26-05
Robin’s ear twitched as the door opened and a set of hooves made their way across the room to the bed he lay curled up on, tail resting over his nose, half covered by a sheet. Despite the sun shining outside, his room was mostly dark, thanks to the shade drawn all the way down. The limited light that did slip past the sides did little to brighten the room’s gloom. Trouble had found the little hollow between his legs and under his wing to be the perfect nest and had snuggled in sometime during the night.
“Hey Nightwing,” Jade called. Robin grumbled and sniffed, the tip of his tail twitching. Jade frowned. She poked his neck. “Hey… wake up.”
This time Robin groaned, ears flicking back in irritation, shifting his wing to cover his head. Deprived of the warmth, Trouble half opened his eyes and glared at Jade, hissing in feline displeasure. Jade huffed at the cat. “Don’t get hissy at me.”
Trouble growled slightly and tried to get back to sleep. Jade, for her part, got a bit more physical in her motivations, actively rocking Robin with both hooves. “Come on, Nightwing, it’s late. Get up already!”
Robin lifted his wing slightly, one of his salmon eyes, glowing slightly as it reflected what little light was there, opening with a groan. “What time is it..?”
“Eleven thirty,” Jade said promptly.
“Too early.” Robin let his wing fall back in place. Jade blinked as Robin’s breathing relaxed back into the tell tale patterns of someone sleeping.
“Get! Up! Already!” Jade said, hitting him on the side with each word.
“Hey, hey, no hitting,” Robin grumbled, rolling over in an attempt to get out of hoof’s reach. Trouble, fed up with all the distractions, got up and haughtily padded out of the room to find a new sleeping spot.
“It’s almost noon and I’m hungry and want breakfast!” Jade whined. “Either you get up, or I’m going let the dogs at you!”
“Augh… Fine,” Robin groaned with great reluctance. He fumbled his way out of bed and yawned. “Give me a couple minutes to wash up.”
“Okay! And I want pancakes!” Jade sang out, trotting out of his room.
Robin headed to the bathroom to gargle and take care of morning business, mostly splashing his face with water and trying to get the worse of the sleep out of him. His body was protesting the shift in cycles but was slowly getting into gear. Not wanting to be running around naked around a kid, he donned his pants and headed to the kitchen.
The sounds of a show playing, likely from the computer (not Darcy) he told Jade she could use, trickled in from the next room. She said pancakes, and he was fairly certain he had a box of mix somewhere. “Hey Jade!” he called out suddenly.
“What?” her voice yelled back.
“I thought you said you didn’t have breakfast!” Robin said, a bit miffed.
“I didn’t,” she responded. A couple hoofsteps later she poked her head around the corner.
“Then what’s with the dishes in the sink? The bowl and spoon?”
“That was cereal, not breakfast,” she answered. “Why?”
“Right, cereal isn’t breakfast,” Robin deadpanned. “I’ve been living a lie up to this point.”
“You’re weird,” Jade giggled. “Oh! Those pictures on the wall, are those you before all this?”
Robin blinked. He had forgotten everything about those, to be honest. “Well, yeah. I might need to take some new ones and put them up.”
“Oh…” Jade got a distant look on her face.
Robin pawed at the ground nervously. Should he ask her if she wanted to get some pictures from her house? She had packed a lot of random things in her backpack before heading to town, but pictures weren’t amount them. “Um, Jade, you think-”
“So, are you make the pancakes or not, Nightwing?” Jade asked insistently, cutting him off. The fussy expression that accompanied it fell abruptly and her ears and wings dropped. “It’s been a while since anyone fixed breakfast for me.”
Robin winced inwardly and gave her a weak grin before heading over to the cupboard and the chair he had moved to the kitchen. “Right, pancakes.”
Getting a bowl down took a bit of effort with hooves but he managed, the chair giving him the missing height he needed. He had deliberately avoided taking the easy ways for meals the past two days. He would have to learn how to cope sooner than later, and sooner was better than later.
“Remind me to move these dishes to a lower shelf later,” he grumbled at Jade as he maneuvered the bowls to the countertop. “Or get a proper step ladder.”
“Or learn to fly,” Jade added.
“Hmm,” Robin grunted in a noncommittal fashion, rolling his eyes as he grabbed a tray of eggs in his mouth and added it to the rest of the supplies. He didn’t think that last one was likely anytime soon, and he was still not entirely convinced it was, Jade’s display or not.
“Why are you in pants?” Jade asked suddenly. “Isn’t it hot?”
“Yes?” Robin’s response was muffled by the box he was carrying in his mouth. His tail flicked a bit nervously.
“But we have fur,” Jade pointed out.
“Just… leave me and my pants alone for now, kay?”
“Fine,” Jade sighed dejectedly. She sat by the doorway and watched with slightly disappointed interest, her tail and wings twitching occasionally.
Robin felt self-conscious as he got the rest of the ingredients and supplies from the other cupboards and set them out on the counter. An idea came to him and he grinned slightly. “Jade, you know how to cook?”
“No..?”
“Wanna learn?” he offered, waving a hoof at the supplies.
Robin snickered slightly when her ears perked up and she seemed to sparkle with excitement. “Really?”
“Yeah, well. I was your age when m- I learned how to cook,” Robin reworded his response midway through.
Jade frowned though. “But… how am I supposed to cook? I don’t have hands anymore.”
“That hasn’t stopped my any. Hooves, mouth and wings work well enough, even if some fur sometimes gets in the food. Didn’t I cook for you last night? Um… yesterday evening?” Robin fumbled. He really had lost track of time and hours. He squinted at the window. “It’s noon, right?”
Jade snickered and trotted over to him. “Okay, what do we do? And it’s not that hard to keep track of that time, Nightwing.”
“You haven’t been nocturnal for the past few days,” Robin huffed, motioning her to a bowl and whisk. “And are you ever going to call me by my name?”
“Nope!” Jade grinned. “You’re too old to be Robin. You’re Nightwing.”
“… Only because it means you think I’m awesome enough to be Nightwing.”
“What? No, I didn’t mean that!” Jade protested, her wings half flaring.
“Too late! You think I’m awesome,” Robin (Nightwing?) teased in a singsong voice. “Now grab a whisk.”
“How?”
“Moufth!” he grinned, a whisk of his own between his lips. Jade made a face.
----------
The impromptu cooking lesson worked out well, for the most part. True, Jade had managed to dump half of the pancake batter on Robin’s back, but considering one of his early cooking mistakes involved dish soap, vinegar and nutmeg, he counted it as a win. That wasn’t even one of the more memorable ones. Still; it was his only set of altered shorts and it was out of commission until he could do laundry. His sheets might need washing anyway. He was forced to be pants less until either he did wash or he headed out to get more pants that could fit him and altered them.
That would be at least another day, in the minimum. He wanted to give Jade a chance to get to know him a little, and give both of them a chance to get used to being around someone else after that last few days without. So while Robin worked on expanding his garden space, Jade ran around and had fun with the Dax and Rocket. Dax was a husky, actually larger than she was, though smaller than Robin. Rocket was a curly furred small dog, and lived up to his name, racing around without a care in the world. They found an old soccer ball that Robin had no idea he had and were kicking and chasing it around.
“Hey! Watch it!” Robin complained when the ball bounced off his head, threatening to dislodge his shades. He rubbed the spot with his dirty hoof, though it hadn’t really hurt, and glared at the rambunctious girl. Filly? The ball in question had rolled across the street and into one of the lawns on the other side. Rocket dashed off to retrieve it.
“Sorry, Nightwing!” Jade trotted over, Dax at her side yipping apologetically. The dogs were starting to worry him. They seemed a bit too smart. When Jade told them to do something, they often did. And not just in the ‘dog performing a trick’ way, either. Jade didn’t give him much time to muse, pointing at the turned earth. “What are you doing?”
“Gardening,” Robin responded with a grunt. He awkwardly grappled the rake with his forelegs and pulled it through the dirt again, digging up the grass and soil. He might need to get some of those riding mower attachments if want to make real progress.
“I can see that,” Jade, snorted, rolling her eyes. “Why are you gardening?”
“Because the fresh food in the store won’t last much longer, and we are going to need to eat something aside from canned stuff.” Robin dropped back to all fours and grumbled. “I definitely need those attachments.”
Rocket returned, panting happily as he nosed the ball back. With a head butt, he knocked it in Jade’s direction, and she turned and dipped, pinning it to her side with a wing. Ah, to be young and athletic. “Um… you need my help?”
Robin sighed and rubbed at his maneline, pausing when he realized he was only rubbing dirt into it. “Aw great, going to have to shower again… But no, I don’t think I’ll be making that much progress today, anyway.”
“Huh,” Jade said, confused. “If you say so.”
“Anything you’d like us plant?” Robin asked, grinning at her.
“I dunno. Don’t really like vegetables,” Jade admitted.
“You didn’t mind them last night,” Robin pointed out.
“Huh? Um… well, I was hungry!” Jade fumed. She snuffed and trotted off. “Have fun gardening!”
Robin grinned and got back to work.
----------
After gardening for an hour or so, Robin gave up and napped for a few hours, his sleep cycle still off, leaving Jade to her own devices for the duration. When he woke in the evening, he had been surprised to find that rather than getting herself into some form of trouble as he originally feared, she had kept herself occupied watching the DVDs and listening to the music he had. The fact that he walked in on her trying to dance was quickly put aside and filed away as a memory to dwell on whenever he needed a good laugh. She was pretty accurate throwing pillows with just her mouth though. The longer neck really helped in the throwing motions.
Robin made macaroni salad for dinner that evening. Thankfully he had a chopper to dice the vegetables or it would have taken far too long. Just chopping the boiled eggs took a couple minutes of carefully maneuvering the knife and chasing slippery ovoids around the chopping board. The cheese was easier. Cheese didn’t try to run away.
After mixing everything together, he spooned two portions into bowls, taking them to the table so they could eat. Bowls were easier to eat from with the awkward spoon manipulating skills they had. At worse, they could eat right from the bowl with it.
Jade focused on chowing down for a while, her eating style had a lot in common with Dax, Rocket and Trouble. Robin snickered at the display, a long handled cooking spoon carefully balanced between his fetlock and pastern. True, it meant he was eating slower than Jade was, but he wasn’t making a mess. He would have her clean it up later.
“What are you laughing at?” Jade said, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Nothing, nothing,” Robin quickly dipped his spoon in his food nonchalantly. She continued to eye him suspiciously, her wings twitching every time he chuckled a little.
“Whatever. Your movies are lame, by the way,” she added. “Don’t you have a playstation or something?”
“I’m not really a gamer. I’ve got lots of books if you want to read something,” Robin offered. The look she gave him inspired images of what he could do with those books, and none of them were pleasant for the items in question. “Fine. I’m going to the mall tomorrow, hopefully. You can come with.”
“Really?” it was adorable the way she perked up. “Why though?”
“Well, I’m going to the library, finally, and going to look for a camp stove or something, for starters,” Robin explained. “And maybe get some more clothes or anything else useful. There’s a game store in the mall. You can look for something to entertain yourself with. And I might get a speaker system to play some music when I drive around town looking for people.”
“That sounds like it would take forever,” Jade said, making a face.
“It will,” Robin agreed without much enthusiasm, sticking another spoonful in his mouth.
“The radio station is still working, right?” Jade asked suddenly. “Why don’t you use that?”
“I… what?”
“I tried it earlier. It just had that weird off the air sound,” Jade waved her hoof vaguely in the air. “Can’t you, put a recording on loop or something like that? Then turn on the radios in the big stores and the mall so if anyone goes there they know someone else is around.”
Robin stared blankly at her.
“Well, I thought it was a good idea,” Jade grumbled, going back to eating.
“You… are a genius,” Robin managed, shaking his head slowly.
“I am?” Jade’s head jerked up. “I mean, of course I am!”
The image was only ruined by the macaroni bits sticking to the side of her muzzle.
Hey Cellie.
I didn’t head out today. Just stayed home. Turned a bit more soil for the garden, though I’m not sure what I’m planning to plant yet. Something that grows in one season I guess. Maybe some root vegetables? I might need to turn a few more lawns to grow enough to see us through winter. I should see how canning works, or some other form of preservation. I could save a whole lot more of the fresh stuff before they go bad that way. Lord knows Jade and I can’t eat them all.
Speaking of Jade; she gave me the brilliant idea to put a recording on loop on the local radio stations. I know where their offices are, roughly. Just on the edge of downtown. It would be a good thing to head down there, anyway. There are some stores that would be good to clear out. Maybe even raid the Canadian Tire that side of town rather than clear out the one in walking distance.
Hopefully Sophia can get us that far. I’m planning on taking a container of gas with us. Just in case. You might be wondering how I plan to get us all there when Sophia is a one seater, but the answer is not two riders. Instead, I’ll put Jade in the trailer. Don’t worry, I’ve got plans for safety. She’s probably gonna hate it, but it should work.
I found a few of those harness leashes in the dog’s house when I went to get their food today. I can secure Jade in the trailer with. Might take the dogs too. I still don’t like the howling I was hearing.
My list is seriously messed up now. Hopefully I can get some of it done tomorrow. Maybe stop by the dentist and get the X-Rays done?
Umm… there was something else too. Let’s see… Right! I’m watching the power. I skimmed what I had on the city’s power grid. I know I keep talking about it, but I’m worried. The dam and wind farm might keep the juice going, but how many places have power still running? I’m wondering if I should try and figure out how to turn blocks of the city’s grid off. That would ease the load on the dam and farm, hopefully ensure power for way longer.
Or just figure out how to set up a personal solar farm. Need to head to the hospital. Hopefully I’ll have time.
Later Cellie.
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Ah, to b young and athletic. “Um… you need my help?” - Ah, minor typo to help out there?
And heh! The classics last on the radio.
*ring ring* Yeah ,hi. I'd like to put in a request. Could you play 'video killed the radio star'?
And now I'm making radio jokes.
Course you are!
Food and cooking jokes are best jokes! You're good at this :)
This story has really taken off with the addition of Jade.
Love it.
I really appreciate that this story is staying so light and reasonably happy.
The comedy here is top notch. I wish I could make jokes. Now that the survival crap is no longer the primary focus on the story, I can actually pay attention long enough to get through the chapter. Well played, Greykait, well played.
Another fantastic chapter, as usual. Worth the wait for these.
Five spikes:
I'm really enjoying this story so far. The quality of it is amazing. I'm looking forward to the future chapters!
update?
Now all he needed is an Earth Pony that know a bit about gardening and he can have a steady fresh food source...