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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 5:26 pm
Of the people who knew most about Peter's existence on the island, the majority had been introduced to him in some way, whether planned or incidental. Some were refused the right entirely, and would always be - others were more complicated for a wide variety of sound and valid reasons. This included Rep. It had nothing to do with her desire for them to meet, and she had never questioned that there would be any risk of safety. Rep was ultimately the reason that he had been provided the chance to survive, and she found it abundantly clear that the child's life mattered to him. It was their position as family that always gave her pause; she felt much like the older sister to both Camille and Lucky, in spite of the latter being nearly a year older than her, but Rep's inclusion no longer made her feel like the oldest. She may have been decades behind in comprehending the dynamics of siblings, but it had not taken long to understand that she was in another position of seeking approval. So she waited, testing waters that never registered as warm enough. She watched to gauge his thoughts about family. Still, nothing achieved what she calculated to be the highest likelihood of optimal for him, and she was in the middle of clothing the child in a onesie made to look like a tiger when she resolved that it had simply been long enough. Baneful Text to Rep:I would like for you to meet Peter, if you are comfortably willing to meet him at this time. We are outside on our front lawn, but may meet you elsewhere if this does not suit you.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 4:10 am
Rep eyed the text with uncertainty and something close to fear, he'd run into the baby once since the Mall but hadn't exactly had time to pay attention having been running for his life from a hoard of creation zombies at that particular time. It had seemed less dangerous than this, laden with all the weight of issues he avoided addressing with all his heart.
Kids were complicated for Rep and something akin to a phobia, his own childhood so contorted that he had no idea how it was appropriate to act around a child and was deeply concerned that what he thought was normal was wholly inappropriate. Given the man he'd become he'd always felt that the wisest course of action was to keep as much distance as possible between himself and the innocent. This had only been borne out by other people's responses to his brief interactions or comments on kids. His old "girlfriend" had gotten really upset when one of her brats had been boasting about how much lego he could stack and Rep had sat down to roundly trounce and taunt him about it.
It was completely ******** weird.
Still, this was Mimsy asking and he wouldn't turn her down, he'd show up, he'd be on his best behaviour and he'd get a chance to look at the kid he hadn't wanted to murder, the one thing that let him cope with what had happened at the Mall and ever since.
He showed up not long after the text was received, as always slouching like a sullen teen the way he did when his mind was on grim matters. He straightened up at the sight of Mimsy though, smiling in a way that didn't need to be faked.
"Hey." he said, but it was already very apparent he'd gone into full british awkward mode, seeming to have forgotten how to carry his arms relaxed and making eye contact only with Mimsy to the exclusion of Peter, as if doing so would be the height of rudeness.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:48 pm
By design, they were just where Mimsy said they would be. It was best to avoid the unnecessary existence of unknown variables in this instance particularly, and she never wanted to give the impression that she would not be present when he sought her out. Peter was by her feet for the moment, tearing up handfuls of grass with a low rrrr rrrrrrr, as though he assumed that was a tigerly thing to do. He at least looked the part. "Hello, Rep. I'm very happy to see you, and that you have come to visit." She smiled back, just as genuine. That only changed when she appeared to be on the very edge of saying something else, which Peter dutifully interrupted. "TIGER TOO!" he shouted, insofar as a small child could, once again reminding everyone within earshot who his father was. He stood to 'point' all five fingers at Rep and his tiger hair, because it was obviously worth five importance. "Yes. Today you are both like tigers," Mimsy confirmed, eyes darting quickly back to Rep. "He is not really a tiger, of course. Oh...but you know that, surely. I mean no offense - I supposed it might be best to specify, given our very expansive realm of possibility."
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:09 pm
Rep nodded to Mimsy in a very awkward sort of way as he finally turned his attention to Peter, his immediate response to the tiger onesie being that he was being one upped, that he wasn't tiger enough or that maybe, just maybe he was as childish as the little kid who was having fun on the grass. Either way the immediate reaction was a tremendous spike of intense jealousy and it was only by virtue of Mimsy that he managed to rein it in.
The reassurance that Peter was not actually a tiger soothed him just a bit and he nodded once again, placated somewhat.
"Raising tigers is easier." he said, speaking from experience in another world. "If they grow up wrong you can just skin them and start again."
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:23 pm
Of all the things she might have expected Rep to say, that was most sincerely not one of them. Mimsy blinked once, then glanced to ensure that Peter was as entirely unaffected by this comment as she'd anticipated he would be. Seeing that he was already occupied by the grass again, she tried to hide another smile by tipping her head briefly downward, but the gesture in itself gave her away. "Ah, you're correct, but these are quite difficult to replace. A tarantula was even simpler." Only in theory. Hers had not actually survived her 'caretaking'. "If you damage its limb, for instance, you need only to remove the limb and await its regrowth upon its next molt. Skinning in a way, perhaps."
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:41 pm
Rep looked slightly mortified at the idea of taking apart a tarantula. "If you damage its limb you need to be more careful with yer wee spider pal. Nae point in skinning bugs." he said with a thoughtful rub of his chin. "Too wee, no much use. They are kind of small and cute." He wasn't fond of the famine ones which slithered around under his skin or made his hair fall out and get ******** old before its time but some bugs were fine.
"Anything that sheds its skin's too easy, no worth hunting." He deliberately sidestepped the very large word starting with s which was implied by the mention of shedding skin.
Again, but more bold and curious now, he turned his attention towards Peter and it was almost like watching a cat spot the peripheral movements of a small bird. "They say man's the ultimate prey." he said. "I'd probably agree. But sometimes its just nae sport. Sometimes its just..a wee dude just crying and scared and alone. Animals don't..they don't talk they cannae.." he trailed off before seeming to mentally yank himself back on track.
"I'm glad he's got a mammy noo." he said, his accent thickening a little. "He looks a lot better. Than he did. Obviously. Is he scared of heights?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 3:44 pm
"I thought that he was quite cute too. I was careful with his safety, with the exception of failing to protect it from other predators." Clerise. "That was my failure, and I have since learned. I only started over with another species instead." Then Peter shared their attention, oblivious to the arguably threatening subtext that was being exchanged above his head. He tried to put a handful of freshly harvested grass into his mouth, but she pried it out without a word before standing upright again. Another blink, more owlish this time, as she tried to determine how to best pick up their thread of conversation. "I would agree. That man is the ultimate prey to be hunted, that is." The predatory thing that stirred itself awake behind her eyes, one she'd believed was of her own making, was contained within an expression both visibly and inarguably inherited. The only discernible difference was that she looked like she wanted to hunt with him; from her mother, there would have been no with. Whether it was the slack on her own leash or the thickening of his accent, perceived by her as some shedding of skins that weren't really theirs, she seemed noticeably more comfortable now. "Infant humans are like the bugs, as you spoke of them. Not of much use, except to be cared for, and ignored by those who are not contained within their system. Their purpose creates a purpose in itself. I'm glad that I could fulfill this purpose for him too, though." And she had possibly become too comfortable, as her first thought upon his inquiry about heights was to look towards her home to calculate the height of the roof for experimental purposes. Mercifully, her system of checks and balances triumphed. "I have no data indicating that he is scared of heights. Should he be?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:36 pm
"Well you've done damn well with this little guy." And he wasn't really so little anymore, it got harder and harder to link the baby he'd spared from the massacre at the Mall with the small and sentient human he was watching play in front of him. He was glad that was the case, trying to forget the individuals who he hadn't managed to save was hard enough.
"Kids are ******** dumb." he said with a look of minor alarm as Peter tried to eat the grass, remembering just how dangerous trust could be without anyone there to metaphorically take the grass out of your mouth. "He's lucky to have such a fierce ma."
"Oh er. I figured he might be scared of heights like... I only found him like, when Kostya accidentally chucked him like 20 feet in the air and I caught him out of instinct. I like, figured after that like fate wanted something else than the purge solution for him." he shrugged. "I figured after something like that he might have had some like, residual fear of heights but I don't know a ******** thing about kid psychology. Maybe he just thought it was a really weird ******** dream."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:21 pm
The compliments superceded any argument that she might have otherwise made about intelligence, and her grin was a proud once. His approval was a meaningful thing, and the camaraderie Mimsy felt now easily overtook any opportunity for negative reactions - even when he divulged the specifics of Kostya throwing her child. "He might be. Children are already innately sensitive to fear in its general sense, even as infants. Their body retains the memory, in a portion of the mind that is accessible only by the body itself, but they do not directly. Anything resembling a scent, or sound, or event that occurred there may trigger a response, though he would not know why. But he is not frightened of your voice, despite hearing it there." She'd worried, admittedly, so this had come as a relief. "I have noticed nothing of the sort thus far, but he has night terrors on occasion. Everything I've read insists that this is normal, but." Her brow furrowed as she had some difficulty with what she intended to say. "It is also normal for a child experiencing a night terror to not recognize their parents, as they occur in the stage of deep sleep absent of REM. When he cries for 'mama', but becomes more distressed by my presence and says that I am not, it is difficult. Thankfully, unlike trauma, this is not something they recall." "Mama!" Peter chimed in, mimicking her word as he clapped his hands and stared up at her. With a smile, she seemed to recover from any of her troubled state that remained.
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