#rivervale_lodge

"I like Tove." Ear-scritch, ear-scritch. "And yeah, it does. I'm, like, really lucky to have gotten a placement like the Browns, you know?"

"Tove rocks," Sylvi agrees. "She's kind of bad-ass."

Then she tilts her head, listening. "Yeah?"

Edelweiss leans into the scritches....and Oak gnaws on her hand when she lets him.

"Well, I'm old. And have a profile." She shrugs. "Most foster parents wouldn't take a kid like me."

"I was in a group home before they opened up."

"Did I show you the badger Tove gave me? She made it! Like, carved it from wood."

"No, you didn't show me. Her carvings are amazing. You've seen the narwhal flute, right?"

A pause. "What's a group home like?"

"I haven't. I'd like to. Maybe.. if you come to the house? Hopefully no bugs."

A frown and a shrug. "They suck. You don't have anything that's yours."

A grin. "Hope I'm not bad luck for you now. I mean, bugs didn't attack the house until I got there."

She wrinkles her nose at the notion. "I'd hate that."

"Well, no bugs when I went back. And, like, a board nailed over the hole in the door, like some kind of cartoon repair."

"Yeah. If you have any personals, they get locked up 'for safety.' And you don't get to go out on your own, you get locked in your room at night. If something happened with the Browns, I'd probably go back to one."

Sylvi frowns. "Have they threatened the Browns?"

"No...." A troubled expression.

"Jaymes... the other day... " A scowl. "Stupid bug."

"Wait...what?" Confused. "What about Jaymes?"

"Because of the bug thing. He was.. I guess they decided I shouldn't stay at the Browns?"

"That I'd be safer if I was placed with one of the grown ups here."

That gets a smile. "Yeah? Really? Then you wouldn't have to deal with all the stuff that pisses you off about them, right?"

She frowns, and chews on a nail. "They're not bad. I mean, as fosters go. I've had lots worse. I'm lucky to have them."

"But if I left, I wouldn't get them back..."

A confused look. "So...you don't want to leave the Browns." Checking her understanding.

"It's not a bad placement... Even Tanya ain't that bad..."

"So...okay. It's not bad." Sylvi nods. "Do you think it's better than living with kith would be? I'm just asking," she adds quickly, hands up.

"I don't... if things don't work..."

"What do you mean?"

"He's saying 'adopt,' and you don't get paid if you adopt."

Eyes wide, and then a smile. "Jaymes wants to adopt you? Dagmar, that's great! That's, like, permanent!"

"And he doesn't know... he's got all those ideas about 'duty,' cause of the bug thing, and that's not.."

"He doesn't know what?"

"Doesn't know me, for one. Or any idea what he's proposing. And when he figures out what he's really gotten into..."

"Either he'll be stuck, because of honor - right? Give your word, and you're stuck or sick. Or he founds a way out, and then it's back to a group home."

"Whoa. Okay, wait." Sylvi does crouch down, leaning against the tree still. "Dagmar, yeah, okay, giving your word comes with a pretty big pricetag for us, yeah, but...we're good at it. That's part of the whole troll thing. Once we decide to give our word about something, we can make ourselves stick with it pretty consistently. Like, stubbornly. So...if you do this, you can pretty much cross 'group home' out of your future, because he won't send you back." Sylvi sounds pretty confident.

"As for being stuck...well, I guess we all feel kind of 'stuck' now and then, right? I mean, my folks are like the best, but sometimes I don't like the rules, and I feel stuck...and I know Dad doesn't like the idea of being stuck with a daughter who's dating guys...." She smiles. "But...we get over the stuck part, and stuff gets better."

"What if...." Another frown. "I don't... it's different. It's different, because you're real."

"Huh? How are you not real?"

"You're real family."

"Oh. Well, we're blood family. But you and he agree to this...you'll be real family too. Because that's what the adoption is."

"You know...I bet he'd do the adoption oath with you, too. Not just the mortal paperwork."

"So then he'd be magically stuck?"

Both dogs are lying at Dagmar's feet in postures of happy abandon.

A little eyeroll. "Why does it have to be 'stuck'? Why can't it be...'sealed'...or 'committed'? 'Stuck' sounds like a fly in glue, and Jaymes is no fly."

"...or trapped..."

"What the hell, Dagmar? You talk about it like you're some kind of monster. Just 'cause mortals couldn't hack it doesn't mean he can't."

"Things get bad if you can't escape. He doesn't even know what the rules are, but there's gonna be rules..."

"What if I can't hack it?"

A pause. "Yeah, okay. Good question. What do you think?"