❀ 01

[toyboat]

Who: Jenny Scott and y o u
What: New arrivals~
When: This evening!
Where: In the lobby
Rating: G for "little girl"

[In the lobby tonight, there is a small girl who looks like she belongs in a castle this grand. Her blue dress matches the decoration style better than most residents' clothing, her long skirts and stay intricate and befitting a higher class daughter.

This girl, however, looks extremely confused, cautiously wandering through the grand entrance and seeming for all the world like she has no idea what's going on.

Because she doesn't.

Last she recalls, she was on a ship, heading home, and this place is like nowhere on The Jackdaw at all, not that she's seen.

She takes a cursory pass around the lobby, then takes a seat on a sofa and clutches her doll to her chest.]

It'll be all right, Dolly. Father is with us now, this must just be part of the adventure.

Comments

[fearbringer]

[Also in the lobby: a tall, shadowy man that Jenny may or may not be able to see! He's fairly new himself, and still investigating the castle and its residents-- at the moment, he's skulking around the darkened corners of the room, but when he spots the little girl, he heads over to be curious.

If he's visible to her, she'll see him approaching. If he isn't, though, she might just notice the lobby's atmosphere get a little... gloomier.]

[OOC: Info on what sorts of characters will be able to see/sense him!]

[toyboat]

[Jenny is really quite the brave little girl, and doesn't believe in the stories she's heard of boogeymen and monsters under the bed. But suddenly everything seems a bit darker and scarier, and Jenny holds her doll tighter, looking around and kicking her feet, as her legs aren't long enough to reach the ground.

She decides to murmur a song to herself, for entertainment.]

The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown... The lion beat the unicorn all around the town...

[fearbringer]

[A nonbeliever? Pitch takes that as a challenge.]

Hello, little one. Can you hear me?

Can you feel me?

[A tendril of shadow reaches out and taps her lightly on the shoulder.]

[toyboat]

[She can't hear it, but a chill passes through her when he touches her, and she shivers, her voice growing louder to steel herself.]

Some gave them white bread and some gave them brown, some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town...

[unmanned]

[Generally, James doesn't care for children. There are multitudes of reasons, the biggest one being that there's no room in the life of a pirate or an Assassin for them, but his steps slow when he spots the girl sitting on the sofa with her doll.

Christ. He knew this place takes children, but this girl is young... not to mention dressed differently than the children he's seen thus far in Paradisa.]

Lost, lass?

[... not that James wants to deal with a lost child.]

[toyboat]

[Jenny's head whips around when she hears him, and she seems to have to think about it for a moment.]

Well... no, I don't think so. I think it must be part of the adventure, really.

[unmanned]

Adventure?

[He keeps his distance, knowing that a girl dressed like that likely hasn't spent much time around folk with weapons and scars. No need to scare her yet.]

[toyboat]

Yes, I'm on one now! Father says it's to be a little one, but if we've come here, it must be bigger than I thought. Not as exciting as a whale, though...

[assassino]

[Ezio comes in from a walk to the city, still wearing his heavier cloak until the chill really disappears for the season. He closes the front door behind him and reaches a hand up to push back his hood, and as he turns her sees her. A little girl in the castle! Curious, given that the castle only has one or two "true" children at a time –– everyone else would be called "teenagers" at the least by the modern peoples' standards, Ezio supposes.

Given that there are so few children, as well, it makes it easier to notice an unfamiliar face.

So, pleasantly, he says:]

Aren't you a little young to be out here unchaperoned?

[toyboat]

[Jenny has, by this time, recovered from her horrible encounter with the terrifying book, and has actually moved to sit right in front of the fireplace -- every time the door swings open, the cool wind blows in, and she's not really dressed for chill. She'd been in the Caribbean -- her skirts may be long and heavy, but they're not of wool like if she'd been in England.

She turns to look at him, smiling, and shakes her head.]

I'm not unchaperoned. My father should be around somewhere. It's an adventure!

[assassino]

An adventure to what, I wonder?

[Ezio grins, approaching and crouching down next to her, though he keeps a polite distance. Doesn't want to spook the girl, and all.]

I'm very accustomed to adventures, myself.

[toyboat]

Well, it's only an adventure home, but Father says I might see a whale! And I steered his ship a bit too, and that's something that I don't think most girls get to do.

[Her doll held in her lap, Jenny twists to face him more directly.]

What kind of adventures do you have?

[givetheslip]

[Maria had little use for her own dolls as a child, and as a woman grown she thinks she has little use for children, either, at least hypothetical children of her own. But she's not careless enough to take no notice of the young girl as she passes through the lobby in her way back inside, and when their eyes happen to meet she can't bring herself to ignore the child.]

That's a...lovely doll. [She guesses.]

[toyboat]

Thank you. She travelled across the ocean with me, you know.

[givetheslip]

Did she. All the way across the ocean to this castle?

Did anyone else travel here with you two?

[toyboat]

Hm, well, maybe to here. Really, we sailed to meet my father in the New World. We were all three sailing back to England.

[shallwe]

[Haytham can quite easily walk away from a child like that without giving it a second thought. It's not his problem and he has better things to do than to entertain children at any rate. But there is something vaguely familiar about this one that Haytham cannot quite place that gives him pause from simply moving on.]

[Against perhaps his better judgment, he approaches her.]

You appear to be lost.

HI LITTLE BROTHER /touches face

[toyboat]

[Jenny glances up from where she'd been walking her doll along the edge of the sofa, and smiles shyly at the man. There's a small shake of her head.]

I'm not lost. I'm on an adventure! This must just be a part of it.

just don't touch the hat >B[

[shallwe]

[An adventure.]

[He just narrowly avoids sighing. Why must children be like this?]

All on your own?

[toyboat]

[At the call of her name, Jenny looks around, twisting until she can see her father, who she can of course identify by voice. She smiles widely, slides off the sofa and then betrays her upbringing by running to him.

It's been a strange and often uncomfortable day for her; an adventure was fine but now she craved only what she knew, even if it was only by a day longer than everything else here. Father was natural, an extension of herself that she'd heard of all her life, and though the stories were often told with a note of disdain, she knew now that he was more than just a wandering man playing privateer, that he would have come back to her if only her mother had written the right letter.

Her arms are wide open when she reaches him.]

Father!

[samson]

[Kids! Is the castle taking kids again, that's pretty fucked up. It was nice having largely adults around for awhile; things get weird when there's a ton of kids running about. Like... bleeding trees weird.

The castle does stuff like this sometimes, Brock has found; develops a taste for certain types of people, then sucks them dry and tosses them back home. He's seen it happen a lot, and he just hopes that it doesn't have the munchies for a bunch of children again.

She seems new, so she's probably going to be cautious about strange dudes rolling up to her -- so Brock keeps a cautious distance, waving at her from behind another sofa.]

Are you lost?

[toyboat]

[Jenny shakes her head and kicks her legs a bit; the toes of her shoes don't even scrape the floor as they swing back and forth. She smiles politely and inclines her head before answering, her delicate English accent matching her high class clothing.]

No, I'm only where my father would have left me. He wouldn't have abandoned me now.

[samson]

[Oh no, she is so tiny... Brock frowns, because that doesn't sound good. What are the chances her father is actually here and that she's not just confused about what was happening for her back home?]

Uh... no, but maybe he got lost.

[Brock comes closer, crouching down in front of her so he's somewhat closer to eye level instead of looming.]

What's your dad's name?