Jack's Bedroom, 33 Apocalypse, Saturday Morning

[bitten_notshy]

The bed Jan woke up in was bigger and softer than anything he'd ever experienced, and there was a girl in it who wasn't any of his sisters. The room also had some funny windows in it, piles of what struck him as fine but oddly-cut clothes, and books. They were in English, but that didn't really matter; Jan couldn't read much in any language.

After he'd poked his fingers into every corner of the room and tried and failed to figure out what the computer was, there was only one thing to do: Jump on the bed and start jabbering at the girl.

//Get up, get up,// he said-slash-shouted. //Who are you? I don't know where we are. Get up!//

Emma Grace Frost	A tiny figure tried burrowing deeper under her pillow. "Christiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan," she whined, making an educated (if inaccurate) guess as to the source of the noise. "Shhhhh. Daddy will be mad if you wake Mommy."
Jan Vražda	Jan stopped bouncing as he tried to make sense of the words, then bounced again as he gave up on it. //You talk funny.//
Emma Grace Frost	"Quiets!" she urged again, picking up the corner of the blanket and urging him back under. "What's so important that you're practicing Latin so early?" After all, he was EIGHT to her six, that meant Daddy had started him on Latin after French. And since Emma didn't know Latin...this probably sounded like it? To a six-year-old? Then she squinted at him from under the pillow. "YOU AREN'T MY BROTHER!!!"
Jan Vražda	Jan was five. He knew he spoke Czech, but he wasn't altogether sure what Latin even was. But there was no mistaking the older girl's tone, and he put his hands up to prove he wasn't going to hurt her. //I'm Jan,// he said defensively. //Is this your room? You have lots of funny things. I don't remember falling asleep here, do you?//
Emma Grace Frost	Emma was just going to sit there and blink at him with her big, blue eyes, and clutch her pillow until the boy went and got her what she wanted. In this case, her brother. ...it always worked on Daddy?
Jan Vražda	Jan had no idea what she was doing. //You're crazy,// he told her flatly, and then -- on the theory this might be some kind of game -- sat down and stared back at her with eyes almost as big and just as blue.
Emma Grace Frost	Staring contest! Emma had two sisters, she knew how this went! (Rule One: Always Let Adrienne Win) "You talk weird," she informed him seriously, and then sat back and continued staring.
Jan Vražda	Staring, staring, staring. Jan got bored with just staring and stuck his tongue out, trying to see if the girl would laugh. His sisters probably would have smacked him for it, but they weren't here.
Emma Grace Frost	Emma was a young lady; she would never stick out her tongue at a stranger. She crossed her eyes at him instead, hoping to make him start laughing.
Jan Vražda	So then Jan had to try to cross his eyes, of course. Which he didn't know how to do, so he mostly just looked as if he'd suffered minor head trauma. //How are you doing that?// he asked. (Talking was not losing the game. He'd decided this.)
Emma Grace Frost	//Do you speak French?// Emma tried haltingly, her lisp making the pronunciation less-than ideal. It probably didn't help she was trying to puff up her cheeks like a chipmunk at the same time, so it came out a mumble.
Jan Vražda	Jan tilted his head at her, squinting his eyes hard in thought. He didn't really speak French, but he had a good ear for languages even when they were mumbled, and French speakers were not uncommon in Prague -- even if they rarely wandered into Jan's neighborhood. "Non," he said honestly. Then, in Czech again: //Was that French?//
Emma Grace Frost	This, as Emma's mama was fond of saying, was going nowhere quickly. She uncrossed her eyes to examine the boy more fully, little face serious as she watched him, hands folded in her lap and teeth chewing at the corner of her bottom lip absently. "I am Emma Grace," she announced, sticking a hand out at him. "I am very pleased to meet you, strange boy who is not my brother."
Jan Vražda	For a long moment, Jan just frowned at her in frozen puzzlement, but eventually he caught on and offered his hand neatly. "I am Jan," he said, wobbly with it, then chanced a word he'd heard a handful of times. "...hello, Emma Grace?" Edited at 2012-10-16 04:10 pm (local)
Emma Grace Frost	"Jan," she tried, stumbling over the unfamiliar name. "Jan, Jan, Jan? Hello!" "Have you seen the maid? I want breakfast."
Jan Vražda	"Jan," Jan repeated, nodding eagerly -- and then he was lost again. Frustrated, he turned toward the door. //Let's try to find somebody. I'm hungry.//
Emma Grace Frost	He was going to the door? He knew where the maid was! Emma tumbled out from the blankets after him, her nightgown dragging on the floor a bit. "Do you think she'll make Pop Tarts?" she asked hopefully. "I like those, even if Daddy says they're bad."
Jan Vražda	Jan didn't understand what she was saying, but he was on a mission now; it was easy enough to shrug in response and -- when he made it to the end of the hall and hit the stairs -- keep going down. //Fancy people always have their kitchens downstairs,// he explained, self-important. //Someone should be there.//
Emma Grace Frost	Emma reached out to hold on the wall. Steps were steep when you were tiny, but Jan seemed to know where he was going. "One," she said aloud, counting as she went. "Two, three, four..."
Jan Vražda	"One, too, fee, four," Jan repeated, wondering why it sounded familiar, then shook his head at her as he caught on and launched his own count: "Jedna, dvě, tři, ctyři. One, two, three, four." He jumped from stair to stair as he said the numbers. It was faster than going one step at a time.
Emma Grace Frost	Emma's mouth formed a little 'o'. "You don't speak English!" she finally realized. "Only little bits! We can play teacher!" She started jumping on the stairs with him. "Five, six, seven, eight!"
Jan Vražda	Jan was right beside her, repeating the numbers triumphantly as she said them. They reached the bottom right on ten. (Or, as Jan said first, deset.) Amused by the game, he looked around the living room they'd found himself in and tapped his fingertips against the sofa. "Gauč," he said, and looked to Emma Grace expectantly, waiting for her word for it.
Emma Grace Frost	"Sofa," Emma informed him gleefully. And then she scrambled up on it to bounce. "Sofa!" She wasn't going to go as far as to jump on the furniture, even if Daddy or Felicia or Mama or Adrienne weren't here, because she was a lady. But a little bounce was fine.
Jan Vražda	"Sofa," Jan copied her, and -- though he wasn't a gentleman -- copied her manners, limiting himself to one tiny bounce. he should have figured from the nightgown that she was somebody fancy. He pointed to an unfamiliar glass-and-metal rectangle on the opposite wall. //What's that?// he asked, tone probably making it clear he was asking a question, not naming the television.
Emma Grace Frost	This was way more fun than playing teacher with her dolls. "That's a television," Emma informed him, following his finger to where he was pointing. "A tv."
Jan Vražda	"TV," Jan repeated, and went up to jab at it. Quite by accident, he managed to turn it on. He jumped back in delight and surprise, eyes big as he watched ... the Saturday morning sports round-up. If you have no idea what moving pictures are, guys sitting around a table talking about baseball and hockey in a language you don't understand can be fairly thrilling.
Emma Grace Frost	Emma just giggled. "We don't want to watch that, Jan," she said, scooting off the couch to get the remote and try changing channels. "Boooooring." It took a few tries, but eventually Emma found the siren-lure to all children - CARTOONS. "Here," she said, handing him the remote. "I'm gonna find cereal." If this was a maid's day off, Emma was going to take full advantage and eat EVERYTHING she wasn't allowed to eat normally.
Jan Vražda	Jan nodded without looking away from the screen. He'd just about forgotten he was hungry; he would happily sit there hypnotized by the dancing animals until the girl came back. Edited at 2012-10-18 01:50 pm (local)
Emma Grace Frost	There were a few thumps. And a bump. And possibly a few crashes. Eventually Emma reappeared with a box of Sugar Bombs and some sodas. "Here!" she said, shaking the box. "Breakfast!"
Jan Vražda	"Hello, friend. Would you like to play today?" Jan said, in the sing-song cadences he'd absorbed from the children's program he'd been watching. He didn't know what the box was, but he grabbed for it anyhow and tore it open, then frowned at what looked to him like some kind of kibble inside. He raised his eyebrows to Emma Grace in a mute question.
Emma Grace Frost	"Cereal," she said, scooping out a handful and showing it to him. Then she popped a few in her mouth and started crunching. "Mmmmm!" Someone was going to end up with a sugar high.
Jan Vražda	"Cereal," Jan repeated, and tasted one delicately. He hadn't had sugar often, so this was ... basically this was baby crack. Jan's hand was back in the box for more before he'd swallowed. There'd almost certainly be two small children with sugar highs by the time "Magical Treehouse Friends" was over.

[OOC: Preplayed with icecoldfrost. Open to the housemate should he desire, or to anyone who wants to stop by and doesn't mind SP!]

Comments

[not_a_whiner]

"You're noisy," Kaidan mumbled, standing halfway down the stairs and looking most upset.

[bitten_notshy]

Jan shrugged at that. He was starting to accept no one in this house spoke normally.

"Hello, friend," he said again instead. Then: "Cereal?"

The box he offered was rather diminished, but there were still some Sugar Bombs left.

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan dropped down a couple of steps with great big thunks.

He eyeballed the box of Sugar Bombs. Quietly.

[bitten_notshy]

"It's good!" Jan insisted, and crunched through another handful to demonstrate.

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan slunk forward very carefully and reached for the box. "Thanks," he said quietly.

[bitten_notshy]

Jan shrugged again at that, then went back to staring at the TV. When the boring part with the names scrolling on the screen came around again, he finally remembered he had no idea where he was. That seemed like it might be good to know, so:

"Jan," he said, pointing to himself, then "House yours?" gesturing around them. In his own language, he continued, //And can you understand me, or do you talk funny too?//

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan looked up, his hand halfway into the box. "...No," he said very quietly.

Not his house. He wasn't sure what the other thing was; it didn't sound like any language his mother knew, and he didn't have a translator.

[bitten_notshy]

The no answered both questions, anyhow. It wasn't this boy's house, or his own, or Emma Grace's. But it definitely belonged to somebody -- and to somebody with either money or power, if they had a magic box just to tell them stories.

Jan thought about the chances they were going to all get chased out -- or, scarier, if they might not even be allowed to leave when the owners came back.

He'd been warned about that. Child servants came from somewhere, after all.

He sighed deeply, then -- realizing he couldn't put any of this into words the others would understand -- walked over to the door and stood on tiptoes to unlatch it. Whatever was outside, it was likely more familiar than inside. "Going," he said, matter-of-fact, as if he didn't especially expect anyone to care but still felt it worth at least stating.

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan watched him, box in one hand.

"Be careful," he said, wincing a little as picking up a spoon to help him eat lead to the inevitable static shock.

He dropped it. "Where are you going?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Out!" Well, that was helpful, Jan. He shrugged apologetically, indicating he didn't have a better answer. He just wasn't convinced it was entirely safe to be here. "You stay?"

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan blinked. "Do you want me to?" he said slowly.

People weren't always so fond of him being around.

[bitten_notshy]

"No," Jan said thoughtfully. "But is up to you."

[not_a_whiner]

"I guess I should," Kaidan said. "You're a little small."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm five," Jan said immediately. "Not small."

He could have passed for a slight four-year-old. But it was fine for Kaidan to come with him, anyhow.