"Daddy," I burbled, carefully running my pudgy toddler hands over them. Carefully because my motor coordination wasn't that great and I didn't want to poke him in the eye. I don't know what I would have said, but my language facilities weren't very well developed at that stage, anyway. Shikamaru pretty much just yawned and fell asleep, but that's his reaction to anything.
Shikamaru was a complete sloth, but cuddly in the way all young children are. It was lucky I had no desire to play the run-around games children play, because trying to motivate him into playing would have taken twice as long as the game itself.
Yoshino, mum, was rather esastic to have a daughter. She seemed to delight in dressing me up and braiding my hair. I didn't mind overmuch, she had good taste and chose mainly darker colours, blues and greens and reds, that complimented my dark hair and fair skin. Of course, I usually stole a pair of Shikamaru's trousers to wear under my dress, at which she would roll her eyes. The fashion of the place was strange to my tastes though I grew used to it. Wearing mesh next to your skin sounds, on the surface, like a painfully bad idea. However, it was surprisingly comfortable. It looked like it was made of thick wire, but in reality it was thin, strong wire wrapped in black fabric. This served two purposes; one to stop the wire shining, and two, so that you didn't get cheese grater skin. Some shirts also came with underlay fabric, either in black or nude.
I didn't particularly like the three quarter length pants, nor the habit of bandaging them to your ankles, but I had to admit that it was a practical way to keep them from flapping about, even if it did make your thighs look like balloons. I didn't like the open toed ninja sandles, either, but I resolved to grow used to them, because, again, they were practical. They had wide soles and deep grooves to provide plenty of grip on practically any surface, and high tops to brace ankles. The open toes were designed to stop sweating, though they did little to keep your toes warm. I was grateful that Fire Country had mild weather. The fact that they were horrendously ugly simply had to be ignored.
I missed the elegance of high heels, but seeing as how Konoha hadn't seemed to have heard of concrete paving, it was probably for the best.
Something I noticed about my parents, even in those early years, was that they were silent when they walked. I mean, they tried to make noise when coming into a room, or walking up behind us, but for them, it was a conscious thing, something they had to pay attention to do. I had no idea how they did it.
It was half technique, half simply the way they walked. I tried to mimic Yoshino as best I could. Shikaku was simply too good, whatever method he used obscured by his habitual lazy slouch.
I toddled after Yoshino, stepping as lightly and precisely as I could. Shikaku found the whole thing amusing. "My little cat foot," he would chortle, swinging me up.
Later on, I'd learn the chakra half of the Cat's Foot technique, but even without it I could move near silently on most surfaces. With it, sometimes I felt more like a ghost than a child.
We weren't trained at that age, perse, though many of the games we played seemed to have underlying meaning. There were several I was already familiar with, cats cradle and clapping games, but also many more that seemed aimed at developing limber fingers and good hand eye coordination.
Yoshino also dragged us through a warm up stretching routine in the morning, ever since we were old enough to stand on our own. I likened it to yoga, moving from pose to pose in a natural progression. It was quite astounding just how flexible and supple we were, some of those poses I could have never done in my old body. Then, I hadn't been able to touch my fingertips to the floor without bending my knees; here I could lay my entire palms flat - forwards and backwards. The routine we were taught was one that was clearly meant to be taught to children, as it came with a song to help remember the order of the poses.
Of course, trying to do all that and sing? It isn't as easy as it sounds. Actually, now that I think about it, the song is a little creepy, too. I guess that's what you get in a ninja society.
It wasn't all solitude, though. Parents here thought nothing of letting their kids run through the streets. The towering, ramshackle buildings and narrow alleyways made for the perfect setting for games of chase and hide and seek, or as they were called locally - games of 'ninja'. I can't say I particularly enjoyed those times; my 'peers' found me quite strange. It was something I could decrease overtime but the sheer deliberateness of having to relearn how to interact with others instead of simply knowing how to be sociable set me apart. You could argue that I should have been better at it, having a lifetime of experience, but I had never been particularly social and I was far out of my comfort zone. All the rules I had learnt collapsed around me like a house of cards. Kids don't talk about the weather or care about the rising price of X. There was no TV, no shows, no music. Konoha didn't have a national sport that everyone followed. We didn't yet attend school, so I didn't even have that to talk about. Most of them couldn't yet read. I was completely lost.
I watched and I listened more than I spoke, tagged along after Shikamaru like a particularly intelligent shadow, and didn't speak unless prompted or unless I was absolutely sure what I was saying would be understood and accepted.