Welcome to Gaia! ::

The sound of screaming drifted through the peaceful forest of Murmuring Pines, scattering startled animals. It was accompanied, a few minutes later, by the scream-ee, charging out of the woods and on to the path with a bag of chips pressed protectively against the front of her camp t-shirt. Spinning around, she took a breath to refill her lungs, and stared down the small flock of crows that had been chasing her. "You can't have it! Go away!!" The shriek caused a few leaves to fall from the trees above, and Aide moved into an aggressive stance. "I'll make your eyeballs explode!!" The threat didn't seem to have any impact on the birds, and one or two began to hop closer again. Aide responded with another screech. It was clear things were going great between them.

Theodore?? Her name wasn't Theodore. Aide stared up at the teacher? staff member? mysterious adult? who had joined her on the path. Opening her mouth, then closing it again, she gave the man in front of her a thoroughly piercing look. Unknown kids were fine, you could just mouth off to them until you figured them out. If you did that to adults, things got ugly - quickly. With adults, there was no power struggle. They had all the power, the end. Especially when they were really old like this.

"Mmmmh." The grunting reply was drawn out and incredibly non-commital as she looked between the new arrival and his apparent friends, the crows. That was a point towards him being weird, like her parents friend's. Also the guitar. Normal adults didn't have time for music, it wasn't important - unlike mortgages and car insurance.

Shuffling slightly to the side, so that she wasn't standing quite in between the two potential threats, Aide forced herself to relax slightly. If he was one of the weirdies, it would be easier to deal with him. You talked to them like they were your age, and they just laughed and went along with it. Sliding the bag of chips behind her back, she turned her head to the flock of birds, eyes still focused on Pinkerton. "Are they yours?"

Now that was a remark Aide wasn't going to take sitting down. Drawing herself up to her full height, she gave the adult a long haughty look. "I'm not lost, I've been at camp for like .... three whole weeks. I was heading down to the boathouse." The 'birds can't be colleagues, they're not even intelligent' that was going to be tacked on at the end however, was held back. Her vague and hasty plan had been to make it down to the water, try to find an oar, then use it to make bird pancakes.

Aide took a few more steps backwards, stopping when she bumped into a tree, and turned the stumble into a casual lean, resting her back against the trunk. "Are you a camp counsellor? You don't look like one." The question was only asked out of burning curiosity, as she felt that three-piece suits weren't the appropriate outfit for the location. Maybe he was some sort of government spy. Why else would he be lurking out here in the woods?

"Mmmmmmh." Squinting her eyes slightly, Aide looked to the side. In a sense the entire campgrounds were supervised, right? Plus that was only really important for the little kids. She was eleven, old enough to look after herself. In all honesty she had no idea if there was anyone down there at the time, but since her mind had been full of red and feathers, it hadn't seemed to matter.

Wiggling gently against the tree, the packet of chips crinkled behind her. After a thoughtful consideration, Aide deigned a reply to the person she was now referring to in her head as 'the weird dad'. "Pppprobably.....?" She threw on her best winning smile at the end, but it wasn't one of her best facial expressions. Sucking up to adults had never seemed too important, so she had never bothered to practice it. To Culver, it probably ended up looking somewhat like a tight-lipped squint.

When the older man had told Aide that one of his crows would be escorting her, the girl's face visibly darkened. Looking as though she was going to protest, she stood waiting for a moment to burst in - only prevented by the clamour that erupted. She lost a little steam as they all began to totter and hop off in different directions - how was she supposed to follow that - and then the rest as Pinkerton began to walk quickly away. "Hey! Wait up!" Voice pitched somewhere between petulant and uneasy, Aide scrambled to catch up with the taller, faster adult. Hurrying up, she grabbed at the back of his suit jacket, feeling slightly uneasy at the 'twenty more'.

While the thought of more crows was unnerving, the suggestion of weakness was enough for Aide to swell up like a balloon, creaking with indignation. She was a titan, unstoppable, someone to be feared rather than someone who was fearful. She'd eaten a bug and not even cared. Dropping the back of the man's coat and striding forwards to walk beside him, she stuck her chin out.

"I'm not scared of birds. They have hollow bones, you know? They weight like. Nothing. You could sit on a bird and squash it. Adelaide." Her name was tacked on at the end, hastily, to make way for the burning questions prompted by the man's 'reassurance'. "Did they used to eat kids? Were they like those birds in that old movie? Did they lift people up in the air and drop them? Why did they have to be trained?" Once she had finished bombarding Culver with questions, Aide was quick to tack on reassurance at the end. "You can tell me, I'll keep it a secret."

Slightly picking up her pace, and shooting a suspicious glance behind her at the gathering birds, Aide half-listened to Culvert's response. When he finished, sounding about as dry as her own father when he was mid-ramble, she turned her glances away from the crows and back towards the adult. "Mmmmm." The noise was noncommittal, and was intended to address everything from 'your teachers' to 'training your animals'.

Aide didn't see her pet as any sort of creature that needed training, they were friends. Equals. Partners in crime. Plus, she had been hoping for some gorey details to relate back to the other campers. It wasn't that she was frightened by the thought of monstrous, murderous crows. It was the thought that she could make other kids frightened by the thought that had excited her. A reply filled with calm words talking about harmony and mutual respect made her roll her eyes - mentally. She knew the world was filled with big, terrifying monsters, but she could never manage to convince adults that she was ready, willing, and eager to learn about them.

"If a crow could tell the difference between a kid and an adult ..." As the docks and lake became visible through a gap in the trees, Aide smiled to herself. It wasn't an entirely pleasant smile. "..then a buncha them could lift kids up in the air and drop them. Little kids, I mean. Hey, do crows with more than one head exist?"