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Persuading a three-year-old antichrist-to-be who had been industriously occupied in the garden all day long to stop playing, come indoors, and take a (much-needed) bath was, as it turned out, much easier said than done.
Nanny Ashtoreth knelt down so their faces were on a level, waving a rubber duck enticingly in the air. “Come on, hellspawn, it’ll be fun. You like baths, you know you do. Last time you didn’t want to get out when it was bedtime.”
Warlock reached for the duck in her hands. Pleased to see her charge apparently giving way to reason and wiles, Nanny made the naive mistake of letting go of the duck.
Taking the rubber duck, Warlock turned calmly away and proceeded to begin digging a hole in which to bury it.[1]
Well, at least tormenting ducks was a tried-and-true activity for forces of evil to engage in. Nanny Ashtoreth changed tactics. “I’ll put bubbles in the bathtub,” she tempted. “It’ll be just like a boiling sea. You like boiling seas, don’t you?”
Warlock tipped his head, considering.
“We can pretend the water is the blood of your enemies,” Nanny added desperately. “I’ll put food coloring in.”
Warlock tilted his head in the other direction. Thinking through his options. Weighing the benefits of taking a bath now, as compared to staying in the garden and still inevitably getting to take a bath later. It was a complicated decision.
“No,” he said finally, decisively, and resumed work on his rubber duck project.
Nanny Ashtoreth sighed. When she’d signed up to co-godparent the Adversary[2] , she’d anticipated many potential challenges. This, however, was not one she had been prepared for.
“Cleanliness,” Brother Francis put in coaxingly from the sidelines, seizing an opportunity to simultaneously assist his counterpart and score a point for his own side, “is next to godliness.”
At that, Nanny Ashtoreth stood up to glare daggers at him. “Bathing is a tool of the devil,” she shot back.
Francis huffed. “Don’t be absurd, that hasn’t been mainstream since—”
“Like you’re one to talk about what’s mainstream,” Ashtoreth interjected[3] before Francis could finish making a perfectly valid point.
“Hmph. In this case, actually, I’m fairly certain that—”
The argument about the moral affiliation of sanitation continued.
Victorious as usual, his two guardians having once again successfully distracted themselves from their initial goal of taking him inside, Warlock cheerfully went on playing.