|
|
Post by Johnnie Rae Mercer on Jan 26, 2013 1:03:51 GMT -5
Johnnie rolled out of bed, hanging her head in her hands. She’d been on guard duty for eighteen hours the day before outside the throne room. She’d stood stock still and watched supplicants and power players walk in and out. By the time she was done, it was all that she could do to find a citadel pet, suck some blood, have a glass of wine, eat a bit of leftovers, take a shower, and crawl into bed where she had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. All of that, sadly, was interrupted by one unquestionably annoying Daryll Scott who, rather than trying to get her to do rather fun things under the blankets (as she had been expecting when she realized who was waking her up), was enlisting her to babysit his new found baby human. Needless to say, she was a bit frustrated as she shoved him out of her bed and curled back up under the covers. Don’t get her wrong, the little girl was all kinds of cute, but Johnnie as a babysitter? He must be desperate. She’d grunted her assent and then threw a pillow at him, waiting for the click of the door before she sat up. And now here she was, when all she wanted to do was sleep, enlisted to watch a child.
This clearly required revenge of some kind.
She stumbled into the kitchen where she started formulating a plan. A bad one, most likely to be taken as not-revenge, but a plan nonetheless. The evil part was getting the flour in every conceivable crevice in his kitchen. Other than that, there was going to be pie which would probably negate the evil of the flour getting everywhere, make him calm the hell down if he did decide to freak out. It wasn’t like she was giving bones to his precious puppies or anything.
She assembled everything that she would need, from the berries to the butter and the pie tin. She knew he had water at his place, but she doubted there was much more than that, even if he was keeping a human alive at the moment. That thought in mind, she opened her fridge and pulled out a tray of biscuits that still needed to be baked. She could make those for breakfast when she got there. A little tiredly, she tossed some more butter, some honey, and a can of coffee onto the stack. This was starting to look more and more like a normal excursion to Daryll’s place, what with the ever growing pile of food on her counter. She sighed and stacked everything but the biscuits into a oversized grocery bag, careful to not bruise the strawberries while putting them in the bag. For sensibility’s sake, she put another pint in, completely sure that quite a few would be lost to simply being eaten. Sure that she had everything she needed, she wandered to the door, setting the biscuit tray on her hip while she slung the bag over her shoulder.
The tray felt oddly cold against her hip. Mildly confused, she looked down and had the sudden realization that she was still in her pajamas, better known as nothing. She grumbled curses at Daryll under her breath and set the food back down on her counter before running back into her room, slipping on underclothes, yoga pants, and a slouchy sweatshirt. She caught sight of her self in the bathroom mirror, paused, brushed her teeth, and grabbed a convenient hat, pulling it over her curls to make them looked less slept on. It barely helped.
She rushed back into the kitchen, grabbed the food, and headed out, pausing by the door to slide on some shoes to keep her feet from freezing to the floor on the walk to Dar’s place. On arrival, she slipped the hidden key from its spot and let herself in, closing the door behind her and crossing the apartment to the kitchen where she divested herself of her load and started heating the oven for the biscuits. In the time she waited for that, she started a pot of coffee and looked around. Apparently, Aura was still asleep. It was better to let her stay that way, Johnnie reflected, given that she could barely take care of herself this morning.
----
note: she has pie makings and breakfast, she's not totally failing at being an adult!
words: 727
outfit: not that aura is aware of it, but check it
|
|
|
|
Post by aurelia on Jan 26, 2013 16:44:22 GMT -5
[style=text-align:center;width:450px; padding: 20px;][style=width:425px;height:90px;overflow:auto;text-align:justify;font-family:arial;font-size:10px;color:#f1f1f1; padding:10px; line-height: 10px;]
Dar had warned her that he wouldn't be there that morning, but that didn't stop the toddler to be slightly shocked by the silence of the house when she woke up. Drousy, she rubbed her eyes, the light brown hair sticking up in several places and making her look like some sort of zombie. Shoving the blankets off her legs and tumbling out of bed as they remained tangled around them, she landed unceremoniously on the floor. Kicking at the cloth to make it release its grasp on her, she struggled back to her feet.
Usually, Dar would wake her up - she wasn't allowed to do much by herself, never had been even when she was with Enn. It was better to be safe than sorry, at least that was there philosophy. Still, Aura was remarkably good at feeling her way to what she needed and in avoiding most obstacles. That didn't stop her from stumbling a few times, however, before she safely made it to the door. The hallway was oddly chilling, and goosebumps swelled on her arms, but she was too curious about the sounds she could hear downstairs to really care that she was shivering slightly.
In the time that she had lived with Dar, she had quickly memorized the layout of his house, and he had made the compromise to make sure it was picked up. Furniture was not moved, and it was kept fairly tidy. Still, she was careful. Whoever he had sent to babysit might not have known the rules that had been established for her safety, making sure she was holding onto something every time she took a step. At the moment, it was the wall that was guiding her along, towards the sounds of the kitchen. She had figured out, fairly fast, that Dar was not used to children. Not at all. For one, he was nothing like Enn. When she had nightmares, for one, he often seemed slightly unsure. Nothing he did was confident, not like her mama was, who knew exactly what to do to set her ease.
Singing, brushing her hair, telling her stories. Dar didn't do that. That, however, didn't make the tyke love him any less. She'd soon grown accustomed to his awkward way of parenting, and had clung to him as she had to Enn - even if it had taken a moment of hesitation before she had decided that he would do. That didn't make her miss mama even less. She had been told she was there as well, being taken care of, and she wouldn't be sick anymore soon. Aurelia could only hope.
Still using the wall to guide herself, she finally made it to the doorway of the kitchen without incidence. Her head tilted to the side, she tried to recognize whoever it was through feeling. She'd gotten good at that - she could tell Dar and Enn and George and Grand-mammy and even Angelo all apart. They gave off a sort of vibe that the tyke had learned to pick up on. But the one she was getting from whoever this was was unfamiliar, yet familiar. She knew she'd met whoever it was before but she was still wary as she blinked and pouted a bit. She'd been hoping Dar would be here - even if he had told her otherwise. She didn't like it when he wasn't around, and especially when she was in the presence of some she didn't know. "Who're you?" She finally questioned curiously, moving carefully into the kitchen, trying to avoid the obstacles set in her path. [/style][/style] |
|
|
|
Post by Johnnie Rae Mercer on Jan 27, 2013 12:35:22 GMT -5
The oven buzzed that it was ready for the biscuits to be put in. It was about damn time. Johnnie carefully opened the door and slid the tray in. After that most important step was completed, she turned back to her coffee and set a timer to ensure that breakfast didn’t get burnt while she was in this fogged over state. She idly looked around the kitchen, noticing the small changes that had been made in order to accommodate the little girl. The most obvious, perhaps, was that when she opened the silverware drawer, it was organized, rather than a mess of forks, spoons, and butter knives prepared to stab anyone who tried to liberate a piece to eat with. That was a nice change. She smiled and made a mental note to congratulate him on finally getting it dealt with, her hands were sure to thank him in the future when she stopped by to make sure he didn’t starve. Not like big scary crimsons like them really needed the food she cooked, but it was nice to have some kind of normalcy as an anchor to keep the crazy back. Maybe that was just here, though.
Biscuits in the oven, she started unloading the bag that she’d brought, putting the butter to soften next to the oven while she arranged everything else on the counter. There were berries and ample amounts of sugar, cornstarch and flour, a lemon and some gelatin. Everything that she needed to make pie that day.
In all honesty, this whole babysitting thing was a bit of a stretch for Johnnie. She and Dar were cut from the same cloth, they were more likely to kill something than keep it alive. He had an advantage, sure, with watching his siblings and all, but Johnnie hadn’t even interacted with a child for long enough to be worried about its survival in the last fifty five years. Her baby cousins had been cute and all, but they were one long crazy trip behind her. She remembered the basics and all, but she’d never been the one caring for kids. Maybe if life had gone differently way back when, she’d be fit to handle this. But if that had been the case, well, she wouldn’t even be in this situation. She’d probably just be another azure vampire housewife making pie somewhere for a husband and two point five kids instead of the rattled, sleep deprived mess that she was right now.
Her moment of reflection on the life that could have been was broken when Aura wandered into the kitchen, not that Johnnie even realized the girl was there until she spoke. Thankfully, Johnnie didn’t jump, she was too tired to do more than blink a couple of times before responding. “It’s Jo, sweetie,” she said, using the damn pet name that Dar had given her all too many years ago for her to even be mad about it any more. She’d been introduced to the girl as Jo and it was probably better that she just stuck with that rather than trying to reassert herself as Johnnie in the little girl’s mind. She took another drink of her coffee, letting the bitterness settle over her tongue. She was going to need a lot more of that and a good helping of biscuits before the fog cleared from her mind.
She paused for a second, letting her mind swirl around obvious questions, trying to get the words right. “Did Daryll feed you before he left?” she asked, fairly sure that he expected her to manage that operation. That was alright, there were more than enough biscuits baking for the two of them and there were more strawberries than she actually needed for the pie. They’d be fine on food, that was for sure, although depending on how long his shift ended up being, there might be an excursion to her house for lunch and possibly even dinner, given that she hadn’t thought that far ahead in her zombied out state.
----
note: ---
words: 673
outfit: not that aura is aware of it, but check it
|
|
