fandomtownies | The Boards, Saturday Afternoon

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The Boards, Saturday Afternoon

Jono was, as of the moment he finally made his way down to the office at the Boards, blissfully unaware of any strangeness going on around the island today. He'd been up late last night properly disposing of what was left of the spiked punch that he'd been able to rescue, and had spent the majority of the morning attempting to sleep off the resulting... sugar crash.

Yes. Sugar crash.

His head still wasn't completely back to 100%, but he had come up with an idea for a haunted theatre, and so he was tabling any plans of a proper production this semester in favour of putting on a bunch of smaller-scale things until the new year.

Now, how many rubber rats was he going to need for this? Maybe he'd just order them in bulk...

[Open Boards are open!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Liara had woken up very confused this morning. She was somewhere alien, and luckily her translator was working, but that was as far as she'd gotten.

And so, after some ambling around, she'd wound up here.

In a doorway.

Giving the at-least-the-right-skintone alien inside big eyes as she mumbled, "H'lo?"

"H'lo?"

That was a much smaller voice than he was generally used to hearing around here on a Saturday morn -- Jono glanced at the clock -- on a Saturday. At a time. And the one who was using the voice? Well...

Tiny, adorable, and rather unmistakeably blue.

"Can I help you, luv?"

It was probably one of those weekends. The trick, now, was determining which of those weekends it happened to be.

"Sorry," Liara said, a moment later. She wasn't entirely sure what she was apologizing for, except that she wasn't sure how to answer his question (or how a normal person would answer his question at all).

"I was walking," she clarified. "Looking for things."

She'd woken up in a strange place with stranger buildings. She'd been curious.

"And have you found any things yet?" Jono's voice gentled a little, and he gave her another thoughtful looking-over. She hadn't started calling him her father or anything so mind-breaking as that, and so he was going to err on the side of de-aged and offer her a smile. "Liara, isn't it?"

Best to be absolutely certain, naturally.

Liara pulled on her sleeve - still a size or two too big for her - and said, "Yes."

A beat.

"Have you seen anything old?"

Liara, then. One of those weekends, which meant he could exhale and relax a tiny bit more.

"How old were you looking for, luv?" He didn't think there was anything especially ancient here on the island, but he was certain he could probably dig up something to occupy her with, if it came own to it. "I've got a few things in storage that look old, if you don't mind replicas."

Liara pursed her lips. That was not the answer she was looking for. "I wanted to go digging," she explained. "Mom does not like it. But I found you instead."

Which felt weirdly comfortable; that's why she hadn't run away yet.

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Mercy was tired of wandering about, so when she found a scent that was familiar and reminded her of safety, she followed it and found a way into the building.

Which would be how Jono could find a small coyote pup in his office and coming over to nuzzle at his ankle.

Well, that was possibly the most adorable pup he'd seen... pretty much ever. Jonothon was generally a cat person, but when a tiny...

He blinked down at the puppy thoughtfully, and then reached down to give her a scratching behind the ears.

Coyote, perhaps? It was far too slight to be a wolf, and he'd know a fox when he saw one. Well, when a tiny coyote wandered in and started nuzzling at his ankle, the least he could do was scratch her behind the ears, of course.

"Well, hello there, pup. And where did you come from, hm?"

Mercy wriggled happily and yipped at him. She came from, well, she wasn't exactly sure where she was, but she lived in Aspen Creek. But she didn't want to shift to tell him. Lucky Jono, not to suddenly have a naked little toddler appear in front of him.

Still, she was tired and he could always pick her up. How to tell him... hmm...

She turned around a few times, curled up on the ground as if she was pretending to sleep, paws over eyes, then jumped back up and pawed at him. Carefully. No hurting people. That wasn't nice.

Jono peered at the puppy as she performed her little game of charades, and then gave his shoulders a shrug. He didn't exactly speak fluent canine, but her message had been clear enough.

"You can curl up in my lap, if you like," he ventured, scooting his chair back slightly. He really had no clue if the little coyote was a student, another adult, or just an exceptionally smart animal, no, but if all she was looking for was a warm, safe place to curl up and snooze, he could provide that easily enough. "I've got some work to do here on the computer," which would take extra long because he was somewhat digitally inept, "so I'll be staying put for quite a while. Would that do?"

Mercy yipped and wriggled with happiness before carefully jumping up onto his lap. She couldn't quite keep herself from trying to peek at what he was doing - coyotes were curious creatures and she was no exception. But after some sniffing and peering, she stretched up enough to try and give him a lick on the face before curling up on his lap and making contented little hrmphing noises as she settled in.

And if that wasn't mind-boggling adorable, Jonothon didn't know what was. He chuckled a little, squirming and wrinkling his nose at the lick to the face before resting one hand on the pup's back, content to idly pet her while he looked up Halloween supplies on the internet.

Cuddly random puppy and preparations for his favourite holiday? Yeah, this moment was a good moment, so far as he was concerned.

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Ooooh, Jono, would you be able to figure out which little kid this was? It had been, what, seven years since you'd seen her last?

On the other hand, some things stayed true no matter how much time went by...

Karla marched right into the Boards and glared up at Jono. "I'm hungry!" she declared.

"Charming, Karla."

What? Some things really didn't ever change.

"And what would you like to eat, luv?"

He'd already encountered a tiny Liara, and he was fairly certain that the coyote pup that had turned into the tiny toddler was Mercy. What was one more kid walking in, anyhow? At least his head had stopped pounding.

"I dunno," Karla pouted. "I'm just hungry."

She was hungry. And Jono was a male she knew would take care of her. Ergo, now she was his problem.

"I dunno where anyone else is. So you gotta take care of me." In so far as feeding her went. She'd probably deny needing assistance with anything else.

Which was fine enough. She was old enough to wipe her own arse, so far as Jonothon was concerned.

"I think I can handle that," he decided. "How do pancakes sound, luv?"

He could manage those with minimum disaster.

Probably.

"Oooh, I like pancakes!" Karla said, giving him a happy, hopeful look. "Can I help? I'm a good helper!"

"Of course you can help, luv." If she was tiny, Jonothon could screen ingredients for their horror factor before actually mixing them into the batter, right? "How do chocolate chips in your pancakes sound? I think there might actually be some in the cupboards upstairs."

He wasn't sure where they had come from. Troy, perhaps? Either way, they were up there and they were his now, and so he was going to do the responsible thing and feed them to a small child.

Naturally.

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Sometime later a wee Mercy had woken up, as a little girl this time, and wrapped herself up in a blanket the nice man had covered her with. She still wasn't sure where she was, but a little poking around found a whole CLOSET full of clothes. They were too big, but one of the shirt things made a nice down-to-her-toes dress so she left that one on and went to find the nice man.

"Where are the werewolves?" she asked. "I can't smell them anywhere and I'll be in BIG TROUBLE if I acc'dently ran away."

[ooc: If you'd rather not have this here, just let me know and I'll move it!]

Jono tilted his head at her for a moment. The werewolves? He knew of... Jack, and Derek, and he didn't trust Derek with a child for love or money. For that matter, he was fairly certain that Jack hadn't bargained for a little girl, and judging on the ethnicity of this one in particular...

He was going to go out on a limb, here.

"The pack you're looking for isn't around here, Mercy," he ventured, not completely certain if he was on the right track or not, "but that's fine. You're here on... a vacation. A weekend vacation here on the island, with all of the other children that are running about."

Of which, he'd only met three, but three kids and no adults in the span of a day sort of hinted at this being a bit of an epidemic. It usually was.

[This is fine! Just a heads-up that I'll be out for most of the day, driving back home to Canada. Is SP okay?]

Mercy put her little hands on her hips and gave him a Look. "Nuh-uh," she said firmly. "'Cause I don't get to play with human children, 'less they're from Aspen Creek, 'cause I forget sometimes that I have to Keep Things Secret."

"'Sides, if I'm on vacation, where's Margi-mom, huh?"

He was a nice man and he'd taken good care of her, but he didn't seem to know all the rules. Maybe...

"Uh oh. You didn't 'nap me, did you? 'Cause Bran would be very mad at you if you did."

And nobody wanted Bran mad at them!

[SP is love! Safe home!]

Yeah, Jono had met Bran, and scoffed a little at the suggestion.

"Do I really look like the kidnapping sort, luv?" He gave his head a shake at that. He... really didn't want to know the answer. "No, Sunshine, I'm a teacher, not a kidnapper, and I won't go around telling anybody your secret, either."

He was kind of starting to see why she wasn't allowed to play with human kids, if this was the secret she was attempting to keep.

"I can keep you safe here until Bran or Margi," whoever Margi was, "come to collect you, though. They know you're here, and they know you're safe and doing well, I promise." A beat. "Cross my heart?"

Mercy squinted up at him and sniffed loudly, trying to see if she could smell if he was telling the truth the way the werewolves could. She wasn't sure, but he seemed nice and she'd come here because he'd smelled safe and familiar so...

She nodded seriously. "Okay," she said. "Long as you cross your heart. I don't really think you'd 'nap anyone anyway. You smell like a good person."

Jono wasn't entirely certain what a 'good person' smelled like, but there was some part of him that was sincerely thankful that he apparently smelled like one. He probably wouldn't have filed himself under 'good' if anyone asked, but he had a bit of a bias.

So he drew an X across his chest with one finger (always a bloody X, there was no escaping that damn letter) and nodded.

"Cross my heart, then." A beat. "Are you hungry, luv?"