#rivervale_lodge

After dinner, Dagmar heads to the lodge. She's showered, and her wet hair is twisted into two damp spirals.

She can hear Oak call out a welcome from inside, and when the front door opens, the big white dog bounds out to greet her, his slightly smaller sister following, both all wags.

"Heyyy..." She crouches to greet them, with open arms.

Many wags and doggy kisses. Dagmar doesn't need formal dog guard response...she gets doggy friend welcome.

Dag pets both of them, losing her balance and falling the short distance from a crouch to her rump.

Sylvi, who opened the door to see who was triggering the dog alarm, says, "Oh, hey, Dagmar." A grin, but it's a somewhat guilty one, and she comes out to join them in the yard.

"Hey Sylvi." A wan smile. Dag looks tired.

"You okay?" She watches as the dogs continue to wag and demand pets.

"Uh-huh." Well, Sylvi isn't a Gwydion.

She closes her eyes as she gets a face full of Oak-kisses. "Silly dog."

Sylvi grins and drops to sit cross-legged on the ground nearby, rumpling Edelweiss's coat. "Yeah. Silly, but great."

Then a sigh. "Listen...I'm sorry about before. I shouldn't have said some of that stuff to him."

"They are, yeah." Oak gets a hug.

"He was... he was kinda..." Dagmar frowns. "He's frustrated."

Sylvi starts to say something, but stops herself. Then a redirection, "But how're you feeling?"

A frown and a shrug. "I dunno. Not great, maybe."

"I know he's being pushy. But I don't... I mean, he wants to be part of things, right? Maybe I'm not doing a good job explaining things."

"I don't know. Maybe he's just..." A pause, a rewording "...impatient."

"Maybe." A soft huff.

"I'm not sure what to do. Guess we'll just keep working on staff-fighting."

"Fighting, I'm good at."

"You're good at more than that, Dagmar. And, hey, he plays basketball, right? You played him, yet?"

She bites on her lower lip and nods.

A frown. "What's the matter?"

"Didn't wanna... dunno if it's really fair, I'm too tall..."

"So...wait...were you forcing him to play you somehow?"

"No." Miserable.

"He wanted to play?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"I was trying to explain the Escheat, and musing... and, like, how humans make Glamour..."

"Then he should be...." She starts, then stops. "No, you know....I can't even say what he should be...." A frown.

"What?" She looks at Sylvi, leaning against Oak.

Sylvi pets Edie for a few moments before answering. "I just...it wouldn't make sense for him to complain about it being not fair if he knows who you are going into it, but he seems to complain about a lot of things that...well...he shouldn't complain about."

"Well, I mean, he sees he's being treated different."

"And, like, a foster kid ain't a real kid... but.. " Shrug, frown. She rubs at her face.

"Whoa...that's, like, not the same thing at all."

"Tove yelled at me, too." Defeated. "I don't... I don't get why he's so different from Sally Mae, I guess. Tove was saying how at the Farm, kinain don't get to do lots of stuff, but I don't see how that's right, either."

"I'm not yelling, though." She carefully doesn't yell as she says it. "But..." sigh "...it's kind of complicated. I guess...okay, you got immediate privileges because you're fae. Sally Mae got a lot of privileges early because she was born into a family that has its own Lodge. Most kinain probably never ever get access to a Lodge."

"I didn't know that." Another hand across her face, clearing a soft gleam of sweat.

"Maybe it's my fault? Getting his hopes up?"

"Ha. He was born with his hopes up."

"Maybe." A wan smile.

A frown. "Are you sweating? It's not that hot....you sure you okay?"

Shrug. "M'fine. Stressed out, maybe."

"I guess I want things to be okay? He's new, and being new is hard, and I want to help him fit in..."

She is sweating, while most of her hair is drying little wet curls are sticking to her face and neck.

"Well, sure, but...that's going to take time, right? I mean...think about every time you've gone to a new school. Took a while to fit in, right?"

She nods. "Yeah, it does."

"Hey...you don't look okay."

One of the dogs starts to sniff... and then, Oak growls