Open RP: Back to Normal - or, What Passes for Normal Around Here

[bantersucks]

After sending out a quick owl, Jaime headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast. It was still early, so he got some breakfast and scarfed it down in peace

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[pippithepirate]

Everybody knew that cake was the ultimate breakfast food. Or if they didn't, they ought to. Pippi, being an educated girl (well, educated in things that were actually important, like piracy and how to deal with bullies) knew it anyway, and her opinion was really the only one she went by. Thus, she had talked the House-elves into baking a cake for her most mornings, which she would enjoy in the Great Hall with a glass of strawberry lemonade and a small bowl of raisins for Mr. Nilsson.

Today was not an exception. The carrot-haired girl skillfully maneuvered her breakfast over to the Gryffindor table, where there was a boy sitting already. He appeared to be reading. He was, presumably, all educated and stuff. Pippi wasn't very good at reading, so he automatically gained her respect

[bantersucks]

Again, Jaime's reaction was delayed, but he did look up when Mr. Nilsson chittered and he realized he was being addressed. "Hm?" He blinked a couple times at the sight of the monkey on the girl's shoulder. That was new. "Oh. Hi." He marked his place, looking at the monkey curiously. "And hi to you too."

He glanced down at the book. "Uh, it's a book on strategy. I'm still trying to figure a lot of it out." Unfortunately, he doubted the Hogwarts library had most of the books that Ted's notes made reference to.

[pippithepirate]

Mr. Nilsson calmly climbed down from Pippi's shoulder to sit on the table, and she gave him a raisin to nibble as she looked at Jaime.

"Strategy?" she repeated. "I can tell you about that! When I was out to sea with my Papa, he taught me all about it." As she spoke, she grabbed her fork and began digging into her cake. Yum. Whipped cream and strawberries. "It's all about coming up behind the bad guys and not make a sound," she explained eagerly, "and then you take a torch and you press the bit with the fire on it against their breeches and they fall into the water. And then you don't have to worry about them, because there are sharks in the water. You can just focus on going through their ships for treasure after that."

Pippi nodded seriously and picked off the marzipan rose. With great satisfaction she popped it into her mouth, and chewed. Ahh... Today's rose was a good rose. The House-elves were getting good at the roses! They had been all dry and crumbly before.

[bantersucks]

Jaime listened to her explanation, grinning in spite of herself. "What about if you're not on a ship at sea?" he pointed out amiably. "I'm from El Paso, and it's mostly desert out there. Can't rely on sharks to take out the bad guys."

He smirked at her breakfast choice, but didn't comment. Far be it from him to nag a kid who was not his little sister about the merits of cake for breakfast. "I'm Jaime. Is your Dad here, or is it just you two?" he asked, indicating Mr. Nilsson as well. Mr. Nilsson didn't really have to worry about the scarab, honestly; it was behaving, and it had no interest in the girl or the monkey.

[pippithepirate]

Pippi shovelled a massive piece of cake into her mouth, chewed and swallowed before replying, with her mouth still smeared in whipped cream and chocolate flakes, "Well. That could cause a problem." She paused, picking up a strawberry and scooped up some cream on it, which she offered to Mr. Nilsson. He took a sniff and declined, sticking with his raisins. Pippi shrugged and ate the berry herself. "The easy solution for you is to become a pirate," she told Jaime. "Or get some land-sharks. Or snakes! You can get really big ones in India." She measured as far as her arms could reach, which wasn't very far. Nowhere near the size of the snakes in India, anyway. "Bigger than this, even!" she said with a nod. "You can get a flute and charm them to do your bidding. I met a fakir once, in India, he didn't even have a flute. He had a really long nose, though, so he could whistle through that instead and the snake would dance." This was all completely true. Unless it was a lie. You could never really tell with Pippi's stories

[bantersucks]

Jaime resisted the urge to laugh at the cake-stuffing, reminded acutely of his little sister for a minute. He didn't offer her a napkin or tell her to wipe her face off - that would meet with rebellion - so he just pointed to his own lip and said, "You missed some cake, right there

[pippithepirate]

Pippi blinked at him with large, blue eyes. "What's the point of getting it off while I'm still eating?" she asked. Really, she'd only end up with more in the same place. Logically, wiping her mouth now would be an extreme waste of energy. "Besides," she added, secure in the knowledge that this explanation sufficed in many situations, "pirates don't need table manners

[bantersucks]

"No point, but you don't wanna forget it's there. It'd be a waste of cake if you did that." He took a sip of his remaining juice, smirking

[pippithepirate]

Pippi, forgetting cake? Never. "True," she admitted, and ate another piece of strawberry. "But I'd be stupid if I forgot I had cake on my face. I'm not all that educated in the ways of school things, I'll grant you, but cake's important." So there.

She listened to his story and wrinkled her nose. "That's a sneaky sort." Pretending you were good when you were bad was cheating. Pippi pondered it, and then made a decision. "You should set a trap," she announced, before thoroughly dunking her chocolate wafer in her lemonade. "Bait the pirates with something they can't resist. And then they show their true colours." She paused. "Once, Tommy and Annika got themselves kidnapped by pirates, and they changed them for the two chests of treasure that we had. But what the pirates didn't know was that we had taken their ship, so now they were trapped on a deserted island with only gold coins to eat, and that's kind of hard to chew. So we traded a book called 'How To Build A Raft' against one of the chests, and then an axe for the other. And then

[bantersucks]

"Hey, my little sister used to forget all the time," Jaime replied. "'Sides, it's real easy to get distracted around here, even the smartest people can get distracted from cake every once in a while. Like, what if there was magicked food again that started turning people into stuff?"

"Yeah, it really is." Huh. Pity he had no freaking idea what the Reach wanted short of taking over the world. Still, thought to ponder.

He grinned, watching Pippi practically mother-hen the monkey. "You have any yarn left that's a different? You could use a charm on it and turn it yellow. My girlfriend knows some charms for changing the colors of stuff." Oh, there were probably spells for conjuring whole sweaters too, but he figured she'd want to knit it herself.

[pippithepirate]

"Not me!" said Pippi cheerfully. "That's because everyone else's heads are filled with things like pluttification and proper manners and things. My head is filled with stuff that's important, I'll have you know." Like hundreds of stories that may or may not be entirely true, and of course the importance of remembering cake. She scratched her freckly nose thoughtfully. "I haven't heard all that much about the weird food, to be honest. I met a girl here who used to be a cat, though. She said she'd had a potion that turned her into a person. And then there is a talking fish too, who is a person sometimes." She grinned. "This school is much better than the one Tommy and Annika goes to, that's what I think

[bantersucks]

Talking fish? Wait, he vaguely remembered something like that in Dr. Grant's class. The fish might have gotten more attention if not for the scarab, the bones and Maia's childishness distracting him. "I think this school is better than most of the schools out there," he agreed.

"Good idea. This is about as cold as it ever gets back home, so I bet winter's gonna be really cold. Where's home for you?"

He snagged an apple from the fruit bowl. "Yeah, between a blue sweater and freezing, I'd probably suck it up and go with the blue sweater. Could be worse, blue's not a bad color." It was possible to get sick of it, he knew. But again, it could be worse. Being stuck as the Puke-Green Beetle or something, for example.

[pippithepirate]

Pippi very much agreed with this. Clearly, this boy was clever. "Much less pluttification," she nodded. "And not so many snakes and apples and hedgehogs to make you all dizzy." Pippi had been to school exactly once. Then the teacher, the poor thing, had quite firmly said that maybe it was best if Pippi returned to school when she was a little bit older and could behave. And stopped drawing on the walls.

She pulled up her legs underneath her on the bench, and wagged her large black shoes a bit. "Villa Villekulla," she replied happily. "That's in Sweden. You can come visit sometime if you like!" Pippi was welcoming like that. She'd invited burglars into her home before. Such nice guys.

She turned to the monkey, deeply serious. "See? Blue's not bad. And also, it'd bring out your eyes." Not that Mr. Nilsson had blue eyes. This was a minor detail that Pippi wasn't paying attention to, however. Mr. Nilsson just chirped something and scratched his head with his foot.

[bantersucks]

Jaime didn't consider himself clever, but barring the ability to come and go as he pleased, the little bit of actual studying he'd managed was more interesting than any class back home. "Pluttification?"

"Cool. Never been to Sweden. You ought to visit El Paso sometime too." He caught himself, suddenly wondering just what might happen if Pippi ever met Milagro. It would either be amusing or terrifying. He wasn't sure which.

[pippithepirate]

Pippi waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, numbers and things. All those digits in the digitary. You know. That they learn in school."

She grinned, a huge grin that showed off her dimples. "I've been everywhere in the world, but I don't think I've ever been to El Paso." They had big snakes? She was SO THERE. "Do the snakes there eat babies?" she asked pleasantly, because some of the snakes in faraway India had been that big, and then scarfed down the rest of her cake. She took great care in licking off all the cream from her fingers. No one could say that Pippi Longstocking didn't know her table manners!

[bantersucks]

"Ah. That stuff. Yeah, boring." Even though he wasn't bad at algebra.

"Eat babies? ...I don't think so. None that I know of." He took a bite of the apple and thought it over as he chewed. "Not that they're harmless. Bunch of different kinds of rattlesnakes out there. And my friend Paco said that he saw a bull snake swallow a rabbit whole, but I think he made that up to gross Brenda out."

Why, no, he wasn't aware of this because snakes freaked his little sister out. Why would you think that?