Prompt 13 - Habit

Even after having lived with her for ten years, there were still some things Edward Nygma didn't understand about his wife. Not important things of course. He knew perfectly well why she was still in love with her former fiance, why she don't wanted him to call her mother a demon although she agreed with him, why she got up and opened the windows in the middle of the night... He'd figured those out by himself.

However Daphnée had some strange habits. Odd little habits like writing on her arms, brushing her fingers against each others, putting her hands on her belt instead of putting them in her pockets and many, many others.

It was always a fun challenge to guess why she did something. His wife had led an interesting life even before she'd met him. She'd travelled a lot, had known a lot of weird people and "collected" all those little details that made her unique along the way. So year after year when he was bored he would take some time to guess from where each piece of the puzzle came from, how it was made and when. As if, once he'd finished the puzzle of a painting, he was now analyzing the picture.

Earlier that week she'd burned toast twice. He would have said thrice, but the third time she'd burned the toaster along with it. Then Stephie had caught chickenpox. Not life threatening in any way, but when it came to their children Daphnée worried too much. So this morning she'd taken an worn boot she didn't wore anymore and had put it next to the back door as if it was the most sensible thing to do in such a situation.

The logic of it escaped him completely.

If she'd been insane Edward would have thought it was just a quirk and left it at that, but she wasn't. Seshat was quite sane and also quite lazy, and thus would never do something just because she "felt like it". When she did something it meant that she thought that she had to do it, or she'd keep reading on the sofa. So when she was busy murdering a classic fairytale before putting Stephie and mini Eddie to bed, he'd sneakily inspected the boot and had discovered that there was some bread in it. It wasn't stale, so she'd either put it in here recently, or she'd came back to put some more. Given the crumbs it was the latter option.

It was obviously some kind of obscure superstition, something to ward herself against bad luck surely. Now how to know from which country it was from ? Problem is, she'd been in some many places that she didn't even remember them all and she'd read so many books about foreign cultures that it would take him years to catch up on her level on that subject.

When he caught Daphnée taking the shoe back to its cardboard box in the attic he made a face and, for the first time in forever, he admitted defeat.

" I find myself facing a query..."

She turned toward him, wide eyed that he'd admit not knowing something. He sent a pointed glance to the shoe, refusing to say it aloud.

" Wha- Oh you mean the bread in the boot ?" She shrugged and bent down to put it away. " That's stupid really. It's for a domovoï."

He crossed his arms but stayed silent. He had no idea what was that domovoï thing. Seeing him pouting from the corner of her eye she answered his silent question.

" It's a house spirit. I stayed in an old guy's house in Vladikavkaz -I went to college here for a month, you know ?"

He nodded and she got up, having closed the box

" And well he was really supersitious and once everyone in the house, there was two other students like me and his wife, well everyone started to be really unlucky and he'd keep saying that the house spirit was angry 'til his wife got tired, and put some cake in a boot near the backdoor to calm the domovoi. Ah !" While talking she'd picked the box up and looked around her to find someplace where it wouldn't bother anyone. "You know me, I thought it was complete nonsense."

Which he found preposterous. In a world of jet-powered monkeys and men in tights, saying magic wasn't real was just ridiculous.

"But then after three days there was a mynha bird in the boot. They took care of it like a puppy and suddenly we all started to get lucky. I mean really lucky. I remember that my bus wasn't cancelled in two weeks and back in 98; or 99 ? I'm not sure."

"1998"

" 1998, thanks. So as I said back in 1998 there was a huge economical crisis in Russia and usually the buses were cancelled almost every day of the week, or they were delayed or what not, so that was a real miracle."

He felt himself smirk.

" So you believe in magic ?"

"No." She said while getting out of the attic. Running away Mrs Greyhound ? Now he couldn't have that. He trotted after her, his smile growing wider as he saw her cheeks getting warmer.

" You do believe in magic !"

" I don't! I just believe in house spirits."

He stopped and said in a condescending manner.

" Of course you don't dear. I don't want to upset you."

She paused for a second and raised her chin. He felt a shiver of anticipation, like he did each time he managed to make her pout and rant about her dorkyness.  But then she just shook her head and turned left, probably to go training. Too bad, she was cute when she ranted. Her cheeks got really pink, her eyes bright and her voice would turn into a high pitched squeal as the words flew faster and faster out of her mouth. Edward wasn't sure wether he found it funny or adorable. A bit of both.

Oh well, better luck next time.