sorry, Anya.”
She squares her jaw and nods. “It’s okay Papa, I’ll be brave.”
He smiles and kisses her forehead before he says, “I know you will,”
He gently cleans the burn, watching Anya’s face the whole time. She hisses at the contact but other than that maintains a strong front.
Max’s smile stretches as he ruffles her hair. “That’s my girl,”
She gives him a watery smile in return. Though it turns truer when he brings her hand up and lightly kisses the small burn before retrieving the first aid kit from under the sink and putting some salve on the burn.
For days afterward Anya shies away from any form of fire that appears before her.
Finally, on the third day of this, Max sits her down in the living room and sets a box of matches on the table along with several candles.
He can see Anya stiffen and frown uncertainly as he takes out the first match, lights it, and then promptly snuffs it out. Her face scrunches up as he does this again and again, until he simply lets the match continue to burn in his grasp. Anya tenses as the flame continues to burn, growing closer to his fingers as the seconds tick by.
As it finally nears the tips of his fingers, Max blows out the match. Anya sags in relief and looks at her father questioningly.
Max smiles gently at his precious little girl, strikes another match and at last lights one of the candles on the table.
He reaches across the table to cup her face. “I know that getting burned is scary little one, but fire isn’t a monster. It’s not going to try to hunt you down from a simple match or from a candle.
“And if it ever does try that, I’ll protect you.”