Both Vee and Rehn had managed the finishing touches of their makeup. Vee looked the most cleaned up of the two compared to before, her black trousers and smooth cut blouse giving her a startlingly professional look even. Something that the chameleon was a bit embarrassed about. She liked it but really missed her more punkish style. And sadly those clothes were still in dire need of washing.
Rehn, in contrast, had done some incredible work with what little she had access to. Her face glowed, soft highlights lending her face much more life while emphasising her beautiful eyes. It perfectly fit with her simple skirt and the fitting blouse.
“Let’s see if the others are already done, too.” Rehn smiled over at Vee who nodded awkwardly, tugging at her trousers.
Already before they even knocked at Saia’s room, the sound of struggle could be heard.
“Nooo! Leave my hair alone…!”
“It takes just a second!”
Flitting around Saia’s room, Jenny had been dodging the swallow’s attempts to tame her chaotic mess of a hair for the last few minutes. And in turn had made a total mess out of Saia’s room. Small splotches of colour and clouds of dust dotted the room as the fennec mouse threw everything but the sink in Saia’s way. Or tried to, at least, as the swallow was quick to catch most of it out of the air. One didn’t get to be an operator of Babylon without some great tricks! Honestly, keeping her room less of a mess was the biggest reason Saia hadn’t caught Jenny yet.
To the side, Myra and Mina snickered at the show. The young parrot girl was sitting in Myra’s lap and looked already in a much better headspace than before. Her eyes were red with tears streaks still visible, but the current tears were more tears of laughter than the horrible sadness that had been bearing down on her until now.
“You’ll never catch me!” Jenny declared as she tried to quickly climb up the wardrobe and out of Saia’s reach. But maybe she shouldn’t have put her hopes to words.
“Gotcha!”
Because an annoyed and frazzled looking Saia had immediately taken the pause of thrown objects to dart towards the small girl. The swallow wrestled the struggling girl down and back to the mirrors for her make-over.
“NOOOOooooh…!” Jenny cried out with comical tears, futilely trying to hold onto the wardrobe under the cheerful giggles from Myra and Mina.
Peeking inside Saia’s room, Vee and Rehn sweatdropped at the unfolding chaos.
“I think they’ll need a bit more time.” Rehn chuckled awkwardly. “We better wait for them out front.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Vee nodded slowly in agreement, an amused smile curling on her lips.
Out of the way of any thrown objects that could ruin their hard work, Vee and Rehn only had to wait a few more minutes in front of the barrack before the quartet followed them down.
Saia still looked rather frazzled, having very much underestimated Jenny’s resistance to getting her hair done. And said fennec mouse was cutely brooding with a pout and crossed arms as she was pushed along by Myra. The bunny cat smiled warmly amused with Mina behind her, the young parrot girl’s face now much cleaner with only the red of her eyes still reminding of her tears.
“Hey, girls. Sorry for making you wait. But this girl was a pain to work with…” Saia waved exhausted at them, pointedly narrowing her eyes at Jenny who huffed haughtily, head held high.
“No worries, we didn’t wait long.” Rehn smiled cheerfully back.
“And we still need to wait for the guys, anyways.” Vee added with a drawled smirk, arms crossed. “Where are they anyways…?”
Saia had no idea where Grant had gone off to, but the question where Jak and Graam were didn’t need to be asked for long anyways as the duo rejoined the group a few moments later.
Their comically heated debate about Lebensperlen had finally come to an end, though the victorious side was not exactly certain as both had lost track of what exactly they were actually trying to accomplish anyways. Either way, Jak was now supposed to get 20 Lebensperlen of varying nature for Graam which the big shark would have to pay double for. Graam was pretty sure he had been the loser there, though he wasn’t quite sure, but certainly he was more than happy to see his ward cheered up again. So, that was a win in his logbook, Graam chuckled to himself with a hidden grin.
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Jenny’s eyes lit up bright as a light the moment she saw Jak.
“Hey, Jak! Hey, hey! Look!” With an excited grin Jenny leaped towards her big brother, all her brooding forgotten as she saw him turn around the corner. With a smug grin she puffed out her chest and danced around him, whirling on one foot to show off her dress.
“Hehe, I’m all ready for the festival!” She declared cheerfully as Jak blinked and then smiled at her, nodding in approval of her outfit.
“And I see you finally took care of that crow’s nest.” The wolf cat teased, poking her forehead.
“N-no! It’s just that dumb gel at fault!” Jenny growled, blowing up her cheeks as she tried to ruffle her hair back into chaos only to fail miserably in demonstration. For as smooth as her hair flowed, it resisted any and all attempts of her fingers to dig through. Annoyed she pouted, crossing her arms. “Stupid Saia with her dumb gel…”
“Ah, I better ask where she got it from. And if it’s possible to use on the rest of you.” Jak grinned and moved forward to capture Jenny in his arms.
“No way!” Jenny exclaimed wide eyed and fled as fast as she could away from him.
Amused, the others watched from the side as Jenny tried and failed to succeed in the chase. There were no good items for her to throw at him and so sadly for her, Jak was quite a bit faster. And soon enough he carried her under his arm back to the group. Jenny pouted intensely after her fists had done literally nothing while hammering against his side and now she hung slack in his hold.
“Don’t let him turn me into a doll…!!!” She cried out exaggeratedly towards the group, big crocodile tears of betrayal running down her cheeks as Mina giggled openly at her position.
“Don’t worry, the gel will wash out after a few hours.” Saia smirked playfully, making a big show out of handing a bottle to Jak. Payback for the mess she had made out of her room!
Flailing, Jenny managed to squeeze herself out of Jak’s hold and flitted right behind Vee and Rehn, using the two amused girls as shields.
“You will never get me…! Again!” She shouted valiantly before whispering audibly to the two. “Protect me, please!”
“Hm, I don’t know if I should. What do you think, Rehn? Should I help my date or his little sister?” Vee twinkled at her best friend.
“Oh, let’s help the cutie out.” Rehn giggled.
“Muh, I’m not cute…!” Jenny huffed with an adorable pout and squeaked wide eyed as suddenly someone lifted her up by the scruff of her dress.
“Hm…” Ruth made thoughtfully as she had appeared behind the group, her tail holding the fennec mouse up before her. With quickly flitting eyes the dragon mare gazed over the young girl before nodding solemnly as she declared her conclusion. “Cute.”
“I’m not! And you let me go, you stupid weirdo!!!” Jenny shouted annoyed, eyes twitching as she futilely tried to free herself from Ruth’s tail.
“Rude.” The dragon mare frowned and gave the smaller girl a flick over the nose, making her squeak cutely and cover her nose as she continued to glare intensely back.
“So, is that included in helping her out…?” Vee hissed quietly to Rehn as she stared at the tall built woman. The cat girl let out a nervous, quiet chuckle as she sweatdropped in response. Or rather, her lack of said response.
Jak was a bit torn between what to do, Ruth seemed to tease his little sister already enough on her own and his brotherly duties did tickle at him to help her out now. His decision was made for him, however, as Grant stumbled into scene a moment later and sadly, or perhaps fortunately, ended the comedy bit.
“What did I miss…?” The jackalope asked, blinking with a confused smile. His face was still soaking wet from washing out all the marker that Jenny had scribbled over him. Damnit, Ruth could have told him about that as soon as he got her as their third chaperone and not until after they had already wandered back through the whole of the Garden! No wonder everyone had been snickering at him!
“Cute.” Ruth stated in response and handed Jenny to Vee unceremoniously before walking up to Saia, Grant and Graam’s side.
“Nice to see you’re coming with us.” Saia smiled at the other woman and then turned around to address the ragtag group as Vee, Jenny and Rehn went to stand besides the others as things finally seemed to go forwards. Loudly the swallow clapped into her hands.
“Okay! Ruth already brought you here last night and today she’s also going to help Grant and I to keep an eye out on you so we can split up into groups. Out of the three of us she’s also the best spy, so don’t think you can sneak away from her.” Her words were accompanied with a playful wink but the older teens couldn’t help but feel it as a warning that they were, if not prisoners, then under protective custody.
Both Jak and Vee grumbled lightly but bit down their words of protests, frowns flickering over their lips for a moment. It made sense but the reminder really hadn’t been needed.
Myra, meanwhile sweatdropped awkwardly at Saia’s words. Had this been supposed to be a joke? Huh, maybe Saia had taken comedy lessons from her gramps. She should probably tell not to listen to any of his sad attempts.
Rehn just nodded along, looking completely unbothered as she was already more than used to ignoring redundant reminders. It made her want to roll her eyes! She had heard this exact speech and countless variations thereof repeated to her nearly everyday for years now!
Jenny and Mina were completely oblivious to implications in contrast.
“She better not bother me and Jak…” Jenny just grumbled loudly, looking rather annoyed as she glared at the dragon mare who happily ignored her. The fennec mouse fumed more.
“Well, I hope ya’ll have a barrel full of fun! Just enjoy the festival and relax for the day! I… And we promise that we’ll get all caught up on what’s going on after today.” Graam declared with a firm nod, thumbs up and a big smile as he saw them off to the Lebensfest.
“Bye~!” Jenny, Jak, Mina and Myra waved back. Jak nodding hard back as he met the old shark’s eyes. He was going to keep him to this promise when they met again.