Author's Note: This fic is available both here and on AO3! Chapters 1-4 were originally posted to AO3.
Chapter Summary: Johanna tries to deal with the consequences of the car crash. Hilda tries to bring her new friend home for good. The Safety Patrol tries to figure out what happened to the Trolberg Beast.
Hilda and Tontu sat with their backs against the Trolberg wall. They were wrapped up in the musty, old quilt Johanna always kept in the trunk in case of an emergency.
"Let me get this straight. A nisse jumped into the back seat of your car and began calling for the beast. The beast chased you all the way out here, destroyed your car, and then vanished into thin air," The Safety Patrol officer with the eye patch read back from her notepad.
"It- Er, we crashed, actually. It's all… A little bit of a blur," Johanna responded. She laughed nervously.
One of the men suddenly turned to scrutinize the two small figures behind them, "This nisse?" he asked, pointing at Tontu.
Tontu made a small noise and pulled the blanket more tightly around his head, leaving only his nose poking out.
Johanna shook her head, "Not him! It was… A different one," she paused, realizing how much like a lie that sounded. "The other nisse had… A lot less hair. It took the dog- The beast away with it into this sort of…" she trailed off. Words had failed her, so she tried to illustrate the place with her hands. No, no that wasn't quite doing it, either.
Tontu said something indecipherable, his voice even more muffled than usual under the blanket.
The big man with the red beard moved closer, "What did it say?"
"Nowhere Space," Hilda repeated for him. She nudged Tontu reassuringly, though she decidedly didn't like these Safety Patrol officers much either. "He says they could be anywhere now. Probably very, very far away."
"And why should we listen to a nisse that's been kicked out of its home?" the officer with the bushy, brown mustache asked.
Hilda glanced at the lump in the blanket that was Tontu, and then at her mum, whose expression was silently pleading with Hilda not to say the wrong thing.
"He- He lives in my house, actually," Hilda lied. No, not really a lie… It could be true, right? If they just fudged the timing a bit. "He saw the Barghest and came out to protect us." That one wasn't a full lie, either. Suddenly, Hilda had a plan. She threw her arms around the lump in the blanket and batted her eyes innocently. "I don't know how Mum and I will ever begin to thank him…" she tried, laying on as much charm as she could. She was talking just as much to her mother as she was to the Safety Patrol officers.
The lump began to grunt and squirm in protest. "Shh! Just go with it!" Hilda hissed. She was going to need complete cooperation if she was going to play both games at once here.
Behind the officers, Johanna was shaking her head furiously. She knew where this was going. It always started with this same exact pose. Hilda would hug the creature and press it to her cheek and bat her eyes and say, 'Oh but we just have to keep him!'. There wasn't time for this right now! And Hilda knew it, too. 'Hilda, no. Hilda. N. O.' Johanna mouthed.
Johanna had just enough time to stow her glare before the focus was on her again. "Right… Yes, he did! We sure are grateful, and we'll all have to have a nice long talk about it all once we get the rest of this mess sorted out," she said, forcing a smile.
The officer taking notes narrowed her one eye, but if she found anything odd about Hilda and Johanna's behavior, she didn't mention it. "Right... Well, we'll be the judges of 'anywhere'," she dismissed. She scribbled down one last thing and tucked the notepad back into her pocket.
The man with the bushy mustache nodded in agreement. "Take your kid and your nisse and get back inside the wall. Gate's closing soon," he ordered. He picked his rifle back up and motioned to the other two officers. They moved away and began discussing how quickly they could do a sweep of the area before nightfall.
Johanna rushed over to Hilda and pulled her to her feet. Wordlessly, she led her back towards the gate. Hilda had just enough time to grab ahold of Tontu, dragging him along as he disentangled himself from the quilt.
"Mum… Stop. You're going too fast," Hilda pleaded after several minutes of tense, silent walking. They were well inside the wall now, heading back up the road towards town.
Her mother didn't reply, so she started again, "Mum, Tontu is really short and he's carrying that whole, big blanket. He's having trouble keeping up."
Johanna stopped and whirled around, "Hilda, what were you thinking?!"
Hilda frowned and looked over her shoulder at Tontu. He was wheezing. What was a brisk walking speed for Hilda and Johanna was a run for him. He was clearly more adept at winding through the tight, irregular corners of Nowhere Space than travelling long distances outside of it.
Hilda looked slowly back up at her mum, "About… Telling Tontu he could stay with us?"
"About any of this!" Johanna exploded. She threw her hands up, "About talking to nisse when I told you not to, about disappearing from the Badge ceremony like that- About lying to me over whether or not you were even earning badges in the first place instead of going off and doing who-knows-what every afternoon!" She was yelling, but tears were welling up in her eyes. Her anger suddenly evaporated, and the tears began flowing freely. Johanna knelt down and hugged Hilda tightly, "I was so worried about you when you disappeared from the Badge Ceremony. I didn't know if you were hurt or- or dead… My God, Hilda. We could have both died in that car crash!"
Hilda patted her mum awkwardly, understanding but not fully grasping the situation. It was a hard thing for such a young and fearless child to do. She instead focused in on the thing she had been worried about for days now. "I- I'm sorry about the badges. I know you wanted me to earn more badges than you did, but… There just aren't any for the kinds of things I'm good at."
"Hilda, sweetie, I don't care about badges. I care about you."
Hilda suddenly felt a bit silly. It was such an obvious statement, and yet, she had been so worked up over it over the past few days. Of course her mother loved her more than she loved Sparrow Scout badges. "But mum, you know not to be worried about me. I'm an adventurer, remember? And Jellybean didn't really want to hurt anyone…" she trailed off. The Barghest had 'sort of' eaten three people and pursued Hilda and her friends multiple times. It was probably best to not to mention any of that to her mother right now. Or ever.
Johanna sighed, and reached up to smooth Hilda's bright, blue hair. "You're the bravest and kindest little girl I know. You just want to help everyone. But you're so, so reckless… You get into these situations, and you want to do good things, but you don't even stop to think what could happen if it doesn't go the way you're convinced it should. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you."
Hilda frowned again, considering that for a long moment. She pressed herself into her mother's shoulder, staring up the road at the lights of Trolberg. They flickered on one by one as night fell.
Behind Hilda and Johanna, Tontu shuffled awkwardly.
Hilda pulled away to look at her mum, a small smile creeping back on to her face, "But, luckily Tontu was there. And the other nisse I made friends with- The one that raised Jellybean. They both saved us, really."
Johanna sighed. Not this again. She took a moment to wipe her eyes and regain her composure. Hilda waited expectantly. They both already knew what she wanted. "Hilda, they were the ones that got you into this mess in the first place," she began gingerly, "I know you can make friends with almost anything, but I'd really rather you not talk to nisse you find out on the streets. They lie and steal... And I don't know what they were doing with a Barghest of all things."
"Hey, Tontu is my friend," Hilda protested. She took a step away from Johanna and towards Tontu, "He was only on the streets because Jellybean accidentally framed him!"
"No… Your mom's right, Hilda," Tontu agreed. "You really should stay away from nisse. I'm nice, but most others aren't." He had just finished folding the quilt neatly, for lack of something less awkward to do in this situation. He draped it over his arms and hugged it to his body shivering, "That one in your house… He was crazy. Bad news if I ever met it. Plus, we don't even know if anyone but me was really framed. They could just be lying to try and seem innocent."
Johanna stood and crossed her arms skeptically, "And how do we know you're not just lying to seem innocent?"
"Well- I would never!" Tontu huffed.
Johanna rolled her eyes, "Of course you'd say that. They all say that. Come on Hilda, let's go." She reached down and grabbed Hilda's hand again, "We have a fair distance to walk before we'll get to a bus stop. We need to get there before the last bus runs, or we'll be stuck walking all the way home." She turned, only sparing the quickest glance over her shoulder, "Thank you for keeping us from crashing, Tontu. Goodbye."
Mum!" Hilda cried. She wrenched her hand away and darted behind Tontu, grabbing him by the shoulders. The nisse startled at the sudden motion, his fur fluffing slightly.
"I'm not leaving this spot unless we take Tontu home," Hilda insisted. "He helped save us! Even if you don't like him, you still have to agree that's worth something! At least give him a few nights at our house until he can move back into his own."
"Hilda, they don't want me at my old house… I was banished, remember?" Tontu said quietly.
Hilda pretended not to hear. "Just a few nights," she pleaded with her mother. "Now that the Black Hound is gone, we can clear up the misunderstanding. Everyone will see that houses aren't being messed up anymore since he left, and they'll have to take their nisse back!"
Johanna pinched the bridge of her nose. That logic seemed flawed, but once Hilda set her mind to something like this, she could be hard to convince otherwise. She wasn't going to make this easy.
On cue, Hilda crouched down, putting her chin on Tontu's shoulder and pressing her cheek into his fluffy hair. She batted her eyes again and Johanna felt herself begin to cave. "Fine- Just a few nights. A week maximum. If his old family doesn't want him back by then, he has to find somewhere else to stay."
"Yes!" Hilda cheered. She grabbed Tontu lifted him up, swinging him around in a circle.
"No-no! Put me down! Put me down!" Tontu protested. The quilt slipped from his arms and fell into the dirt.
Johanna crossed her arms and turned away to hide the small smile that was sneaking its way onto her face. The last thing she wanted to do right now was encourage Hilda... But picking Tontu up like that had been kind of funny.
Still, now she'd have to add keeping a close eye on Hilda and Tontu to her growing list of things to do in the coming week. Things suddenly going 'missing' would be the least of their worries. Who knows what kinds of trouble a nisse could drag her already mischief-inclined daughter into? If tonight was any indication, then quite a lot. She'd have a talk with Hilda later about getting him back to his old home as soon as possible. No trying to drag her feet about it!
Johanna felt a tug at the hem of her coat and looked down to see the aforementioned nisse, back on his own, two feet. He lifted the re-folded blanket up to her, "Uh… Did you want your quilt back?"