Her enchanted eyes dart about the boxes and antiques and knickknacks. Anything could be hiding in there. Very faintly, she can now feel the presence of one of her fellow minions at the other end of the attic. Weaving past the antiques and with one hand on the grip of one of her short blades, she eventually spots him, collapsed in front of a black box with an open latch.
There rests Maniac Minion, the signs of a heavenly rest over his face: a sleep filled with actually good dreams.
She winces.
Scout Minion finds the concept of a happy Maniac Minion positively revolting. She can't help but be surprised when she sees him, snoozing off like there's no work to do.
"Still slackin', even up here." She mutters to herself. She chuckles, shrugs, and starts heading back to the steps. Just as she does, she passes by a coat rack, which happens to have one of those big comfy wool blankets on it. Her gaze slants.
It's a very cold attic, after all.
A half-minute later, Scout Minion descends from the steps and turns around down the hall. She thinks she's just going to grab some graham crackers and chocolate and marshmallows and maybe just go out to the fire pit outside and make some more s'mores for her and her alone. Yes. That was her idea of what this weekend was going to be like, but it's clear that the others are more interested in watching cringe-inducing rom-coms and whatever else they're going to fancy for after the aforementioned cringe-inducing rom-coms.
"How is he?" Fashion Minion asks, being able to peel his eyes from the extremely handsome surgeon and his extremely handsome surgeon friend, talking over extremely handsome surgeon stuff just long enough for him to address her with his gaze.
"Fine," she says, heading over to one of the cabinets in the kitchen.
"Little guy just fell asleep, eh?" Druid Minion asks.
"I would say I'm surprised, but I'm not," Fashion Minion says, glancing back to the television. "I think some of us aren't too far away from that, to be frank," he says, glancing over to Cardio Minion.
Scout Minion pops her head up from the countertop just long enough to get a glance at Cardio Minion, who, her arms crossed in a rocking chair and a wide smile on her face, is steadily dozing off.
"I mean, it was kind of a long walk out here," Scout says.
"30 minutes?" he asks with a scoff.
"And, she was kind of running all the way around the lake."
He shrugs.
Running or not, it is true. After all, when most destinations around Towerne can be reached by space gate in about five minutes, it's kind of a surprise to spend more than a few moments getting to where you need to go. So even if it's just a 30-minute hike out from the lake cabins from Lake Tower, it still is a 30-minute walk.
They are practically isolated in comparison to their regular lives.
Scout Minion turns away, her left arm filled with bags of all the ingredients she needs with the poker stick in-hand. She goes past the open doors leading to the various bedrooms, and she double-takes at one of them.
"Huh. Hey, Fashy," she starts with an uneven tone.
Fashion Minion glances over like diva.
"Umm, do you fish?" she asks.
His eye squints with intrigue. "What… do you mean?" he answers back.
"The… fishing stuff," she says, looking over the last bedroom to the left, which is positively filled with fishing lines, poles, nets, tackle boxes, boating items, and more.
"That was already there," he says with a deflated sigh.
She glances back at the fishing stuff. None of it looks particularly modern, so it fits in well for the place.
"Weird," she mumbles as she turns for the door.
Could this mean that either Romance Minion or Magic Minion are into fishing? She hums at the thought before opening the door.
She heads outside, goes down to the side of the lake with a fire pit, and with a quick fire spell— she does know a thing or two, after all— she alights some of the wood left to the side to dry. With a deep, deep breath, she gets to her special time.
Scout starts with a couple s'mores, and then a couple more, and then a couple more once again. Another advantage to being a minion of The High Overlord is that you can pretty much eat whatever you want with essentially no side effects, at least up to the point until it changes your own self-image of you as a creature: Gourmand Minion is a fitting example of this, the poor dear.
Scout Minion twirls the marshmallow about on her poker, simulates a gigantic meteor smashing into a chocolate city, complete with extra sound effects for added immersion, and stares up at the stars between the pine tree boughs until the voices stop shouting… the imaginary ones, that is— it's a very peaceful night.
Next, she steps up to the fire, bathes in it for a couple minutes just to remember how nice it felt to be alive and an actual normal creature. She marvels at the fact that she cannot feel any pain from this whatsoever. She thinks back to her clan's old charring ritual, and how happy that hunter looked when he came back from his first successful trip.
She hums an old song, takes a very quick nap, eats some more s'mores, and then sings another song. By the end of it all, she's spent through about eleven logs, and hours have passed. She glances over to the cabin. Its lights are out now, looking like an old drapery across the hill, slipping around into the lake. From where she's at, it feels like a natural formation from the rock, and there's something she would admit that's admirably sacred about it. Once again, she doesn't care much for humans, but she does like the places they've made, and the architectural ideas that they've come up with. "Comfy," she mumbles to herself, almost as if it were a blessing.
Satisfied with her evening, she gets up. The very second she does, however, she notices that all the way across the lake, shining in the moonlight near the opposite shore, is a boat with what looks like someone fishing inside of it.
She stares at the scene for a moment, and responds to her own curiosity with a single, perfect, "Huh."
But by this time, the s'mores and the moonlight, and the very, very quick nap, and the song and all the old thoughts about old times and old people have caught up to her, and she's been had— she's fallen into a stupor of pure comfort and satisfaction.
It's about time to turn in and retire for the night.
She nods to herself, and a genuine calm smile crosses her usually crass, expressive face. She takes up her things, the poker, the remnants of the trash, and any of the graham crackers and stuff, the plate she placed it all on, and she takes it into the cabin, and it feels like a tomb in the best possible way.
She places the stuff by the sink and goes to her room where, greeted by the flickering of wings and the furrowing of feathers from around the room by Druid Minion's many compatriots of nature, she takes her own bed. Sure, it's a bed now shared by a raccoon of some kind, but she still cuddles in under the sheet. She has a good dream, the same way everyone else in the cabin is having a good dream tonight.
Unfortunately for them all, it's not a guarantee of a peaceful night.