A Handful of Children

Romi · Apr 14, 2016

Ahh, that question took a bit of thinking, didn't it? Hudson paused, reaching up to stroke his oddly styled beard as he considered the question. Time was a tricky mistress, a puzzle that he should have been able to solve, but had been having trouble with as of late. Maybe he was just too old for it.

"Early eighteen hundreds, I guess? When did America have its first war, again?" Or had it only ever had one? Did the World Wars even count as an American war? World history was awfully complex, and Hudson thought it was a bit silly that he was expected to even remember things from continents he didn't actually care about.

Her second question, at least, was easy to handle. "We can do whatever you want. If you want a tour, I can do a tour. Or I can just show you the dorms and we can... what do you kids call it? We can chill." In that moment, Hudson sounded a whole lot like a really old man trying to act like something that wasn't a really old man.

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Sarrain · Apr 15, 2016

It was when Hudson said chill that Maddie lost it. All the anxiety she had felt over meeting someone new came out in the form of manic laughter. She couldn't stop. She threw her head back, hands on her stomach and kicked her feet. Bandit jumped up and backed away from her, looking at her like she was insane. She must have seemed it right then.

When Maddie caught her breath, she said, "I'm s-sorry! Sir, no one says chill anymore. They say 'hang out.'"

More comfortable now, the young girl inspected him undividedly, unafraid of gawking. He was very tall! He looked strong, too. He'd been around since World War one? That was so long ago. What was he?

"If you don't mind me asking, what are you? Also," she pointed to her right eye, "how did you get that? You said you worked on juvie island originally? Is that where you got the scar? I'd kind of like to hear a little about you, I mean, you must have a file or something on me, so you know more about me than I know about you and that's not very fair."

Romi · Apr 16, 2016

Hudson kept his smile, but it was obvious he was confused as all hell when she started laughing. He truly had no idea why, or what had elicited that reaction. Humans simply didn't make sense what seemed like the vast majority of the time.

Apparently, he'd picked the wrong term, and he let out a little huff. "You'll have to give me a break - humans change slang so fast I can't possibly keep track. One minute they're handkerchiefs, the next they're wipes, and then they don't exist at all." He couldn't possibly be expected to keep track of it all.

"For the record, I didn't read the file. Files don't tell you anything about a person. They just tell you about what a person should be like, which is usually wrong." People were more than the sum of their experiences, and there was no possible way a file could summarize everything a person was. At best, it would get only the broadest strokes.

"An elder dragon - and that's a subspecies, not a joke about my age." Technically he'd been born an elder dragon, which invited more than a few jokes when he'd brought it up before. "Scars older than you are. Older than America, or probably whatever country you were from originally." He'd yet to meet anyone who was actually from the island originally, so it was a safe bet she was from elsewhere. "Probably a knight, or a dragon hunter or something. I don't remember - it was ages ago." Even worse, it had happened in his dragon form, which made it look even nastier when he shifted.

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Sarrain · Apr 18, 2016

Maddie realized immediately that he was offended by her laughter. Luckily she was able to stifle it and give him a sympathetic little smile. He was a lot less scary the longer she spoke to him. Would he be offended if she told him that?

"It's okay. Even human adults can't keep up with teenage slang; it's just funny when they try." Maddie had never heard of a handkerchief being called a wipe. "Do you mean like a wet wipe?"

Maddie shifted her feet. It wasn't that she was uncomfortable, not physically. "Oh." She waited until he had told her about himself, not wanting to interrupt. "I'm from America. Hm, let's see. I'm a shapeshifter, but you already know that. I'm fifteen, and I was adopted when I was young. I have an older sister named Sariah, who still lives in San Francisco, which is where I was before I came to Manta Carlos."

She frowned looking at his scar. Why would someone want to hunt a dragon? She recalled that was a thing in old fairytales, but it never occurred to Maddie that it might be true.

"You don't hoard gold and princesses...do you?"

Romi · Apr 21, 2016

He shook his head. "Just wipe. Was back in the eighteenth century - you see it in Dickens, if you read that." He didn't read all that much, but several thousand years gave one plenty of time to read at least the classics.

He nodded along as he explained her (hilariously short, in his opinion) history. As far as he knew, he had no siblings of his own, but he was familiar enough with humans that the fact that she had one wasn't as much of a surprise.

"As far as I know, no dragon has ever hoarded princesses. For the most part, we're uninterested in humans. Humans are... well, they're common." He wasn't actively trying to be insulting, but it was true - in terms of numbers, there were billions more humans than dragons. "We do have hoarding tendencies though. My cave is quite well stocked, although I'm not a raven. I don't feel the need to snatch every shiny thing." Well, assuming he had a sizeable enough horde to beat down those specific needs, anyway.

@FoxalypticWorld

Sarrain · Apr 23, 2016

"Ooooh!" Maddie had not read Dicken's, which was apparently wrong by even today's reading standards. Classical books were boring; she couldn't help that! "I, erm, don't read classical books. But that's cool! To have been alive long enough to know about all that stuff."

Maddie nodded, not particularly insulted by being called common. Humans were common; they were also prey to a lot of other creatures. "So where did the princess hoarding stuff come from, then? Just fairytales? What kind of things do you hoard, if you don't hoard princesses?"

Maddie wasn't trying to be insulting either, but, well, she was Maddie.

Romi · Apr 25, 2016

She didn't read the classics? Hudson perked an eyebrow, letting out a little huff. "The classics are called that for a reason, you know."

He really didn't mind that she was curious. If more kids were curious, he'd probably like them a lot more, rather than just finding them irritating.

"What a dragon hoards depends on themselves. It's a general instinct - if I get one pack of tea, I have a compulsion to get nineteen more and get a nice stack going. Dragons tend to hoard gold and jewels because they hold up well. They last, essentially. No one wants to get caught sitting on top of a pile of stuff that's going to be completely useless in a hundred years."

As for princesses, that question earned him a little chuckle. "For the most part that's simply exaggerated hogwash - most dragons would have no interest in princesses, and for the most part wouldn't even be able to tell which human was an actual princess. I imagine at least some of the stories are probably based on dragons falling in love with a princess, and then idiots thinking they're obviously kidnapping them as opposed to running off with them." He wasn't going to deny that most dragons had finer tastes, and that no doubt included humans.

@FoxalypticWorld

Sarrain · Apr 27, 2016

Maddie flushed brighter. "I-I know. Just ... they're kind of boring, you know?" Saying that made Maddie look away. And she didn't wanna say so, 'cause it seemed rude, but Dragons were really just pack rats. She thought he would take offense to that.

"So were the old storybooks based on actual happenings or, like, just bullcrap? I guess the latter." Maddie paused, tapping her chin as she thought. "Think we can take that school tour now? I mean, at this point, I know a lot about the school 'cause I've been here awhile.

"Oh! Could you tell me what juvie island is like? Is it scary there? What gets someone put there? How long are you put there?" Maddie's eyes went wide as she asked all her questions, imagination running rampant.

Romi · Apr 29, 2016

Hudson let out a huff as she asked for the tour, pushing himself up with the arms of the chair. While he was technically still absolutely dangerous, he was also old, and at times it felt like his goddamn bones were creaking just from standing up.

"If you've been here long enough, you probably won't need much of any of it. We can do a lap around the school, and you can point out anything you don't know." Simple enough, and it'd save him from having to explain the mundane parts of life.

"Juvie island isn't anything interesting. It's for the kids who are too much of a problem to manage in a normal school environment. Some have powers that are too dangerous for the school, and some are just punks." Punks that needed to understand how things were going to work. Mostly, he'd dealt with the punks.

"You gotta remember that a large number of the student body has had shitty pasts. Things went poorly for them, so they act out. Those kinds of people need more structure than the school provides." Because, one way or another, the main school was not terribly structured.

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Sarrain · May 1, 2016

Maddie couldn't think of a single thing she didn't know about campus at this point. There was probably some obscure thing, but nothing significant. She'd had more than enough people help her out and she'd come far since first arriving here. It felt a lot longer than it had been.

"The only place on Manta Carlos that I was real curious about was Juvie Island, but I wouldn't wanna visit there, and I don't think you'd wanna show me, either."

She wondered where the other kid that was supposed to be here was because Maddie was back to feeling awkward. "Maybe you could just explain to me what exactly your job is being a dorm parent? Then I think all my questions would be answered. What kind of things should I go to you for? Do you give hall rules or anything?"

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