As so often now, Rutie was spending the night at the kitchen table, tinkering, while his guardian was sound asleep in her bed. She'd been not overly pleased by his nicking the light bulbs in the staircase, making him put them back and apologizing to their fellow tenants. She'd also been not overly pleased when he'd disassembled the toaster oven out of boredom during the night. And the microwave, another night. And the mixer, yet another night. He'd tried putting them back together, and even though he was quite sure he'd done it right, there were always screws and bolts left over in the end, and … things were not working.
So Miranda had gotten him some tools, and scrap wood, and glue, and told him he was only allowed ot assemble things while she was asleep at night, not disassemble. His current project was a marble run, and it was coming along quite nicely. Too bad he wasn't allowed to use the hammer while Mir-Mir was asleep, that would have sped up the construction considerably. But he made do with liberate amounts of hot glue. Oh, how he loved the hot glue gun!
He examined his work, his elaborate marble run taking up quite a bit of space on the kitchen table by now. So much, in fact, Mir had moved her cookie dough making over to the counter earlier on, saying she didn't want any sawdust in her oatmeal cookies. He had watched her making the cookies, but eventually lost interest. It was just putting things together to mush, and then turning the mush into crumbly disks in the oven. The last batch was still resting on the cooling rack, Miranda had been too tired to wait for them to cool down completely and store them away in the cookie jar.
Rutie eyed them for a moment, but eventually he shrugged and turned his attention back towards his marble run. Much more interesting, and due for another test run. Gingerly he placed one of the marbles of his extensive collection on top, watching it roll down the turns, making it's way across the see-saw and activating counterweights which … didn't do stuff yet. But were fun anyway. He still needed to think up something for those, maybe activating a little shower of glitter? He didn't think Mir would allow for fireworks within their apartment (in fact he was forbidden to play with fire at all), and this was the next-close thing he could think of.
When he heard a crunching, nomming sound behind his back, the small fiend twitched. Nervously he fidgeted with his goggles before turning around. It was that CAT, he was sure, and even though he'd gotten larger and could easily avoid it now by passing through walls, it still scared the s**t out of him. 'I don't think you're allowed to eat these …' he said, his mental voice trailing off once he realized he wasn't talking to Verne but …
He had no idea what these were, actually.
Not waiting for his mable to end its run, he skittered over into Miranda's room, starting to poke and tug at his guardian's motionless body.
“Mfpharghgoddammitletmesleeeeeeeep ...” Miranda mumbled, eventually cracking one eye open when her little charge proved to be all too persistent. “Whatisit?” she inquired, stifling a yawn.
'Something's in our kitchen,' Rutie announced, eyes wide.
“I'm not going to look at your marble run now,” Miranda muttered, turning over. “Canwaituntiltomorrow.”
'Little black things. And they're eating your cookies.'
“What?!” Miranda sat up straight. “Black things like bugs?” Oh God, this better not be cockroaches. She hated roaches with a passion. “Or rats?”
'No.' Rutie shook his head frantically. 'They look, like, little people? But different. I don't know what they are. Come look!' He kept tugging at Miranda's pajama sleeves.
Miranda sighed, shuffling into the kitchen on her bare feet to check things out. She was awake now anyway. Stifling another yawn, she flicked the light on, and then stared rather perplexed at the scene on the counter top. Several little … she didn't know what they were. Little people? Gnomes? Imps? They were staring right back at her, their luminous white eyes wide, with an expression like they'd just been caught in the act. They'd made quite a feast out of the cookies on the cooling rack, and eventually one of the little creatures patted its rather round tummy, giving of an appreciating sound.
Miranda blinked. That … was just too cute. She was sold.
“Did you like my cookies?” She cooed.
The inky black gnomes looked at her, and then nodded in unison.
“Would you like some more?” Miranda asked.
The little creatures broke out in excited chatter among each other, and eventually one stepped forward, patting his tummy and then pointing a tiny finger to its open mouth. The message was clear: More.
“Okay~!” Miranda said with a happy grin, not minding this the least. The cookies had been for no special occasion, she'd just felt like baking today. And the ingredients were cheap, she could always do another batch.
(( And this is all that ever happened, until the end of the event. 8D ))
