pandion | eek, monsters

Time goes by. Trouble keeps right on bringing desserts (and once a quiche and once a loaf of bread with nuts in it). The Swans are uncomplaining. On Christmas Eve he brings two kinds of cookies and an astonishingly edible fruitcake and stays overnight on the couch. (Andi, self-servingly, got him a little box of assorted Genuine Maple Products. Bella got him an inexpensive yet adorable miniature sewing machine.) Robin comes over too, Christmas day (Andi gives her a packet of guitar strings and sheet music for assorted Green Day songs. Bella gets her a tiny tape recorder.)

School is back in session in January, after New Year's. (The twins set off small fireworks in the driveway - well, Andi does. Robin is invited to this event; Trouble is not, it somehow does not seem wise.)

Now it is the first weekend after the resumption of school.

Robin's supposed to be over any minute for practice for Nameless Band Which Kind Of Needs A Third Person But Bella Doesn't Want To. Andi taps out beats on her drums. Taptaptap. Taptaptap-kish. Taptaptap. Taptaptapkish.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

instar

"Didn't think so. Do you want some meringues? Trouble made, like, ninety of them, there are still most of them around."

From:

hold_infinity

She perks up a little. "Don't mind if I do."

From:

instar

Bella goes and gets meringues. She puts them down in the middle of the group.

From:

hold_infinity

Robin eats meringues. They seem to be very helpful to her mental state.

From:

palmofyourhand

Ethan has some, too, occasionally sneaking one right out of Robin's hand while she's not looking.

From:

instar

Bella eats one. She makes incomprehensible notes.

From:

pandion

Andi eats meringues and pats Robin on the shoulder occasionally.

From:

palmofyourhand

"What are you scribbling about?" inquires Ethan.

From:

instar

"The monster. Alien, demon, whatever. Thinking of things it could be and whether there are ways to find out that are relatively safe."

From:

palmofyourhand

"Any luck?"

From:

instar

"Not really."

From:

palmofyourhand

"Didn't think so."

From:

instar

"Yeah, I haven't had to figure out anything like this before."

From:

palmofyourhand

"I bloody hope not," he says dryly.

From:

instar

"No kidding. But - Robin, did this thing look to you like a species? Well-adapted for something, good at moving around, not - sick, asymmetrical?"

From:

hold_infinity

"It - no, yeah," she says, making a gesture that combines a nod and a shake of the head into an ambiguous wobble. "Whatever it was, it was definitely one of it. It worked."

From:

instar

"If it is, so to speak, one of it," says Bella, "then there are certainly more of it - even if they're dead, far away, or - hiding."

From:

hold_infinity

...Robin contemplates this idea.

From:

palmofyourhand

Ethan hugs her.

From:

instar

"This one was careless enough to let Robin see it, but it and however many conspecifics it has have been discreet," says Bella, tapping her pen on her notebook. "On at least one occasion at least one - demon? we can call them that till further notice - has interacted with at least one human; it was not friendly. We can't be sure if the one demon or the one human or the one interaction is typical, especially since if it were very common more people would be going missing - although I'd want to look at statistics to be more sure that they aren't - and more doors would be broken and someone less circumspect about adults than Robin would have spotted one. Although I wonder if there's a way to cruise through a psych ward to be more sure they haven't. Robin, can you draw - or direct Andi to draw - the demon?"

From:

hold_infinity

"I'm not much of an artist," she says. "But I'll describe it again if you want." She smiles wryly. "Like a police sketch."

From:

pandion

"I'll see what I can do, lemme go get some paper," says Andi. She fetches a clipboard and a sheet of paper and a pencil and does her best to render the demon according to Robin's description.

From:

instar

"Draw some random other monsters, keep the drawings together in a stack," says Bella, "I'm probably being paranoid, but these things didn't exactly land on the White House lawn to announce they came in peace."