Pov
I forgot which one’s supposed to be three sentences--if this is it, it’s way longer than that, oops? Gosalyn’s POV for the ending of Chapter 7 of ignis fatuus!!
She startles awake, hands balled into fists, ready to fight the rude creature that dare awake her.
Then the smell of Dad’s cologne, and inevitable soot and asphalt, greet her, and Gosalyn relaxes, blinking her eyes open and rolling her head back to look up at him. “Dad?”
She looks over his shoulder to see if LP came home with him tonight, she knows they usually both come in and check on her after patrol, but doesn’t see him looming over Dad’s shoulder.
That makes her sad, the feeling numbed a little by sleepiness, that Launchpad had to go back to Duckburg tonight, but he’ll be back. He promised her they’d get pizza after her match, and he’s never let her or Dad down yet.
His cheek presses against her hair. “Shh, Gos, honey, go back to sleep,” Dad says, rubbing her back a little, like she’s five and not almost a teenager.
If she were actually awake, she’d pretend to mind, but Gosalyn cuddles closer to him, sighing. “Hmm. How’s patrol? Get a lot of bad guys?”
When he doesn’t answer, she looks up at him, narrowing one eye at him. His beak is pressed in a tight, thin line, and he’s got that pinched look between his eyes like he’s about to tell her bad news.
Patrol’s been wearing on him, she knows. She hasn’t been allowed out in almost a month, even on weekends like she normally does, instead spending the night with Honker, or going into Duckburg to the Saberwing’s or the Duck’s. There’s apparently a really bad gang war brewing between the Rats and Ravens (stupid names if she ever heard), and Dad and Launchpops don’t want her in the middle of it until it’s died down.
(She almost didn’t believe it at first, thought it had been another way of Dad trying to keep her from going on patrol while she was at school, but when she was complaining to Dewey about it one night, Uncle Donald had heard and recognized the gangs from before they were even born.)
They must be into some really bad stuff, because she hasn’t seen Dad this upset since the Fearsome Four, or F.O.W.L., so she tries to brace herself for whatever he’s about to tell her next.
But, suddenly, it disappears, and Gosalyn wonders if she imagined the whole thing.
“Yeah, you know, it was actually kind of slow tonight. Guess all the bad guys stayed home.”
She harrumphs, curling in closer to his chest and rubbing her cheek against his shirt. “Sounds boring.”
Dad laughs softly at that, and his arms tighten around her just a little bit. Gosalyn feels, rather than hears, him humming. He’s been doing that a lot, too, lately, singing her lullaby, even without realizing it sometimes.
She absently thinks this may be one of those times as she plucks at the buttons of his shirt, feeling warm and safe and ready to fall asleep once more.
Maybe she can convince him to let her go out on patrol this weekend, Gosalyn thinks sleepily. If Dad has both his crime-fighting partners with him, maybe he won’t be so stressed out, and they have a better chance at stopping these guys. She’ll just have to promise to be extra careful and stay in the Ratcatcher or Thunderquack with LP when he says, and...
“Dad?” Her voice is muffled against his shoulder and she tries unsuccessfully to wiggle free from his iron grip. “You’re squishing me.”
His arms immediately go slack and she wriggles into a more comfortable position. “Sorry,” he whispers.
She shakes her head, the room already going fuzzy around the edges. “You’re bein’ weird, Dad.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
