((Our contribution to the Children's Day Renaissance Faire.))

The Wonderplex had always been a familiar place for the Storms. Johnny had, after all, been working there when he and Liv had first got together, and they hadn't stopped visiting, even after gathering their motley collection of children into their lives. But today was a special day - today was Children's Day, and that meant new attractions to see with the over-excited younger pair bouncing around their parents and big sister cheerfully.

Amazingly, it was Maria who was babbling today, a feat made all the more entertaining by the flicker of her fingers as she spoke at speed. "I want to dress up and see a fairy and play the bow and arrow thing and see the cooking and the man making the swords and ..."

"Slow down," Fliss laughed, capturing her little sister's hands. "We're gonna do all that and more, promise. Just work out with Alex what you wanna do first, okay?"

"I want to be a knight!" Alex declared, very matter-of-factly, which meant there was a good chance they'd be renting costumes for the day. Fortunately, Rhy'Din was a place where a little boy really could grow up to be a knight, if that's what he chose to be, but today was just about playing pretend and having fun. Alex made a face at the mention of fairies, though he didn't want to insult their own little house brownie. Fairies were for girls, in his opinion, but he didn't want to say so out loud. "I want to see the jousting!" he said, feigning a swordfight with an invisible sword in his hands.

Liv paused, leaning on the stroller comfortably as she glanced at Johnny. "Well, I think it sounds like we're going to see about renting costumes first," she commented in amusement, trying not to laugh at the look on Fliss' face as Maria clapped her hands happily. "Tell you what, though ....if you don't make Fliss dress up with you, we might have something terribly unhealthy to snack on waiting when you get back."

"Cotton candy! Cotton candy!" Alex exclaimed, jumping up and down and clapping his hands together excitedly. "Can we have some cotton candy, Papa?" he asked, turning those sparkling blue eyes up at his father.

Johnny laughed at his children - all of them, including the look on Fliss' face. "I don't know if they have cotton candy at a Renaissance Festival, Alex, but we can find out," he replied. "What's the matter, Fliss" Maybe you should see what it feels like to be the one with wings on your back, for a change," he teased.

The look Fliss gave her father was one teenage girls have been perfecting for centuries. "No," was her flat reply. As much as she loved her siblings, the thought of being dressed up like some kind of velvet and satin draped cake did not appeal on a day when she'd voluntarily worn a coat. She looked down at Alex and Maria, smirking when she felt Liv's hand in her pocket. "All right then, terrible twosome," the teenager declared, holding her hand out to Maria. Alex was getting touchy about holding hands in public. "Let's get you two costumed up!"

To Johnny's credit, he knew better than to push the teenager too far, chuckling a little as she turned him down flat. "Well, if you don't want to dress up, I do!" he declared, taking Maria's other hand. Fliss was more than welcome to come along, even if she didn't want to play dress up.

"Have I mentioned recently how much I love my dad?" Fliss commented to Liv, who laughed as she waved them off toward the costume stands.

"Have fun, little people," she told them.

"Why doesn't Fliss want to dress up?" Alex asked once they were far enough away that his big sister couldn't overhear them.

Johnny shrugged. "I don't know. She probably thinks it's silly," he replied.

Maria wriggled her hand out from Johnny's to offer up her own answer. "She's all embarrassed because she's a big girl," she suggested earnestly, inserting her hand back into Johnny's as they walked along.

"So' I'm getting a costume and I'm a lot older than Fliss!" Johnny pointed out, but then, in a lot of ways he was just an overgrown kid at heart. Still, he didn't think it would have killed Fliss to play along and have a little fun. It worried him a little that she had been so adamantly against it.

"But you're not a girl," Maria pointed out with a wide grin, hugging his hand as she bounced along next to him. "Her bits are arriving, and they make her all uncomfortable." It sounded as though Fliss' approach to sixteen was beginning to bring with it the curves she might not be entirely ready for.

Alex giggled at his sister's remark. He hadn't needed to look at her to hear what she'd said with her fingers. "Fliss is getting boobies," he interpreted for their father with another giggle.

"Oh?" Johnny furrowed his brows at the pair of them, as he sorted that out in his head. "But what?s that got to do with getting a costume?" he asked, but it only took one wench with a low-cut blouse walking by and winking at him to understand. "Oh."

"Lucas likes them," Maria added, instantly distracted by the selection of pretty dresses on display for the aspiring princess. She knew she wasn't supposed to share things like that, but she also knew that Johnny worried about Fliss having a boyfriend, so she thought that might cancel out the invasion of privacy issue there.

"Lucas ..." Johnny echoed, those brows of his furrowing deeper. "He better not like them too much," he muttered, mostly to himself.

"Da!" Alex agreed. "He stares at them all the time," he said, before his eye, too, was caught by something and he darted off to check out the boys' costumes.

"Don't go too far!" Johnny called to Alex, while he hovered near Maria, still trying to sort out what was going on with Fliss. Their little girl was growing up, apparently, and he wasn't too sure how he felt about it.

As he pondered the issue, a tiny hand crept into his, accompanied by a wave of affection that could only have come from Maria. The middle of his little girls looked up at him, half-understanding, and half just wanting to make things better. She pointed at a dress she liked - something velvet in burgundy red - and raised her eyebrows hopefully.

Successfully distracted from his thoughts by Maria, he turned his attention to the little girl at his side, smiling affectionately down at her. His gaze followed to where she was pointing, and his smile widened. "You like that one?" he asked, almost relieved she had picked one so quickly. Shopping for girl things was Liv's territory, not his, after all.

She nodded happily, somehow managing to convey even without both hands that she even liked the little hat that came with it, but that she wanted to keep her shoes.

The wench on duty - this one rather more respectably covered up - caught them looking. "Hey, do we have a winner here?"

"Or a prince," Maria suggested cheerfully. "With tights and a pretty top." To her credit, the woman looked away to hide her smile as her son translated this for her, but the teenager didn't even try to hide his snicker.

Johnny laughed again, finally understanding how Fliss was feeling about dressing up. "Um, no. No tights," he said, though in all honesty, his uniform wasn't much better.

"What about this?" Alex suggested, pointing out a pirate uniform.

"That one's pretty cool," the teenage boy approved, nodding as he nudged Alex's shoulder. "Good taste for a guy wearing metal."

"Spasibo," Alex replied with a grin.

"Hmm," Johnny mused thoughtfully as he looked the costumes over. "That just might work," he said. "What do you think?" he asked, Maria, already knowing Alex approved. It wasn't quite a dashing prince, but it would be fun to wear.

Maria didn't really care what Johnny wore, so long as he dressed up with them. Mummy wouldn't dress up, because she had to be able to get her boobs out for Bess, and Bess was too little, and Fliss was trying to hide the fact that she even had boobs, so Johnny was her best bet for a parental figure in tights. She nodded enthusiastically, grinning up at her father.

"Okay, then, here goes nothing," Johnny replied, as he took the costume off the rack and went back to the dressing room, trailed by a miniature version of a princess and knight in shining armor.

Outside the stall, Fliss and Liv had spent an entertaining ten minutes investigating the food court, finally coming up empty on the requested cotton candy. They had, however, found caramel dipping apples - slices of apple with a decadently rich caramel dipping sauce - and had come to the conclusion that those would do. With Bess dozing in her stroller, clutching her striped rabbit and unaware of the myriad wonders wandering all around her, teen and mother were working on making a healthy dent in their purchase as they waited for the fancy dress trio to emerge.

The first sign of the trio's return was a boisterous, "Ahoy, mateys!" a very familiar-sounding voice coming from that of a pirate with a kerchief on his head and a patch across one eye, flanked by a handsome albeit short knight and a dainty princess in red velvet.

"Wow, look at you!" Fliss laughed warmly as she turned to find Johnny, Maria and Alex bearing down on them, all kitted out in ren faire style. "Couldn't find a fire-retardant peg leg, huh, Dad?"

Liv rolled her eyes cheerfully at her eldest's comment, her own smile wide and bright for the little princess and knight. "You look amazing," she complimented them, moving to get a decent look. "Alex, you must be so strong to be wearing all that armor. And you! What a beautiful little princess you are!"

Maria beamed, blushing at all the praise, but deeply pleased with it as well.

"Mind your tongue, matey," Johnny playfully warned his eldest. "Or you'll walk the plank!" Not even the real pirate who frequented Maple Grove now and then spoke like that, but Johnny had seen Pirates of the Caribbean enough times to know that's how pirates were supposed to talk.

"Dude, you keep your plank away from me," Fliss snorted, moving to share her large selection of apple slices and caramel with her brother and sister.

Liv chuckled, turning to kiss her pirate. "I'll play with your plank whenever you like," she promised Johnny playfully. "Just not in front of the children."

"Aye, ye be me first mate, lassie!" Johnny declared with a grin, as he pulled up his eye patch to wink at her, though it hardly seemed necessary, considering he had two eyes.

"Papa! Since Fliss isn't wearing a costume, can she be a damsel in distress?" Alex asked, with a mouth full of crunchy caramel apple.

Johnny looked over at Fliss uncertainly, not wanting to get snapped at again and muttered a very uncertain, "Uh ..."

"A what?" Fliss laughed. She loved spending time with her family, but this was a little weird, even for Alex. "Peanut, you do know that the knight usually marries the damsel in distress after he saves her, right?" she pointed out. Safe from being in costume, her good temper had been restored with sugar.

"Oh," Alex murmured, looking crestfallen. He loved his big sister, but he didn't want to marry her. In fact, at his age, he thought girls were kind of gross, and as much as he adored his mother, he wasn't quite sure why his father liked smooching her so much. "What if I don't want to get married?" he asked, curiously. The only girls he could think of that might be marrying material were either Lyneth or Daisy, since Doran already seemed to have claims on Maggie.

"Who says you have to have a damsel in distress to be a knight, anyway?" Fliss pointed out. "This is Rhy'Din, dude, be your own man. Rescue the dragon, or be the best at jousting with candy canes. It's not about being the man who rescues the woman. Being a knight is being the very best man you can be, no matter who needs your help. And you're pretty awesome at that."

"Really?" Alex asked, eyes wide. "Then Papa must be a knight, too, 'cause he helps people all the time, and he's the best man in Rhy'Din!" Okay, just a little hero worship there, but his father happened to be the one and only Johnny Storm. It didn't hurt that Johnny had rescued the pair of orphans from a fate worse than death before he and Liv had adopted them.

Maria nodded in enthusiastic agreement, her mouth and hands sticky with caramel as she grinned around her mouthful. Thank goodness Liv traveled with wet wipes at all times.

"All right, so what did we want to do?" Liv asked the little collection of misfits she was privileged to call her family. "You know, you can get a sword or a bow and arrow to take home with you if we go take a looksee at the jousting and the archery contests."

"Can I?" Alex asked, looking up at his mother with those soulful blue eyes of his. Of course, it wouldn't be a real sword, but what proper knight didn't have a sword" Or a horse, for that matter, but even Alex knew that was asking for too much.

"Aye," the pirate among them agreed. "It wouldn't be a proper fair without a good joust!" He wondered how long it would take before the pirate accent started wearing on Liv's nerves.

The look he got from his wife suggested it might not take long, but at least she was still smiling. "Okay, my intrepid band of knights, princesses, and pirates," Liv declared, unhooking the brakes on the stroller. "To the lists! Fair warning," she added under her breath to Johnny as Fliss led the other two toward the jousting area. "If you call me a wench even once, I'm going to snap that eye patch of yours."

"Yes, dear," Johnny murmured back, with a grin on his face. The chances were good she was going to have to make good on her threat, but he'd worry about that when the time and probably blame it on being a pirate. "To the joust, me hardies!" he declared, not yet uttering one "Arrr," but the day was young.

Sticky hands and smiling faces, and the day had barely even begun yet. Liv laughed to herself as she pushed Bess' stroller along after the rambunctious collection that was their family. Having fun was worth it to see her babies smile, each and every one of them, and that, after all, was what Children's Day was all about.