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

october 23rd // sunday morning

[slaying]

Buffy now believed that she had tidied away and hid all of her loose weaponry. Just now, she was picking up a battle-axe from behind the couch and tossing it into her own room. She could closet it later. There was a much more important mission afoot.

"Jilly?" Buffy walked down the hall to the other woman's -- now girl's -- room. "You know, if we start those cookies now? They just might be ready and cooled off enough for a post-lunch dessert."

[unlayered]

Jilly had woken up early, bright-eyed and excited...but unlike so many little kids, she'd been as quiet as a church mouse. She'd picked up some of the art books she had scattered around her messy room (the ones full of pictures of magical creatures) and pulled them under her covers. Leaving just enough of a gap for the sunlight to illuminate her little cave, she was quietly flipping through the pages when Buffy called out to her.

There's a rustle of paper and sheets before she pops her head into sight, eyes wide. The promise had been made, but for all her belief in magic, she'd already learned to distrust promises. Having this one come true had her blinking in surprised excitement. "And we'll get to eat them?"

[slaying]

It had been so very difficult to be happy, recently. Bones's departure, Jilly's absence -- and now, last night, Jack had come home so sad and distraught over the newly-left Katie. But Buffy found that happiness and good spirits were infectious around the younger Jilly. At first, she had smiled because she didn't want to alarm the girl. And then she had warmed up to the child and although there was still a certain amount of awkwardness in her behaviour, she wasn't so afraid of talking with the young'un.

"Maybe. Hopefully. Only if we manage to keep Jack from pirating them all away from us." Buffy boldly entered the room after shouldering the door open more widely.

She held a hand out to Jilly. "It might involve hiding half the batch. We'll see."

[unlayered]

There was something almost shy about the way she slipped her smaller hand into Buffy's. Uncertain. Buffy had been all golden and pretty and nice...and she hadn't yelled about muddy feet even a little.

And now there would be cookies.

She giggled at the thought of hiding them from the pirate. "We could eat 'em really, really fast!"

[slaying]

A strong and firm and certain arm helped Jilly onto her feet. "What? You don't think we should maybe possibly probably leave him at least one? Maybe the smallest. Maybe the test cookies. The reject cookies. And then we'll tell him we picked out the best for him and then watch him squirm when he tries to pretend like it's delicious even though it's half burnt."

[unlayered]

Clambering out of the bed meant revealing her hidden trove of books, but her attention was all on Buffy and cookies, now. "We could hide the bestest ones. Like treasure."

[slaying]

"And sit back and kick our feet up while he tries to find them? I like the way you think, Jilly."

She had only a smile for the reading cache.

[unlayered]

She swung their interlocked hands as they walked to the kitchen, full of energy and excitement over their plan. "And only help him if he says pretty please."

[slaying]

"Oh, sweetie. You have no idea how difficult it is to get Jack Sparrow to say please. Pretty please might be nearly impossible."

At first, she seemed resistant to the swinging but -- ah. A rhythm is found. Buffy gave in to whimsy. "But I try not to believe in the word impossible."

[unlayered]

"He's gotta say the magic word." This was important, after all. "Otherwise the cookies won't taste as good."

[slaying]

"Exactly. 'Cause these cookies? They're magical cookies. If we tell it to him with a straight enough face? He'll believe. I don't think he'd deny you a single thing."

She had noticed how Jack's doting had intensified with the lowering of Jilly's age.

[unlayered]

"What's a straight face?" It brought up all sorts of silly, wonderful images in Jilly's head, of people with crooked faces trying to make them straight.

[slaying]

"It means no snickering or he'll figure out that we're playing a prank on him. He's kinda astute like that. Good at the reading."

Once in the kitchen, Buffy behaved as boldly as lifting the girl up onto her very own counter-seat.

[unlayered]

"I know how to read!" she said, kicking her feet happily as she's set up high, little fingers curling around the edge of the counter.

She didn't. Not really. But she would take Robbie or Jimmy's books -but never Del's- and try to 'read' the way she'd seen them do. Not often, but enough for her to realize that there were stories waiting there, if she could just get to them.

Mostly, she looked at the pictures and made up the stories as she went.

[slaying]

A smile and laughter as she began to assemble their ingredients. Flour, shortening, brown sugar. Eggs.

"Jack does a different kind of reading. He reads faces. You know? I'm pretty sure he can tell every single time that I try to lie to him. Maybe I have a tell. Do you know what a tell is, Jilly?"

[unlayered]

She shook her head, smiling as she watches the ingredients come together.

She's relaxed even more from the quiet child she'd been last night. The fear of being yelled at seems to have abated and, with it's passing, was replaced with an intense curiosity.