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Taylor was a surprisingly well mannered young child, quiet and undemanding. Sure he had a bad habit of taking shiny bits that didn't belong to him, and his grasp on grammar was often a bit shaky, but growing up as he had, among those who had claimed the duty of raising him, he'd learned quickly that it did little good to make a fuss.

Savius admired that about the child. He admired the boys attempts at self sufficency, the young wisdom that kept the youngest of the family out of Lithle's hair as often as not. Bating the beast was a dangerous habit, and if it was a favorite hobby of his, that didn't mean he recommended it to everyone. Certainly, the gryph-brat wasn't ready for such a game.

Today had been a bad day. Lithle having one of her-- attacks, and locked away in that empty room. The screaming was unnerving, and all of Jer'ain's soothing words could not make it stop. A long one. After a few minutes, Taylor, being Taylor, had picked up the sound and began echoing the screams with eerie accuracy. It was about then that Savius took it upon himself to scoop the child into his arms and take him somewhere-- less full of screaming.

And so, the HQ, because it was a place to go, where he could set Taylor among the toys and ignore him, his mind on other, darker things. The usually laid back, approachable Kestrel was distracted, and as Taylor began carefully pulling the wheels off of a toy car, Savius dug absently through the fridge, not seeming particularly concerned about the contents.

The teenage death guardian pulled his head out of the fridge, having successfully discovered beer, and, because of the voice, he was considerate enough to bring out two bottles. Thus armed, he waved a full hand at the stranger, a casual gesture coupled with his usual lazy near smile. His small wings were folded against his back, and he glanced automatically toward Taylor, making sure the child was still engaged in destroying toys.

The zombie under control, he returned his attention back to the interesting new woman, and the child she'd brought with her.

"Hey." Sleepy tones, as Savius set the second bottle down on the counter, eying the female with absent interest. Opening his own, he smiled at last.

"Yeah, the zombie brats come from here." He admitted, snatching the second beer back up and ambling over. "Thirsty?"

And without any seeming sense of personal space, he peered down at the child in the sling, wiggling his fingers to get the infants attention. "Oh, it's fuzzy. Heh. Hello little fuzzy zombie brat."

Savius didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at the woman's apparent lack of understanding, just lowered his fingers slightly so the infant might grab them if he liked, still wiggling them a bit to keep the child interested. Cute thing, really. Much less grabby than Taylor had been at that age.

He glanced over again, prompted in part by the woman's question, and saw that Taylor was now working on secreting the shiny metal wheels about his person, leaving the rest of the car sitting as if up on blocks. Good for now, but soon he'd need something else that glittered to keep him occupied, or a book.

"Zombies? Horror story monsters. Shambling undead corpses. Eat brains." Well, that about summed them up, right? He took a drink from the bottle he held in the hand he wasn't using to entertain the fuzzy one, found himself wondering if he should raid the fridge further, bring something back for Lithle. Something stronger than the beer in their fridge.

"The stick kids, they're 'reborn', I guess. Don't much like it. Dead should be dead. But they're alive a second time. Second life. Taylor-" He gestured, "Was a gryphon before. Anyway, I call them zombies. Dead, and then alive again."

A silence then, as he thought. He tried not to think about it, mostly. He was a guardian of death, there was supposed to be an order to these things. But these lived by their own laws. Best to forget it at any depth. Taylor was a good kid.

"That's my brother. My Dad's kid. She's- sick. She's never in a very good mood when she's sick, so I figured I'd take him out. 'rain, my sister, and I, we do most the taking care of him anyway. Dad doesn't much like kids."

A short laugh, and he didn't smile for it. "Or, people."

Savius gave an ineloquent shrug, expressing a lack of knowledge, or perhaps simple lack of interest, in the details of the zombie subject. All he knew was that it messed with the natural order of things, not the how and the why of it. Maybe Lithle had been told. The woman who'd given her Taylor had certainly known a lot about the gryphon's past. Controlled though? He didn't think so.

"Dunno. They do their own thing. Taylor likes shiny stuff." He turned his head toward the boy, giving a high bird like whistle that brought the boy's birdlike gaze away from the coloring book he'd found and over to them. "C'mere, bratling."

Taylor pushed himself to his feet immediately, one hand still clutching to one of the tires he'd yet to secret away. He liked to see it in the light, the shine and the dance of it. Any bit of metal was pretty, if you held it to a sun. Reaching Savius's side, he gave a couple churring whistles of his own, so that Savius shook his head and laughed.

"We're neither of us birds these days, brat. Look, this lady has a new zombie." Had he neglected to give his name? Well, yes, but he often forgot things like that. He tended to lean to using nicknames anyway.

"Fuzzy's good a title as any." He replied, watching as Taylor stood on his toes to peer at the smaller wand child. "You'll have to hope he's not a little thief, like this one is."

He ruffled the gryphon boy's hair affectionately, but earned only a frown. "No steal. Mine. Just, no one say 'here have'. I say instead."

If his grammar showed room for his improvement, his high childish voice nailed every word with ease. He had no trouble wrapping his tongue around strange sounds, only in putting them together correctly.

Taylor giggled at the fuzzy baby's little chirruping sounds, then called them back to him, doing a good imitations of the child's own voice. Imitation and language came naturally to him, even if he couldn't pull himself out of a more animalistic view of grammar. The woman received at least some of his attention as she spoke, he tilted his head up to look at her, and nodded with seeming seriousness at her words.

"Like sparkleshines." He explained, holding the tire in his little hand up to her, so that she might see how the metal bits caught at the light. "My hoard."

His hoard actually consisted of a much larger pile of bright sparkling objects and bits of metal, each one of them more of a choking hazard than the last, but the wheels he'd just taken were all he had with him at the moment.

Savius gave the boy's hair another indulgent ruffle, and left his hand sitting there, tugging absently at strands of dark tipped hair. If one knew his nature, his gestures might seem odd, but there were no kin here. It made him miss Iamel, who he knew came to the HQ from time to time.

"A zombie safehouse, I guess. There's a library, and a place for them to train, and a garden where they have stupid parties, sometimes. I think that woman, Ina, Lina, whatever, she wanted them to stay close to each other. Guess this is so they'll have a place to meet up. I come 'cause there's always beer in the fridge."

Savius continued to tangle his fingers up in the gryphon boys short hair as the woman spoke, observing the boys squeeking attempts at further communication with a smile. The boy liked others, though he stumbled a bit over the regular social niceties, and certainly reacted strongly enough when he encountered one he didn't care for. Then again, who in the family didn't.

"You don't gotta live here, though I think they like it if you visit. As to the rest- maybe" He replied, softly, eyeing the walls with a frown. His shoulders rose in another shrug, but he sounded serious enough. "Don't know the details, but bad s**t's gone down here before. One of the parents died, I think. Something like that. Guess the zombiebrats got an enemy. But Taylor's got nothing to worry about."

He patted the boys head roughly and actually grinned, though the expression was a bit feral. "He's a good little killer. Or he was. Soldierboy in his last life, they tell us. And I can taste it. Dad and I, we're already training him."

His fingers reached out, to tickle at the ratlings stomach, and his words were sweet and singsong as they were mildly disturbing. "You hear that Fuzzyzombie? You got a good comrade here, one'll watch your back, slit some throats, if he needs to."

Taylor, meanwhile stared up at his older brother with open adoration in his wide amber eyes, "Because I fight the wolves?" His grammar, for once, fell correctly, it was obviously a much heard, much repeated line.

"Thats right brat." A shake of his head, and that smile faded back to lazy neutrality. Oh... Lithle's foolish, bright ideals. Wolves and sheep. Predators and prey and those who stood between them. Savius knew better, mostly. Knew death as death as death, but didn't say as much. Better to watch Taylor's eyes light bright with glory... as so many eyes had lit, and would light, forever on in brave young soldiers, burning with truths they never thought to question.

"Nah... blame my Dad." Taylor replied with a shrug, giving Taylor an affectionate but not unamused look. "He means 'bad guys', you could say. Dad was a bit of a vigilantly in her time."

She still would be, were it not for days such as this, the empty room. Savius knew it, admired it in his way, even if he could only pretend to understand her motives. She painted the world in broad strokes, dividing good from bad and placing herself between them. Savius saw things more simply. There was what was his, and what wasn't. He didn't often think much further than that. He was likely enough to be fond of anyone who amused him, but seeing so clearly where all would end kept him from getting too attached.

"Yeah, there was a war I guess. About magic, or something." He shrugged. "Taylor fought in it, back when he was a gryphon and not a zombie brat. He doesn't remember."

A gesture, in the general direction of the library. "There's some books on it. They've got books on a lot of stuff."

Taylor, meanwhile, had grown impatient with the adult conversation, even with the baby providing entertainment. He tugged firmly on Savius's arm, peering up at him with a frown. "'m hungry."