Work Text:
The bright lights gleamed in the lair around the blankets in the tent
a little girl sits under there doodling something on paper
As footsteps can be heard from behind, she turns her head
“Hey kid, it’s time to eat” it is none other than Jinx
Isha sets the crayons and paper she was occupied with aside
“I got you some of Zaun’s finest delicacies today” said Jinx as she took off her hood, smiling. She placed the food she got down so they could begin eating
Isha started taking some small bites
“So, what’ve you been up to? Any fun stuff?”
Isha suddenly stopped and nodded aggressively, getting up to grab the paper she was doodling on to show Jinx
The drawing depicted a toy rabbit and a toy bird in a wooden stage. There’s red curtains on the borders of the paper, and the background within that is a blue sky with simple white clouds and a grassland
“Is this a… puppet show?”
Isha nodded
“You want to watch one?”
She nods again
“Hmm…” she took a bite out of the food “I’ll see what I can do. For now, sit down and eat” she said
The little girl happily returned the paper to where it was before she sat down and continued to eat
After finishing their meals, Isha had gone out to for some air while Jinx looked at the paper again
“A puppet show, huh?” she thought
Even if she were to get things ready to set one up for Isha, what story would she tell? Could she make it entertaining? she paced back and forth in her mind, trying to stir up a storm of ideas in her brain
In the end, she got out a notebook writing down some of the ideas she got and made her way to the crafting table
Sewing up the hand puppets and preparing a small wooden stage would be time-consuming, but it’d be the easiest part
The real challenge is trying not to have the surprise be spoiled, and to help it she got a large piece of cloth she had lying around to cover it with
Two hours, maybe five hours or three pass as Jinx sews those hand puppets, she’s lost track of time so she couldn’t tell. She had finished 4 of them and was working on the 5th.
Suddenly footsteps could be heard. Jinx quickly grabbed the nearby cloth and covered the puppets with it.
She let out a sigh of relief when she sees that who arrived was actually Sevika
“Working on something serious?” Sevika asked
“It’s just a small thing” she replied as she removed the cloth and picked up the hand puppet she was working on again
“Whatever you say. The supplies you asked for earlier will arrive tomorrow, just letting you know.”
“Okayyyy” she responded unfazed, her full attention going to what she’s sewing
Sevika raised an eyebrow and left
In a few more minutes Jinx had finally finished working on the fifth and final hand puppet she was going to use in her one-man show. Lining them all up together, she smiles proudly to her work.
She covers them with the cloth again as she takes a carton box and cuts the end to make a stage. She uses the excess pieces to create background stuff like clouds, bushes, and other things that she didn’t need to sew. The bushes were glued to the grounds of the “stage” while the clouds were hung by a string.
Once she finishes all of that—which is not long after she started because it was surprisingly faster to work on—she sets the box and other things on a short table. Jinx cut a piece of the cloth she used to cover the puppets with and places it on the top part of the box; those are her curtains.
She hears footsteps approach again, this time, it’s Isha
“You’re just in time!” Jinx motions for her to sit down in front of the stage she set up
“The show’s about to start” she walks to the table where the puppets are and wraps them up in the cloth they’re under, she then takes it to behind the stage
Jinx cleared her throat “Welcome to the theatre, my audience. Our troupe has worked very hard to bring you today’s show” shes speaks in the tone of an announcer
she picks up some of the puppets and puts her hands under the stage’s “curtains”
“Once, there was a little rabbit” she shows the rabbit hand puppet she made on the stage
“Who was friends with a little bird” she then shows the bird
Isha smiled, the rabbit and bird looked like the ones in her drawing
“One day, the bird finds the rabbit sad, ‘What’s wrong?’ asks the bird
‘I just lost a blue bead I had’ the rabbit responded”
Isha seemed to be very intrigued by the story so far
“The bird decided to help the rabbit look for that bead, ‘Don’t worry, friend! Wait for me.’ the bird exclaimed before heading off”
Jinx removed them from the scene and brought out a hand puppet that looked like a bear
“The bird went around asking other animals if they’ve seen the bead. First, it encountered a grizzly bear ‘Hello, have you seen a blue bead around here somewhere?’
‘No.’ said the bear ‘You might want to go searching further’
So, taking the bears advice, the bird kept going up ahead in its search”
She took the bear puppet out of the stage and then brought out a cat puppet
“The bird then encountered a cat, and so it asked again, ‘Hello, have you seen a blue bead around here somewhere?’
‘Hmm….’ the cat took a moment to think
‘I might’ve seen something like that around a few days ago, but it’s probably not here anymore.’
‘Where do you think it might be?’ asked the bird
‘Maybe… further up the road?’ and so, following the cat’s words, the bird kept going forward”
The cat puppet leaves the stage and is replaced by a fox-looking puppet
“The bird then encountered a fox, and so once more it asked: ‘Hello, have you seen a blue bead around here somewhere?’
‘Ah… I think I probably did. Yeah, something like that. I saw it being taken to one of the bushes over there’” the fox turns to the direction that continues the bird’s journey
Jinx then removed the fox puppet from the stage, Isha looked very excited for the bird to find that bead
“And so, the bird continued going to find its friend’s belonging, it doesn’t go far before noticing one of the bushes had something blue in it. The bird checks and it found the blue bead!”
Isha gasped out of excitement and gave a small, quick clap
“The bird realized eventually why the bead was lost in the first place: it was stolen from the rabbit. It’s good that the bird has retrieved the bead, but it now has to keep it safe from being stolen again on its way back”
Jinx seemed to grab another one of the “props” she’d had worked on, but Isha couldn’t see or tell what it was
“The bird headed back to where it last saw its friend rabbit, clenching tightly on to the bead. SUDDENLY! another bird in the sky dashed and TOOK it.”
Isha frowned at the turn of events in the story
“The bird was sad to go back to the rabbit empty-handed. It didn’t know what to say.”
Jinx brought back the rabbit onto the stage
“As the bird arrived back, the rabbit noticed it was sad and asked ‘What’s wrong?’
The bird responded ‘I’m sorry, friend. I couldn’t bring back your bead for you.’
‘The bead? You tried to bring back my bead for me?’ ‘Yes, but it was sadly taken away from me as I got it’ ‘Don’t worry my friend, you shouldn’t have gone through all that trouble’ ‘But you seemed pretty upset about it’ ‘I did, but then I realized I don’t need it anymore.’
‘Huh? How so?’”
Jinx, as the rabbit, picked something up, which was supposedly kept in the rabbit’s burrow in the story. It was a nest, a decorated bird’s nest with beads of every color except for blue.
“‘The bead was supposed to be a part of this gift I was working on for you. I was upset it might be incomplete without that blue bead, but I realized I didn’t need it anymore because you’ve previously accepted all my gifts to you, no matter how “incomplete” they were.’
The bird felt very happy that its friend wasn’t sad, nor disappointed
‘I love it, thank you very much for this gift.’
The end”
As the story finished, Isha got up from where she was sitting and went to hug Jinx
It was her way of thanking her for this puppet show, one which Isha enjoyed
“I take it you liked the story?”
Isha nodded
Jinx picked up the rest of the puppets to show Isha, so she could get a better look
They then spent the rest of their time playing with the puppets and acting out more fun stories.