Which seems to confuse him long enough for a seven year old girl to finish running after the dog. She's pretty quick, at least.

"Bad Alexander!" she says, lunging for him to grab his collar. He's bigger than her, but obediently lets her drag him away from the older girls. "Sorry about him! Are you the visiting alchemists?"

"That's us."

"Hello!!! It gets really lonely here, so I'm super happy you're visiting! Let me put Alexander in the courtyard and get dad and then you can see everything!!!"

"Okay."

She is energetic.

She runs up to the door, opens it, shouts, "Daddy, we have visitors!!!" and then over her shoulder, "Come on in!" before she drags the dog inside and across the room.

Bellona picks her stuff back up, says, cheerfully, "She seems fun!" and trundles up to the door.

"If by fun you mean loud." El follows.

"Exactly!"

"I predict staying here will be interesting."

"If by that you mean fun..."

"And also loud."

She giggles. "Come on, let's go inside. Maybe it's quieter in there." Their teacher and the Lieutenant Colonel have already walked ahead of them, after all.

"Doubtful, given that's where Alexander and his girl went." But she goes in anyway.

Alexander seems to have already been dragged into the courtyard, at least.

The girl's father meets them, an awkward smile plastered on his face. "Akira Curtis and daughters. It's my pleasure," he says, rubbing the back of his head, before picking some things off the floor - mostly toys (for the dog and presumably the girl) are what's scattered about, but there's also piles of books just sitting around. "Sorry about Alexander, and that this place is such a mess - lacks a woman's touch - oh, that was sexist, wasn't it... Anyways, we have plenty of spare guest rooms - some are near the library which you're all welcome in - my chimera research is all in the basement, and I'd really rather that all not be disturbed, but everything else is just fine - my daughter, September and I sleep near the kitchen, which is to the left there - " He gestures. "Library's to the right, it's most of that side of the house... You can shut the doors into that wing, too, if you want to keep Alexander out and away from the cats."

Seems a bit scatter-brained.

Akira seems willing to take the lead on interfacing with him, at least. She gets them shown to the right wing (the west; the back of the house faces south), and lets the girls pick a room - she figures they'll take over three of the guest rooms, one for Akira, one for the sisters, and one for their books, if that works for the girls? There is enough space here if El and Bellona want to sleep separately...

A single room is fine.

"It'd be weird not sharing," is Bellona's opinion.

"Very well. Let's get everything else inside, get the cats set up, then why don't you two get settled in?" And, since Tucker's currently not around: "I think we should try to avoid group meals with the Tuckers - otherwise it'll be too obvious Bellona isn't eating, so there isn't really a set time for dinner, either. It'd be good to explore a bit, maybe get to know our hosts."

"This seems like the sort of place you could get lost in."

"Especially if you're not keeping track of where you are."

"Maybe we should all get balls of twine to carry around."

"The cats would like that."

"If it had been a minofelis instead of a minotaur, Theseus would have been in big trouble."

She starts giggling. "He'd be unspooling his string and it'd get yanked out of his hands! Except then probably the cat would like him. Cats like people with string."