#anywhere

Frank waits patiently.

A frustrated noise. "I don't. I watched... i watched them fight, but they don't fight right. They just.. they talked in circles and it wasn't... or... or fucking Zane... nobody acts like... I'm not like them, and I can't do it right..."

"What's wrong with Zane?"

"He just... we were yelling... and I didn't hit him, I didn't... but I...I lost my temper..."

"But he... he just... at school, he acted like it wasn't anything..."

Frank chuckles. "Ah. Satyr."

"Dagmar, right now you're Unseelie. You're going to approach things differently, but isn't... wrong." He sighs. "And this is me saying it."

"So if the other kids, our girls, whoever.... if they approach things differently, remember.... they are."

"They're not...." A frown. "Olgar's probably unseelie because of his face. "

Frank laughs, then coughs and swallows it. "Sorry. Thanks for that, though."

"I wouldn't want to speculate on why he's Unseelie, although I think it's part of his Da'an."

"Gerd was talking about that. So some people just get shit da'an's, hunh?"

"Oh, YOU get to be the prophesied Hero of the Mighty Quest and you... you get to be a lesson for an after-school special.... like, maybe your whole da'an is to be trash."

Frank shakes his head, thinking. "I think.... and this is just me talking, thinking aloud.... I think yes, we get Da'ans. Our Fate. I think how we meet it, how we handle it... that is what makes us a Hero of a Mighty Quest, or an after-school special."

"I don't know. But I don't... I don't think I have the same tools they do."

"Of course you don't!" Frank smiles. "You're Unsained as of yet."

"We'll finish fostering you, you'll learn the basics and the tools we can give you. You'll be Sained, learn your True Name, and I think you'll feel differently then."

"Right...."

Frank seems comfortable with the quiet, seated on a log and listening to the sounds of the woods.

She's quiet too, for quite some time.

Finally - "You ever feel... you ever think, maybe, people can just be broken?"

Frank nods. "I -know- they can."

Nods. "And nobody really wants broken things."

"I wouldn't say that. I know folks who do. Things that are broken can be fixed. Things aren't people. But broken people can be fixed too."

"It's not like fixing a thing, though. Can't just glue people together."

"I didn't say it was easy."

"No."

"You scared of hard work?" Mildly.

"I'm not scared."

Frank smiles fondly. "You someone who's broken?"

She looks away, shrugging. "Maybe. I figure, maybe."

He nods. "You ready to get to work, then?"

A long pause.

...and a shrug.

"Ok. Well. When you -do- know, you'll have help. If you want it." Amiably.

"Some things can't be fixed."

"Things. Not people."

"Some people, then." Testily.

Frank smiles under his beard.

"I wish..."

"I want..."