A Handful of Children

Romi

Romi

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The school was... well, it was okay. In the aftermath of the tsunami, things were changing quickly as people adapted. Some people were missing, some people were hurt, and everyone was buckling down to do what they could. For Hudson, it meant moving back to the island proper from his place in the islets. It meant being something more than an overseer for unruly children.

For him, it meant the library. Time spent repairing it. Time spent resorting. Hudson didn't even like books all that much, but he knew how to run a bookstore, and a library wasn't that far off.

It also meant, for him, kids. He'd agreed to step in as a dorm parent, taking over a floor and making sure it was ready for students. It had survived the tsunami mostly intact, and aside from two rooms he'd temporarily boarded off due to water damage, was perfectly fit for people to live in. He'd claimed a room near the center of the hall so he could be accessible, and then he'd waited.

Eventually, they found children for him. Practically babies, in the grand scheme of things, but old enough to function mostly on their own with a bit of oversight. He wasn't even clear if they were new arrivals, or displaced by the tsunami, but he supposed it didn't matter - they'd been assigned to him anyway.

He waited in the lounge area at the end of their floor, napping quietly in a chair. He'd intended to wait up, but fallen asleep before anyone had even arrived.

Not exactly the picture of responsibility.
 
Sarrain

Sarrain

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Maddie entered the room with her head down, watching her feet. She didn't want to see how everything had changed. Disaster barely covered the extent of it all in her opinion. When she did look up, she saw an older man sleeping in his chair and figured her was her new dorm parent.

A quick look around revealed that no one else had turned up yet. Awkward. She looked to Hudson again, determining whether she outta wake him up or not. Maddie moved as quickly as she could and sat on a nearby couch. She carried her backpack with her. It had her clothing and a few books she had taken with her to Paris right before the tsunami hit.

The girl pursed her lips and looked around, laying her backpack beside her and setting her hands on her knees. Very gently, she cleared her throat and bit her bottom lip as she watched her dorm parent. She didn't want to poke him or anything, but if he was deep asleep, she didn't think her meager attempts would do anything.

"Sir...?" She reached up and scratched her cheek nervously. Her voice was barely above a whisper, so she tried again, a little louder this time, "Sir?"

Maybe he had had a long night? Should she poke him? Maybe he'd get mad at that. Or maybe he'd lash out. Some people did that when they were woken up, she was pretty sure.

It was at this point that Bandit, Maddie's half German shepherd-border collie mix, came trotting into the room. His head and tail were held high. He scanned the room, catching Maddie's eye and wagged his tail. He paused half way to her and looked at the man sleeping.

Bandit changed course and bee-lined for the man, sitting right at his feet. bandit lay his head in the man's lap, staring soulfully up at him. Maddie would have called him away, but she didn't think he was doing any harm.
 
Romi

Romi

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Once upon a time, Hudson would have snapped awake at the slightest bit of movement. Those had been in his early days, when he'd really, honestly cared about the idea of someone trying to shove a knife in his side. The thing was, when you'd lived as long as he had, you stopped caring about those minor details. If someone wanted to stab him, they were welcome to try. Or perhaps more accurately, if someone wanted to stab him they'd have done it already. He'd left himself open to attack more than enough times in the past, and if he really cared about that kind of thing, he'd have been sleeping in dragon form.

He kept right on sleeping through both 'sirs', but it was awfully hard to sleep through a dog. He let out a little grunt at the feeling of a head on his lap, and a single golden eye crept open, fixed on his dog.

No, not his dog - that dog was lifetimes away and a completely different breed, even if the coloring was similar. He shifted, scooting the dog off his lap as he sat up properly, eyes sweeping across the room before settling on the girl.

Young. God, humans were all young, but sometimes he forgot how young they could be. She was what, ten? Twenty? He had a hard time telling just what the difference was between a twelve year old and a twenty year old human was these days.

"Guess you'd be the dorm student they assigned me? Would that make you Anna or Maddie?" He had two at the moment, and he hadn't bothered to go through the files he'd been given on them, skimpy as they were. If there had been anything truly important, they'd have told him in person or included a 'MUST READ' disclaimer right on the front.

"Grab a seat," he said, gesturing over towards the other chairs in the room. "We've got another one coming, regardless of which one you are."
 
Sarrain

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Bandit whined as he was forced to pull his head off the man's lap. He took a few hesitant step back and gave as slight, tentative wag of his tail as he waited to see if the man would give him any attention at all.

Maddie looked from Bandit to the man, eyes a little wide. "I --" she was cut off when he told her to sit on one of the chairs. She picked up her backpack and stood to grab a chair and pull it a little closer to hers, sitting back wearily in it once she had. She set her bag on the chair's front leg.

"I'm Maddie Lennox, sir," she told him once she was situated and had managed to get Bandit to sit at her opposite leg to the backpack. "Am I early?" Her confusion was clear. She had assumed she was running late, but he had been asleep, and the other girl wasn't even here yet.
 
Romi

Romi

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Hudson - Grumpy, jaded, five thousand year old Hudson - was apparently a sucker for dogs. He reached out when the dog whined, giving it an affectionate scratch behind the ears. He really did like dogs, even if dogs tended to not like him when he was in his proper form. He was simply too big for any animals to really get along with him. Anything smart enough to realize he was alive quickly ran the other way.

"Nah, you're on time. The other girl's late." He actually wasn't entirely sure, since he'd been asleep, but it was good enough an answer for him. "The other one was an 'Anna' - if she doesn't show up, I'll just have to go look for her later. As it stands, I'm really not interested in sitting around waiting for someone to show up. So, introductions."

He gave her a wide smile as he continued to scratch around the dog's head in an easy, practiced manner. "Name's Hudson. I used to work over on Juvie Island or whatever the technical name for it is. They moved me over to the library to help with reconstruction, so if I'm not here, I'm probably over there." Or out drinking or who knew what, but that wasn't the sort of thing he was going to volunteer to a kid.

"I'm also nearly five thousand, which I suppose makes me worldly." Which was a nice way of saying he was an old fart who had been around the block.
 
Sarrain

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Bandit was joyous to be receiving attention. He scooted in close to Hudson, panting and sitting against the man's leg as if they had known each other for years. Maddie, seeing that Hudson wasn't bothered with Bandit, smiled at her dog and playfully rolled her eyes. He always acted starved for attention. Good thing he was cute.

Maddie wondered how Hudson knew the other girl was late. Did e have a watch? Couldn't she see one and hadn't he been sleeping? She decided it was better just to leave it be and nodded to let him know she was listening to him.

Right, she had heard about juvie island. It sounded creepy. A whole island for people who did something wrong? That must have shown, either in her body language or her face, because Bandit pulled away from Hudson then and trotted up to her to comfort her. She took to scratching him behind the ear absentmindedly.

"I'm Maddie Lennox." He knew that part, though, didn't he? What else did he know about her? "I'm fifteen, so...not that worldly," she grinned. "I come from San Francisco, and I'm a shapeshifter. Expect, I can't turn into anything extinct." A lot of people assumed she could turn into dinosaurs, she had decided start informing people from the start that she could not.
 
Romi

Romi

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Hudson let out a loud 'hmmmm' as she mentioned her powers, and he reached up, stroking his beard gently. "Shapeshifting into people? Or animals, I would guess. Can you do magical breeds as well?" Which was a very long way of asking if she was going to be able to turn into a dragon, which would certainly explain why she'd been placed with him.

Or, maybe it had just been randomly assigned. The office staff were awfully overworked.

"Well, nice to meet you. Haven't been to San Fransisco - only went to America once, and I hated it, so I never went back." Of course, that had been back before either World War, so perhaps it would have been worthwhile for him to give it a second chance. He'd mostly stuck to Europe in recent years.
 
Sarrain

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"Animals, sir," Maddie said quickly. "I can't change into people and... well, I don't know about magical creatures. I've never tried it. I have trouble shapeshifting into normal animals as it is, that's why I need this." Maddie rose her foot onto her opposite knee and pulled her pants leg up enough to show him the golden anklet.

When she thought he'd seen enough, she returned her foot to the ground, trying not to appear as awkward as she felt. "Where did you go when you visited America?" she asked, trying to do anything other than staring silently at him.

It hadn't occurred to Maddie that Hudson might be older than he looked. Like, way older. Which was silly, but, sometimes teenagers were just oblivious.
 
Romi

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It only stood to reason that if she struggled with normal animals, she likely wouldn't be able to do magic animals at all. Maybe in the future when she had more practice. Magic animals were by nature more complex, and if she was still working on standard shifting... well, it more or less went without saying, didn't it?

"New York City. Went with some Irish friends when they were all moving over, which turned out to be a poor idea in retrospect." Did kids even know about the potato famine? Or was that too obscure, too far back in history? He supposed it didn't really matter. "The whole place was disgusting, personally. There's no sense of history in it, and yet everything was still slapped together at the last minute. The whole thing..." He wrinkled his nose. "I was at least smart enough to get out before the war started. I prefer things historic, if I can get it. The island doesn't have much history, unfortunately, but it has historic people." People like him, but mostly just people who he could speak to on an even level, without having to feel like he was talking to a newborn baby.
 
Sarrain

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Only now did Maddie wonder how long ago Hudson went to the U.S. Was that rude to ask here? She didn't think it would be, but maybe old creatures didn't like talking about the past? Only one way to find out.

"Um, excuse me, sir? How ... long ago did you visit the United States?" It sounded like a long time and listening to his explanation of how things weren't historic enough even on Manta Carlos.

Maddie wasn't certain how much history Manta Carlos had, but it felt like it would have a lot. She didn't think their definition of 'a lot of history' matched. Their definitions weren't even in the same realm.

Now she was wondering where the two of them went from here. How did this whole dorm parent thing work, exactly? They had gotten done with introductions, so what not?

"What now? Do we take a tour, or...?"
 
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