Disclaimer: Youthfully not mine.

A/N: For Sefina as her Secret Santa present over at ygodrabble on Live-Journal. Shamelessly cute stuff. Enter at risk of own teeth.

Childhood Games

© Scribbler, December 2011.

"Unf!" Malik jumped up and down, grabbing fistfuls of air above his head. "Ngg! Rargh! Whuh! Ramf!"

Isis stood in the doorway, head tipped to one side as she studied her brother. "Those aren't real words."

"Huhhh!" He stamped one tiny foot, creating a cloud of dust.

The ground here wasn't as compacted as the rest of their home. They weren't prohibited from this section of tunnels, but nobody really liked to come here. It was cold and ugly, and there were rumours of scorpions the size of your fist. The children knew those rumours were false, but it was in their best interests not to correct the adults. It hadn't taken Isis long to find her brothers when she realised they weren't anywhere in the main tunnels.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Malik whirled to face her. "He won't give me the ball!"

"Rishid?"

Rishid looked shamefaced but resolute. At age eleven, he was already taller than most adults. He towered over six-year-old Malik like a tree shading a lamb intent on getting the leaves off its branches. He compulsively pressed a small leather-skin ball filled with chaff and dry papyrus between his palms. "It's… the rules … the game's rules…"

"I don't care about rules!" Malik stamped again. "Give me the ball, or I'll tell Father you were mean to me!"

Rishid's whole face blanched. "No! I was just trying to teach you –"

"Ball! Now! I want it! I want it now! Gimme-gimme-gimme-gimme –"

"Malik!" Isis was aghast. If she had thought Malik didn't know their father would punish Rishid, she might have been able to forgive the threat. Their father was quick to punish Rishid for the most minor offenses – more harshly and for lesser things than his other children. It was one more division between them, and one Isis was equally eager to prevent. Their father favoured Malik terribly, but Malik didn't usually use this against them.

He at least had the sense to look guilty. His arms dropped and he toed the dust. "I'm too little to get it off Rishid. He's not playing fair."

Rishid pressed down on the ball so hard it nearly burst. "I was teaching him how to play Akra Ball," he said apologetically. It was a game of speed in which the ball could not be just held, but had to be tossed from hand to hand as you ran, and could be 'stolen' by your opponent snatching it from the air. Points were scored if you could keep the ball and toss it from a floor-marker at a chosen spot on one of two walls. "I thought… I mean, I didn't think it'd be a problem… but…" He looked down. "Please don't tell Father."

Isis looked at them both. "Tell him what – that you tried to teach Malik a life-lesson about how it's better to play by the rules and have friends than to cheat and lose them?"

Both her brothers blinked at her.

"Huh?" Malik frowned. "That's not what he was doing. He was just being mean!"

Isis shook her head. She was only ten, but sometimes she felt like a hundred. Being female meant she, too, received their father's scorn, though not the back of his hand as often as Rishid. Instead, she was forced to watch as he belittled one of the kindest souls ever to walk the earth and tried to turn a little boy into an arrogant monster. So far she had been able to prevent Rishid's self-worth falling and Malik's ego rising too far, but she wondered what the future held and it weighed on her.

She took a strengthening breath. "Malik, when has Rishid ever been deliberately mean to you?"

"He –" Malik stopped. "Well he… uh…"

"Come on. Name one time."

Malik's voice dropped to a surly mutter. "Never."

"Exactly. You wouldn't like it if Rishid stopped playing games with you altogether, would you?"

"No."

"But that's what would happen if Father thought he was being unfair." Or playing at all, she thought privately. Father thinks Rishid should just stand in the corner until he needs help carrying something heavy. "You would have to play on your own all the time and you'd never learn anything new. Do you want that?"

"No!"

They already had to hide the fact that they played at childhood had not been unfair so much as an elaborate joke – but that was beyond even Isis's capacity to understand. Yet.

"You may be little, but that doesn't mean you can't win," she said, crouching behind Malik and turning him to face away from her. She often did that when she wanted to hug him, knowing he would push her away otherwise. Affection was something with which she had to catch him unawares. Rishid, too. Sometimes she hid in dark doorways, waiting for him to go past so she could jump out and wrap her arms around his torso. He never pushed her away. Affection revolted Malik, but it surprised Rishid.

"Isis?" Malik said dubiously. "What are you – whoa!"

"It just means you have to be smarter about how you play." Isis bent her knees to compensate for the new weight on her shoulders. Malik's sweaty little hands clamped on her forehead. His breath was warm on the back of her head. They still weren't as tall as Rishid, but it didn't matter.

"Ha!" Malik crowed. "I challenge you, Rishid!"

Isis watched Rishid's expression shift to careful delight. It was tenuous, apt to slip away from his features like sand through a sieve, but just seeing it made Isis feel lighter inside.

"You're on," Rishid said.

Fin.