#so i've called her spanna. for funsies.

[doctors-star]

15. Any Astrerix chatacters you feel like for the ficlet ask 🗡

“Shh, they’ll hear us.”

It is a beautiful day in the peaceful Gaulish village, the last still standing against the might of the Roman invaders (with very little effort, it must be said), and Asterix the Gaul is keeping his eyes firmly closed. He is, after all, very comfortable here, napping in the sun at the base of the tree by his house with his hands linked to cradle his head and his helmet pushed down to shade his closed eyes from the brightness. Dogmatix is curled up by his side, snoring gently. He hasn’t anything in particular to do - the village is presently enjoying, or more accurately begrudging, a lull in local legionary activity - and he has no greater demand upon his time than the inclination to settle somewhere pleasantly warm and quiet and snooze through the hottest part of the day.

There is another peal of giggles, and then more frantic shushing. Asterix tries very hard not to smile.

Abruptly, a little voice calls out to charge. Asterix barely has time to crack his eyes open before several sets of small feet are thundering across the grass, and a thin stick is poking him in the stomach. “Surrender, o Roman!” Fulliautomatix’s little girl, Spanna, is standing over him in triumph, one hand holding back a small dented pot - clearly liberated from her father’s smithy - as it slides over her brow. “You are surrounded!”

Asterix slumps against the tree, one hand on his chest and the other draped limply over his eyes. “Oh, woe,” he pronounces, “I am truly no match for this band of Gaulish warriors - I can do nothing but surrender.”

Spanna pokes him again, grinning in triumph, as her playmates whoop and cheer. Pretty much all of the village kids appear to have fallen in behind her on this quest, armed with sticks and wooden spoons and the odd fish. Asterix remembers doing much the same when he was a lad, though in those days it had been Vitalstatistix at the fore; they could do worse for a chief, he muses, than Spanna.

“Yeth!” lisps Crabstix, performing a little victory dance which makes Asterix smile beneath his moustache. “You Romanth don’t thtand a chanth!”

Obelix, wandering past with a menhir on his back, pauses. “Asterix isn’t a Roman,” he protests, apparently quite insulted at the very idea.

Spanna juts her chin out and sighs massively. “It’s just pretend,” she says with great, overwrought annoyance. Asterix makes a small, hopeful gesture with his hand, attempting to convey that he doesn’t really mind it - of course, this doesn’t work.

Obelix frowns. “Even so,” he says, shifting his menhir to one hand to gesture with the other, “couldn’t he be a Viking? A Goth, maybe? It’s very unfair to make him a Roman.”

Spanna plants her hands on her hips sternly, glowering up at Obelix. “He’s got to be a Roman,” she declares. “We’re practising fighting Romans. And I said so. Eep!”

Asterix grins, hoisting her a little higher. For all that he’s not much taller than the child, even without any magic potion it’s easy enough to use her distraction to mount a counter-attack. He swings her gently into the air, catching her up with her arms pinned and her legs kicking uselessly against her captor. “Aha,” he declares, “I have you now, Gaul!”

“Attack!” Spanna shrieks in delight to her cohort, and Asterix has but a moment to brace himself for impact before he is smothered in a crowd of little knees and elbows.

He puts up a good fight, of course - if rather gently - but the kids are a little less worried than he is about doing anyone an injury, and Asterix must confess to being quite glad when Obelix puts down his menhir and wades in. “Well, if Mr Asterix is going to be a Roman,” he says mildly, and sweeps up an armful of the smaller children. “I suppose I will too.” The kidnapped children squeal in equal parts terror and delight and, as expected, a few of the bigger kids peal off to lay siege against Obelix instead. “Hey, Asterix,” Obelix says, gently picking up and turning upside-down a giggling little girl with hair barely contained in her pigtails, “how come you’re a Roman today? I thought you were having a day off.” Asterix smiles fondly at his friend, watching him gently and with extreme care use his strength to entertain the children. “Oh, my work is never done,” he says, catching Crabstix up in a big bear hug to pin him. Crabstix wriggles a bit, but the kids are winding down; he’s quite content to make laughing protests and the occasional token escape attempt, but ultimately to remain wrapped up against Asterix’s chest.

Only Spanna really seems to want to carry on, so Obelix releases the last of his prisoners to run off home, or to new games elsewhere, and wanders over to Asterix again. He picks Spanna up by the back of her shirt and leaves her dangling, kicking her feet in an effort to break free. “They certainly keep you busy,” Obelix says, watching Spanna kick and struggle with mild interest. “A menhir was never so much trouble.”

“No, but this is the one stone for two birds: it keeps them entertained, and even slightly trained.” Asterix hoists Crabstix and settles back into the base of his tree with the boy lying contented on the warrior’s chest. “They’ll be up against real Romans some day.”

“Couldn’t they just go for the real thing?” Obelix asks, returning Spanna to the floor and allowing her to tackle him about the waist - to no discernible effect. “With some of our druid’s magic potion, it’d be a breeze.”

“Yeah!” Spanna agrees, her head popping out from around Obelix to grin hopefully at Asterix. “We’d blow those Romans away!”

Asterix holds up a finger. “Don’t let Getafix get wind of that idea - or your parents for that matter. Magic potion can have permanent effects on children.”

Obelix and Spanna both make grumpy faces at him, and he has to smile. “It’d be fine,” Spanna protests, decidedly less hopefully.

“You fall in one cauldron when you’re a baby,” Obelix complains, “and they never let you forget it!”

Asterix grins. “I know, it’s very unfair.” Crabstix shifts and stretches, and Asterix watches with mild bemusement as the boy yawns widely and promptly goes to sleep. “Huh. Well, seems I’m only good for being slept on now - no Romans for any of us.”

“Crabstix sleeps through anything,” Spanna says with some disdain, scrambling up Obelix’s back to sit peaceably on his shoulders; one of Obelix’s massive hands settles automatically over her feet to hold her steady. “I suppose you’d have to, if your whole house smelled of rotting fish.”

Asterix huffs a laugh. “Could you brave the smell and fetch one of his parents for us, Spanna? I think his playtime’s over.”

Spanna slumps in a dramatic pout. “But I want more training,” she whines.

Asterix places his hand as near his heart as he can reach around the child sleeping on his chest. “I promise to give you more training when Crabstix is safely home.”

She slithers down Obelix’s side and hurtles off towards Unhygienix’s hut, long blonde braids flying out behind her. Obelix comes to settle at Asterix’s side, stretching massively and smiling as Dogmatix returns from hiding to curl up on his belly. “They’re good kids,” he pronounces.

Asterix nods, smiling up at his friend. “They are. Best the village has had yet.”

“You say that about all the kids the village has.”

Asterix shrugs. “They’re always good kids. It’s something in the atmosphere here - the air makes good heirs.”

Obelix considers this. “If you say so. I think it’s the adults.”

Asterix shifts slightly, leaning into Obelix’s bulk. “The parents are alright. A bit mad. So are the kids, though, so you may be right.”

“You do a good job with them, too,” Obelix points out. Asterix shifts to look at him in surprise, and Obelix colours slightly. “Well, you do,” he adds defensively. “You always take time to train them and play and make sure they’re good warriors. You do a good job.”

“...thanks,” Asterix says eventually. He’d not really thought of it like that. He doesn’t raise them; he just wants to keep the village safe and happy, and he’s as good at play-fighting as he is real fighting. It’s just - sensible. He hadn’t thought he was responsible for them especially.

Obelix shifts to look at his hands, twining his fingers awkwardly and examining them with care. “Do you want kids of your own some day?” he asks, with very feigned indifference. “You could. If you wanted. It would be - nice. Probably.”

Asterix shifts Crabstix and stops to think. What he wants, really, is safety and friendship and the occasional adventure to pass the time, and to think back on when he’s very old. He has his home and can defend it; he has his neighbours for friends and Obelix for companionship; and there’s always something going on to give them both some time out of the village and exploring the wider world. He likes the kids, sure, but he can’t think of what a child of his own would give him that he doesn’t already have. He’d have to find a wife first, anyway, and that’s never really appealed.

Besides, even briefly looking after Caesar’s baby was horribly stressful. He’d rather not.

“Not really,” he says easily, nudging Obelix’s side with his elbow. “I’ve got everything I want.”

Obelix’s fingers untwine and he beams in sunny delight at Asterix. “Good,” he pronounces. “Dogmatix would feel very jealous, you know.”

“Would he,” Asterix says wryly, meeting the little dog’s eye in shared affectionate exasperation.

“Oh, yes,” Obelix goes on, waving cheerfully at Bacteria as she and Spanna hustle along the path to collect up the little boy still sleeping in Asterix’s lap. “He’s terribly fond of you.”

But he lets his arm settle back around Asterix’s shoulders, tucking him in close, and Asterix reckons that probably none of them have anything to be jealous about - but quite a lot of which to be very fond.