Birthday Games

35.

As requested by punch898980. Hope you enjoy!

"I'm not a baby, Daddy," Karin giggled as she skipped back towards her room, but she still smiled as she contemplated the vast array of toys she had to choose from. She was determined to have as much fun as possible before her party, so that she could have even more fun while her friends were all here.

She quickly settled on a big box of building blocks. Once upon a time they had been part of various sets, with instructions for the things she might be able to create from them. Every set had just the right pieces to make a princess's palace, or a car, or a tank for the royal guard. But over time pieces had been lost, or simply not put back with the right set. And it had seemed so much more fun to mix them all up in a giant toy chest and see what her imagination would create.

Today she started out trying to build a palace. It was her coming of age celebration, so obviously she would be needing to find a home of her own soon enough, a place to settle down with a princess of her own to shower with gifts. So she tried to think of what kind of castle she would make, whether it was a glamorous marble palace or a castle with stone teeth on the top of the turrets. And that led to her thinking about what kind of ruler she would be. Would she declare it Valentine's day every day, and have so many gifts of chocolate and flowers that she could bathe in them? Or would she be an evil witch queen, keeping her princess locked up in the highest tower?

Both ideas were fascinating, and she told herself stories about them as she build the castle out of the best blocks that came to hand. So she ended up with a castle that had a ballroom and towers as well, and a kitchen with a dozen microwaves in to cater for the largest parties, and a direct door to the dungeons in case the chef needed to send for new slaves. The only tiny plastic figure imprisoned in the dungeon now was a skeleton, but he was a smiling skeleton so she soon decided that must mean she was going to be a good queen after all.

"Oh, but what's this?" she put a hand over her mouth, pantomiming surprise even though there was nobody to see. Then she reached up above her with one hand, and a toy that had been hidden right at the bottom of the box came swooping down: a dragon!

The dragon flew right at the beautiful castle, and slammed into the pink bits of the wall hard enough to knock some blocks out with its head. That was the problem with a pink castle, of course. Dragons hated anything pink, just like bulls didn't like people with red cloaks. Karin quickly decided that was a lesson that every princess would have to learn in school, because it had been so important to the first princesses when they were choosing what colour to wear.

She reached out for one of her loyal knights, a fuzzy pink bunny called Sir Carrolot who wore a bright pink cape. He was a warrior so brave that he would challenge even the dragon right out in the open.

As the knight charged the dragon, their battle raged back and forth across the whole kingdom. Other toys tried to separate them, and remind them that friendship will always beat fighting. But that just meant that a lot of other toys got flung aside and ended up in a big wounded pile on the bed and by the toybox. And it didn't look like the fight of bunny against dragon was going to be over any time soon. The dragon had the Princess's bunny defender pinned down on the ground, but he used his powerful ears to knock it away, right across the room.

Princess Karin paused slightly as the dragon bounced off the clock on the wall, almost managing to stop time with its terrible magic. But it didn't look like anything was broken, so she wasn't in trouble with Daddy yet. She wagged a finger at Sir Carrolot, telling him to be more careful, and then scooped him up into a tight hug while she charged to where the wounded dragon lay. She wasn't sure if the knight was going to win now, or if healing the dragon with a big kiss would convince it to be nice and help her put the castle back together. But before she even got there, something terrible happened.

The game was interrupted by Karin's scream. Because while certain kinds of building blocks are perfect for making a castle out of, they are also small, hard, and pointy enough to cause quite a lot of pain when one gets underfoot. It took her a few seconds to catch her breath, but she couldn't quite hold in a few tears. She wanted to be a big girl, but she knew Daddy must have heard her scream. She could already hear his footsteps bounding up the stairs. She couldn't believe something so small could hurt so much, it must have been poisoned or magic, maybe. She sat on the floor, pulling her injured foot towards her as she tried to get a better look at the injury. It was out of sight, though, so when Daddy ran in he found his most precious little girl curled up in a ball on the floor, red in the face.

"Oh no!" he exclaimed, and quickly scooped her up for a healing hug. But even in these most dire circumstances, Daddy knew the right thing to do. He carefully put a bandage on her injury, and gave Carrolot one too, and sat her on the edge of the bed while he made sure there weren't any other hazards on the ground waiting to cause her harm. Then he kissed both invalids on the forehead, and asked if she was going to be okay. Such a little thing, but it would always make Karin feel better. She'd stopped crying by now, and was trying hard to show Daddy how brave she could be.

"I think you'll feel better soon, Princess," he consoled her, "Were you trying to protect the castle?" Karin nodded gently.

"Well then," Daddy looked around at the toys, and quickly knelt on the ground to do something that Karin didn't see, "You've done a wonderful job. Because the castle is safe, the dragon has promised not to attack again, and the whole kingdom is at peace. Not bad, for one afternoon. Now, there's some of our friends downstairs who'd like to talk to you. Can you guess why?"

"Am I in trouble?" Karin's eyes widened and she looked up nervously at her Daddy.

"No, it's nothing like that."

"Have they come to play tribute?" she grinned widely, using some words that she'd heard in a few stories, even if she didn't really know what they meant, "That sounds like fun!"

"Not quite, but you're pretty close. But before you go down, I think you need a little reward for being such a good Princess and defending the kingdom. So I've got a special medal for you. Would you like your pet dragon to help you put it on?"

Karin nodded eagerly, and bounded off across the bed to fetch the dragon. When she came back, she saw the medal that Daddy had created. It was a wonderful symbol for the Princess who'd saved the castle, a few of the blocks that the dragon had knocked off joined into a circle, with a white ribbon threaded through the middle. She couldn't stop giggling as the dragon tried to help tie it behind her neck. But then, of course, it found that claws aren't very good at tying knots, so Daddy had to finish the job anyway.

Just then, there was a faint knock from downstairs, like there was somebody else at the door. That reminded Karin that she had visitors, though she was still in the dark about why they might be there. She couldn't wait to find out though, and when she turned to ask Daddy it was clear that he'd heard it too.

To continue, turn to chapter 37 if Karin has been diapered before reaching this point, or chapter 36 otherwise