Helen Jordan

Helen knew that little kids should, as a general rule, not operate ovens.  Her mom and dad had told her hundreds of times when she was younger that she needed an adult if she was working in the kitchen.  But Helen figured that rule only applied to little girls who didn’t occasionally wander the cosmos in their dreams.

Besides, today was special.  

And so, as soon as her uncle was out of the house, she’d set to work.

The box of sugar cookie mix was pretty easy to understand, and she followed the instructions faithfully.  She managed to crack the eggs with minimal effort, and was even a little proud when she managed to make it 100% Shell Free.  

Mixing the dough was a bit trickier; as far as she could tell her uncle didn’t own one of those... things that her mother had always used to mix stuff up.  So Helen resorted to washing her hands and diving in the old fashioned way, which resulted in a pretty impressive mess.  

Despite that, she soldiered on.

After 30 long minutes (and a few icing mishaps) Helen had finally done it--she checked her cookies with pride: each one was shaped like a little heart or a star.  Some of them were... better looking than others.  A few of them were iced with swirls, but the three biggest ones had “LOVE YOU UNCLE” written on them in globs of icing.

From the moment she’d woken up that morning, Helen had been preparing.

Well, it was more like a continuation of all the preparing she’d already been doing.

The little girl had been working tirelessly for days to make sure that this would be perfect.  She’d picked so many weeds and helped so many people carry so many groceries in order to gather the funds necessary to make today really special.  Because it had to be really special.

She was celebrating the most important person in her whole life, after all.

Her plan had been to make her uncle a nice dinner, but being 10-going-on-11 did have it’s downfalls.  The nicest thing she knew how to make was hot dogs in the microwave... and she’d be darned if a lack of culinary skill was going to stop her from moving forward with her plans.

So, about an hour ago, she’d taken over the kitchen with a bag of groceries she’d bought all by herself,  determined to make the best microwave hot dogs in all the universe if that was what it took.  She’d toiled away over picking the perfect plates (even if they all looked, more or less, the same) and even folded the paper napkins all fancy.  And finally, after all that work, everything was ready.  The table was set.  The hot dogs were made.  She’d even mixed some kool-aid (and only spilled a little of it on her nice dress) all by herself!

Helen tossed a sideways glance to Lian with a small huff, a cage of green materializing around three of their enemies.

“ It’s not like I’ve just been sitting here, Quiver, ” she remarked, quickly constricting the cage so that none of the three could move.  One of the creatures let out a loud, pained noise, and Helen cringed slightly.  She didn’t know if these things felt pain the way that they felt it... but that sounded like it hurt. 

“ But, sure, if it’s an opening you want... ”

She flicked her wrist (purely for dramatic flair) and a swirling green construct formed in the middle of the mass of beings.  Its’ interlocking pieces slowly grew until it was about the size of an elephant.  Helen flew quickly, landing next to Lian and wrapping an arm around the archer before engulfing both of them in green light.  The construct in the center of the fray seemed to be pulling their enemies toward it, as if they were magnetized.

“ Aviation and Aerospace Engineering.  When I was younger, I wanted to be just like my uncle Hal, but every time I brought it up he gave me some spiel about how dangerous it was.  So I promised him that I wouldn’t fly planes, but I didn’t promise him that I wouldn’t help build them. ”