Tea Party

[Dust]

The waters lapped gently at the beach, the ocean rolling onto itself as the world breathed in and out. The air tasted like sea-salt taffy and brushed against the face of a young man. The sun beating down on his blank white face, which is turned up at the sky. His light-colored hair surrounded his head, the braid off one side being the only clumped up section. Hoseki went for hours undisturbed, the fact that he had not vanished completely meant that he was alive and well enough.

Two very pale shadows cast across his form.

"Who do you think he is?" A young voice asked.

"I don't know, but maybe we shouldn't bother him. He could be sleeping." Another voice spoke back. "He could be a prime. We don't want to bother him if he is."

"But what if he's hurt?" The first asked.

"If he's a prime, he will be fine. Let's go." The second voice tried, getting further away and thus harder to hear due to his distance from the doll growing. One of the shadow's drifted away fully.

The other remained. "I don't think we should..." She replied, turning around.

She was of 3 foot tall, maybe more. Her light teal hair was pulled up in a top-bun, her sparkingly blue eyes looked down at the stranger in the sand. She clung to a huge pastel yellow bunny rabbit stuffed animal to the chest of her brown and yellow plaid over-alls. Her crisp white shirt ended in a circular collar that folded nearly where it was buttoned all the way up. She looked down at the washed-up hero, and just watched him.

Watching...

Watching...

Watching.

As she tried to come to terms with what she should do Jenna found herself staring.

She jumped when the washed-up man's eyes flick open quickly, his dull staring straight into her eyes. She let out a small squeal and hide in the ears of her rabbit. "DON'T HURT ME!" Jenna whimpered.

[Dust]

Hoseki didn't even acknowledge the scared little girl in his field of vision, her shadow casting a relieving coolness over his face. Instead, he slowly rose from his bed of sand, setting up and staring at the ocean while particles of stone pour off his clothes and hood. He looks around blankly, staring at the ocean with a zombie-like view.

The girl behind him was already cowering behind her friend, frightened still by the sudden motion of the nearly dead man. She was almost already in tears, regretting not leaving with the other child.

After a solid minute of pure fear that only an eight-year-old could comprehend, Jenna dared to look back up at the figure that was still slightly covered in sand. She noted he hasn’t moved an inch as if he were a shadow. Only the wind moving his clothes the slightest bit gave away that he was not a stone statue. She inched around in a wide circle to look at his face, the waves of the beach threatening to lick at her heels.

He continued to stare with a blank expression, and past the little girl.

“H-Hey mister..?” She asked, lifting her chin from the head of her bunny. “A-Are you okay?”

He didn’t even acknowledge her.

“Mister?” She tried again, she sounded more confident than before. The little girl lifted her head completely and even took a step closer. Eventually, confusion turned to concern. The next moment she was in his lap, hugging her rabbit to her hip and grabbing him by the edge of his hoodie. “Mister!? Can you hear me!?” She shook him a little, with as much as strength as you’d think a child her age would have.

When the shaking stopped, his dull teal colored eyes came down to her bright and shining eyes. He focused on them for a long while but said nothing.

“Can you hear me?” She repeated.

He nodded.

“Are you hurt?”

His head shook, the braid’s bead swinging even after his head stopped.
Jenna went to say something else but then had no idea what to ask… She brought her hand from his hood to her chin and looked away, not even bothered by her intrusion of his personal space. She thought long and hard about what else to ask, so much that she forgot what she was doing. She tried hard to remember what, but eventually gave up. When the next thought came to her mind, she immediately asked.

“Wanna be my friend?” She asked with a huge smile on her face.

There was a long awkward pause, one that would cause teenagers discomfort. That is before Hoseki nodded politely.

She let out a loud happy noise before throwing her little arms around him. “Were going to be the bestest friends!” Jenna celebrated!!

[Dust]

Jenna clung to her bunny with one arm and her new friend with the other. She pulled Hoseki along with giggles and smiles all the same. They walked the length of the beach, she telling him all her secrets and thoughts. "I like pink and all, but its just for girls... I much rather yellow. I like yellow a lot more than I like pink. I also like blue, but not as much as I think my friends who are boys do. Do you like blue? I bet you do. I bet you like blue because you are a boy. But also because your eyes are blue, your hair is blue. Oh but I bet you also like black? Why would anyone like black though? It seems like such a boring color. I don't like black. Grey is just as bad. I don't mind white though. But white is.. well its white. You know?"

A moment later she was talking about other things.

"I have an older brother, he's not nearly as tall as you are, but my dad is much taller than you. He can reach the sky and pull it down for me if I wanted. He even said he'd get me the moon or a star if I asked. I don't really want to take the moon from the rest of the world though, I mean where would I even put it! My room is so full of stuff already... I bet I could put it on the shelf. Its a very tall shelf. But I don't think I have anything to keep it from rolling off. You know the moon is a big ball, right? I wonder why though. Anyways, it would roll off my shelf, so I don't think I could put it there. It might go well outside. That way people could also enjoy it too, but that is just silly. I don't want the moon."

Jenna laughed a bit at that.

"My daddy is so silly. But my mommy is very nice. She makes me cup cakes, and puts big red strawberries on them. She knows I love strawberries. Its my favorite food of all time. I also like cake. I have cake every week. My mommy says I will get fat, but I don't think that's true. I've eatten a lot of cake, but I haven't gotten fat. So of course she doesn't know what she is talking about. Usually she does though. I really like my mommy. She lets me have tea parties! - Oh my gosh, I love tea parties. They are so fun. You get to hang out with a bunch of peopel and talk about everything and anything you want and no one tells you to be quiet. I get to have cake at my tea parties too. That's usually when I do."

[Dust]

Jenna managed to guide and talk Hoseki into town and to her home. She introduced the emotionaless teenager to her mother as a friend who is lost. He also was conveniently mute and looked as lost as she claimed. While concerned, her mother watched as the 8-year-old pulled what appeared to be a 16 year old through the small house and into her room. While the boy seemed harmless she couldn't help but worry about her daughter's safety.

The first time she entered the room after calling the local authorities to report a lost person who was now being housed in her house, she found that Jenna has pushed her friend to sit on the bed while she sat at the playhouse table where a pretend china set sat ready to use. She was kicking her legs out and talking about nothing in particular. The boy just stared at what Jenna's mother could only assume was the ground because his head hung lower than the line of sight would allow for him to be staring at her. This eased her mind a bit. "Jenna, have you and your friend eaten?" She asked from the door.

"No mama," Jenna said, smiling as 8 years old did. Hugging her favorite stuffed animal, the rabbit from before.

"Would you like me to make up some sandwiches and tea?" Her mother asked.

The instant tea was on the table, the thought of a tea party sprung to the young girl's mind and her already happy face lit up brightly. "Mama! Can we have a tea party!?" She almost screamed, almost jumped out of her seat. But as if being rejected was an actual option in this she remained sitting in the chair.

"Of course you can, hunny."

With that, Jenna leaped up from a sitting position to her toes and cried out in pure happiness. Causing her mother to laugh. "Hear that, Snow? Were getting a tea party!" She then let out a loud gasp. "There will be one less seat though! Our guests! They will be so upset!" She looked around her room at her several stuffed animals. She's played with all of them and continue to do so regularly. The bunny dragged along the carpet of her room, now baked in the beachy sun that blazed past her giant window, only sheer white curtains hung in attempts to stop it. "Oh I know. I'll let Snow pick." She said, then sat the bunny in her usual chair and began to dance about her room.

The older woman smiled happily and then left with a lighter heart than what she went in with.

[Dust]

The second time when she came to check up on Jenna and her new friend she found a peculiar sight. Somehow Jenna managed to balance her entire stuffed animal collection save one favorite rabbit onto her bed. At first, the woman didn't see that teenage boy, but upon noticing the weighted dent of the bed, she followed it up and into the face of several toys. Finally seeing the same neutral toned face on what appeared to be one of them. She gasped and tried to be polite about it, but wanted nothing more than to laugh as her 8 -year-old continued to bury the young man under toy animals.

[Dust]

The table could promptly fit about 4 young children, or one child and half a dozen stuffed animals. Now it was meant to fit one young child, less than half a dozen dolls and one adult sized teenage boy with long legs and arms. In order to do so, Jenna had to first climb Mountain Stuffings over the course of the next few minutes, dig out said teenager's arms, and finally pull free her new friend from the clutches of her various other stuffed creatures. They fought her for his affection and attention, but she won in the end. Though he was of no help, after all, they had poisoned him with paralyzing poisons that made his whole body numb and tingly. Or that's at least the excuse the young girl made up for why he was not cooperating.

When they were free, the unconscious bodies of their common enemies lay about like autumn leaves in the dead of fall. Or... Petals of flowers in the spring... There were a lot of pretty colors about and it didn't really follow the color scheme of the end of year season.

She tugged him towards the plastic two foot high round table and pointed him to sit at the spot closest to her's. Afterward, she began to play with the dolls once more to pick out which survivors of the pull away game would eat and drink with them. Her bunny was first on the list, but she was not among the fallen creatures. A sheep with bright yellow wool that swallowed up its bright pink limbs and a bright pink head was next, its bright green button eyes staring blankly across the table at Jewel.

The third was a handmade doll, not by Jenna or by Jenna's mother, but her mother's mother's mother. She had faded pale skin and the neon green polka dot turtleneck dress over a faded pink dyed burlap sack skirt, touched by the sun for too long on both sides. Her apron looked like a new addition, a red apron over top the faded skirt, and a bright pink flower was stitched into the pastel twin braids made of yarn.

Another guest to the party would be Rex, a red and black striped dog with floppy ears, black eyes, and a long tail. His pink tongue stuck out of his mouth and made him look always happy.

Lastly was Luci, her mother's addition to the large collection of dolls. It was a crochet made doll, a young girl with blue hair and a rainbow of native flowers around her head like a crown. She had on a cocoanut bra, and a bright green grass skirt accented with another rainbow worth of flowers.

When the guest was picked out personally she began to put all her other toys away, collecting all the casualties of the tug-of-war between her and them and putting them back in the various piles she left them in every night.

She sat down just in time for her mother to walk in carrying a tray with a tea set and several sandwiches. "Purfect timing Mama." She exclaimed, throwing her arms out. She had the biggest smile on her face. How it was able to grow so big after she also saw the cake was beyond her mother, but there was a fit of happiness as she jumped up and down in place and screamed with joy.


Jewel remained still and unaffected by this display, looking a lot like the dolls that he shared the table with, except he could blink.