trans_9 | Rounding Up the Kids [Closed]

Entry tags:

Rounding Up the Kids [Closed]

Leon hadn't been on the ship that long, but in the time he had been stuck here, the number of small children running around has grown quite a bit. When it was just one or two, it was fairly easy to keep an eye on them, but with more? Well, he didn't want to risk them falling through the cracks.

Fortunately, he knew someone who would be glad to keep an eye on them.

Yet another reason why he was glad Claire was there.

He had told Claire he would introduce her to all of the kids on board, so he asked her to meet him down in the city that afternoon, which is where he asked all the kids on board to meet him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And heeeere comes Vega. He looks around the city as he walks with no apparent fear of anything. He scuffs his feet a little as he walks, getting the sense that whatever's going to happen it's going to result in people bossing him around and treating him like he's five and can't do anything for himself.

"Hey, Leon," he says, trying to sound cheerful. The bummed-out-ness does come through, though.

Leon chuckled a bit.

"How you doin' kid?"

"Oh, I'm alright," says Vega. "I found my jacket," he adds, shrugging his shoulders and shifting the garment. It's an odd looking jacket, the main body of it is white with these two odd pinkish purple plastic hemispheres in it. It thins out a great deal on Vega's arms, a sort of slate blue in color. He's also wearing a pair of gloves now, also white.

"I usually wear it when I'm piloting."

"Nice jacket. I wish I could find mine." Lord did he go through jackets.

"How long have you been a pilot, anyway?" He figured he'd keep it casual, though he really wanted to know who would be insane enough to put a kid being the controls of giant robot dinosaur.

Yuri had taken time first to make sure that Leon was trustworthy. Her experience with the 'raptor had taught her that not everyone on board was...Jaime's friend had confirmed it for her, however, which cinched it.

The city she found herself in was oddly similar to one back home. While there were some buildings of obvious alien design (the great, throbbing vinyl structure, the mountainous thing consisting of hollow rings around a very tall tree, the noneuclidean office building), most resembled nothing more than the architecture of downtown Tokyo. All in all it was one of the more normal things she'd seen that day.

Her comm guided her to an park in the shadow of two shiny office buildings and what appeared to be a pyramid made out of gleaming stalagmites. Really it was just a field sorrounded by some trees and benches, but here on the meatship it was a small blessing. "H-hello." She said, waving to Vega and looking shyly at Leon behind her bangs and borg's 'wings'. He was a compact man with white hair who looked like he could be very scary if he wanted to be...

You think the adults in Vega's world are crazy, then you clearly haven't heard about the school system where Yuri comes from.

"Um," says Vega, "A couple years?" He's being intentionally vague. He's not really supposed to talk about that, because of laws and stuff that he only half pays attention to.

"I know I'm really young, but I'm really good at it," he says. "I've never lost."

He notices Yuri coming over and waves back. Kid solidarity, heck yeah!

"Hi Yuri!" he says.

That was curious, but it wasn't something he was going to press him about right now. Especially with the new arrival. Last thing he wanted was to make them uncomfortable. He was even easing up on the usual stoic routine.

"Hey, Yuri."

"Hi Vega! H-hello Mr Kennedy." She gives a little bow and shifts her weight from foot to foot, wondering what this is about.

"Glad you could make it. How have you been so far?"

Claire was still having some minor trouble adjusting to the weirdness of the ship, but when Leon called for her she did her best to get the omnicomm to cooperate with her, and made her way to his location. It took her a little longer than she expected, but soon enough she spotted Leon standing with two kids.

"Hey!" She called, hustling up a little and moving to join the group, giving Leon a brief smile before turning her attention to the kids.

"Hi guys, I'm Claire Redfield." She was still a little disoriented to think kids this young were stuck in this place, but it didn't show on her face as she smiled at the two, not wanting to seem as unfriendly as adults could sometimes be.

Vega looks over at Claire, sizing her up a little. Well, she doesn't seem like a bad adult.

"Hi. I'm Vega," he says. He wonders what this is about, but suspects it has something to do with Leon's saying that kids need looked after.

Dani heard the message about going to meet that Leon guy in the city and seeing no reason not to go, headed over. Taking to the air to look for them, she eventually spotted them before flying back down.

And stopped a few feet away as she spotted two kids.

She beamed and flew all the way down, waving to them as she touched down on the ground. Still keeping to her ghost form, of course. No creepy plantsuit when hazmat suit is a lot more comfortable.

"Hey! I heard there were other kids around, but I haven't gotten to meet you yet. I'm Dani," she greeted.

Yuri finds herself joined by a gentle looking redhead and an energetic girl who looked two or three years older than herself and, astonishingly, flew in.

She stares in astonishment, before processing that both are introducing themselves. She gives a little wave and bow. "I'm Yuri Otani...So...why did you want to talk to us?" She asks shyly.

It took a while to find the right place, but before long - as per his conversation with Leon (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_channel/17262.html?thread=454766#t454766) - Kira and Lacus make it to the City. It isn't too hard to find the children (and the two adults), either.

Kira waits until they're close before giving a small wave. "Ah... hello, everyone."

(deleted comment)

"Relax, kid," he told Yuri. "None of you are in any trouble." And he'd like to keep it that way.

He turned his attention to the newer arrivals.

"Hey, Kira... and you must be Lacus?"

(deleted comment)

Yuri was relieved to know she wasn't in trouble and utterly fascinated by the chirping ball of anthropomorphic superflat Lacus was holding up. "It's so cuuuuute!" She squeed.

(deleted comment)

Kira can't help but smile at the young girl's genuine reaction to Lacus' constant companion. She's always been the one who was good with kids, after all. So he just looks up at Leon and nods, that same small smile on his face. "It's nice to meet everybody."

"Hi," Dani greeted, waving at the two new people. She looked at the Haro curiously, but it didn't seem quite as cool as some of the other robots. She still watched it, but Yuri had asked an important question.

"If we're not in trouble, why are we here?" She asked.

Vega recognizes Kira. "Hi Kira," he says. "Nice to meet you, Dani and Lacus."

He too looks at Mr. Pink with some curiosity. It seems like a really girly thing to him. The robots Vega's used to are massive.

All in all though, he relaxes a little and seems less like he's trying not to sulk. This feels less like an inquisition now.

"Yeah, Dani said the right question already. What's up?"

Will is slightly late to join. She hovers at the edge of the group, a little uncertain, but keeping her friendly greeter-smile on. She's getting better at being an Ambassador of Stacy!

"Hey, what's everybody doing?" she asks, when she gets the chance.

"Looks like everyone is here." So, yeah, time to get to the point then. So far, things seemed to be going well, though. Leon looked over at Claire briefly and smiled, then addressed the kids.

"Well, I called you kids here today largely just to make sure you bunch are all right. I know this ship is crazy, this whole situation is crazy. But while we're trying to find a way to get us all home, I want to make sure you kids are safe and that you have the things you need. Claire here, as well as Kira and Lacus, want to help make sure that you do."

Dani looked confused after Leon spoke. "Why....just us kids?" Dani asked. She was pretty confident she could take on at least a good number of the adults. Though she wasn't sure about the other kids, why be worried about them specifically?

Claire took in the new arrivals, smiling and nodding her head at the introductions, before Leon got down to the point. She knew this could be a somewhat delicate situation, but she felt relatively positive about inserting a little bit of structure for these kids. At Dani's question she piped up, answering for what she personally felt.

"Adults are usually more self-reliant, but you guys have been put in this new place without your parents, and that can be pretty scary. We just want you to have a group of adults you can always come to, no matter what." She smiled a little, tilting her head briefly. There was more than that, of course, but she felt she should try to keep it simple, for the moment.

"Adults we can...always come to?" Yuri rolls the idea over in her head. It feels strange on her tongue. Nothing in her recent experience before arriving here has taught her that such adults exist.

"Well, I'm not scared," says Vega lightly. He is though, just not gonna be admitting that.

"I mean, you're nice I guess but I'm not a little kid. I'm a warrior and I can do things myself." He thinks "pilot" is a little more professional, personally, but a lot of the Backdraft pilots like being called warriors and it sounds fiercer.

"Oh, is that it?" Dani asked, looking thoughtful. "Then I don't need help. Strange is normal for me and it's kind of cool to be on an alien ship anyway," Dani said. Being manipulated to do something she didn't know about she didn't like so much, but she could deal with that when she had too.

"And I've been taking care of myself most of my life, so I'm good there too," she added. Well, she had been, though she'd only been alive a little over a year year, but hey, she lost her 'parental figure' after only a bit more than a month of being alive, so it was still true.

"Even if you don't think you need help right now," Kira interjected, having mostly been content to stand by and let everyone else talk, "In case something happens and you think you might need someone, you should have someone."

And to Vega, he turned. "Even if you're a good pilot... it always helps to have someone you can talk to. I know." After all, he'd had Mwu and Murrue, hadn't he?

Yuri nods at all the new information. "Still, I think it's nice of them..." The concept is new to her but it's very gradually sinking in: Adults who are there to help and protect her. She feels a strange kind of gratefulness.

Claire listened carefully to the children's comments, knowing this wasn't going to be easy. She'd dealt with kids who felt they needed to be self-reliant, of course. Most of the kids she'd had contact with, really, felt they had to grow up before they were ready to.

"You're all being very brave," she said, her hands moving at her side, palms spread outwards a little. "But you don't have to be tough all the time. And it helps to have people you know you can count on. I know I feel a lot better knowing I've got someone to trust here."

"It is nice...." Dani said, looking at them thoughtfully. "But...you want us to trust you like we would family, right? Isn't it a bad idea to just trust you that much right away?" She asked after a few moments of thought. "I mean, it sounds like you want us to trust you like I would trust Danny. He's my cousin on board. Right?"

Asking for normal trust was fine, but she was pretty sure they wanted her to trust them as much as Danny. Honestly, that hadn't worked out so well in the past.

There was a slight look from Leon to Claire, as well as a small smile. He knew she had said it for the kids benefit, but he still appreciated her saying that.

When Dani spoke up, though, he returned his attention to the kids.

"Uh... look, we know we're not your family, and we wouldn't try to replace them. But we also know that being here can be tough. When things do get hard for you, and you need some help, you'll have it, plain and simple."

"....do you expect us to do anything in return?" Dani asked. Well, adults who just 'worried about kids' didn't ask them to do unreasonable things in return. So she thought it was a good thing to know.

"Aside from you guys behaving yourselves and trying to stay out of trouble? No." He really wasn't going to put a whole lot of demands on a bunch of children.

Dani studied the four adults thoughtfully after the response. Well, they were asking for the demands of pretty much everyone, right?

She smiled. "Gotcha!" She said. Though she'd still prefer to go to Danny first.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rounding Up the Kids [Closed]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject