The familiar sight of the mansion crossed Paige's view, and the blonde made her way to the grounds. Although, her face lacked its usual expression of inner strength, and she lacked her usual energy. What it had, however, was a pair of gashes on her cheek from the cut of guitar strings. They were healing, but still horrible stains on her otherwise pretty face. Her eyes had traded their inner strength for one of defeat.

Her body hurt in its entirety, after all, it was only yesterday afternoon that she'd gotten in the fight--after being showered by guitar shrapnel--with Tses. She had nowhere else to turn, and she'd been welcomed enough on the Mansion grounds, she guessed. But this was different than some visit, or a date with Butterfly. This was...this was going to change everything, but in a way, she didn't have much of a choice.

She wasn't even sure if she'd be accepted here long term...after all...she knew the kind of person she could be. In the heat of the moment, that's just what came out.

However, the girl took a wrong step, her mind overcome by the past events of being fired, having her guitar destroyed, and having to eventually leave her apartment, the only home she knew in New York. Her foot slipping, the shifter fell face-first onto the grass, the impact wracking her already sore body in even more pain. She lay there, groaning out a long agonized "Craaaap...."

"Really? I can keep it?"

The little ten-year-old clutched the torn-out page of Kiva's sketchbook to her chest, eyes wide open in surprise and delight. The mutant child had an odd, metallic green sheen to her skin and hair, along with a set of four transparent, shimmering wings that were now buzzing with joy.

Kiva rumbled a small chuckle at the child, gently patting her shoulder with a clawed hand. "Well, of course. I drew it for you, so it's yours."

The young girl let out a happy squeal and a quick, "Thank you!" before darting off, presumably to show it off to her friends, and the bronze-scaled woman just laughed softly and shook her head before pushing herself up out of her seat on the couch.

How had this happened? How had the woman who had spent years determined to live like any other human being end up here? The desperation of her flight from her home was no longer a factor, the riots now under control thanks to the National Guard, but instead of walking away, she had instead used the following peace to bring the rest of her belongings here. And her cat, of course.

Maybe it'd been Gemma assuring her that day that she was welcome and safe, or maybe it was the presence all the children hitting her squarely in her maternal instincts. Maybe she just liked not having neighbours who gawked at her like she was a horrible monster despite living next to her for so long. Kiva was determined not to be some freeloader, though. She'd find some way to repay the Mansion for all of this...

Kiva sighed, rolled her shoulders, and stretched a little, then she picked up her sketchbook and started walking. She wanted to head outside for a bit, get some fresh air, maybe sketch something out in the grounds. She passed by a few students, offering them each a small wave whether she recognized them or not, and then heard the grass crunch under her boots as she stepped outside and the sun shone down on her scaly skin, making it look all the brighter.

It was a pretty nice day, really.

And then she noticed someone laying in the grass. Confused and concerned, she took a few steps toward them, until the recognition hit her like a ton of bricks and she only realized she'd dropped her sketchbook by the sound of the paper hitting the ground as she practically sprinted the rest of the distance.

"Paige!" The cry was clearly a frightened one, and she knelt down next to the shape-shifter, looking over her worriedly. "Holy ****, Paige...What happened to you?" A fit of that very strong semi-sororal emotions the younger woman tended to inspire in her made Kiva want to pick her up and bolt straight to the infirmary, but she kept the impulse in check for the moment, just in case it wasn't as bad as Paige lying on the ground seemed to imply.

Paige managed to roll over onto her back; it took most of her strength but it alleviated the pain a little. But not the blow to her pride. "I got in a fight yesterday," she murmured as she looked up at Kiva. Her friend.

But friend or not, no one was allowed to see her like this. No one. Ever.

"I also lost my job...was going to see about living here...the only place I know to go. But...I fell." She looked away, very clearly showing off the twin cuts on her cheek.

Kiva's heart broke.

A fight with what? she wanted to ask, but she didn't. The fact that these weren't fresh wounds managed to dial down her reaction from 'infirmary now' but the fact that Paige was just laying there on the ground was killing her. She knew that if the younger woman felt she could just get to her feet, brush herself off, and pretend she was fine, she would.

She'd come looking for a place to stay, just like Kiva had back during the riots. The dragon-like mutant sighed a little, frowning as Paige looked away from her. Well, there was only one response to this. Too bad that it was bound to piss off the little blonde.

Kiva would just have to deal with that, she decided.

"You are welcome to kick my ass for this later, Thingamajig, but..." She carefully slid one arm under Paige's shoulders and the other under her legs, then very carefully scooped the other woman up into her arms. She stood up, trying her best to hold the smaller woman securely without hurting her.

This was not something she'd done before, but she'd been confident in having the strength to do so, so here she was. She started to move in the direction of the doors. "You can talk to people about a room of your own later. For right now, you can rest in my room, and if the administration has a problem with that, I'll tell them where they can stick it."

Kiva was in dragon mode right now, protecting what was hers. And whether she liked it or not, Paige qualified as hers right now.

Paige tensed at first, but as soon as she was in the girl's grasp, she relaxed, letting herself be carried. She hurt too much to walk, at least after falling. Though this hurt her pride--actually it tore her pride to shreds--she felt like she could trust Kiva. She was safe here.

"Thanks," she murmured softly, weakly. Her eyes closed as she uncharacteristically snuggled into the dragon-woman. Of all the people that could have found her, the spork was thankful of who did.

"Anytime," Kiva said softly, as Paige snuggled into her. She didn't smile. She couldn't if she'd tried right now.

As she entered the building she made the decision to try to avoid the more populated areas with things the way they were. She really didn't want to make any more a spectacle out of the two of them than she had to, more out of respect for Paige's pride than anything. Luck looked to be on her side as she made her way through the halls to the residents' rooms without running into anyone, until she reached her room's door.

She'd locked the door behind her when she'd last left it. That meant that she had to unlock it. The key was in her jeans pocket and both her arms were occupied carrying Paige.

"...S***."

Kiva had not thought this through at all.

The obvious answer would be to put Paige down, but she really didn't want to do that. A floor that kids and adults alike trod upon daily was not something she wanted to go putting her hurt friend down on. However, given that the next three options to enter her mind were attempting to fetch her key and unlock the door while holding Paige and risk dropping her, calling for help, or kicking her own door down, and she didn't want to do any of that either, there wasn't much choice here, was there?

Shame she wasn't a telekinetic or had an extra prehensile limb or something. Stupid useless mutation...

Kiva sighed. No time for that. Just standing here wasn't helping anybody. "Gotta put you down for a sec. Sorry," she told Paige, before she very carefully set her down near the door, the arm around the blonde's legs gently lowering them to the floor before the one around her shoulders gently eased them back so that she was resting against the wall. Kiva really hoped that was comfortable, or at least comfortable enough for the few seconds required to get her door open.

The moment she did open her door, however, a sleek, black, furry shape slipped out and wove between the dragon woman's legs before noticing the other woman on the floor. Clover automatically made her way over to Paige and, with a soft mew, the black cat lightly rubbed her head against her hip as if trying to comfort her.

Paige just let herself be carried. Her pride was long gone by now. Honestly she'd never felt so helpless. She'd done just fine til she fell, then it aggravated every injury she'd acquired the day before.

Suddenly, something rubbed against Paige's hip and startled her in her current state. Of course, being Paige meant one thing. When you get jumpy, you turn into a spork. And so, lying outside Drake's door was now a hybrid eating utensil, and it couldn't have helped her pride any.

"Oh, it's just a cat. Whew...Hey kitty kitty~" she cooed, which...probably made thing's worse, in the cat's perspective.

Clover was suddenly very, very confused.

You see, Clover was not a cat who had met many mutants. In fact, she had met none until being adopted from the shelter by Kiva. Then she had met a grand total of two: her current owner in all her scaliness, and Kiva's aunt, who looked completely normal and didn't have flashy powers and so didn't stand out at all as different from any other human to Clover. Only now at the Mansion was she starting to see more of them.

Thus, shape shifters were nothing the common house cat had ever seen, nor could really comprehend. It was simply one moment, person, and the next, spork.

Spork that had a person-voice coming from it, at that.

Clover simply stared at spork-Paige in that unblinking way cats did, then plunked her rear down on the carpet, looked up at Kiva, and meowed in pure bewilderment.

Kiva on the other hand, winced and grimaced as she looked at the talking spork in the hallway. She was just making things worse for Paige, now. "Sorry," she mumbled as she shoved her key back in her pocket and knelt down to gingerly scoop up the spork.

While she would usually just carry her currently-a-utensil friend in her hand like the object she resembled, Kiva didn't know if Paige still felt pain while in this form, and so instead cradled her in her arms in a way that would probably look quite ludicrous to any hypothetical onlooker who didn't realize that the spork was a mutant.

Clover followed at her owner's heels as she walked into the room and shut the door behind her, the cat's eyes still fixated on Paige. Kiva carefully set Paige down on her bed, laying the scoop part of the spork on her pillow and then pulling the blanket over the handle. "You can rest here for now."

Clover hopped up onto the bed, and Kiva moved to stop her, but instead of trying to bat at spork-Paige like a toy or something, she instead curled up next to the pillow, her preferred napping spot, and so Kiva left her be.

That left her standing next to the bed awkwardly, and she stretched her wings slightly, tapping one of the spikes on her jaw with a claw. "So, um...If you need anything, I'll just be at my desk over there so, y'know, just let me know..."