Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Miro..."

There were three worries on Leonard's mind right now.

"What is it, Dad?"

One was his usual worry that he would be late for whatever engagement he had to be at; this time he had a date with a recording studio who was interested in distributing some of his piano work. Another was a new worry, one he thought he would never have: when was the babysitter going to get here?

What was the third one, then? A worry that no sane person, let alone an unwitting parent, should ever have, ever.

"C-c-c-could you please get down from the ssss-suh-ceiling?"

"Why do you want me down?" Mirorim asked with thorough innocence. He saw nothing wrong with sitting on the ceiling of the living room, it sure made the place seem a lot more interesting. It always drove his father crazy, especially when he was practicing one of his instruments or scribbling little black dots at the table. In those instances he could understand, the man apparently found it 'distracting', but right now there was nothing to distract him from.

Leonard was about to try and stutter out an answer when the pleasing chimes of the doorbell travelled across the house. Well, that was one of three marked off... signaling for his adopted son to stay put, he quickly strode from the living room and to the front door in order to answer it and let what he hoped was the babysitter inside.

And if it weren't for the fact that a large percentage of the Gaian population tended to wear fox ears and tails, the composer might have dropped what little composure he had then and there. Instead, he meekly asks, "You're S-shauna, right? The babysitter?"

Well, it was nice to see the young woman was enthusiastic about being a babysitter. Leonard might be busy, but he isn't heartless - he would feel terrible if Mirorim's babysitter ended up being one of those types who would pay more attention to the telephone than to his child! As the fox girl bounds in and makes herself feel welcome, he does all he can to not be too shocked by how real her tail and feet are. "Actually, my l-l-last name is--"

But it's too late to correct her, and there she was chattering away at his son... well, that's teenagers for you. At least she seems gloriously unfazed by the child's habit of ignoring the laws of physics!

Of course, as it is with Ror, he's back on the ground by the time he's done saying "Hi, Shauna." There was no noise, no movement, no flash of light or anything spectacular about it - he was simply standing calmly on the floor as if it were absurd to think that he had ever been on the ceiling in the first place. The little glass beads draped about his form sparkled in the light of the room as he half-raised his arms in the universally expectant give-me-a-hug gesture.

Did... those ears just...

"Uhh--" Leonard began oh-so-intelligently in response to the fox girl's question. He was slowly starting to realize that this young lady was... well. Probably a great deal less peculiar than the boy she would be taking care of! That thought was able to keep him acting more or less normally as he finally answered, "My l-last name is Laurence." He thought he had told the girl, but it really was no big deal. His first and last name sounded similar enough that people could tend to forget one of them sometimes.

Oh, hugs. How Miro was growing to love these wonderful arm-squeezes of joy and affection. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was thinking that his father could use one of those more than him, but that was abandoned as soon as his babysitter continued the conversation.

Little did Shauna know that the musician was always nervous, and things like lateness or being around people with strange appearances only made to aggravate that part of him. "W-well, I-I-I shouldn't be too late, i-it's just some piano work at the stuh-studio across town," he explained, gathering a pile of sheet music from the coffee table and shuffling all the pages in their proper order. "I guess a little while after dinner w-would be a good estimate... I'm n-not allowed to bring a cellphone in, so the studio number is written down right there." A free hand points to a note on the table; it's a good thing his handwriting is a great deal more calm than his demeanor.

More time...? Had they met before? Well, Leonard supposed they had at the daycare center, so maybe they just hit it off really well back there! He couldn't shake the feeling there was something more to it than that... but it wasn't important now. Shauna didn't seem the suspicious type, and as long as she was up for the babysitting job it would all be good. So the musician managed to give a nervous little chuckle as the sitter adjusted Ror's bowler. He really did love that hat, and it did suit him all too well. Almost made that whole mask deal a little less unsettling. The man had learned the hard way that trying to take it off was a very bad idea, although he still wasn't sure of the reason.

He supposed everything would be alright as long as his son remained happy and healthy! A part of him was slowly starting to enjoy the whole fathering thing beyond the potential for guilt and shame that constantly hung over his head.

"Well... goodbye, then," the musician concluded, stopping to give Mirorim an awkward pat on the head and quietly telling him, "Be good!" before heading out the door.

The paradox boy responded with a cheerful "Bye, Dad!" and gave a little wave from the window. Soon enough Leonard's car had growled out the driveway, leaving Shauna and Ror alone in the house. The boy turned around to look up at the fox expectantly and innocently asked, "What do we do now?"

Aside from the ever-threatening possibility of spontaneous combustion, nothing at the studio would be likely to explode... but if something broke, Leonard would probably be the one to die of either embarassment or an aneurism. Good thing the music world was the one place where Leonard's life wasn't at least somewhat disastrous or he probably would have been found hanging by his tie from a ceiling fan by now.

Ror was finally able to squirm out of Shauna's epic hug and teetertoddled his way with her into the living room before sitting in a lotus position on the couch, back rod-straight and hands gripping at his feet. "I dunno, that's why I asked you," he responded matter-of-factly to the foxgirl's question. "Dad didn't really say much about what you do with a babysitter." The kid honestly was drawing a blank. His father had probably expected him to come up with something by himself, but that's what happens when your kid isn't entirely normal! And Shauna didn't look the type to be able to give piano lessons.

"Of course I still have them!" Ror suddenly brightens, dangling the one she had mentioned in front of her from a fist. "I always keep them close. They're important."

"Don't worry, I'll be good," the boy assures his sitter. Why he would break the rules and do something crazy is beyond him; he lives in this house too and it would be no good to make a mess out of it! Going outside without some sort of supervision would get him lost in a matter of minutes... the list goes on and on about how things could screw up, no doubt because of stuttering explanations about the rules he was given by his father.

As to why the little glass orbs he carried were important, Mirorim could only shrug his shoulders. They just were.

The video games available would prove to be several years out of date. Not that Leonard was neglectul, he just knew nothing about that part of the world and more or less picked up a console and a handful of games from a liquidation sale because he had heard kids Ror's age were supposed to like this sort of thing. There aren't any that are excessively violent either: mostly traditional RPGs, where the fun in playing with someone else usually came in the form of advisory and direction.

A more competitive puzzle game could also be found in there, maybe that one would be more interesting?