[LN] The Princess returns in glory - or at least with enthusiasm

[animalhats]

She'd been home.

Molly had been home, she knew that much, but for almost no time at all - enough to wake up from her nap and recognize that she was in the Leapfrog, Victor and Chase arguing about something up front and Karolina laughing at them. It was a little stuffy and the seat vibrated a little and there was that slight tug at her stomach as they Leapfrogged homewards--

And then she was at the North Pole, dumped unceremoniously onto a pile of teddy bears, to the surprise of one of the Yetis. She blinked at him for a moment, then scrambled out of the pile and took off running. The elves that saw her immediately started trying to follow her, excited to have their fellow toy-tester back, and it was that... rather unique tableau that she presented to anyone who happened to be watching as she raced upstairs looking for people she recognized.

"NICOOOOOOO!"

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[bringinghopewithme]

"Well, I'm glad you got to see home again. And I'm glad I get t'see you again."

Bunny took a moment to pat Molly's ear gently, because he didn't want to displace her hat.

"Listen, Molly, I'm sorry about - sorry I gave you a scare last time you were around. You were a big help when Jack and I were in trouble, and a lot braver than you had to be. I hope you're proud of yourself, because I was real proud of you. Still am."

He knew more than ever, since getting to know Nico a little better, that Molly deserved praise and probably hadn't gotten enough from her parents, which was just terrible.

[animalhats]

Molly wrinkled her nose, then rubbed it a little self-consiously. "Well... well, that's what superheroes do, right? They help. So I just tried to help. And anyway, I started crying in front of everybody after, so I kinda just was super embarrassing."

She liked to think that she'd been through enough she could've put it off until after, when she could go to her room, but... well, she couldn't, and she's kind of embarrassed about it now.

[bringinghopewithme]

"Hey, no," Bunny protested, ducking to meet Molly's eyes, concerned now. "There's nothing embarrassing about crying. You feel something that strong, you gotta let it out once the scene's safe. That's healthy."

Healthiness never really was high on a kid's list of priorities though, and Bunny briefly considered his own recent adventures.

"I bet you don't know about the time I saved Jack's life by crying on him." He touched Molly's chin lightly, encouraging her to look up so he could smile at her. "We wouldn't still have the little larriken around today if I had been too embarrassed to cry."

Not that embarrassment had factored in at the time. Jack had been dying - nobody cared about their reputations at that particular moment, Bunny least of all.

[animalhats]

Molly looked up, though she pursed her lips uncertainly. "You cried all over Jack?" she asked. "But you're really brave, and you kick butt!" It wasn't that she didn't think brave people didn't cry, but they didn't cry in front of people, did they?

[bringinghopewithme]

"So are you," Bunny pointed out. "We can do both."

He gave Molly a pat on the head, through her hat. "Y'cry when something's important. It's only natural. Sometimes that's in front of people, sometimes not - it doesn't mean you're not brave, though, it just means your feelings are as strong as you are. Got it?"

[animalhats]

Molly looked dubious, but thoughtful. She wasn't sure she quite believed Bunny was telling the truth rather than trying to make her feel better with little lies (and she wouldn't have even held it against him, in this particular case), but she was mulling it over.

In the meantime... she smiled a little shyly. "Did you really save Jack's life by crying?"

[bringinghopewithme]

"Yeah, I did."

Bunny dropped his gaze to the ground and back up to Molly, wanting to give her security, but wanting to avoid answering as many questions as he could about the long, long story that lead up to that fight.

"We were fighting Old Man Winter." He waved his paw. "He's dead now, but he'd used the Snow Queen's mirror shards on Jack, and they were slowly freezing Jack's heart. We hadn't been getting along - it was my fault - and I had to find a way to get through to him. Keep his heart warm. Otherwise he was gonna die. When I thought I wasn't gonna figure it out in time, I cried."

Bunny shrugged, as if nearly losing his best friend in the world was something you could just shrug off. Hey, he hadn't lost him, after all.

"Wouldn'tcha know it, the only thing that melts the Snow Queen's mirror shards are tears of love. There's power in love, power in caring about somebody other than yourself. Never let anybody tell you it makes you less strong. They don't know what they're talking about. Trust me on this one. I'd've lost my best friend in the world if I didn't know what I was talking about here."

He'd have lost Jack if he hadn't cared enough, and to live a life in which he DIDN'T care enough to weep on his best friend would be its own curse.

[animalhats]

"Like Kay and Gerda!" was Molly's immediate response. What? She'd always loved it when her parents read her fairy tales and stories before bed. Maybe she had been getting a bit old for it at 11, but... Well, she'd loved it.

She stopped and thought about that for a second. Gerda had cried over Kay and maybe there wasn't a crowd, but it was okay because she'd loved Kay. And there were other stories she could remember, stories where people cried over people they loved. Wept from joy, or heartbreak, or both. And it was never anything bad, and nobody in the stories ever teased them, and they were always just as brave.

So... maybe it was the same in real life. After all, Bunny had almost died, and she loved him so very very much, and if they were in a fairy tale it would've been okay.

"Well... I guess maybe you're right. It was still kind of embarrassing though, after I stopped." She scuffed the toe of her sneaker against the floor. "Nobody else cried, not a lot anyway. It made me feel like a big baby, and I hate feeling like I'm too little." She had to be mature and grown up, don't you know. After all, she's a superhero.