The Great Escape

Cordelia, for someone at the age of for, was very observant. She had learned that one could learn a lot just by watching. Watching showed you all the things that were missed by doing other things. Like it told Delia who moved in the house and when, it told her who was more observant than others.

It made it so that, once her Aunt was out of the house and Silas had disappeared as he often did, she could simply take her small trunk out of its hiding place, wrap Bubba under her arms and while the Mitzy was preoccupied in the kitchen merrily making lunch (She felt bad for getting the creature in trouble, she'd come to trust her to some degree) simply slip quietly out of the house.

After looking around her surrounding for a brief moment, she hiked Bubba closer, straightened her stance and walked in the confident manor she had seen other adults - such as Silas or her aunt even - use, feeling quite proud of herself and rather independent. She was thankful for the shelter the two adults had given her, and had Delia been able to make letters properly, she would have left them a note saying so. But that was not in her capability, and neither was staying.

She had gotten use to the orphanage, she had even felt some measure of calm with Silas's family, but she did no wish to feel comfortable here. Cordelia saw herself as able to keep safe better if she did not depend on these people.

And besides, she had promised Bubba that she was going to get away. That they were going to run away. She could not, under no circumstances break a promise to Bubba. There was no one else she could ever trust. Her and him, that was how it always had been and how it would be.

After what felt like a whole day of walking - really it had been a little more than an hour - Cordelia passed a small park, empty for the moment. Glancing around she slowly crossed the soft sand padding below the jungle gym, pulling her tiny body up the stairs, and sitting down at the top, just before the slide. The bar's blocked her from view slightly, making her feel as if she were protected. She'd just wait there for a bit, until she felt a little less tired. Once she was less tired, then she'd continue.

She just need a little rest first.

He wasn't behind her. She had checked. Double checked. Triple checked. He had no idea where she was. She had apparated to three seperate spots before this one, and he wouldn't-

Her attention was derailed by a girl. Small, blond, suitcase in one hand stuffed animal in the other, it struck her as a sudden and absolute transport into her past. Herself the little girl, Watson the stuffed animal - though he was a niffler, in real life - and the suitcase... there'd always been a suitcase.

She'd always been running.

She would never wish that upon someone else.

"Hello." She said, walking across the park to the girl. She was obviously clever, going immediately to the most concealed place in the park, short of the tube slide, but that was all the way up the hill.

Not really liking standing beside the junglegym, instead she sat on one of the lower steps, golden hair shining slightly in the sunlight. "How are you today?" She asked politely, reaching into her pocket for some candy. Coming up with a bag of skittles, she poured some into her hand and began to pick them out by color, eating a red, then a green, then a yellow, then an orange, then a purple, and going back in the same order once she'd done that.

Almost dosing off where she was sitting, where she had curled herself away, Cordelia snapped to an alertness that most four year old's would not show, as she heard the voice addressing someone. Blinking slightly, she attempted to shrink away into the corner of the jungle gym, hoping that the woman was in fact talking to someone else.

A quick check of blue eyes, showed that there was still no one else for her to talk to. An observation of adults proved them to think that they were above talk to people that other's could not see, "were not there" they would insist, so she figured that she could not be talking to anyone else but herself.

Worrying her lip, she continued to stare at the woman as she sat down, wondering if this had been the smartest idea after all. At her aunts it at least appeared that everyone - should the by trusted - were attempting to protect her.

Cordelia didn't know this woman at all.

"Who 're you?"

Glancing over her shoulder and up at the girl, Bonnie raised a hand in a half sort of wave, a skittle falling out and quickly caught in the other hand. "My name's Bonnie." She said, facing forward again. Her eyes swept the seemingly empty playground, frowning around at the apparent lack of any other creature. Wasn't she a bit young to be wandering around on her own? The question, of course, was irrelevant. Bonnie had run all her life, and she could tell when someone else was attempting the same thing.

Continuing to eat her skittles, the thief continued her steady observation of their surroundings. "You should go back, you know." She said softly. "Even if you don't want to be there. It is better than running."

The girl breathed a soft 'oh' at the greeting but did not volunteer any information about herself. Cordelia was too busy watching the woman anyway. She was strange, though Delia could not figure out why. There was just something about this Bonnie that appeared different than any of the other adults she had met before.

But did that mean she was safer? Or more dangerous?

"Can't Bubba ain't wanna stay," she said softly, hugging the stuffed creature to her chest. There seemed something less wrong with giving up Bubba's identity, maybe some part of her young brain was aware that he was just a toy, or perhaps it was because that wasn't really his name; only Cordelia got to call him Bubba, he was Boris T Wilson to everyone else.

"Ah. That explains it then." She turned, sitting sideways across the step and looking up at the girl, for the first time showing the niffler in her lap. Watson Junior, scarred and disabled as she appeared, only sniffed at the girl before dismissing her completely, content to be in her mistress's lap.

"Where does Bubba think you two should go then, if you don't mind me asking?" Kind blue grey eyes fell on the bear, and for a moment it was as if she wasn't looking at a bear, but a person. For Bubba was real in the little girl's eyes, so how did that make him any less real to others? "Surely he has a plan of action, right? He wouldn't just tell you not to stay and not tell you where to go."

Leaning forward with a curiosity not even her reservations about strangers and safety could hold back, Cordelia took in the creature that was in the woman's lap. She had never seen something like that before. The orphanage, try as it might, was very lax on anything of interest. They were far too busy keeping all the children healthy and not killing each other to have time to organize anything like a proper lesson. The older children went to school, the younger ones learned what they could from whatever was on hand.

Cordelia had been one of the few who actually seemed interested in learning anything at all.

"He like to be call Boris T. Wilson by s'rangers," she stated softly, ducking her head nervously, part of her feeling rude, but she simply had to follow Bubba's wishes. "O'ly I getta call him Bubba." In fact, Bubba had been a name her mother had christened the creature with, when the girl had struggled over the mouthful of the name he'd originally had. No one but herself has been allowed to utter the name since her mother disappeared.

No one else was special enough.

"We could go back to orphanage, but we ain't belong there," she murmured softly. She began picking at the bear's soft fir, making the spot at the top of his head more matted than it had formally been. "We gunna find Mama."

Not her mother exactly, Cordelia did know her mother was not coming back, but there had to be somewhere she had meant for her to go.

Silas had very nearly hexed the stupid elf when she located him to tearfully inform him that Cordelia was missing. How could she be so reckless? Her one responsibility was to look after the child whilst he and Ksenia could not! As it was, Mitzy had been very severely, though briefly, censored by the man before he promptly departed to track the child down.

He approached the playground in complete silence, moving in that manner that only those trained to seem to accomplish. Brown eyes intently studied the woman seated on the steps of the jungle gym. A muscle ticked along the man's jaw. It was fortunate for the stranger that she had kept her distance.

"Miss Cordelia," Silas spoke up, dropping the stealth moments before he did so. His wand was in the wrist holster, ready to spring to his hand. He spoke gently, for the girl's benefit, though he did not bother to entirely mask his wariness of the woman. It was good that Cordelia was wary of her on her own; he did not wish to discourage that.

"There you are, little one." Silas never addressed the girl like she was child. True, he simplified his language, and explained any words that ought to have been simplified further, but he spoke in a manner becoming that of a bright youth. "Mitzy is beside herself with worry. Ebony and your other friends* are very sad you and Mr. Wilson left so suddenly. And what of your aunt? Did you think she and I would not miss you?"

His gaze had moved towards the girl, although he remained wholly aware of the woman and her scarred pet. A bit of sadness and disappointment was visible in his expression. "Is there a reason you and Mr. Wilson decided to leave home?"



*The other toys and stuffed animals

Junior had taken it upon herself to make her way closer to the girl, hissing at the new arrival and curling up at the small child's feet. Bonnie gave the niffler a look, but did not bother to try and control her, she would move on when she wished to.

"Does Boris know where she is?" That was a stupid question, of course he didn't. Not if they were looking for her. Bonnie's eyes remained on the girl, though it would probably be wiser to look at the new arrival. Something was off about the way he was walking. Something that sent off alarm bells in her mind. That confused her slightly. She knew for a fact that it was not Caius that was walking toward her. She would have noticed him sooner.

"The man walking toward us." She said softly, watching the way Junior was sniffing Boris as she gauged the man's approach carefully. "Do you know him?" That question was answered for her as well as the man started talking. Folding her hands over her lap, she raised her eyes to him, mind analyzing through her grey blue eyes.

There was something wrong with his expression. The emotions, though there, weren't moving all the appropriate muscles. The small expanse that made them genuine wasn't working. As her suspicions rose, Junior took the moment to stop sniffing at the bear and sniff at the girl instead, checking her as well. Bonnie couldn't help the twitch of her lips as the niffler licked the small child's hand, its single seeing eye kind.

Junior usually didn't take to people.

Something clicked in her mind, and she was looking up at the man, head canted to the side. "You." She said with a smile, and though it was probably unwise, kept speaking. "You're a Raske, aren't you?"

Glancing down at the creature with hesitant eyes Cordelia was completely aware of her guardian as he got closer, allowing his footsteps to become noticeable. A worrying sort of bubble was coming up in her stomach. Although she had taken great care to leave at a time when no one would notice her, part of her had not expected anyone to come looking for her.

She wasn't entirely sure what to do with the situation now that someone had.

Reaching a hand out hesitantly she more or less poked the scarred creature before pulling her hand back again, eyes flicking up to Silas, even as her timid mind answered the woman's first question, "She dead." Where she was buried the girl had no idea at all. Maybe that was what she had wanted to find.

"No one worrieded 'bout me 'fore," she mumbled absent-mindedly, her shoulders shrugging as if this was a perfectly acceptable excuse for running away. The fact of the matter was, Delia just hadn't liked the idea of being settled down anywhere. The only reason she had never attempted to run away from the orphanage was she had felt there were enough children there to hide amongst. She was easily forgotten, quiet and shy.

But in a house where she was the only child; no matter how kind the adults, and elf had been she had felt exposed, only able to hide by physically hiding, and even that only worked for a certain length of time.

Finally, without anyway to word that, she did what she always did when she couldn't explain why she had done what she had done, or wanted what she wanted.

She blamed the bear.

"Bubba thought it weren't safe."

"But people worry now," Silas responded, tone gentle as he continued moving forward. "I'm sorry Mr. Wilson feels that way, though that is not the case at all."

Empty platitudes, he realized, knowing he could not truly explain to the child that she was, in fact, very safe. He had studied her for some time before removing her from the orphanage, after all, unseen by any. Silas was well aware of the manner in which she melted into the woodwork, using her inherent timidity as an invisibility cloak among the other children. The only Cordelia could come to accept that she was safe was through experiencing continued safety.

Silas turned a neutral expression upon the woman. Apart from the inscrutability of his features, his demeanor remained unchanged from having addressed the child. His wand had slid silently into his hand, however. It would be a mistake for any to take his nonthreatening posture as it appeared.

"I don't believe we are acquainted," he noted silkily.

Junior sniffed at the bear curiously, no doubt wondering if their was any gold inside. Deciding that there wasn't, she curled up in the child's lap, closing her good eye and deigning it acceptable to just lay there. A small rumble bubbled in the creature's chest, much like a purr.

Her eyes studied the man curiously, but even she knew a threat when she saw one. She knew better than most. Playing with her fingers, she shrugged. "We aren't." She offered a hesitant smile. Though she was relaxed in every sense of sight, she was ready to dodge, to jump into action, to disappear. Such was the talent of being a thief. You learned to appear what you were not, and no one knew how to do that as Bonnie did. "Not yet anyway. I imagine we'll have to be properly introduced eventually."

She shrugged, wrinkling her nose slightly, acting as if she was completely unconcerned with the amount of danger the Raske posed to her. A safe house was only an apparation away, in any matter, and even if he came with her they'd bounce. This half efficient way of thinking was new to her, and probably unwise, but her false sense of security was all she had, that, and a growing protecting nature over the child that reminded her so much of herself.

"I'm Bonnie." She introduced softly, playing with her fingers as she stopped herself from analyzing him further. Surely she could do that later? No need to be perceived as a bigger threat than she was already. It was easier to just be clueless. Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, she grinned a bit vapidly, starstruck by his presence. She frowned slightly, disappointed. "Surely you've heard of me?"

Her little face turned downward at the man's words, glancing instead at the creature that she now had in her lap instead of her solemn guardian. Having always had a knack for trusting animals quicker than people she moved Bubba away from the sniffing slightly before she began to hesitantly pet the scarred creature she had gained. The adults talked to each other, and she easily slipped into the background of their conversation, listening without appearing so, and believably completely forgotten.

Wiggling slightly, she wasn't completely ashamed of her act, but she hadn't meant to make people worry. It had, in her mind, still been the best choice at the time. This new information, however, made the choices different.

"S'rry."

Silas turned the woman's words over in his mind, for the moment letting Cordelia focus on the animal - which seemed tame enough - and her own thoughts. What did she mean they would have to be properly introduced? Apart from a slight narrowing of his eyes, his expression remained impassive. Just who was this woman supposed to be?

"Bonnie," he repeated, clearly finding no significance in the name. "Not ringing a bell, I'm afraid. I assume you must know someone in my family. I don't keep the closest contact."

He made himself sigh, partly to release some of the tension his suspicion of stranger had caused to build and partly to communicate that he wasn't that angry, though maybe a bit sad. Silas moved closer to where Cordelia was seated, his attention visibly on her even though he was still wholly aware of the woman.

"It is all right, Miss Cordelia," Silas said kindly, tone imbued with a notable warmth. "I know you meant no harm. I am just very glad you're okay."

Watson Junior licked the girl's cheek tenderly, hopping down from her legs to scamper back to Bonnie. Reaching a hand out for the niffler, Bonnie scratched the creature behind the ears before standing. "Yes, well, I'm sure we'll be properly introduced eventually." Brushing herself off, the thief offered the man a smile. "It was pleasant to speak with you, Silas." Ignoring the fact that he'd never exactly told her his name, she nodded politely to Cordelia and picked up Watson Jr in her arms.

"I will see you both around, I suppose." She promised, grinning before disappearing with a pop.