does not anymore work

[campanas]

Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:

an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.

with Prime (Aestrix)

with Edie and Emily (Maggie)

with Gloria (Maggie)

with Gren (Rockeye)

Comments

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"...Drew things where?"

[campanas]

"In drawing book."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Klaudia glances at Gloria's sketchbook. "Gloria probably won't mind, but for future reference, you should ask before drawing on other peoples' things."

[campanas]

"...Is for drawing. Did not draw on wall."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Yes, but it still belonged to someone else. It probably is fine, but other people might be unhappy about that kind of thing."

[campanas]

Grumble.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Well.
Eventually, Pen's food will arrive.
It's a bread thing with tomato sauce, cheese, and various meats and vegetable. The breadsticks are warm, soft and garlicky.

[campanas]

Yum!

Pen puts away about a third of the pizza and one breadstick by herself.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

The rest can go in the fridge for later. It's at about this point that Gloria wanders out of the bedroom, stretching.
"Good evening, darling," she says to Klaudia. "Good evening, Pen. Sorry it didn't occur to me that you were probably diurnal."

[campanas]

"Is okay. World all different times anyhow especially when no Jane."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

She takes a moment to parse this, then: "That's probably why you were awake when we met, then. It might be worth doing to see if you can get on a nocturnal sleep schedule while you're here, but it might not: Klaudia and I both work, so having someone around to take care of you would be a tricky proposition anyway."
"You're your own boss, you can give yourself emergency family time off."
"I don't like to abuse power, but you may be right. I'll see if anyone can cover for me for tonight and rearrange the schedule from there."

[campanas]

"Don't know how long being here."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Better to end up taking more time off work than necessary than to leave a small child unsupervised for weeks at a time. Anyway, we can afford it; Klaudia's father is rich and terrible at expressing his affection in ways other than money."

[campanas]

Blink. "Okay."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Gloria can find someone to cover for her tonight.
She can also take Pen grocery shopping, after suggesting that she hold her wings still and pretend they're part of a costume; feeding an eight year old nothing but takeout is a terrible idea.

[campanas]

"Why saying costume?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Not saying costume, exactly, but letting people assume it. People can be remarkably oblivious to strange things going on around them, and forcing them not to be oblivious ends up wasting a lot of time on things like screaming and calming people down and convincing them that they're not hallucinating, dreaming or the subject of a strange prank."

[campanas]

"This world having vampires," Pen points out. "Are secrets?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Not secret exactly, but not well known either. No one's going to jump on you for telling someone, but we try to be reasonably discreet."

[campanas]

"Oh." Sigh. "Angel costume, okay. But doing flying last night..."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"There's a difference between flying at night, in the dark, when people who are likely to make a fuss can just assume they're hearing or seeing a vulture or something, and in a brightly lit grocery store."

[campanas]

"Am not vulture," says Pen indignantly.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Of course you're not. I only mentioned it as an example of a large bird someone might mistake you for--it could as easily be an eagle, people like eagles, they might think of that first."

[campanas]

Snort. "Angel costume," she agrees.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I mean, I dress up as a stereotypical member of my kind and many of my employees do the same, I know from sacrificing dignity in the name of not making a public disturbance."