Astrid seems to think that's weird. "Well, okay," she shrugs. "Real bunnies don't talk."

She continues to read.

"Yes, there'd be moral issues with eating things that talked," agrees Lynn.

And then, back to being Designated Umbrella Holder. She doesn't mind in the slightest.

Lynn leaves her to it! She'll bring a book of her own, next time, but for right now she'll just make a mental list of all of the things she'll need to get if Astrid stays. A bed, clothes, toys, a dresser - kids are expensive. Lynn is very glad she has savings.

(Quietly, Lynn wonders if her heart will break a second time if Astrid's parents are found. Maybe she'll end up hating them if they show up, for no other reason than taking away the adorable little prodigy. She doesn't know yet.)

Astrid is blissfully oblivious.

No parents turn up. There are no even shamefully belated missing child reports for little girls meeting Astrid's description. There have been no sightings of suspicious characters lurking around the town of Forks.

Lynn is asked if she wants to formally foster the kid, with a view to later adoption.

She doesn't even need to think about it. The answer is yes, yes she does.

Not as a replacement for her daughter (there's no replacing a lost child) but because Astrid is delightful and she needs a home and Lynn is the obvious, obvious choice. Besides, Lynn has gotten all motherly and protective and it is now near impossible to undo that. It's just too late to turn back now.

They go shopping for clothes, Lynn converts her study into a room for Astrid (some of the bookshelves stay, but most of them are moved to the living room) and then life continues on. Cheerfully. Astrid comes with Lynn to school most days, and then they go read outside together. Lynn is noticeably more happy now than she was when Astrid first arrived in a basket. It bewilders a few of her students.

Astrid has no strong opinions about clothes, although she seems to gravitate to shorts and short sleeves for no reason she can articulate.

She goes on being a little bookworm. She goes on eating small quantities of a negligible-fat salt-free vegan diet, which seems to keep her just fine. She spends a lot of time outside during the day on weekends, and by the windows when she goes to school with Lynn. She is not particularly graceful - she never breaks into a run of her own accord, and sometimes trips even when walking, although so far she has avoided needing band-aids.

Over her first week with Lynn her hair dulls from blonde to a sort of ecru color, which looks - odd.

Lynn is alarmed by this change in hair color. She worries that it's got something to do with Astrid's diet - not in what she's eating, Lynn's been sure that she has plenty of protein and such, but in how much she eats. Which is not much. She very nearly calls the hospital, and only barely stops herself when she observes that her hair's not dull or dry or anything - it just happens to have changed color.

"Are you feeling all right?" she asks, instead.

That - could mean any number of dangerous things. Lynn thinks she might drive herself mad if she thought of all of them.

"Okay," she says, because she does not want to frighten Astrid. But she is going to quietly be extremely concerned about her welfare. She has continued mental debates over whether or not to take Astrid to the hospital. On one hand, she seems fine, but on the other - her hair has changed color and she doesn't seem to eat enough to be healthy.

She'll wait and see, and keep making sure that what little food Astrid eats is good for her.

Astrid's hair remains stubbornly ecru.

One day she trips badly enough to skin her knee.

She goes to Lynn with an... obviously skinned knee, ragged wound edges and all, without a speck of red anywhere around the injury, sniffling.

Lynn inspects and doctors this, gently and carefully, cleaning it up with water and putting a large band-aid on it. She doesn't remark on the - lack of blood, the lack of red, she very much does not want to worry her child. Let her worry about that, Astrid does not need to.

"It'll be okay," she soothes, as she observes that Astrid does - leak. A fluid, even. But it's not blood.

Another debate, over if she should be taken to the hospital, again. But what would she say? 'My child skinned her knee and she's not bleeding'? How does a person explain this?

Astrid nods, unprotesting at her fosterer's attention to the knee except for occasional flinching. She seems to find not-red unremarkable for a skinned knee.



While school is on spring break, she decides quite firmly to eat nothing but strawberries. This goes on for a week.

Her hair turns distinctly pink.

She lets Astrid have nothing but strawberries, because it's spring break and as far as junk food goes it's really rather tame. She'll let it go, buy lots of strawberries, try to figure out what the lack of red and the dietary habits mean. And then - pink hair.




What.


What.


Okay. Okay. Calm thoughts. Calm thoughts. Hospital is out, this is not something that a hospital could handle. Astrid does not seem to be human. She looks human, she walks like a human, she talks like a human, but - the strange dietary requirements, the lack of blood, and the hair colors based on - based on food. It's not like the three year old has access to hair dye, if she were a teenager Lynn would write it off as a prank, but - three year old.

"Do you think," she asks, "that if I got you other types of food that were different colors, your hair would change to that, too?"

It's absurd. It's the most absurd thought of all time - but it explains the ecru. It explains why she doesn't eat a lot and is still fine, it explains why she wants to be outside so much.

So Lynn says, "We can try orange, let me know the minute you feel strange or weak or something, okay?"

And then they try orange.

Astrid does not feel strange or weak or anything while she eats (small amounts of) (exclusively) orange fruits and veggies and lentils and some unsalted peanut butter.

And lo, she is a redhead.

Well. That's a thing. That is happening. To her child.

She does not call the hospital. They would - she has visions of them taking Astrid away to be tested upon in a lab somewhere, treated like a test subject rather than a child. The thought makes her feel so sick that she wants to throw up. She refrains. Lynn hopes that nothing bad ever happens to Astrid, that she stays safe and healthy and never needs to go to the hospital, because she thinks she would rather die than send her child (because she considers Astrid to be her child, now) to that fate.

"Okay," she informs Astrid, "I think I will let you be in charge of your diet from now on, just tell me what you'd like and I'll get it for you."

"I want to stay orange," says Astrid placidly.

She investigates all the orange things in the grocery store, and assesses them for foodiness, and also learns that red and yellow make orange together and eats carefully balanced amounts of those two colors, and then also learns that turmeric is an intense orange pigment and reintroduces blander-colored and even outright green food on top of plenty of the spice.