The preists smile was genuine he saw her reaction to him walking into the room. Charming, wasn't she? His eyes wandered down to her drawings, causing a snicker to ring out against his will. Very charming. As she spoke he was attentive. He leaned toward her good ear as he talked in response.

"I like the stories very much as well... They are more than that, though. They are moral lessons. D'you know what that means?"

He gave her a short nod. He saw her looking at the pencil. "Draw to your heart's content, my child." He shifted into a more comfortable position, taking a seat on the edge of the desk near her as she spoke her concerns.

The scarred man rubbed his chin a bit, and nodded. "I'll have the sister seat you closer to the front so you can hear better... And don't worry so about the kids. You are new, and different. I too, was new and different when I first came here. Look at me now. It's not about that they think now, it's about what you do while you are here. In the eyes of god, all humans are judged equally."

He squinted a bit at her attempts at spelling words. Interesting. At 14 years of age, she seemed to be rather far behind in her studies. He found himself making plans to fix that in spite of himself. Hm... Yes, this girl had a sway about her, didn't she? A sort of human magnetism. It was hard to dislike her, and that... was valuable if used right.

With her as a tool, god's work would be better for it.

"What are you drawing, if I may ask?"

She nodded slightly, uncertainly. "Morals are things that tell you how to be a good person?" Once she had permission to keep drawing, she dove back into it with as much gusto as she could muster. Jesus still needed a lot of shading, after all. Beards were hard to get juuust right.

"Really? Thank you!" She looked at him in surprise, and as she processed what he'd said hope bloomed on her face. "Nobody's ever said that to me before." Actually, quite the opposite. People were really prone to yelling about kids like her being a waste of space... and a few of the other street kids had really loved to tell her to go die. A lot. It had hurt quite a bit, bit just ended up reaffirming her wish to not die, under any circumstance, if she could help it. "I liked that. Everybody being equal..."

Did that mean she didn't need to worry about if other girls were prettier than her? Eisley had always just kinda winged it when she needed to dress up to lift things from stores. Everything had been based on pictures in magazines of what other girls were wearing. But, if everyone was equal, then she didn't need to worry about it after all.. right?

Her nose wrinkled because she found that that thought didn't mesh well with what her father said and did. He always wanted her to look a specific way when he was around. But she couldn't say anything because she was supposed to respect her dad, right?! Ahh! So confusing!

Moodily, she started sketching in a crude doodle of the green-skinned man she'd met, with his funny teeth and eyes.

"Well... That's Jesus." She pointed at the robe-clad man on the horse, "and that's Mr. Unicorn. He's missing his horn because he lost it." She wondered where he was now... After her father had thrown him out, she was sure he'd gone off to find his horn on his own.

"And these are some of the nuns that I saw in the book today, and this is Super Saph... but he doesn't actually have a cape. I just thought it looked cooler like that."

Lastly, she pointed at the little alien-looking head. "And that's Thomas. We were name twins at one point."

"Exactly, Eisley! You're a bright one." She wasn't, but telling someone that enough could make it feel true. He sat up tall as she showed her appreciation at his words, and placed his hands on his knees as she gave him a tour of her creation.

"Ah, yes, I recognised the lord." He smiled at Mr. Unicorn. Wasn't a unicorn without a horn just a horse? Better not to ruin her flight of fancy, though. The nuns were a good touch.

And then... Super... Saph. His eyes lingered. They stopped on the green man with the alien looking head as well. Troubling. "These are people you've met?" He had a hint of very ovbious worry to his voice. Always give the negative a negative connotation. Start small, and work your way up. That was how you taught someone the way.


"Where did you meet them, Eisley?"

She blushed at least five different shades of red and pink and ducked her head, zeroing her attention on her drawing so that she wouldn't have to focus on Mr. McCallan calling her bright. Nobody ever called her anything like that. Heck, even Papa told her she was slow at least a few times a day. Her tutor always tried to play it off like some kind of encouragement, but... Eisley knew she wasn't the smartest.

She paused mid doodle of what the plant fairy looked like when the Father questioned who the people she was drawing were, and frowned at his tone. Was it bad that she had met them? They had seemed nice to her. They had saved her from things and bought her yummy food and stuff.

"Yes?" She glanced between him and the paper, stricken for a moment until she recalled their last conversation. She couldn't lie to him, that would be wrong. She pointed at Super Saph first as she legs swung nervously under the table.

"I met Super Saph a while ago, um.. before Papa found me." She wasn't allowed to talk about anything before her dad had found her at home. He didn't like hearing all of the things she had been up to. "Before I had a home, or, um... as many morals, I guess... I stole something from him and he chased me for it." She fiddled with her pencil sheepishly. "But it was okay, cuz I gave it back in the end and he scared away a bunch of people who woulda hurt me. I call him Super Saph because he can fly and stuff like spectacular Man can." ... Did she have to mention the bus thing, too? She didn't wanna mention the bus thing.

"And Thomas... um, well... I stole something from him too, but he thought someone else had stolen it, so I didn't get in trouble. I told him my name was Thomas, and his name as also Thomas, so it was kinda funny. He had weird teeth!"

She pondered talking about the fairy next but decided to see what kinda trouble she was going to get into for the first two, first. "... I'm sorry I was such a bad person before..."

Good. It was going well. You see, he'd had a feeling about her home situation. Her father was, after all, a sinner. A sinner for the cause was still a sinner. Best to be used for their skills and status and thrown away at the right time. An innocent, however, like this girl... They could be a true member of the flock.

She just needed a careful guiding hand.

His eyebrow, what was left of it, raised a bit at her mentioning her father finding her. Strange. She didn't have a home. Realization struck him. Yes... That made sense. She was a bastard child. His son had passed, after all. He must have been desperate for heirs. It would have made him laugh if she wasn't the unfortunate fool he'd chosen. Still, he tucked this information away as possible ammunition for later.

"Stealing is a sin, Eisley... But our lord preaches forgiveness. I assure you if you keep faith your actions will be forgiven. This... Thomas, and Super Saph you speak of... I would be wary of such beings. They are not what they seem." Mutants. Demons in the skin of mostly human DNA.

It sickened him, but he kept a warm smile for her sake. "I do not think you are a bad person, nor were you. You were just in the wrong place, with the wrong people... But here you are now."

The idea that she was forgiven, or would be at least, make her cheeks warm with happiness. She had always worried that she had let all of her role models down with her constant need to eat and switch out really old clothes that were falling apart.

"I've been really good, I swear! I haven't stole nothin' for a whole buncha months now." She'd been keeping track and everything! It didn't matter if she wanted something or not, she simply had controlled that primal urge to collect and hoard things for when she needed them. "I even stopped hiding food under my bed. Papa won't have to get mad anymore."

She was confused about his warming for Super Saph and Thomas, though. What did he mean by 'beings'? She hadn't heard that word before. Would... would he get mad at her for not knowing it?

"... What's a Be-ying? Are they bad?" She focused on her paper, doodling in a very simple drawing of a cockroach with a little top hat on.

Eisley blinked at him for a moment when he finished. She was glad to hear that he didn't think she was a bad person while she had been running around doing bad things. That was confusing, but she was still glad for it.

"I like being here now." She paused, stopping her drawing even to think, "I wasn't really anywhere or with anyone though. Too many people out there are mean and scary, so I was on my own. It was scary too, sometimes, but better."

She added in a few flowers here and there, gave Mr. Unicorn a pink beard, and started trying to doodle the Father talking to her into one of the corners.

"It can be scary here too, sometimes... but I like it better anyway. I got to meet people like you, and Ms. Paisley, and one of my nannies tells me stories sometimes." She squinted as the tip broke off of the crayon in her hands and picked it back up to resume coloring. She wasn't gonna waste perfectly good crayon!

"I don't like Josef though. He's mean."