Author notes:
This story is for Dreamflower who asked me to write about Mirabella, preferably with a young Rorimac.
Special thanks to Shirebound for betaing.

The Mission

Year: 1315 (Rorimac: 13, Saradas: 7)

“No, no, no, no!” Rorimac advanced on his younger brother with an exasperated shake of his head and grabbed him impatiently by the arm. “Look, you must stand still. If you don’t I’ll have to tie you to a chair.”

“No!” Little Saradas paled visibly as he turned to his brother with huge, terrified eyes. “Please don’t do that, Rory. Don’t tie me to a chair.”

“Don’t run, then,” Rorimac pointed out. “That’s the point of this entire procedure.”

“I can’t help it,” Saradas replied miserably. He grabbed hold of the string Rorimac had somehow managed to tie around his loose upper front tooth and made sure it would not tighten. “Have you done this before?”

Rorimac stopped and considered this for a moment, aware of his young brother’s nervous eyes on him.

“I always wanted to,” he said at last, and before Saradas could argue he explained his mission for the third time. “Now, you stand still and I go slam the door and--,” he looked sternly at his brother, “this time you’re not going to run towards me or you’ll never get rid of that tooth of yours.”

Saradas nodded weakly and carefully poked his tooth with his tongue. “It’s quite loose now.”

Rorimac smiled, patted Saradas’ shoulder and walked to the door where he once again inspected the knob on which he had secured the other end of the string Saradas so desperately clutched. Satisfied, he turned around to find his brother standing right behind him. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes, then firmly took Saradas by the shoulders and pushed him back to the bedpost.

“Do I really have to do this?”

Saradas looked more unsure by the minute, and Rorimac almost felt sorry for him. But then, he had always wanted to try ‘the doorknob method’ as Cousin Bilbo called it. Cousin Meradoc, however, had wriggled his tooth free before they got a chance to convince him of the advantages of the doorknob. What those advantages were Rorimac could not quite tell, but clearly it was a sign of fortune that his brother’s first tooth should come loose the very week after he and Bilbo had discussed it.

Rorimac had prepared everything – especially his brother. He had caught the boy before he could tell their parents about the tooth and before he could wriggle it too much. Wriggling was a nasty and tiresome business. The doorknob was a lot quicker and painless – or so he hoped.

He shook his head. No, it could not be painful. The tooth was already loose, after all, and if wriggling did not hurt, neither should the doorknob.

“You’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly, as he put Saradas’ hand on the bedpost and made him hold on to it. Only for a moment did he consider actually tying him there.

This time he walked backwards to the door, his eyes fixed on his brother’s wide ones. A smiled played on the corners of his lips as he finally got hold of the knob. “Ready?”

“What are the two of you up to?”

Rorimac was unable to explain what happened once his mother’s voice sounded from the hallway. Perhaps he had recognised the sudden relief in his brother’s expression and had used the distraction to catch him unawares. Perhaps he had seen his chance slip from his very fingers, or perhaps his mother’s voice gave him such a fright that his first impulse was to slam the door on the unexpected intruder.

For whatever reason, he pushed the door shut – hard. It closed with a boom. In the hallway his mother inhaled sharply, while his brother squeaked in shock. Rorimac’s own heart suddenly beat fast. It thumped even louder when the door burst open again and his mother stood in its frame looking both alarmed and annoyed.

“What is this all about?” she demanded, and looked from a slightly pale Saradas to Rorimac and then back to Saradas who covered his mouth with both hands. Her eyes widened and she quickly hurried to her son’s side. “Sweet, are you all right?”

Rorimac frowned nervously and while mother fussed over Saradas and tried to move his hands from his face, he sneaked a glance at the string on the doorknob. His expression softened immediately. There, inconspicuously, dangled a tiny, white tooth. Rorimac quickly caught it and held it out before him, grinning broadly at his brother over their mother’s shoulder.

Saradas stared at it for a long moment before he too broke into a grin. “It’s out,” he said and, letting his arms sink, he probed at the new gap with his tongue. “It’s gone.”

Rorimac nodded. “I told you it would work.”

“What would work?” their mother asked, recognition slowly dawning on her face.

“The doorknob method,” Saradas blurted out, and before Rorimac could stop him his brother gave Mirabella a full account of the early morning’s events.

To his surprise, mother only stared at him in disbelief before she smiled, ruffled his curls and shook her head. “You are a handful,” she told him as she took the tooth from his fingers and handed it to Saradas. “Your first tooth,” she mused as she combed her fingers through his hair and gave him a proud, loving look. “You should keep it. It’s very special. It means you’re growing up.”

Saradas’ eyes shone as he studied his tooth. “If I’m growing up now, I might be able to show Dodinas the doorknob method when his first tooth comes loose.”

Mirabella grimaced and sent Rorimac a glance that clearly said, “What have you started now?” But Rorimac could not see any harm in passing along Cousin Bilbo's little trick. After all, the doorknob was faster than wriggling.

~THE END~