Work Text:
Ramona does not like her father's so-called "work friend", Ryker. He's too charming and too fancy and has a grin full of teeth and air of some kind of flirtatious man who sweeps people off their feet. He's weird. Ramona, all of nine years old, does not like him.
Plus, if Ryker gets close to her dad and starts dating her dad then he's going to marry her dad and then he'll find out that Ramona is one of the Swan-cloaked Kind, and no one can know about that. Her father said.
(He'd sat down with her, when she was old enough to remember, still holding her fuzzy down-jacket around her shoulders like a shawl, and told her that the reason she didn't look like him was because she was adopted. Told her that he had rescued her from people who wanted to hurt her, because the Swan-cloaked Kind were rare and lots of people thought they had magic powers and people wanted that power for themself. Told her that she had to keep it a secret, so that she'd be safe, and to never never let anyone know unless she really trusted them.)
Ramona knows her father wouldn't tell Ryker. But Ramona. . . also knows that she only gets away with hiding the secret so well because she and her Father live alone with only the minimum staff for their manor. Ramona can't imagine not shifting between the two forms like diving into water — she had tried once, a few months ago, to stay in one form for as long as possible. (She had taken her feathers off, in the form of a warm cloak that time, and carefully folded and set it upon her dresser top. It was easy enough to grab, if she needed to, but Ramona had told herself that she wouldn't need to.
She only made it a week before the itch of her human form made her want to scratch her own skin off. She'd snatched the cloak up and put it on, back into her downy cygnet of a swan form, and had curled up shivering in her father's lap as the horrid ache and awful feeling had lingered for the next twelve hours.)
Ramona simply couldn't keep from changing forms, and that would mean eventually someone would figure it out.
So, because she doesn't like Ryker, and so that she'll be safe and he won't ever live in the manor and notice things, Ramona makes it her mission to bite his ankles at any and every opportunity.
He tries to act like it doesn't bother him, but as a small, tiny cygnet, Ramona's beak is still sharp, and she pecks at his ankles with a fury otherwise reserved only for pecking at the slugs that try to eat the leaves of her father's favorite rose bushes. Ryker doesn't know what to do, apparently, so he'll end up picking Ramona up and holding her out slightly away from his chest while she furiously cheeps and whistles and tries to peck at his hands and hair — it is annoying that her cygnet form is so small still.
At least her Father never gets mad at her for it, even if he does seem to be charmed by Ryker. (Ew.) When Ryker leaves for the day, and is gone for the week or however long it takes the wolf-man to arrive again, the Lord Dexter will carry Ramona gently, and sit her on his lap in his study while he works at his desk. (In swan or human form, it doesn't matter — and it makes Ramona feel better, that her father doesn't care whether she's a swan or a girl, only that she's his daughter. He loves her just as she is.)
This time, she's a cygnet, settling down into her father's lap and blinking tired eyes slowly. His hands carefully run atop her head (just a couple of fingers — when she's a cyget, his whole hand is as big as she is), and Ramona nestles down further into the soft fabric. Her father will do his very important noble work, and while she sleeps, he'll keep her safe. (That's what fathers are for, after all.)