Jaxon

Scared

     After a while of just watching the television, Mint stretched and turned off the screen. Jaxon was a bit upset. But he knew he was gonna have to get used to it. His freedoms of what he could do with his spare time were gone...not like he had many to begin with. He had to live by whatever Mint wanted. He gave a slight sigh that got Mint's attention.

     Mint stood up and carried Jaxon upstairs. He set him down on the changing table and got him cleaned up. Just as he was finishing up, the strange noise from before went off downstairs.

     'Right after that noise, Green was here. Does that mean Green is back?' Jaxon wondered.

     Mint put Jaxon in his playpen and also a few toys in the with him. He gave him a smile and left.

     'Now what? Where's he going? Is he coming back? What am I supposed to do alone...' Jaxon mentality facepalmed. 'What is wrong with me? Day three and I'm starting to crack. I can't let myself do this... I can't.'

     Mint came back in the room and set something down. By the grunt he gave, it must have been something heavy. He came over to Jaxon and smiled as he pet the side of his face and said something. He picked up Jaxon and pointed to a large box now in the middle of the floor. Mint had another one of those special pillows upstairs and put it on the floor next to the box. After making sure Jaxon was in it properly, he pulled out what looked like a huge knife. Jaxon's eyes widened.

     Now in his training, Jaxon had to learn to use many weapons to defend himself. But he had never really liked anything sharp, including knifes and swords. He didn't know why, but he had a fear of anything like that. It was one of the two things that scared him.

     So seeing a knife that large and sharp just feet away from him scared him more than anything else up to this point. It scared him to the point that he didn't realize he had started crying.

     Just as he was finishing up changing Ardent, and slightly cursing himself for forcing so much water into him in one sitting, the doorbell rang.

     'I bet that's the books and security camera.' Hace set Ardent in his pen and ran downstairs. A metal box holding the package was hovering in the air at chest height outside the door. He put in the code that had been emailed to him and the exterior metal case folded up. Hace lifted the package off the hovering platform and a robotic voice thanked him for his purchase as it zoomed away into the sky.

     Once he was back upstairs, he set the box on the floor in Ardent's room and went up to the pen. "Hey buddy." He reached in and pet the side of his head. "I got you some neat stuff!" He reached in and picked up Ardent.

     'I'm so glad I bought more than one of these.' Hace thought as he set up Ardent in the special pillow. Once he was secure, Hace sat down next to him and pulled out a pocketknife. He was about to open the box when he heard soft crying and looked back over at Ardent.

     "What happened?" He asked as he set the knife on the box and picked up a very frightened Ardent. "Are you ok? Why are you crying?... Why are you shaking so badly?" Ardent's eyes were locked on the knife. Hace smiled and turned Ardent's head away from it. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I scare you? I didn't mean to." Hace hugged him a bit longer before putting him back into his pillow. Hace quickly opened the box with the knife and put it back away.

     "I hope this makes up for scaring you." He said.

     The first thing Hace pulled out was the monitoring system. He set that aside for now and instead started pulling out the children's books he bought along with a few new pet toys, some coloring books, and small crayons. Ardent's mouth dropped as he reached out, almost making grabby hands at the books. Hace couldn't help but laugh at how cute his little pet was. He handed a book over to Ardent and watched as a smile came across his face. Ardent started to yip excitedly and pointed at the pages. The little guy was almost bouncing he was so happy.

     Ardent was happily looking over the books while Hace took this advantage to set up the monitoring system. It came with two motion detection cameras and two receivers. He set one camera up pointing at Ardent's sleeping cage and the other pointed at his pen. Then he left the room and attached one of the receivers to his bedroom TV.

     "There." He said out loud to himself. "Now I don't have to freak out wondering he's ok while he sleeps. No more unnecessary trips across the hall in the middle of the night." He looked at the other receiver but hadn't decided where to put it yet. So he just packed it away in the nightstand to install later.

     When he got back to the room to collect Ardent for dinner... he was a bit shocked at what he saw.

     Jaxon froze when Mint walked back into the room. He was hoping that he wouldn't come back that quickly. While Mint was gone, he'd pulled himself out of the pillow and dragged himself to the crayons and coloring books. He was using the corner of the first picture to try and write down the symbols he remember from the schematics. If he could match the symbols he remembered with the ones in the children's books... he could start reading the language!

     Mint stood there for a moment looking at him. He had a very confused and shocked look on his face. Jaxon gave a nervous smile and tried to hide the notes. Mint shook his head and picked up Jaxon. Jaxon quickly threw the book off to the side while he was being picked up and hoped Mint didn't see what he was really doing.

     Mint strapped Jaxon into his seat and put a bowl of food in front of him. Jaxon looked at the food and sighed. Mint had started eating and looked at Jaxon. He turned the fork in the bowl and pointed at the food. Jaxon knew it was important to eat and take in nutrition, but he felt bad about being spoiled with all this food. He felt like it was just another distraction to his main mission. He was going back and forth so much with this feeling.

     Mint put down his own food and looked at Jaxon. He said something and pointed at the food. Jaxon crossed his arms and looked away. Mint gave out a sigh and picked up the fork. He turned Jaxon's head and shoved the food into his mouth. Jaxon gave a dirty look, but just as before, the taste of the food was just too good to spit out. After a few more forced mouthfuls, Jaxon gave up and tried to take the fork back from Mint. Mint smiled as he gave the fork back and returned to his own food.

     'Why is he so insistent that I have so much food?' Jaxon just sighed and fed himself the rest of dinner.