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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[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.

"I don't think the snakes would really go for that," he pointed out. "Maybe not, but what if -" Hey. It was an off-the-wall comparison, but it kind of fit. "Say you had a bunch of pirates who wanted everybody's treasure, but instead of fighting they fooled everybody into thinking they were the good guys so they could walk right in and then turn and loot and pillage everything. And you knew they were really up to no good, but nobody believed you. What do you do then?" Not that he expected an answer he could use, he just wanted to hear what Pippi would come up with.

He checked his pockets, and then glanced over at the fruit bowl, which was sadly bereft of bananas. "Nope. Sorry, man, no bananas here." The notion of Mr. Nilsson as a balloon and Pippi holding onto his tail made him grin. He'd probably end up more like a lead balloon, actually. "Yeah, you don't wanna float away," he informed the monkey. "And it'd kinda hurt if she had to hang on to your tail."

[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 we had Tommy, Annika, two treasure chests and a band of pirates on a deserted island for a while. It all worked out for the best. Of course we knew those were the bad guys," she added with a little sigh. "You know, they shouldn't pretend to be something they're not. It's rude."

Mr. Nilsson did not appear pleased. "Stick with your raisins," said Pippi, and handed him one. "You need to lose some weight." She tugged at the monkey's yellow sweater. "Keep this up and this won't fit you, and I'll have to knit you a new one." She turned to Jaime, sighing. "And I don't have any yellow yarn left, and it's his favourite colour. So you see why this is a problem."

[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."

Pippi smacked her lips together. "I might have some blue left. It's really time to start making clothes for them, though, because it'll get cold. Almost as cold as back home." She looked at Mr. Nilsson, frowning with concern. Of course, she could always ask Sirius or Lily for help with the magic. Pippi didn't have a wand. Or the ability to read all that well. Swedish English was bad enough, so she just wasn't going to try with the mangled Latin of the spells. "If I can't figure out how, or find somewhere to buy more yarn, he'll just have to live with a blue sweater," she decided.

Nice to have that sorted out.

[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?

[pippithepirate]

She listened with great interest, and then sighed. Bah. "A rabbit's nothing. There was a snake once, you can't imagine how dreadful it was! Every day he ate up five Indians and two little children for dessert! I tell you, a rabbit's nothing!" Pippi looked pleased with the story. Snakes did not freak her out. When you were strong enough to lift a horse, there were few things that did.

Then she peered at the apple Jaime was eating and reached for a couple for herself. "I'm done with breakfast," she announced to no one in particular as she put apple after apple in her dress pocket. For her horse, naturally. "I'm going out." Pippi looked sternly at Jaime. "You should too. Sitting inside all day reading makes your eyes go all... " She crossed her eyes meaningfully. "And then you can only see your own nose, and what's the point of that? That's what I'd like to know."

[bantersucks]

He shrugged. "Yeah, but it'd suck if there were man-eating snakes all over the place at home. My little sister wouldn't want to go outside 'cause she'd be an easy snack."

"Well, I would, but I'm waiting for somebody. Told her I'd meet her here, and I'm not gonna take off before she gets here. That'd be really rude." Besides, Scotland was freaking cold, and he didn't have a jacket on. If it was like this in October, he was going to have to get some warmer clothes soon.

[pippithepirate]

"Oh no, I wouldn't allow that... I'd stomp on the snakes before they ate anyone!" Pippi did look like she could do quite a lot of stomping with those shoes, which were precisely twice as long as her feet. "Like I did with the snake in India. And he hissed - uiuiuiuiuiuiuiuiuitch - and then I hit him again, and bingo!, he was dead." She finished her lemonade, looking immensely satisfied.

Pippi shrugged. "Suit yourself. But don't you come crying to me when you can't stop staring at your nose!" She grinned brightly. "But you're right, it would be rude not to wait. I can see you were brought up properly, unlike me!"

The girl turned to the monkey and patted her shoulder. "Come on, Mr. Nilsson! We're going to visit Little Old Man in the stable now." Mr. Nilsson, having finished his raisins, happily climbed up her arm and places himself on her shoulder once more, hanging on to a braid.