Midnight Manor, Room 1-A, Saturday morning.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden woke up shivering. Somebody had left the verandah door open, even though it was very cold out and she didn't seem to have a scrap of blanket. The door was going to remain a mystery, but the blankets were easily solved - there was a lump made up of blanket and bright red hair curled up next to her.

"Hey," she hissed, poking the blanket lump. She was trying to stay quiet, because she didn't want the grownups to hear her making a fuss. "Hey, those are mine!" She reached for the edge of the blanket and started tugging. "You can't hog them all, I'm cold, too!"

[For the snatchy blanket hog, but also open!]

Comments

[moreofaponchoguy]

Cal felt the tugging and leaned in the opposite direction with a low whine. Didn't she understand that he hadn't had such a big blanket in... well, ever? "Fine, here," he said, flipping one bit of blanket back in her direction before nestling in harder. "Don't bug me, I've gotta get sleep."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"That's not enough!" Arden whined protested. "You use that much and gimme the rest. See how much you like it!"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Cal grumbled and squirmed and opened his eyes enough to see the door. "Did you leave the door open? You shouldn't get blanket if you made it cold. Why don't you close it?" Because he was enjoying sleeping, thank you very much.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"This is my room! I can sleep however I wanna sleep!" She was pretty sure she didn't leave the door to the outside open, but who was this boy to tell her that she could or couldn't? "You probably left it open when you snuck in here to be a blanket thief!"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"This is my..." Cal trailed off as he peeked out of the blanket. "Oh. This isn't my room. But I'm not a sneak, and you're just lazy." He shuffled the blanket loose enough to get his arm out and wooshed the door shut with the Force. "You must have dragged me in here to get me in trouble."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"How am I lazy when you're the one who didn't even get out of bed to shut the door?!" Arden demanded, her innate sense of injustice currently overriding her idea of how reality worked. "And how would I even drag you, you're bigger than me! I couldn't drag you nowhere!"

And five...four...three...wait for it...

"Wait! How did you do that?! Was that magic???"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Arden would be able to see the eyeroll if Cal hadn't re-buried himself in blankets, but she could probably feel it nonetheless.

"The Force isn't magic. Your Master is gonna get mad if they hear you say that," he said petulantly. Then, after a moment, he added, "I'm sorry I ended up in your room. It's hard sleeping by myself sometimes, you know?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"I don't have a master," Arden said. "Is that a other way of saying foster parents? Cause I don't have those either. Or magic."

While the narrative laughed.

She curled a little closer to the boy. "But yeah, I know. Bad dreams?" Wait! Maybe if he had magic he'd understand. She dropped her voice into a whisper. "Or do the angels come for you, too?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Oh boy, what room had he ended up in? "I don't know anything about angels. But sometimes I have bad dreams where everyone I care about gets hurt because of me. I think I had one of those last night." Cal squirmed out of the blankets a little and gave her a smile. "I'm sorry you have bad dreams too. And I'm sorry I stole your blanket," he said, shimmying to offer some blanket to her.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Oh, you're a much nicer boy than I thought," Arden said, taking the blanket and burying herself under it. "Most boys like to be mean and steal things and pull my hair."

She reached over to take his hand. "That's not true. Your dream, I mean. People just get hurt or sick sometimes. It doesn't mean it's your fault. You're just little."

[moreofaponchoguy]

"People shouldn't pull your hair, it's really nice." Maybe he'd get lucky, and all memories of this weekend would disappear later? "And I'm not nice all the time. I'm still trying not to get angry so much so Master Tapal will like me better. If anyone tries to steal your things, you should steal them back."

See, this was why Master Tapal sighed all the time.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

But then how would she tease him about thinking her hair was pretty?

"Is that your foster dad?" Arden asked. "Or your social worker? Mine just looks at me and sighs and says 'Again?' when she sees me."

Which, fair. She tended to see her case worker a lot.

"Oh no, I don't wanna get in trouble, though. I keep hoping that if I'm really good, then the foster family will keep me. Does your Master Tapal have lots of kids? It's rough when you get matched with someone who doesn't like you."

For fosters and case workers both.

[moreofaponchoguy]

"No, he's my Master," Cal said, looking confused until he looked at her hair again and realized she didn't have a Padawan braid. "Ooh, you're not a Padawan, are you? Don't worry, I'm sure a Master will pick you. Master Tapal is only training me now, but I thought it was going to take forever to get picked!"

[hasaknightjob]

Llewellyn had woken up as a child which Steven figured meant fair odds others had as well. Steven being Steven, he put in an order of food that allowed for things both little ones and their regularly aged residents could eat for breakfast if they wanted.

When it arrived, he put it in the boarding house dining room, and then decided to check on the residents just to be sure.

Arden's was the first door up the stairs, so Steven and a will ping in himself tiny Llewellyn stopped there first.

Steven knocked softly. "Arden? It's Steven. Don't mean to interrupt anything if you're all right. But, er, are you all right?"

[pocketpretzels]

Llewellyn was indeed there, clutching Steven's free hand like it was a lifeline.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Oh! Steven!"

Arden carefully got down out of the bed and ran over to open the door for them. "Hi Steven! Hi Llewellyn! Come inside and meet the magic boy!"

[hasaknightjob]

"Hello, Arden!" Steven said. He frowned. "Magic boy?"

The frowning was mainly because he didn't know who she was referring to, not because he doubted.

[pocketpretzels]

"Yeah, magic like how?" Llewellyn asked. "Like the house is magic?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"No like he shut the door just by waving at it!" Arden said. "He says it's not magic, he just forced it, but that doesn't make any sense."

[hasaknightjob]

"Perhaps Midnight understood his request?" Steven suggested. "Also are you hungry? We've bagels and the like downstairs."

[pocketpretzels]

"Bagels is bread that's a circle," Llewellyn supplied helpfully, in case Arden wasn't aware.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"No, he didn't say anything, he just waved it and it closed!" Arden explained, pointing to the ginger once again napping in her bed. "He's sleeping here because he's got nightmares. But he doesn't hear the angels, even though he has magic."

And that report given to Steven, she turns to nod at Llewellyn. "Yeah," she agrees. "It's like a donut but for grownups!"

Circles. Holes. It made sense!

[hasaknightjob]

"That's right," Steven said, since it sort of was. "With all sorts of moddable toppings. We've fruit as well."

[pocketpretzels]

"I had one and I'm not a grownup," Llewellyn reported. "With... nut butter?" he turned to Steven to verify this, because that had been a long time ago, and the first time he'd heard of the word besides. "And jam."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Yeah, but donuts are sweet and covered in sprinkles and stuff for kids!" Arden explained. "And bagels don't have fun colors or sugar or anything, so they're like for grownups. But you can eat any of them, it's fine."

Beat.

"What's nut butter?"