She slowly sat back, gracelessly as her bottom plopped against the ground, and considered bursting into tears. It was very, very tempting to, and her chin quivered with the strain of keeping the tragedy and injustice bottled up inside her but since there wasn't anyone to see or hear her it would be entirely wasted effort. Before her sprawled the rapidly-cooling remains of a rabbit, one back leg clearly broken and partly, loosely, wrapped around with leaves and a grapevine. There were signs of a frantic, recent struggle around the rabbit, and a splash of blood on the neck where the head hung limply. A scratch across her sensitive nose stung terribly. Why did all the bad things happen to her? It just... wasn't... fair! Her lip jutted in a pathetic pout, and she lost the battle to keep from wailing. It just wasn't fair. "D-d-daaaaaddyyyyyyy!" she bawled out, her voice rising in a forlorn howl to summon Valentine. Daddy always fixed things. Daddy could make it all better. ""

He sighed as a wail rose over the orchard. Evangeline's voice was unmistakable, the tone clearly distressed...and yet Valentine wasn't particularly worried for her safety. Of course he immediately answered her call, but he didn't fling himself into a panicked run. Instead he came leisurely, perhaps even a tad bit reluctantly, but nonetheless he came. While he was happy to dote on his daughter, the brute wasn't blind to her tendency to be dramatic. If he had his guess, he was in for one such overreaction. He was fully expecting to see Angelus lurking near his sister with something sharp, stolen or sticky. Reaching the girl, he took in the scene. No Angelus in sight. There was, however, a dead rabbit. Hm. Having been the victim of a flying prey animal, his mind went to the possibility that he was looking at a weapon, not just a rabbit. "What happened here?" ""

It didn't take her daddy long to come to save her, and at his big voice Vana looked up with a quivering lip and wet eyes. She flung herself at him with a cry, burying her face against his chest and clinging. "Daddyyy," she sobbed into the thick fur, and then suddenly the whole story just came tumbling out in a sobbing, fur-muffled mess. "I was just here and I heard something make an awful awful scream and I ran to see and it was a bunny and an owl was going to kill it so I chased it away and the bunny's leg was all crooked and funny so I thought I could practice fixing it so I could fix anything and be the best healer in Imperium EVER but it wouldn't hold still and it kept screaming and kicking and being bad and then IT SCRATCHED ME and then it was dead and it's all his fault he scratched me and made me really MAD so I killed him but Daddy I just wanted to fix it and now it's DEAAAAAAAAD." The rambling ended on a heartbroken wail, and a sniffle, and Vana added a quiet, whimpering, "And my nose hurts really bad." ""

She rushed at him and buried her face in his fur. Already he could feel small dots of moisture where her tears seeped into his fur. "Daddyyy," came the wail he'd been expecting and Valentine braced for the inevitable flood of words that would soon follow. In a matter of heartbeats it began, the hastily delivered story requiring no small amount of effort to untangle it from the gross sobbing that seemed to emphasis every single word. He waited until she was done and then the brute leaned down and gently touched the space between Evangeline's ears before pulling her into a quick hug. "It's alright," he murmured before releasing her. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I think you will be the best healer Imperium has - some day. But it takes a lot of practice. Don't let one unruly rabbit get you down." Valentine then leaned back and tucked his chin to get a good look at her face. "Now, let me see your nose." ""