--Daycare--

Mark growled and ran off, finding the group of boys. "Hiya!" he said excitedly.

Taylow smiled and looked down at Kylia and sighed. "Go play dear."
She shook her head defiantly. "No! Y-you'll leave me!" she cried even harder. Taylow sighed, her heart breaking slightly and picked her up and gave an apologetic smile to the women around her.

Copper Rain: I pulled Castle and Rose along by the hand, yanking every so often as their hands attach themselves to a doorknob.
"I want a fucking cookie!" Rose yelled, grabbing the edge of a door.
I open my mouth to say something, then decide against it. With another pull, I get both of them barreling down the hallway. "Well, let's see. I guess it's this door, hmm?" I say, opening it.
"I still want my fucking cookie!"

Senet

"Hi-ya?" I asked Peter with a questioning look, sounding out the new word.

"'Hiya' veut dire 'salut,'" Peter explained.

"Oh!" I turned to the boy who'd said hiya. He didn't look as old as I was. "Euh, 'ello."

Finn
I just watched, giving a fleeting shy smile. I wasn't...good with people, much. Especially somewhere like this...where was this, anyway? Everything was so colorful. After a while I zoned out of the conversation and just looked around. Woah...big windows that weren't broken, and all the lights worked...and whatever the soft stringy stuff on the floor was was really cushy. I leaned over and whistled quietly in Cricket's ear, do you want to go look around?

His eyes lit up a little. "Aye." One final look back at Sarah and we were halfway across the room.

Tickety
Ditchers. Just like that, the two grubby lads were gone and I was stuck with Princess Perfect. Suddenly, I was a bit more self-concious about my own clothes. They were pretty torn up. I shrugged and looked back to the new kid. "So are you a Mainlander? Or just one of those rich girls not from 'ere?"

Mark grinned, missing his two front teeth already. "What are you guys doing?" he asked curiously. Whatever it was, it looked like trouble, and he was always up for trouble.

Senet

What. Are. You. Guys. Doing. Euh... I sort of knew what he meant, but...

"Est-ce que ça veut dire?" I asked Peter, embarrassed.

"Il dit, 'est-ce que vous fais,'" Peter answered, but he'd gotten the conjugation wrong.

"Vous faites," I corrected. "Faites ees ze vous fohrm."

"Oh..." He turned to the boy. "Well, we're not doing anything."


Sarah

"Mainlander?" I asked, tipping my head to the side. "And I'm not rich, actually."

Tickety looked kinda poor, but she didn't look as bad as the two filthy boys. Those boys almost looked homeless. It was one thing to be covered in dirt; it was another thing entirely to be covered in dirt and wearing extremely ragged and torn clothes.

"I dun like these people," Rose muttered, standing in the doorway. "Dey all look boring."
"You don't have a lot of friends, do you?" Castle asked.
"Shuddup," Rose said. "Cop, I wanna go home."
I laughed. "There is no way I'm passing up time alone shopping, okay hun? You're gonna hafta deal for a few hours."
"Damn," she whispered, kicking a ball and going to sit in a corner.
"That leaves you, Castle. Go make some friends."
"Don't tell me what to do."

Taylow pries Kylia off and sets her down, nudging her foreward. She trips and falls into Finn, clinging her angel doll as she stared up at him with wide carmel eyes.

Mark frowned and raised a brow. "Well, you ought ta be. It's no fun doin' nofin'." He looked around and saw a girl playing with the blocks. "Come on! what are we waitin' for?" he said and motioned the for the boys to follow him over to the girl.

((It isn't very clear, but Nike is actually building with Legos. Sarah doesn't have Legos in her home universe. ...Well, she does, but they have a different name.))

Senet

I didn't like this...this not knowing what he was saying. Why didn't anyone around here speak French? Peter and I exchanged glances, not following the boy. We were fine to sit here alone, pointing out objects and teaching each other their names.

Tickety
"...right," I said, matching her head tilt. I smirked. "Bet you freak out if something spills on your shirt."

Mark walked over to the girl with the blocks and sat himself down, putting his chin in his hand, his elbow on his knee. "Well this is boring." He grumbled.

"This don't look fun," Rose muttered as Castle sat down next to her.
"Was to like? The place is like preschoolers on crack."
Rose giggled, then abruptly stopped. "I still want my cookie."

Nike

"Not to me," I said to the boy who'd just sat down near me. "I'm doing something productive. There's plenty to do around here. Look at all these shelves!" I gestured to the surrounding shelves that were filled with assorted, colorful toys.

Sarah

"No," I answered. "Why would I? It's just a shirt."

Her animal was cute. It was a little, adorable puppy. My kitty stood by my feet looking at the puppy curiously. My mom always thought I was playing games when I talked about people's animals... She never believed me when I said I wasn't playing.

Mark watched her. "'s only fun if someone plays with you." He grumbled, watching as she continued to construct her...thing.

Kylia stood in the middle of the room, clinging to her angel doll with wide eyes as she stared at everything.

Nike

"I don't think so," I said. "I'm having fun doing this. But if you want, you could build with me. I don't mind."

Might as well be nice, right? I was perfectly fine on my own, but it wasn't a problem if he wanted to build, too. Besides, with two people, we could build much more quickly.

Tickety
"B'cause you can just waltze into a store and buy another without a second thought, hm?" I pulled my hat down lower and held my watch in a fist. I was still smirking, though. She kept looking down near my feet. "What're you looking at?"

Mark wondered why the big girl was being nice to him, but sighed and nodded. "What are you building?" he asked as he grabbed a few legos.

Sarah

"I can't just go around and buy things," I said. "Clothes cost money. What I would do is waltz down to the laundry room and have my mom throw it in the washer. Of course, if it's not something that stains, it's even less of a problem." Sheesh. What was with her and clothes? "And I'm not looking at anything."

Kids gave me funny looks when I told them about their animals...unless they thought I was pretending, too. If they played along, it always got my hopes up that maybe they saw the animals like I did. But I always knew immediately that they were pretending as soon as they got something wrong.


Nike

"I don't know yet," I answered with a shrug. "Some sort of tower. What's your name?" I realized that we hadn't actually been introduced yet.

Cricket
I don't think I'd seen more colors in one room since I'd broken into that art studio a while ago...whether or not the robbery was successful, well, that was a different story. But the point was, I felt like I'd discovered the end of a rainbow. "Oi my my," I said, looking through a shelf. What were these things? There were so many toys that I didn't know what half of them were. It made me a little tiny bit happy, almost.

I wandered into another area, Finn behind me. Then I noticed two guys there and stopped in my tracks. "Pardon--" Raven's Crow, I whistled out of habit, my expression apologetic.

Kylia went and found a corner and sat herself in it, clutching to her angel like a life line, as if it would protect her from everything.

Mark stuck a block on the tower strategically and then looked at her and gave a grin, proudly showing that his front teeth were missing, and because of this he had a slight lisp. "Mark. What's yours?"

Tickety
Washer...? I threw her a slightly confused look. I had a feeling we weren't on the same page. Maybe even different books. "A'right lassy, I've got t' know. Where're you from, any'ow?"

Peter

Senet and I stiffened the second we heard the whistling, then relaxed. Just...habit. But it was safe here...right?

"Um, hi," I said, looking up at the two other boys.


Sarah

"I'm from America," I replied. I said the country specifically because she spoke with an accent. "You sound like you're from Britain."


Nike

"I'm Nike," I answered Mark.

I would've said that it was a pleasure to meet him, but I found the formality unnecessary. Especially because it was a lie. I found no joy in meeting this child, who looked to be around half my age. It didn't find meeting him a bad thing, but it certainly wasn't pleasurable. It just...was.

Cricket
I was just about to leave. My ears had been autotuned to hear 'get out,' 'beat it,' 'cursing cursing go walk into someone elses cursing territory.' "Sorry, I was just--" ...Hi? Pardon? This was new. "Ah, 'ello," I said. Finn looked just as taken aback as I felt.

Tickety
"Britain? Nah, nah get that a lot," I said. "American. See, that explains a lot."

Sarah

"What's that supposed to mean?!" I demanded, fuming. "And if you're not from Britain, then where are you from?"


Peter

I'd never seen anybody so surprised to have been greeted. All I'd said was "hi."

"Uh, what're your names?" I asked them.

The black-haired one had a black kitten animal, and the blonde one had a puppy animal. Their animals both looked confused, wary, and surprised, just like they did.