Once upon a time, there was a girl...

[tehoniongirl]

Who: tehoniongirl, list_to_port, and anyone else who joins them later at House Seven.
What: Jack's searching pays off.
When: Early Friday evening
Where: The woods/marauding bridge, first. House Seven, later.
Summary: Jilly returns from her mallynap safe and sound...and slightly smaller.
Rating: K, for kittens and rainbows and anklebiters, oh my!

Comments

@ house seven -- buffy, jack, & jilly?

[slaying]

The house was too empty. Painfully, horribly empty. Without Bones and without Jilly and now with Jack out looking for the missing girl -- it left her feeling haunted. Horrible and haunted. The pirate would be back later and then Buffy would take her turn at careful, anxious patrolling. Her weapon was already set out and at the ready. Not that she thought she would need it; however, the scythe was a comfort. Reassurance. She was short on reassurance, these days

Anxiety rarely sat well on the Slayer and tonight was no exception. Buffy had tried three or four times to make a meager meal of crackers and peanut butter but she kept halting right before spreading the stuff. There was a sound at the door or an imagined voice over her left-open journal. Distractions kept getting in the way.

Once again -- for the final time that evening -- she stood in the kitchen with a peanut buttered knife hovering tentatively over a thin cracker. Why was it so hard?

[lists_to_port]

Jack pushed open the door, the small child still wrapped up in his coat and his arms.

"Hallo? Buffy? We're home. Me an' Jilly. Brought her back."

[unlayered]

For her part, Jilly clung to the pirate, suddenly quiet. Princesses were supposed to be nice, but it seemed safer and easier to hold on to Jack and wait and see what kind of welcome they'd get.

1/3

[slaying]

"...Jack?"

She snuck out from the kitchen with peanut-butter-smothered crackers in her hands. This 'princess' was slumming the troughs of dignity at the moment -- possibly even about to talk with her mouth full.

2/3

[slaying]

"You and...you brought her back? She's back? Jilly?"

The Slayer chucked the last cracker into her mouth and chewed -- brushing cracker dust off her palms.

done.

[slaying]

...Wait.

Buffy frowned, first. Just for a moment. And then her eyes widened. What was -- oh, dear. "She's..."

She stood a little straighter and cleared her throat and went with that awkward uncertain mode of behaviour that she often fell back on in times of confusion.

"She's so small."

[lists_to_port]

"No, Buffy; she's just the right size, aren't you, Jillian?" He gave Buffy a meaningful look as he held the girl a bit more protectively. "She's the perfect size for herself. And she needs ice cream. Ice cream with plenty of chips, and then a warm bubble bath to clean off all the lovely mud."

[unlayered]

To Jilly, Buffy really did look like a princess...cracker crumbs and all. Compared to home, she could easily have been royalty. And the way her expression shifted made the artist squirm.

The small girl's expression was something between uncertain and guilty, like she'd somehow done something she shouldn't, though she wasn't sure how being small had changed things. Jack's arms and his tone were comforting, though, and she tightened her grip on him in response.

[slaying]

And Buffy caught Jack's meaningful look with an anvil's worth of understanding. Right. Her very best and brightest smile smashed into her mouth.

"...Ice cream! I've got mint with chocolate chips. Will that do the trick, Jilly?" Wait. Jack hadn't called her Jilly. "I mean...Jillian?"

[lists_to_port]

Sparrow carried the child over to the kitchen table and drew out a chair for her.

"Bring a bowlful and a spoon, Princess Buffy! And I'll fetch something warm for our Jillian to change into for the night. She's a very good girl, is Jillian."

He had settled almost monomaniacally on the idea that this child had to be warm and loved. Warm and loved. But certainly the New Feather shift, muddied and flimsy as it was, would not suffice. Tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow he could ask for proper clothes for her. Or tonight! Tonight he could sneak out to the shops and pilfer some.

[unlayered]

It was a great deal of fuss for one little girl who was very unused to being fussed over. As she was set down at the table, her bare feet kicked above the floor. Between the muddy toes and her tangled hair and Jack's oversized jacket, she was a very ragged child indeed, and her expression was a bit wide-eyed and awed at the sudden reception.

She nodded mutely at Buffy. Mint chocolate chip ice cream would be heaven. And, soon, she'd find her voice, once the overwhelming welcome ceased to be quite so overwhelming.

[slaying]

"Princess--?" A questioning glance but she wouldn't follow it up. Not yet. Not with the girl right there. "Right. Are you gonna have any?" This she did ask of Jack before waiting on his answer. And then -- answer in hand -- she returned to to the kitchen.

There were the sounds of bowls and utensils. The freezer door opening and shutting. And Buffy took the moment alone to absorb what was happening. Jilly was back with them and that was fantastic but...a child? Oh, she did not trust herself around children. She never quite knew what to say or how to say it.

[lists_to_port]

"Alright?" Jack whispered to the child. He wouldn't leave her side until she had settled some.

[unlayered]

She nodded, looking up at the pirate. Then in the direction Buffy had gone, and back to the pirate. She was...uncertain. But something about him was comforting. She couldn't really be scared.

She whispers in response to his whisper, conspiratorial. "She's pretty."

[slaying]

Because Jack hadn't answered her question in regards to his own bowl of ice-cream, Buffy only prepared two. One perfectly child-sized helping and another couple-sized one. Enough to share should the pirate fancy it.

However, she was still in the process of scooping it all out. Buffy was taking her time and taking advantage of the chance to compose herself.

[lists_to_port]

"Aye, she is." He wasn't bothering to whisper now. "I bet she'd love it if you made her a picture, lass. She's a very nice sort of princess, you know. The good kind, like in all the stories."

It was gratifying seeing the child relax a little in their care, but unnerving at the same time that she did not know who they were. Gaining the trust of a child was a ticklish enterprise, he realized. They were far smarter than most people gave them credit for, for one. And this one had come from a home that she seemed to fear. It was so hard to look upon her while understanding somewhat why she felt that fear. He cracked a smile anyway, hoping to amuse her as Hector strolled into the kitchen.

"Watch this."

Kneeling on the floor at her feet, the pirate swung one of the longer dreadlocks about in a way that was Tantalizing To Cats. Hector crouched and wiggled

and wiggled

and wiggled

and crouched

and wiggled

and POUNCED into the hair, wrestling it wildly.

"Ha! See? Loves to play, Hector."