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."

[slaying]

"It's...huh. It's a thing that a person does when they try and lie. Like if they're playing a game and part of the game is to make the other players think that you're winning more than you actually are."

Buffy's speech was tough to follow on a good day. It might get a little clunkier as she tried to untangle her speaking style for the young girl. "But some people -- like me -- are really bad liars. So maybe they make a face or lick their lips or scratch their nose every time they try to tell one."

A bowl. A spoon. A big old bag of chocolate chips. And then a little glass of orange juice for the little lady. Buffy held it out to her with a smile.

"And I have all kinds of tells and I'm pretty sure that Jack knows every single one. So I'm gonna need your help to trick him off the trail of our preciously delicious hidden treasure cookies."

[unlayered]

Jilly's brow furrowed uncertainly. "Isn't lying bad?"

[slaying]

See? This was exactly why Buffy did not trust herself around kids. How could she ever impart some sort of useful info? Her own perspective was so royally screwed, she thought. And then she also mistakenly thought that she ought to be informative or educational at all times.

God. She knew she was awful at this.

"...No. You're absolutely right. Lying? Not with the good. Lying can hurt a lot of people." Buffy abandoned the ingredients for a moment. "But I'm talking about the sort where it's just a game. A prank. Like a surprise party or an April Fool's Day thing."

[unlayered]

"Like pretend?" There wasn't judgment in Jilly's questions. Just a simple need to know, and she soaked up Buffy's words, one after the other.

For better or worse. There was no guaranteeing how all this information would come back out, later.

[slaying]

"Like pretend," she agreed. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at pretending."

It was a demi-lie; more accurately, the things that Buffy was very good at pretending were things she hardly tried to pretend at all but did so as a matter of self-preservation. Or self-punishment. Sometimes, she couldn't tell the difference.

"C'mere. You can measure out the flour. I'll show you how. Unless you already know? Clever girl like you -- maybe you've already got the whole she-bang's worth of culinary skills," she teased affectionately.

[unlayered]

"I know how!"

She didn't.

She scooted along the counter to join Buffy, peering curiously at the gathered ingredients.

[slaying]

...Buffy suspected as much.

She held out a measuring cup and settled a large container of flour next to Jilly's elbow. They were going to get messy; that much was easily predicted. Buffy could live with that.

"Okay. We're doubling this recipe so we actually need..." Give her a moment while she mathed out the numbers. "Three and a half cups." God, she hoped that was right. "You get the three and I'll get the half. Got it?"

[unlayered]

Jilly took the cup in one hand, grasping the handle and looking down into the bag at the white, fluffy flour. She nodded decisively at Buffy's instruction. "Three," she repeated. Just to show she heard.

And then, with deliberate care, she scoops out one heaping cup of flour. It is mounded well over the edge. "One!"

[slaying]

Oh boy. Buffy didn't know much about baking but she thought she might have heard somewhere that flour was meant to be leveled off on the cup. But instead of cause a fuss, she pretended to work hard at mixing up the shortening and brown sugar. The milk and the vanilla. She could always forgo her half a cup come the end -- perhaps it would equal out.

"One. Awesome. Dump that right into the bowl behind you and then you've got two more to go."

[unlayered]

The flour is dropped and, as it hits the bowl, it expands into a cloud of white. There's a surprised giggle at the unexpected explosion, and then another scoop of powder is pulled from the bag. Two and three make their way into the bowl without fail, but hands and counter and bowl are quickly coated in a thin layer of white.

[slaying]

"...No trouble to it. Look at you go, Jilly."

Buffy didn't mind the mess -- admittedly, that might have partially been because she knew how ship-shape Jack liked to keep a household. Any tidying up that she missed would be well looked after by the pirate. She might have felt guilty except she knew he could hardly fault her making a mess in the service of keeping an eye on this little girl.

"Now that that's measured? We're just gonna set it aside and slaughter us some Humpty Dumpty. You know that one, right? Humpty Dumpty?"

Passing by the half-cup considering how much extra was already dumped in, Buffy pushed the bowl back and brought her brown sugar and shortening mix to the forefront.

[unlayered]

Her brow furrowed again, thinking hard. She didn't come from a home where she'd been read to. They couldn't afford a TV. And going out...well, when she went out she usually climbed the tree in their yard and listened to the strange little twig people talk, rather than chancing running into her brothers and their friends.

But they had a radio and, sometimes, her mother would turn it to stations when storytelling shows were on for her to listen to... a way to keep the girl out of her hair. At those times, Jilly would sit patiently in the kitchen, trying to stay still and quiet as she soaked up everything the announcer said.

She manages the first part of the rhyme alright, before hitting a snag. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a... on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a gray ball.
All the king's...horses...and- and-...men."

She paused, lips pursing in frustration. "Umm..."

[slaying]

"...Couldn't pick Humpty for billiards again. Get it? 'Cause the ball's gray? Nope? Eh. I like your version better, anyway. Here. Watch this."

She snatched an egg up from the carton and tapped it three times against the lip of the bowl and then -- carefully -- pulled the pieces apart and allowed the contents to drop in.

And then Buffy Summers did something crazy. She handed the second egg to Jilly. "Your turn."

[unlayered]

"What's billerds?"

She took that egg carefully as Buffy handed it to her. Blue eyes looked between the white, oval object and the bowl, then back. Considering. Buffy had tapped it, so Jilly does the same, knocking it lightly against the rim. And then she tries to pull apart the shell...where nothing has cracked at all. There's a frustrated look as the egg stays perfectly intact.

[slaying]

"It's a game where you...oh, Jilly? Hun? You can totally hit it a little harder than that. Here. I'll hold the bowl for you and you can go to town."

Buffy reached across and steadied the edge of the bowl. This was probably going to end badly.