Hugs!

"This place is confusing."

"Yeah, why do they have two bedrooms?? It was weird."

"Yeah! And no one was cuddling at night!"

"And there are so many kids here, where are all their parents??"

"Oh. I 'ssumed they were just people."

Oh wait.

"Um, people like me who don't have parents, not like you and other small 'mentans."

"They come in sizes, like Amentans, so I think they must have parents."

"Hmm..... May-be."

She's less sure.

"Prolly we should find food?"

"Yeah. I heard another boy say something about where to get breakfast."

Breakfast for the Gabriel School kids is dispensed from a separate building across the way; they have to form a line and then they can each get a ladleful of oatmeal.

Fika is bad at lines but can follow Kota's example.

It's not an especially orderly line since it's composed entirely of ragamuffins but it does the job. Kota wolfs down his oatmeal eagerly.

If Kota wants seconds he can have most of hers.

Yeah he kind of does want seconds. "You don't need much?"

"Mhm! I think amaliens just eat less than 'mentans and can also be more okay with less food."

"Oh good." Omnomnom. There's a stack for bowls; he puts his there even though a lot of kids are just kind of leaving theirs lying around. Irresponsible of them.

Fika can put her bowl there too.

"Hm. D'you want to he-lp put the other bowls there too?"

"Yeah." He collects bowls with her. "Don't wanna feed the vermin."

"Oh. Um."

She pauses collecting bowls.

"Why not?"

"- because then there'll be more of them."

"Oh. But they won't be hungry."

"They'll be hungry again the next day. But they'll have more babies if they find food today."

"Oh. Yeah guess that makes sense."

"Still's sad."

"If there's no food for the vermin then there won't be any vermin at all and none of them will be hungry," he offers after a moment of meditating on this alien position.

"Yeah that'd maybe be better - though I dunno, maybe the pre-fer being hungry sometimes to not existing at all. Not exisitng sounds really scary."

"Well, I prefer them not existing and if they don't exist they can't be scared."

"Hmm... Don't like the idea of choosing be-tween you being happy and them existing but."

Fika blinks but doesn't quite tear up.

"Would want you to be happy more than a few rats existing."