There was a good amount of chaos for the next half an hour or so.
Jessi had heard Otto shouting when Mevia told him through the door, Isa had given her head a shake in disbelief, and Soren was who-knows-where. Ivor had insisted on checking Jessi over three times to make sure Hadrian hadn't dealt any damage, Harper had continued trying to patch up the three invalids, and Reuben was just sort of bouncing around trying to cheer people up.
Eventually the whole mess died down a little bit, and there was some mumbling about getting on and watching the next episode but Hadrian still hadn't turned up.
So that was why Jessi was now poking her head into random closets to see if he was in there for some reason.
"Hadrian? You in there?" Jessi poked her head inside the broom closet, wrinkling her nose slightly at the smell of mildew. Upon receiving no response and not spotting anybody or anything out of the ordinary except for what looked like a broken painting, she shut the door and moved onto the next one.
"Hadrian? You in here?" The next closet seemed to be more like a pantry, judging by the snacks poked onto the shelves. However, Hadrian wasn't in this closet/pantry/whatever it was either, so Jessi shut the door again and continued moving along the hallway. Really, there were a lot of closets in this house, weren't there?
"Hadrian? You there?" Jessi was starting to feel a parrot as she poked her head through the door, eyes scanning the contents of the closet- actually, this closet was empty. What was supposed to even be in here? Certainly not Hadrian, seeing as he wasn't in here. With that, Jessi pulled back, shut the door firmly, and went on to poke around the closets some more.
"Are you in here, Hadrian?" Jessi asked, poking her head in and looking around this closet quickly. Upon seeing nothing but buckets, a few cauldrons, and Hadrian sitting on an apparently broken chair in the corner, she shut the door and moved onto the next closet.
...
Wait.
Jessi reopened the closet door and poked her head back in, confirming that yes, that was Hadrian sitting on the broken chair and blinking at her in surprise. "Oh. Whoops. I guess I got into the habit of not expecting you to be there."
Hadrian said nothing.
"Uh... we're getting ready to watch the eighth episode," Jessi said, poking her thumb into the closet and gesturing over her shoulder with it so Hadrian could see the gesture. "I mean, I think. We were really only talking about it."
Still nothing.
"We figured you should come see it too; I mean you are here for a reason, I guess."
Still nothing. He was just staring at her.
"Um, you understand what I'm saying or did I slip into a different language or something? I do that sometimes." Jessi paused before hastily amending, "I mean I'm not fluent in languages or anything but occasionally I'll start talking in a mix of Spanish or Chinese or French and English and apparently I get really incomprehensible then."
She paused a moment later, another thought occurring to her. "Or maybe I'm hallucinating and you're not actually there. Am I hallucinating, Reuben?" Jesse asked, looking down at the tiny pink pig that had wormed his way into the closet.
He gave a shake of his head and an oink.
"Okay, that's good." Jessi looked back up at Hadrian. "I'm not speaking in a different language then, am I?"
Hadrian's brow creased in what looked like confusion, but he gave a slight shake of the head.
Jessi paused. Then she gave a little nod. "Right."
Still no response. At least he understood what she was saying.
Jessi shifted so that she wasn't practically horizontal in an effort to have her head through the door. "Um... then do you want to come? Or... well... I guess I could order you to come, but then you wouldn't listen and besides ordering people around is rude. Or, well, I find it rude. I'm sure other people don't find it rude. I'm rambling, aren't I? I'll shut up now."
At least Hadrian seemed to be smirking at Jessi's rambling mouth now and not just staring blankly at her like she'd grown an extra head.
... well it was hard to tell, really. The corner of his lip was barely even twitching up.
Jessi waited for him to get up, but he stayed seated.
"... you know, this door is kinda heavy and it's starting to hurt to be squished into the wall like this. Can we at least go somewhere else?"
Jessi's not lying. With the many bruises and cuts from that on their back, and the fact that they're already way smaller than most people they're age, and the fact that this closet door actually takes a good amount of energy to get open in the first place, it actually really hurts to be using their body as a doorstop.
Hadrian stared at her for a second longer, before getting up from the chair and pushing the door open enough so that she's at least not using her body as the world's largest functioning doorstop. Jessi rubbed her shoulder with a slight wince. "Thank you."
Still no response. Jessi was starting to wonder if something was wrong. She hadn't seen this man just not respond when someone asked him a question.
Well, unless it was Otto, but then again usually Otto was just talking and Hadrian seemed to be nodding and listening whenever that happened, so it wasn't even like he was just being silent.
"... you know what, this is a really awkward quiet, I'm going to talk, you can punch me if I get annoying or something. I dunno." Jessi decided that awkward silences were too awkward for her so you know what now it was time to be really peppy and chatty and annoying. She could be annoying if she really wanted to. She usually didn't want to but she'd been told her perky attitude could get really grating on the nerves so it was time to test that claim.
Hadrian was trying not to stare at the tiny (no, seriously, Jessi was tiny as heck) girl prattling on about spiders walking next to him. Occasionally she'd hop a few steps and then resume talking as if nothing had happened, and she had a mild smile on her face- well, whenever she wasn't gesticulating wildly and straying away from Hadrian. Judging by how she'd drift right back to about a foot away from him after this wild gesturing, he could only assume that she kept straying to avoid smacking him by accident while she gestured.
She wasn't stupid. He knew that she wasn't. Oftentimes oblivious, yes, but not stupid.
So why was she just chattering away as if nothing had happened earlier.
Yes, he'd been sitting in a closet; mostly to clear his mind and think- or, well, perhaps try not to think about what she'd said earlier, with a sword hovering at her throat and her toes barely touching the ground. But it wasn't like he was having a mental breakdown or anything in particular.
And then she popped her head in and now they were walking along as if the whole 'trying to kill her in front of her family'- no, friends, Ivor acted like her father but the bruises on her back testified that he wasn't biologically, and Jace and Jessi weren't related as far as he knew, and Lukas was dating Jessi- hadn't happened.
"- and I'm really not that creeped out about spiders because they're super cool, they're pretty happy to just sit there and won't go poking you if you don't go poke them, unless it's nighttime because then I guess they see you as a threat because what logical person goes wandering into a spider nest at midnight and they probably think you have bad intentions, which sucks because some spiders are nice," Jessi was saying cheerfully, her train of thought meandering up and down and all over the place.
If he could actually see this train of thought, Hadrian wouldn't have been surprised to see a loop-de-loop in it.
"You are a very weird kid," he spoke up suddenly, mouth working against his will and interrupting her train of thought about spiders. (How had she gotten on this topic? He had no idea.)
Traitorous mouth.
Jessi stopped mid-sentence and gave him a quizzical smile. "Uh... yeah, I'm a pretty weird person, I guess. I can make puns if you'd like."
"Dear Notch, do not. Mevia's bad enough."
Jessi's smile turned positively impish. "Ooh, Mevia makes puns?" she asked, green eyes suddenly sparkling.
Dear Notch this child was starting to send shivers up his spine from that mischievous tone in her voice. It was incredibly reminiscent of Harper whenever she'd set up a particularly good prank. And Harper's pranks were practically legendary. If that griefer (Magnus?) could outprank Harper, he would've been incredibly impressed.
"She doesn't get a good response most of the time so she's stopped. Don't make her pick up the habit again," he muttered in response to Jessi's 'innocent' question.
"Make her start making lots of puns again? Got it!" Jessi said cheerfully, making Hadrian put his gloved hand to his forehead and give a grumble. Traitor mouth for giving her that idea.
Jessi's smile was practically devilish at this point, yet he could practically see the halo hovering above this tiny girl's head. "That's gonna be your pun-ishment, then, Hadrian."
She was sure to emphasize the pun as much as possible so that the Ancient Architect couldn't possibly miss it, unless he was denser than a piece of lead. Unfortunately for Hadrian, he was not denser than a piece of lead, and he picked up that pun loud and clear. Heck, he would've picked up the pun even if she hadn't emphasized it so much that it was screaming obvious.
The Ancient Architect was tempted to snap his glasses in half. He settled for letting out a somewhat halfhearted, very drawn-out groan that told of all the pain and suffering he was going to endure from this child and Mevia for the next who-knows-how-many weeks.
"Dear Notch, this is my punishment for trying to kill you, huh..."
Jessi was silent for a moment, but when she spoke again you could still hear the beaming smile in her voice. "No, that's your punishment for trying to kill Mevia. Your punishment for trying to kill me is that I get to make fun of you as much I want and make lots of puns whenever you're in the vicinity, and you have to apologize to everybody that you messed with."
The man let out a heavy sigh, gloved hand pressing into the bridge of his nose heavily. He could feel a headache coming on. "... fair enough I suppose."
Actually, it really wasn't, considering nearly killing someone being countered with a bunch of puns and almost childish insults, coupled with him apologizing to everyone, really wasn't an equal trade-off.
"And you have to call me Master for a month."
"Wh-!?"
Jessi giggled when his head snapped up, eyebrow shooting up as he tried to discern if she was actually serious. "Kidding. That would be super awkward to deal with, although it'd be super funny the first few times. I'm just going to punch you really hard right now."
"... what?"
He'd barely finished the word when a blow hit him directly in the stomach, and even though it was a tiny girl half his size delivering his hit, he felt all of the air he could hold in his body being knocked clean away. A moment later, pain belatedly flashed in his gut, and he staggered backwards, slammed into a wall, and made an incoherent gasping sound like a dying fish as he tried to keep himself from sliding down the wall.
Jessi's smile was gone. Her expression was blanker than a sheet of paper, green eyes staring emptily at him. No, they weren't empty- just so unreadable that Hadrian might as well have been trying to read a book in Sanskrit.
"Don't try anything like that again, please."
(Holy Notch, even her voice didn't hold anything in it. Even her vocal cords didn't betray any emotion. It was like reading a teleprompter without any context.)
He almost wished that she'd look furious. This totally emotionless version of Jessi was more unsettling than the one where she was super cheerful or super upset or super bouncy and weird or super mischievous.
Jessi kept regarding him, staring at Hadrian impassively, mouth slowly forming words and releasing them. "Because if you do that, I'll have to hurt you."
She was speaking so steadily all of a sudden. This was the point where she should be seething, glaring at him, hissing at him, acting furious, fury evident in her voice even if it wasn't in her voice, but it had changed from a peppy, perky voice that rambled on and on to steady words that were simple but slow and somehow scarier than if she'd just exploded on him.
Jessi was a fairly predictable person. Her behavior was almost Mary-Sue-ish at times, she acted like a little kid, she was cheerful and loved making puns and couldn't cook and was easily scared. Hadrian and Mevia could both read people like books at this point. Otto didn't really have any interest in doing that, but they were good at reading people, they knew how to, and the two of them combined- heck, the two of them separated could dissect and predict everything everyone here could do at this point.
"I don't want to hurt you."
But not Jessi. Not right now.
"Not really."
Right now, her blank expression showed no emotion, her eyes didn't even betray anything, her body wasn't even tensed or relaxed- she was so blank that there seemed to be absolutely nothing inside the tiny frame of a person that was Jessi, nothing that made Jessi Jessi and not some other tiny person, nothing that betrayed anything about how she was really feeling except for slow, steady words that filtered through the pain numbing his center.
"But if you try to hurt my friends again..."
He couldn't read her at this moment.
"I will most certainly do it."
And that was more unsettling than anything else she could've done.
"If you hurt my friends again, I will be sure to return the favor."
Jesse popped into the room, beaming. "Found him!" she said, chirpily.
Lukas looked up from where Ivor was figuring out the best potion to heal his ankle without it setting weirdly, giving Jesse a small smile. "Oh- that was... kinda quick. Any trouble?"
"Nope!" Jesse beamed. "Are we going to head over and start the next episode soon, or what?"
Mevia glanced up from her bucket. Her face was still oddly green, but at least she was more pale and less green. "Uh... I think so. We're just making sure we're not about to throw up or drop dead randomly in the middle of the episode, and then we can go."
"Oh, cool." Jesse's expression changed as she looked at Mevia, worry becoming evident on her face. "You're... okay, right? For the most part?"
Mevia pressed her palm to her forehead, feeling bile churning in her chest. "Uh... well, I don't feel like I'm about to flop over dead or anything. I guess I'll be fine."
Jesse's relief was obvious in her smile. "Ohhhh, that's good." She glanced over her shoulder, and then glanced back at them. "Um, I talked to Hadrian a bit earlier. I've learned that he really really doesn't like puns. Sooo I'm just going to pun-ish him with some puns."
Lukas's smile immediately dropped off of his face, mock-horror coming over his face. "Jesse. Jesse no."
Mevia's nausea has suddenly lessened in favor of the evil grin spreading over her own features. "Oh, you're planning on doing so, huh? Well... toucan play at that game."
Mevia swears she hears a light groan from outside the door that sounds suspiciously like Hadrian. Really, this is fun. She can't remember for the life of her why she'd stopped back then.
Let's dial it up.
"You know, I would make reservations at the nearest library to find more puns, but they're-"
"No-" That's from Lukas. Mevia continues, her evil grin suddenly growing evil to the point where it looks scary.
"- completely booked."
Jesse gives an innocent smile. "I could totally ask one of the 25 letters of the alphabet that I'm close friends with to hook us up, but I don't know y."
"I'm a masochist. I'm a complete masochist. Why am I dating this monster," Lukas groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes.
"Oh, I've got a good one, but it always makes me grouchy 'cause I never have candy to suppress the urge. What do you call a bear with no teeth?"
Mevia swore she could see sparkles bouncing around Jesse and that halo of hers in that moment. Really, you could never see this girl doing anything horrible. "Hmm, I don't know, Mevia. Whatever do you call it?"
"A gummy bear."
This actually elicits a snort from Ivor. "Oh no, there's two of you now."
Jesse beams at him. "We're making a-" She points at a set of glasses on a table nearby. Now that Mevia looks closer, they seem to be Harper's reading glasses. "-spectacle of ourselves, Dad."
"I'm starting to wonder why I was scared of you earlier..." Hadrian's voice comes through the door, rather muffled.
Jesse beams at the door. "You know, if you were a knight, Hadrian, I would've thought you were named Sir Render."
"... I take that back."
A/N: EY THE PUN MASTER IS BACK :D
Also, no, Jessi didn't necessarily forgive Hadrian, but she's not a drama-baby so she don't wanna cause more drama xD
Ugh. Hi. Long time no see. xD
So (shamelessplugcough) actually please check out The Fairytale Curse. That's my favorite fic to work on and I feel like the quality of my writing is actually consistent in that story xD
Okay, so two announcements.
1) HCM's update schedule is once every week on Sundays, while Mondays are Tumblr updates (except for this week because people keep asking me to update), Wednesdays are fanfiction updates, and Fridays are YouTube postings. So please stop asking me to update; I'll be doing my best around my schedule to actually update.
2) You guys remember Phantasmagoria, right? Yeah... I'm making it into a visual novel game! (Also renamed it to Fata Morgana haha) Please check out the development of it at the Tumblr and possibly YouTube or Twitter later on:
astralautumngames . tumblr . com
Just paste that and get rid of the spaces and the link should work!
Responses to reviews!
LunarTheMooncake: YEAH xD
Destroyer: Fair enough! It was fun to write Jessi sort of flipping out on him this chapter xD
Kairi4ever15: Pfffft, more of a halfling really, as this chapter seems to prove xD
Rwbyroxx: Yes indeed, bow to me peasants (I'm just kidding don't actually bow xD) / Mondays do not work because of the Tumblr updates and asks xD
EmLee: Pft, sure xD / Ah, I'm glad you like it. And it's nice to be back!
ShiningHopeBeast: Haha, I know the feeling xD / Oh no I was giggling like a maniac while I typed up the chapter, haha xD / (shrugs) Probably he'll be ostracized. And will probably be hit or kicked at random intervals. / Next chapter, yes xD / (thumbs up) / I now have no school... well I have art camp next month. Never mind. xD / (thumbs up) / No idea if I already explained this; it changes with each person who sees her. If they KNOW her name is spelled with an 'i', it'll be spelled 'Jessi', otherwise it's 'Jesse'.
KaosRuin: Yeah, that was pretty much what I figured most people's reactions to that chapter was gonna be xD
andie: Lol, nah you're good.
Savannah-the-Caracal: Pft, he might not actually realize. Though yes, I do agree he's cuckoo. / A broom closet apparently xD / Lol, actually Ivor probably got it from somewhere else.
homeworkoverload: He's literally had many more years to go more insane, so that's understandable xD / (squints) You'd better, missy. (Jk jk xD) / No, I don't watch that show, but in all honesty I've been too busy to check out much more than what I already watch. / Lol, it's fine. / PFFFFFT xD
MiekoHiroshima: (thumbs up)
IMA BANANA: That's not their character personalities, so unless there was an AU like that I wouldn't be able to write something like that. Sorry!
MCSMFanatic: The child is unhurt!
Darkbeast Dend: Why would I let Hadrian kill Jesse xD
Rabbits rule: Cool. / (chuckles)
Milo the Rebel: That's probably true, honestly. xD
TheLegend27: I'm glad you like it! Also, nice username. xD / I'll do my best :) / Here is the next update xD
Guest: When you 'nuke' something, in terms of cooking, it just means to microwave it. Mevia's basically saying that they used the furnace to microwave the pie.
Leedle Leedle: What bit are you talking about...? xD
Guest: I'm glad you like it, but I hope you're not just reading it for the sake of the ships... xD
Misa For Life: Honestly, I feel like Reginald would just consider Isa to be his boss or a really close friend, so he'd feel sort of awkward dating her if he WAS interested.
I'm Milo: Pft xD
RavenBlaze4850: Hehehe, it's fine, I haven't really been active on this story anyways xD / Pfffft, did it really? I wasn't too sure xD / I'm glad you liked it! I had to rewrite it twice lol / Stuff! xD / Slightly sympathetic. At least make him less of a schizophrenic psychopath. / Pfffft, it was either that or have her cry xD / Not necessarily. Who knows, Ivor probably knows a lot of swears on his own. / (thumbs up)
ZenSpider: No, he just left the room. I don't think you can lock that door.
Shadow: Pffft, I'm not THAT cruel. I'm the Cliffhanger Queen, not the Angst Queen. xD
EnderKitty68: Pft xD / (stares blankly) Who said Jessi's not a part of their dimension?
Guest: Right? Honestly, I kinda feel the same way, mainly since Mevia didn't have much active antagonism in Episode 8 and so her personality was a blank slate for the most part. Hadrian, on the other hand, was pretty much a jerk the whole time.
LegendEmpress: I'm really glad you like it! It's definitely one of my longest stories, if not necessarily my favorite.
Guest: Pffft, you will hear no arguments from me on that xD
Guest: Here.
Peach: Oh wow, that's impressive xD I'm really glad you like it!
Guest: Please don't ask me for updates twice. Once is fine; I will update when I can update. Actually, the more people actively ask me to update, the less inclined I feel to do it at times. I did whip up a chapter because I felt like it'd been too long, but please don't ask me in the future when the next update will be- the most likely answers are either 'Next Sunday' or 'I don't know.'
Well, that's it for now. See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
