One night ago Amber had made the fateful decision to end her self-imposed exile and return to the city of New York.  With no money and no early possessions beyond an old blanket, first priority had been to find a place to stay.  In the years she spent in the woods, there had been very little need of anything outside herself.  Claws, teeth and superior senses allowed her to hunt and kill all the food she needed and the den she'd created for herself combined with her own natural resistance to cold had kept her relatively warm during even the coldest nights of winter.  In returning to the city, however, she was also returning to her human life and that life required more.

Maybe Sanctuary should have been her first choice and the smartest choice of where to find shelter but there were too many painful memories there of the pack who abandoned her and she wasn't yet ready to face those memories.  So she had come to the Mansion instead, a place with far fewer memories but most of those memories were good.  When she had come the night before, it hadn't occurred to her that she should have called ahead or that she wouldn't be let through the doors.  If her first step back was any indication, reintegrating into the human world was going to be very hard.

After arguing with the stranger who had answered her knocks the night prior, she eventually gave in and walked away, although she didn't walk far.  Finding a large bush to hide in, still on Mansion grounds and within view of the door, she changed into a compsognathus curled up in her blanket and went to sleep, waiting for someone familiar to come by so she could plead her case to be allowed to come live there for a time.

The X-men communicator buzzed from beneath her pillow and Ghost groaned and rolled over. She'd just fallen into bed-- she cracked an eye open to glance at the time, but they weren't at Cafas' apartment. The clock was not where she expected it to be. Tonight, they were at the Mansion. And they was just she tonight because Ghost had kissed Cafas goodbye after he had answered his own com. Ghost grumbled and flopped her face down into the pillow dozing until her com buzzed again.

What if he was in trouble!?

The thought not only propelled Ghost out of bed, it managed to help her onto her feet and with one leg into her uniform before she answered.

"One night," she grumbled at whoever was running the communications, "I am going to sleep through the night."

/Welp. Tonight's not your night, G. Somebody said there's a dinosaur outside./ An X-kid reported the events faithfully. The dinosaur was supposed to be dead. Or sleeping. Either way, it hadn't attacked anyone so that was good. It'd walked up and then died and just been laying there for a few hours. The security team had traced it back in the camera feed, but since the X-man on call had already been called, they had to go to the next name on the list.

Was it child labor to use X-kids? Maybe they were getting course credits in dispatch training or something?

"If it's an ice dinosaur or some kind of prank, I am not gonna be happy."

/No ma'am. No prank. I'd go check it myself if you want. I mean, it's already dead./

The kid was polite, but his tone was far too sassy for-- Ghost retrieved her clock from where it had fallen off the nightstand-- Ugh. Was it really only 1 am?

"I am too old for this." She grumbled as she shimmied her uniform zipper up the side of her body and stepped out into the hallway.

Dinosaur. Dead. Huh. That seemed... familiar for some reason.

"Front door?" She popped her head into the security office and confirmed the location before she went.

Ghost, bed head made more glorious by the fact that she'd let her hair grow long, cracked open the front doors of the Mansion and tried to step not too lightly on her way to see a dead dinosaur.

In fact, she cleared her throat just to be sure the dinosaur had a chance to be alive and not a bad prank.

"He-hello?"

Amber thought she was well hidden in her little bush.  Being the size of a chicken, you'd almost have to be looking for her to really notice her.  Either that, or you'd have to be mutant with one of a variety of different potential powers that might make noticing a small, camouflaged critter easeier than otherwise expected.  Of all the places to expect such an indivdiual to reside, this was certainly one of the most likely ones.  Without a doubt.

It wasn't long after she had settled down for the night that her sleep was interrupted.  The years spent alone among the dangers of the wild world trained her never to sleep so deeply that she could be taken by surprise because, prehistoric predator though she often was, there were still things out there dangerous to her personal well being.  Especially when she chose a small form like the one she was in now.  Thus, when the door opened and the voice called out, she was awake and alert amost instnatly.

Both the face and the voice were familair and, seeing no reason to expect trouble, she resumed her human form and wrapped the blanket around her.  "I've come back and I need shelter."  So many more words she could have spoken, about her resons for returning or the hurt she felt, these days words were hard and felt unfamiliar on her tongue.

Ghost did not see any dinosaurs until suddenly there was one. A little, tiny thing! She'd been expecting something much, much bigger.

And then it did get bigger. She did. And she spoke.

"You're always—" Wait. A dead dinosaur that turned into a girl? This wasn't just Deja Vu anymore. This was— "Amber! It is Amber, right?" Ghost had been on patrol the night she'd first showed up wrapped in a blanket so similarly to how she was now. Except that now she must have graduated high school by now.

"Wow. You've grown up so much. Please, by all means, come inside. Do you need a room?" She was wracking her brain for any information about the girl other than their last meeting, but even that was hazy at best.

The elemental used her power to open the front doors and popped her head back into the security office. "False alarm. I mean, the dinosaur is real. She was a former resident so no big. I'm just popping in for some keys." She grabbed a ring of brass keys from a hook and they fell right through her hand.

She tried again and they, again, fell through.

The X-kid took pity on her and pulled a single key from the ring. "Room 302, okay?"

Ghost passed the key from kid to Amber. "I can show you where that is if you don't remember."

Amber offered a weak smile and nodded in ascent of her name being correct.  A warm welcome was...unexpected.  But good.  "I would like a room.  Or I could sleep out here, if there isn't one."  Her inflections weren't quite right, as if she wasn't used to exibiting emotion.  She wasn't.  Emotions didn't have a place in the world of predators and prey.

Amber followed Ghost as she entered and nodded her agreement that she would like to be shown the room.  It had been a long time since she'd been indoors and the moment there was a roof over her head, she felt slightly claustrophobic.  She did her best to suppress her discomfort.  In time, she'd get used to it again and no longer feel such discomfort.  Hopefully.

"I need clothing too.  If you have something."  In re-joining the human world, she'd have to find appropriate robes and veils to cover her sensitive skin.  That would require money, which she had no way to acquire.  Problems for another day.

"No. Of course we're not going to make you sleep outside." Ghost kept the key for now. Amber seemed a little... out of it. Perhaps a tour was in order after all, just to get her re-acquainted.

"We have donations on hand. Some kinds go through clothes so fast because of their powers, you know? Let's hit the donation closet and then maybe the kitchen? Have you had anything to eat today?" She seemed fragile, easily spooked. Ghost tried to keep the pity out of her voice and kept her chin up in case that might affect how the girl was acting. The Mansion was there for people like Ghost and Amber, both of who had just shown up after hearing about the place.

The donations weren't terribly fashionable, but they were free. Ghost opened the closet and let Amber choose what she needed.

"Thank you".  Even her small time interacting with other humans was starting to make her feel more comfortable in her pale-skinned form.  Words were starting to feel less foreign in her mouth, as if she was remembering what it was like to speak.  Maybe this wouldn't be such an impossible task after all.  Maybe.  "I've eaten, but its been a long time since I've eaten human food."  Occasionally a camper left food when they departed and she'd eat that, but suddenly the idea of an actual warm meal was incredibly appealing.

Following Ghost to the donation bin, she rifled through until she found a pair of pants and a long sleeved shirt that more or less fit.  They were both a little large, but at least now she'd be able to show herself among other humans without being called indecent.  That would make things easier.  It was a start, at any rate.

Human food.

Ghost tactfully decided to skate past that one. "I can't do much, but I bet I could cook a grilled cheese if you help me lift the pan. U-unless you need meat or something?" Mutant physiology could be strange. Sebastian hadn't been able to stomach meat. Perhaps dinosaurs with little pointy teeth didn't do veggies?

After the girl made her clothing selection, she still had to get into them.
The blanket wasn't terribly indecent compared with the amount of nudity that happened at the Mansion, but it was best to at least make an attempt at clothing.

"There's a restroom just there." Ghost indicated a specific door with her hand, Vanna White style, "You can wash up and get changed and then I'd like to hear a bit about your time away, if that's okay?"

"Grilled cheese is fine." Amber did, in fact, have dietary restrictions but bread and cheese were not among them. When her powers had first gone crazy and she had started looking like something long dead, it had been a very unpleasant discovery to realize that she couldn't eat certain things. Painful and messy trail and error brought her to the understanding that long as food wasn't too heavily processed, she was fine. If it came out of a box pre-formed or unnaturally coloured, it was definitely out. If it was an ingredient used to cook with or otherwise mostly unprocessed, she was usually good.

It didn't talk her long to get changed and, if modesty was something she had left behind long ago, there was something nice about the feeling of wearing proper clothing again. The things you didn't realize you had been missing until you had them again. It was another small step towards reintigrating into human life.

Once changed, Amber left the restroom and proceeded to follow Ghost. "Aura and Abyss left me so I went to live in the woods on my own. I think I was gone for a long time." Time was hard to measure in that sort of life, except by the passing of the seasons. "But then I got really lonely so I had to come back." There was a deep sorrow in her words. Deinonychuses and humans alike needed companionship; maybe if she had attached herself to a different chosen true form it might have been different and she might have been content living in solitude forever, but she hadn't and now here she was.

Ghost didn't know a kid who would turn down a grilled cheese freshly made. It was odd. Amber had grown physically, but she still felt like a kid to Maya.

She led Amber over to the kitchen. Luckily it was about as far as turning around and walking through a short hallway. "I'm so sorry to hear that, Amber. Were you close with Red and Aura? I've only ever had positive interactions with them despite our differences." To be fair, Ghost mostly had positive interactions with everyone.

Those mutants were not good influences. Good people with good hearts, perhaps, but not good influences. It was the loneliness in Amber's voice that really broke Ghost's heart. Aura had seemed loyal to a fault. It just didn't add up that they would abandon Amber.

"Surely you just got seperated. Here-" Maya opened the cabinet and pointed to the pan she needed. These days, she sometimes had trouble keeping the weight of her clothes from sinking through her shoulders. She wouldn't risk dropping a heavy pan and waking everyone up in the middle fo the night. While Amber took care of that, Maya fetched the other things needed. A loaf of bread, a slice of cheese, and some butter were much lighter burdens.

"You can stay here for as long or as little as you need. You remember the general rules, right?" Don't hurt anyone else intentionally, etc., etc. The most important part was the not hurting part in Maya's book.

Soon, the smell of golden brown grilled cheese was sizzling away in the pan.

The smell of cooking grilled cheese triggered an unexpected bubbling of nostalgia.  Amber didn't exactly resent her time spent in the woods nor did she necessarily think the food was bad.  If not for the crushing loneliness, she might have remained content there for much longer.  There was nothing like grilled cheese out there, however.  That was a uniquely human thing and not all things human were bad.

"Aura and Abyss and his brothers were my family, my pack.  Abyss adopted me.  Aura was my sister.  I thought she would never leave me."  When Abyss and his brothers had disappeared, Amber had been said but she'd been able to keep going.  Abyss was her adopted father but they had never been as close as she and Aura had.  When Aura had done the same, that's when her would had been crushed.  

Amber helped lift things as requested.  Maybe there was some reasonable explanation on where Aura had gone, or maybe it was just wishful thinking.  Nature was a harsh mistress; kindness, compassion and altruism were all too rare there.  There was still some doubt about how realistic they were in the human world.

Amber nodded her ascent that she understood and remembered the rules.  They weren't so hard, really.  She wasn't in the habit of killing people, that had only happened once and there were extenuating circumstances.  Pets, if they belonged to students or teachers, she was pretty sure was also out but she didn't feel the need to ask about that.  "Don't worry, I won't hurt anyone."

> "...my family, my pack..."

Maya had heard those kinds of words before from animal shifting mutants. Never before did they have the impact on her that they did now that her son was manifesting canine traits. She nodded to acknowledge Amber's admission that she wouldn't hurt anyone. That settled the matter in her mind.

"What does it take? To have a pack or be a part of a pack?"

Maya served up the grilled cheese, carefully cutting it into triangles because everybody knew triangles were the best. She started in on another sandwich immediately and left Amber to pick up her own plate. Either Amber would want another or Ghost could have a late night snack. Either way, she figured too much food was better than too little.

She saw the sympathy in the older woman's face and that was comforting too. She seemed motherly and that was something Amber distantly remembered from the first time she had met her.  Not that she'd ever really had a mother herself, but if she had she could imagine her being something like Ghost.

"What does it take? To have a pack or be a part of a pack?"

Amber happily picked up the plate of grilled cheese and started eating as she spoke.  She remembered human rules of etiquette when it came to eating, well enough, and it was clear that she wasn't starving.  

"Pack is supposed to be there for you, always.  They're supposed to support you and comfort you and teach you things.  Sometimes they're supposed to challenge you or reprimand you.  What they're not supposed to do is leave you."  Defeat verging on despair in her voice.  Another bite of grilled cheese.

"Hmm." She was thoughtful as she listened to Amber and worked through the angles.

"I'm sorry that you were left behind. That seems like a risk we have to take with any relationship, though. I was left behind by my husband. It... didn't feel good." Maya sighed, irritated that it still stung. She flipped the next grilled cheese over in the pan with a little more gusto than she intended. "So, while I'm not a pack... person, I know at least a little." Weren't they all social creatures?

She shut the heat off and cut the next sandwich while it was still in the pan.

"You know mentors or friends can challenge you and teach you. And if you build up enough of them, it's unlikely that you'd be alone again." It was just a thought, really.

"I'm glad you came back, Amber. No one should have to be alone."

As she listened to the other woman's story about how her husband had left her, she felt a sudden flare of empathy.  Husbands, as much as brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers, were supposed to be there for you, by your side forever.  "I'm sorry he left you.  That was a terrible thing for him to do."  She maight have claimed not to be a pack person, but her words and understanding belied that claim.

She picked up the second triangle of grilled cheese and continued eating.  "Maybe.  I don't think I'm very good at friendship."  Mostly because she didn't fully understand it; she'd never had the chance.  Most people she'd met had been friendly towards her, but actual friendship had an ambiuous feel that was somewhere between stranger and family that was very hard to wrap her head around.  

"I'm glad you came back, Amber. No one should have to be alone."

She picked up her third quarter of food.  "Thank you.  I think I'm glad I came back too."  It was still kind of terrifying, but maybe just a little bit less so than an hour ago.