undergrounds | [OPEN] [May 8th-10th] Busy Bees and First Impressions

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[OPEN] [May 8th-10th] Busy Bees and First Impressions

a. FISHING
Gipsy on the road again felt good, like she always did, with that purr and the hum of the open road. It had been five years of the road in her blood, wild and free with a mission under her belt. Mako might have been at the top of her class five years ago but the road had sharpened her to the finest of points. But for now, she was leaving that behind and relaxing a little - or trying to, at least. Fishing was one of those things that gave her a little breathing room, not to mention a good snack. She had a nice fire pit lit and crackling behind her, the warmth at her back, a rod in hand and an empty bucket for her catches.

A sound, the rustle of bushes, that preternatural prickling at the back of her neck, told her she wan't alone as she pulled a decent sized fish from the water.

" If you are looking for lunch," she said quietly as she put the fish into a bucket, "let me catch another fish and we'll see about that. Meanwhile, you may enjoy the fire."

b. COFFEE
It is difficult, sometimes, to get a cup of coffee that is truly good. Mako stood in line at Cafe Poirot debating her choices. It was like picking some sort of jewel out of a line up of the finest in the world. The cappuccino was good, the machination was fantastic, the lattes were among her favourite and-- She turned to the person behind her at a loss.

"Which do you like from the menu? I am debating on the latte but everything looks so good today."

c. GARAGE
Far more than fishing, working with mechanics of any type makes Mako feel complete. Anything with a motor, anything with gears, she knows how to put it together. It's been like this her whole life. Machines are an intrinsic part of her life, personal and professional. Setting up her garage, her workspace, makes her stay official.

She's very much the newest member of Hillingdon House, now.

Mako even has a little sign that says: Gipsy Danger's Quick Fix. Okay, so it's a borrowed garage and a borrowed workspace but it's off the road and she's had a shower - a long one. It's real enough that she hopes it'll stick. At the moment, Mako was working on restoring an old engine, which has been neatly disassembled and placed on a sheet as she went through each, cleaning them. A noise makes her look up from her work and she stops what she's doing.

"Did you have something that needs to be fixed?"

d. WANDERING HILLINGDON HOUSE
New places are often difficult to navigate and getting the lay of the land is something that Mako had learned to do before truly settling anywhere. She had been wary of it but in rather dire need as well. She moved carefully, looking for the kitchen and hopefully some tea. But mostly, she was just looking. She turned the corner and nearly bumped into someone.

"I am so sorry!" she said quietly, backing up a little. "I am Mako Mori and I am also very new to this place. Is there somewhere that I may make tea?"

e. Wildcard; pick a situation and we'll roll with it.

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"Not sure," Daryl admitted as the girl started to relax. She clearly realized she was still in trouble, but she also clearly knew Daryl wasn't going to do anything drastic to her. What drastic entailed in her head, was anyone's guess, of course. But considering he'd threatened to take away her stickers, 'drastic' probably wasn't that bad in the long run, regardless. She did start to get upset when she tried to climb onto his shoulders and he didn't let her, though. Perhaps that would be punishment enough.

"Hush up," he murmured, rough voice softening just a bit. "Lady's gettin' tea for us. Can't drink it up there."

Daryl cleared his throat and spoke louder, continuing his answer to Mako, "Guessin' around 5. Ain't likely to be much older than that. She don't know either. It's uh... it's pretty complicated, what happened with her."

And not something someone who wanted so desperately to shift for the first time should be hearing. The scary part of losing oneself to the shift and knowing nothing but the animal to the point that only instincts got her to shift back to human so she'd be big enough to fight off a predator. Best to leave the horror stories for after Mako got what she want and was learning the lessons all shifters needed to.

Daryl was good with her and there was a good trust between them. It was a good thing to see, really. Mako caught the kettle just before it started to whistle and easily poured three cups of green tea that had been infused with sweet jasmine. Even now, the delicate scent of the night-blooming flower caught the air and carried.

"When I was very small," Mako said, "my parents had a garden that was filled with jasmine. I would go out in the evening after my homework was done and have green tea with my father while he told stories of the land of my birth, Japan, and of our shifter history. I did not know that they were histories then. To me," she set down each cup just-so, and pulled back her own chair, "they were magical things that I longed to be. I carry his stories around in my spirit and the teaching of my second father in my mind and body."

She paused, looking down.

"I am sorry that someone so young has had a complicated life so soon." No one should. Mako took no sweetener herself but gestured. "Come, good fathers are difficult to come by." Her eyes flicked to the girl and she smiled warmly. "It is something to celebrate, to both of mine, and to yours, little one. Some lessons, they are easier to learn than others."

At some point in Mako's small speech she'd stopped talking to him and started talking to the girl and Daryl wasn't sure when that happened. Only that he was now being talked about like the two had some orphan girl conspiracy going on.

He cleared his throat, "Her name's Willow."

"Dammit girl!" Willow pipped up with a grin and waved at Mako before looking over at Daryl with wide, questioning eyes.

"Yeah, yeah," he lifted his chin and dropped one arm, inviting her to jump down if she wanted, "You can have some tea. Sure it's fine."

Willow didn't hop down, she climbed up: over the back of the chair and onto the table where she pulled her legs under her to sit comfortably. Her hands wrapped around one of the cups but she let it go almost immediately, shaking her fingers out and then blowing on them, "It's hot!"

"Course it's hot. It's tea," Daryl admonished in a soft tone that took any of the sting out. "Gotta let it cool a bit."

He glanced over at Mako for a second before letting his eyes go back to Willow and her attempts to take the cup while it was still too hot, "She uh, she's still learning to use her words. Getting better at it. More people she's around, the easier it'll be. You uh... you were adopted, too? Guess you'll have a lot to talk with her about."

"Willow is a beautiful name," Mako said, her smile bright as she waved back. She was terribly cute, too. "It sounds as if once she gets the hang of it, she will be very good with them." She nodded a little and made a soft mm noise.

"I was adopted after my parents and I were, ah, in an accident when I was about ten years of age. My godfather, Marshal Stacker Pentecost, adopted me as soon as he was able and I came to live with him in Anchorage, Alaska. It was where he was stationed at the time."

Mako took her cup by the rim, where it was not so hot, her eyes on Daryl's daughter, and carefully blew across the surface of the tea.

"I did not talk much, either," She blew at her tea again, thoughtfully. "For quite some time."

Willow stopped trying to pick the cup up and instead scooted it close to her. Where she could lean over and stick her mouth into the top and slurp from it. She blew across it for a bit before she tried, but it still took her doing it a few times before she felt safe enough to take a drink. Daryl let out a soft 'mmm' while she did it, crossing his arms on the back of the chair and leaning forward to talk to Mako.

"Trying to get her used to being around people who cain't shift. She's gotta start school in September since she's old enough and all legalized now." He paused for a second before adding, "I mean legally my... you know... I adopted her."

He still wasn't sure about calling her his 'kid' or his 'daughter' in casual conversations. For legal purposes, sure, but this was all very new to him.

"Once I get my citizenship, I'll be able to apply for hers. Still a couple years off yet. But she's still gotta get schoolin' and get used to not shiftin' in front of people."

"She is your daughter," Mako murmured, her smile soft. "This adoption you have done, Daryl, it is the best of things you could have done for her." In a way, she was proud of him because of many reasons and in another way it was an odd sense of nostalgia. She remembered the terror she'd gone through after her incident even now but rolled her shoulders lightly, tucking it away as she took a sip of hot, refreshing tea and refocused on Daryl's voice.

Neither of them had citizenship? She wondered if she could gently push that forward using her father's contacts for legality and both of their stability's sake. He need not really know it was her, after all. Mako could not help herself, this was a situation that was so close to her own she was compelled to offer herself in aid.

Any aid.

"I wish to help both you and Willow," Mako said very, very softly, looking down at her tea and the way it rippled. "If that would be," she took a breath and very carefully looked up at him, "agreeable to you may I assist you with getting her ready for schooling?"

It was forward, incredibly so, and she quickly looked down at her tea again, fearing the quiet request was too impolite for the brief time they had known each other. The child tugged at her past self as much as she did her present self, it was too much for her to deny offering herself.

Daryl was generally okay with most anyone from Hillingdon offering help, but Mako was new. He didn't know her just yet. Not that well.

"She ain't gotta go 'til September," he said, both not agreeing and not disagreeing to her request. "Not gonna worry 'bout it too much just yet. Just somethin' I gotta keep an eye on dates for. So's I know how long I got to get her used to people."

Mako nodded and pulled her cup in a little closer. It had the effect of making her seem smaller as she hunched a little. Perhaps, at a later date, then.

"I suppose the same could be said about myself. I have not been in a place like this before. I, too, must get used to people once more. I find it strange after being on the road for so long."

"Well, if you cain't get used to being around people in London, ain't many places to do it," Daryl offered in an attempt to make her feel a little more at ease. "Should check out the tourist spots. Give 'em a look while you still feel 'new'. Lotsa people around there, too."

"That is one way to do it," Mako said with a slight nod. "I think, for the moment, it is Hillingdon I must get used to first. I never stopped long nor at too many communities like this on my travels. It seemed as if, at least in the Americas, fae did not appreciate such places. I have been mostly in remote places that not many seem to go. There is," she frowned a little, thinking, "so much noise."

He nodded, completely understanding the sentiment. Even when he wasn't relying on his feline senses, the place could be pretty overwhelming. Was especially so when he first moved out.

"Yeah. Gonna be worse once you start shiftin'. Won't be just noise, neither. Sight. Smell... taste. All'a'that's gonna be messin' you up for the first few weeks. You talked to any of the fae 'round here 'bout that yet?"

"Not yet," she said carefully. "But it is something I am working on. I hope they will be agreeable. I will..." Mako looked a touch embarrassed, "do my best to control myself once I have this charm dispelled. It would be quite impolite to be out of control in such a situation."

"Ain't nothin' impolite about that," he scoffed, shaking his head and watching as Willow was finally able to hold the cup properly and drink in a way that polite society might actually approve of if it had any semblance of mattering inside the house. "First time shifts ain't usually something anyone can control easy. No shifter's gonna think less of you for that."

Daryl tilted his head to catch her eyes, "If you want someone there ta help you through it, I can come along."

"That would be," Mako said slowly, glancing up at him briefly, "very kind of you, Daryl. I would be grateful for your help once more." She thought about his words for awhile, though, the ones before his offer to help.

"It is difficult to reconcile the life I have had with the life that is before me. I have been trained to be disciplined, controlled, so I am unsure as to how that will affect my ability to shift. It should be a good thing but yet, if I am too controlled, will my shifting not be a difficult thing? It is something I have thought much about."

"It's something you're thinking too much about."

Daryl raised his eyebrows, then gave a sharp whistle that caught Willow's attention. She sat up, mirroring the squirrel she was and watched him intently. He gave another whistle, a little lower and less sharp and her face lit up. In the next moment, her clothes were collapsing in on themselves and the tea cup clattered to the table, spilling what remained of it's contents.

He leaned forward and put his hands on either side of the clothes pile and let the tiny squirrel that emerged from the head hole of her jumper figure it's own way out. Once she was free of her clothes, she darted up along Daryl's arm and onto his head.

"See?" he asked, snorting, "It's all instinct. No thinkin', just doin'."

"Ah!" was her immediate response. So it was. And of course she was overthinking it. "I think too much about many things, it seems. But for the moment, it is all I can do until I am set free." Mako watched Willow for a long while, her expression torn between awe, longing, and a little apprehension.

If a child could do such a thing, then she should not keep working it over and over in her mind. After a moment, she let out a soft sigh.

"Is there a particular fae I should talk to?" she finally asked. "I should have asked you earlier."

Daryl shook his head - carefully - before he stood up and went to grab a towel. The mess was his own doing, not Willow's. He'd given her permission to be a squirrel for a while and hadn't thought to take the cup from her first. The clothes would need to dry out a bit, too.

"There's a few running around the house. Couple left the city recently. Might ask around and see if that draws their attention. Think Orlagh's been around more. They're Unseelie, so take whatever requests they get with a grain of salt. But Unseelie're more likely ta do it just for kicks than Seelie are."

Also just as likely to ask for something absurd in exchange, but all fae had that problem in that they didn't always understand what was considered 'absurd' to a mortal.

"If you don't get anywhere with 'em in the next couple weeks, I'll check around the fae territory, see if anyone's willin' ta bargain."

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[OPEN] [May 8th-10th] Busy Bees and First Impressions

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