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

[lists_to_port]

Jack Sparrow had lost count of the days since Jilly had been taken. He had searched for her faithfully each day that she was missing, wandering the forest, searching the lakeshores and the beach. On Friday evening he found himself a companion in Murphy, the small chestnut Shetland pony who was growing unconscionably shaggy with the advent of colder weather

[unlayered]

Jilly's eyes widened slightly as the sound signaled the approach of others. But when she caught sight of the horse and the pirate, her expression flickered into one of curious wonder, rather than fear.

Her tiny toes flexed against the soft ground as she stared at them both. Familiar white and brown speckled wings fluttered a little against her back as she took one step on the slightly unsteady bank, balancing her as she wobbled, then pressed against her back once more as she stilled.

1/2

[lists_to_port]

For his part, Jack had barely noticed the girl, so intent was he on getting down that slippery hill through the copse and reining Murphy in.

"You're going to upset the cart, lad!" he shouted the warning.

2/2 /edits forever

[lists_to_port]

And then Jack looked up and saw a small child with curly dark hair and gorgeous eyes, and he thought he was staring at a beautiful dream, or at perdition. Punishment. Punishment for his doubting, and for choosing the wrong path, and for giving up on her.

She had never, ever, not ONCE given up on him. She had stood firm and scared the Fetches away with a stomp of her little foot during the Horrible Mad Winter, and she had held his hand after Buffy walked out on him--before the Seven Days. She had brought him peace and he'd run from her, consistently, and now she was here to exact her spectral revenge.

"Joyce?" he finally managed. Then Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirate Lord of the Caribbean, turned and tried to run in terror from the child, but strong pony teeth suddenly clamped down on a coattail and brought his flight up short.

@ 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.

Archie -> Horatio -> Jilly?

[noprevaricating]

Archie and Horatio headed to house 7 the moment they heard about Jilly's return. Upon opening the door, Archie wasn't sure what to expect. He knew what Jilly's life had been like at a young age. What sort of child would he find in this house?

[seventeensir]

It was not that Horatio doubted Buffy's report. No. But the implausibility of it all remained firmly stationed in his rational mind. (The same part of his mind that tried to convince itself at times that the wings on his back were not real.) To see would be to believe.

[unlayered]

Jilly had been settled at the coffee table, supplied with a stack of paper and all the crayons she could want, a welcome distraction after making her fingers sticky with ice cream.

She hummed tunelessly to herself as she drew the lopsided shapes that would make a pirate and a pony -blue and purple, respectively, since the best ponies were purple- a little song that she made up as she went along. If asked to repeat it, it would have come out as something completely different.

[noprevaricating]

It was definitely her. Seeing that she seemed okay, Archie squatted in front of her, at the other side of the coffee table, and squinted. "What are you drawing, little one?"

His experience with Selphie had taught him Jilly wasn't likely to remember him.

[consultmybooks]

Too many people had come back in broken states or hadn't come back at all.

Maybe Jilly was in good hands...he knew Jilly was in good hands...but Giles still stopped by the house that evening when he heard the news that she'd been returned.

[unlayered]

Stranger danger wasn't exactly one of Jilly's strongest instincts. Settled in a strange house with stranger people who all called her Jilly, she had taken in the ice cream and ponies and their gentle, careful touches, and had decided that this place was -in fact- good.

There was a nagging worry that, if she was gone too long, her mother would be mad...and that was definitely a bad thing. A terrible, bad thing. But it was easy to be reassured that, for now, being here was fine.

Thoughts of home momentarily pushed aside, she'd settled herself at the coffee table with a stack of paper and a smattering of crayons, bright colors making messy loops across the page.

[consultmybooks]

At least, in this case, coming to blows looked about as unlikely as it was possible to look.

He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, possibly a few seconds too long, watching the girl coloring her colorful scribbles before he remembered that he should probably say something.

"Those are very nice."

[unlayered]

A new voice sparks curiosity, but not fear, and she peers up at Giles with a studying gaze.

"I'm gonna make it more purple, 'cause night is coming." Which might explain why the original shapes currently seemed to be drowning in a sea of blue and purple.

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!"