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 Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:19 am
It had been an eventful couple of weeks at ICRS Headquarters, but the breakneck pace seemed to have slowed, leaving the Saturn family slightly bored. It helped that Dixie had come down with the flu - after all, you can't really be bored if you're constantly puking - and Francine had been keeping herself occupied playing nursemaid. Still, Archie and Alek found themselves with less than nothing to do.
"CAMEL!"
Today they were playing makeshift Pictionary on the fridge with a couple of mysterious dry-erase markers they had found in an otherwise empty drawer.
Archie nodded at Alek's guess and pulled open the refrigerator door, temporarily obscuring his drawing as he pulled out a bottle of soda and some cold macaroni and cheese. He stared at the messy scribble as he closed the door, and his brow furrowed. "How did you know what that was?"
The boy shrugged. "Hung out with a lot of camels," he said, grinning to himself and scratching at the base of a stubby horn.
"All those Russian camels," Archie countered with a sarcastically sage nod. "Are you sure I can't add 'psychic' to the list of stuff you can do now?" He pulled out one of the stools in front of the bar counter that served as the family's dining room table and sat, pulling the lid off of his unplanned meal. "Your turn."
Alek stood and stretched before grabbing the marker-stained dishrag off of the sink and plodding over to prepare the drawing board for the next round.
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:29 am
Ajiiel was shrieking angrily when the woman entered the building with her. The little girl's face would've turned red if it weren't already so dark-- instead it just darkened some. Fake tears leaked from her eyes.
Shiori ignored her. She knew the girl well enough at this point to realize that she was just angry for not getting her way, and not actually upset.
She knocked at the door, hesitating. She hoped this was the right place. It wasn't that she wanted to get rid of...well, she wouldn't mind if they took the child off her hands, but she had a feeling they wouldn't. She was okay with looking after Ajiiel, but she at least wanted to know -why- the child was in her care, and if these people could tell her, she certainly was going to find out.
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:32 pm
Before Alek could touch marker to refrigerator, there was a knock at the door and he was off like a shot. Ever since he had grown out of the squishy, short prison of toddlerhood, the child was eager to do things, and knocks at the door surely meant there were things to do on the other side.
"Hi," he said before he could fully see who was on the doorstep. He could hear baby noise, and babies usually meant criminals, a subject he knew little to nothing about despite the fact that he had been surrounded by them since birth. "What'd she do? She doesn't look like a murderer. Did she launder money? Or... ooo!... experiment on people!" He started to lean forward, examining the teary infant.
"Aleksandr!" Archie abandoned his food and hurried to stand behind his grandson, pulling him back and resting cautionary hands on the child's shoulders. "Uh, sorry he accused your baby of being some sort of shady freak," he said apologetically. "We get a lot of those around here." Not recently though. In fact, since the little silver kid, Archie hadn't seen or heard of another criminal he wasn't already acquainted with. He wished there was some sort of mark that would identify them, but he wouldn't know for sure until he heard whether the little girl had fallen from the sky. "How can I help you?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:54 pm
Shiori bowed as best she could while avoiding the teeth that Ajiiel was now attempting to sink into her mother's shoulders- she -had- been attempting to bite the little boy that'd come close, but since he'd been pulled out of her range, and her mother had pulled her closer so she'd not have that opportunity, she was focusing on the woman instead,
"I am Shiori Tonbo. There was a girl...who suggested that you might know why this child came to me..."
The woman blushed,
"That is...the girl rather crash-landed in the backyard of the Temple, and she said you might know how she came to be there?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:20 pm
"Oh, sure!" So it turned out the kid was a shady freak, meant in the nicest way possible, of course. Archie didn't quite know how to tell this woman what sort of child she was in possession of at the moment, so he stepped to the side instead, so the pair could get past. "Come in," he offered. "I'm Archie, and this is Alek." He turned the boy toward the kitchen and gave him a slight push.
Alek had gone wide-eyed at the child's unprovoked hostility and continued silently staring back at the bitey baby as he walked further into the house.
"The girl you talked to was right," Archie continued, trying to keep his distance from the child's jaws. "Did you see any papers or other stuff in the pod when you found her?" It would help matters a great deal if this being's crime had been recorded in some language Archie could read, but even without the papers, at least Shiori would leave knowing what it was she had been taking care of.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 2:59 pm
The woman nodded,
"The only thing I could make out that resembled a word was 'Ajiiel' and so I have been calling her that," she pulled the papers out of her bag, handing them to him. They had seemed jibberish to her, but she'd kept them anyway, meaning to see if there was anyone anywhere about who might understand them.
Obviously, someone might.
Ajiiel eyed the other little one and laughed, tilting her head back as she did so. More than anything she just meant to have fun with herself, and biting was the only way she'd really figured out to do so while trapped in this tiny, helpless form.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:43 am
Archie took the papers and skimmed the foreign words. If he took all day, he could probably remember what most of it meant, but that would make for a very boring visit for this poor woman, not to mention many more chances for possible infant bites.
"Ah, here," he said, coming across some appropriately criminally words. "Bounty hunter. And thief." He grinned at the evilly laughing baby, his amusement at her destructive games amplified by the knowledge that he wasn't ever likely to be responsible for the child. Even if Shiori wanted to leave Ajiiel behind as a result of what Archie was going to say next, he had never had a problem finding homes for infants before.
"She's a criminal. There are lots of us around now. They used to land here, but no one has for over a year. It's supposed to be a punishment, being small. Sometimes there are other punishments too, like they come out all ugly or as a girl when they were a guy. I hope you still want her, but I understand if you don't." He looked to the woman for confirmation. Maybe she would see Ajiiel's rehabilitation as a challenge.
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:53 pm
Shiori wasn't entirely sure what a 'bounty hunter' was, but she did know what thieves were and the word 'criminal' meant that bounty hunter was probably just as bad, if not worse.
She sighed, looking at the feisty little thing as Ajiiel attempted to squirm her way out of the woman's arms. She gripped the little one tighter,
"I understand..." she bit her lip. She couldn't just leave the child, though. Who knew what person might get her? And she was starting to understand her, too. Perhaps she could help her rehabilitate.
"I'll..well, I suppose I will keep her. Is there some sort of support group for this or something? Or rules?"
She wanted to make sure she did it right, if she was going to do it. She was sure there ought to be some sort of counseling or training involved with reforming a criminal, even if it was one in such a small form who probably didn't remember much of their previous life.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:03 pm
"No rules. Some of us are more... well behaved, but just, um, do your best." To be honest, Archie hadn't actually checked up on any of the guardians he had placed children with, and only knew how a couple of the criminals had turned out because they had sought him out once they were old enough to. "There's not a support group, at least that I know of, but a lot of the older criminals hang out next door. Around back, actually. I'm not sure how much help they would be supporting you," he said, huffing out an accidental chuckle, "but... Ajiiel, did you say? She might find it fun to meet other kids like her."
"You could send her to therapy when she's old enough to talk," Alek suggested from his spot on the couch. Now that the baby's attention was temporarily directed elsewhere, satyr boy was staring again.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:03 pm
Shiori smiled. Well, she'd just have to do some research, then. Perhaps talk to some counselors about dealing with difficult children. Ajiiel was even worse than Kisala had been-- at least Kisala hadn't been -violent-, just mischievous.
"That sounds like a good idea," she said. She knew that associating with other kids like her made Kisala feel less strange-- especially since she certainly wasn't a monk and the rest of the people she associated with were. She needed some children her own age to interact with, and the Cabbage Patch HQ was the best place for it.
Ajiiel stuck her tongue out at Alek.
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Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:05 am
"Good!" And Archie truly thought it was. While he remained perfectly content to associate with Gaians who still possessed the bodies they'd been born with and to behave in the law-abiding way they expected, Archie had so far seen nothing but good come from the others' decision to form a… tribe. Sure, it had put him in the occasional awkward position, but no one had been hurt so far.
"I'm glad you'll still be taking care of her," he added. The more Ajiiel fussed, the more unlikely it seemed that he would have been able to convince anyone else to take her. He supposed the groggy, disoriented infants that emerged from their pods were much easier to bond with than the squirmy, disgruntled ex-cons they became over time. "Is there anything else I can tell you about, well, anything?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:27 pm
Shiori shook her head,
"No, I think that's it." She shifted the little girl in her arms to make certain that she couldn't be bit by her and bowed respectfully,
"Thank you for your time."
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