#brightwindsbarony

Tink, tink, tink.

Soft sounds of stone tapping. A rather pleasant, cheery sound, if you like that sort of thing. And Grete does!

Tink... tink... TUNK.

"Oops." The childling peers through the hole she has made in her bedroom wall, as a final tap turned what WOULD have been a small niche in the wall into an open gap into the other side... wondering whose or what room she is now staring into.

She sees feet!

And hears a voice , a boy's voice, Stew!

"Oops. Sorry, sorry... Um. I can fix it. I need some, uh. Glue?"

Grete sounds worried!

"I can fix this. Glue.. maybe some plaster. Or hang something over it! Move a chair.

"My nefarious plan to bring joy and happiness to the barony continues. Like a shadow escaping the moonlight, I spread my talons ...soon, soon.. the next stage of my..."

"Hey?" His monologue stops

Her hand reaches through the holde, trying to gather up any bits and pieces of stone or plaster that fell through.

,and shuffling as the boy drops to the floor and the shine of his glasses can be seen..and his nose almost gets grabbed "Who?"

A surprised eep! "Stew? What are you doing inside the walls? I thought that this stonework would be at least a half-foot thick. At LEAST!"

"I have small feet" he explains

"And I'm not inside the wall, YOU'RE inside MY wall. "

"Uh. Uh. Don't tell, okay? I can fix it. I just need um... plaster? Or can you put somethign in the way? I can find a rock!" She sounds worried.

"You got a ten dollar bill? Quick, shove it through so I can use my money to drywall spell"

"I don't have any money! The Baron took my gold card from mama and I don't have an allowance set up! Do you take stocks? I can sign some over when I turn 18." Starting to sound a little frantic.

Stew sighs. It occurs to him paniced folks are no fun to prank, and instead he extends his hand to take hers "Sparrow won't give a fluff. It's a hole, but if you were gone, there would be a BIGGER hole.... and she would want that hole filled back. This hole? small. The hold whole with you? Big. C?"

"Will you come with me to ask how to fix it? Maybe we can find Hope..." His hand is given a squeeze.

"I'm your Bucklehairy" He assures with a nod

and a weaker squeeze back

To get to Hope, the two childlings likely have to pass through the great hall...

"Is this your room? Or a hallway?" Trying to eyeball past him to see where the hole leads. Either way, she straightens up, sticks her hammer in a back pocket. and trundles around to the far side of the wall to find Stu.

And the trepidatious adventurers head through the main hall, Gerd with a handful of rubble, a hammer and a guilty expression, and Stu with... himself, which is suspicious enough.

There is a TREE in the hall!

"my room"

A fairly large one, at that. "Thank you for driving, Little Joe. A little to the.. yes, to the left, I think that's straight."

And Stew's bedroom was nice, near thel ibrary. And Stew walks with Grete to the hall "Baroness Le Sparrow aka the Defenstator? "

"Hey Stew... oh, and Grete! We got a tree!"

The tree is almost as tall as Joe.

"I shall perch upon it like a poofy ornmament" He promises

Little Joe grunts

but there are no trolls to translate nearby

"Yeah, I don't think I bought enough ornaments to quite fill it up... maybe we can make popcorn strings or paper chains..."

Stew takes a breath, and steps forward "Miss Sparrow, I cannot tell a Lie. My burrowing owl instincts are far too strong, and in a hulk like frenzy, I punched through my wall, startling Grete and possibly ruining her plans a place to put the dogs playing poker thing."

"I await your punishment of me. I suggest limiting me to TWO lumps of ice cream each day instead of my prefered three" he hangs his head low

She BLINKS. "But that's not... Baroness, please. Don't get mad as stew and take his room away! It was me. I knocked a hole. I thought it was a stronger wall."

She holds out the hammer as evidence of guilt.

"Silence, Pharoah speaks" The pooka says holding out a hand, then says "it was totally me. All of it. Planned it from the first day"

"Oh no - a hole? I guess we'll have to fix it. Probably a little mortar and some rocks? Hm. I've patched sheetrock before, but these walls are more stone..."

It occurs to him that telling a girl who could FIT him in that hole 'Silence' might not be wise, but she's more scared than he is. Which, he admits to himself is a trick

She bites her lip. "I'm not supposed to break things."

"Did you mean to make a hole?"

Little Joe sighs and, seeing the tree is upright and now steady, moves towards the halls

"I meant to make a cubby.. a niche? To put a pretty rock in. But it went right through. I didn't mean to break anything this time."

"Well... I think we might want to be careful about carving into walls in the future, but it sounds like an accident."

"We lost a troll. Was it something we said?" Stew asks

"Well, he completed the mission of helping me with the tree. What do you guys think?"

"But... I broke it." She seems baffled.

"Sure, and we'll fix it. You'll help."

"When I got my first room, it was a real nice one. Like the one Ashlee has, with pretty things. But then he locked the door, and I got mad, so I smashed the bed. And he took away the bed." Frowning. "Then I broke the window shutter to try to get out, so he put me in one with no windows. And then I stopped up the toilet and made it run EVERYWHERE, and he took away my bathroom and gave me a pot. And told me if I broken anything else, he'd send me away to his oil rigs in this corpse place. Corpse Christ." She takes a shakey breath.

"But you just say it's OKAY?"