It was a tall building, not crooked so much, but homely and perhaps a bit stinted in the right places; the kind of big ole' house that seemed kept together by magic hands pushing all ways at once to keep it upright and it's inhabitants warm and dry. Each window had some sort of cheery, handmade looking decorations in them, and the sign that swung above the door read some half weather worn scrawl of etched out words, the two most readable were home and children. Through what was undoubtedly the living room window, a small circle of children that varied in age were milling about; from the looks of it, there was some sort of game going on where two ran about the rest of the circle, hands grasping, lips wide and laughing as they tried to catch one another. Now and again a larger, adult figure would walk by too. That was to be expected though, one always had to keep an eye on such a gaggle of young ones.

There's a worn book in his hands which shows the progress of a many from literary infancy to adulthood. Gold lined pages and the cover not so worse for wear because he'd been careful with it, like he was careful with the few things he kept. From the alphabet to those more complex ideas. On some pages the hand of another, Lilli, leading him along the way to those books and thoughts. He was standing in front of one of them now, judging the uneven stone face of it. It reminded him somewhat of the small orphanage he had run-- a large residence that offered the leftover quiet promises. His children had been less cheerful, more problematic and sad. Leftovers from war, abandonment, starvation. It was good they were laughing. His mind folded back on Lilli's words for comfort and he exhaled slowly. He had wanted this, for years, so why wasn't he as confident as he thought he would be. He stepped onto the uneven rock path that lead up to the face, the mouth of the house whoe door he stopped at. Drawing back his shoulders he reached out, knocked on the door and glanced back to watch the kids still in play.

Several children, at that knock, stopped what they were doing and fell into one another in a scramble of limbs and owlish eyes. Some crowded the big panes of the old window beside the door. It was one of those sit in sort of windows that bulged out from the rest of the building, the kind that catered to a beaten day bench with an equally squashy looking cushion. The man wouldn't have long to look though, because the older of the children came to shush them away from gawking too long. The door opened a moment later, and a tall, perhaps a bit too-slender woman with half grayed hair pulled out a smile for Tag.

"Afternoon, I'm Tabitha... Ms. Millard isn't here right now, did you have an appointment of sorts to come see about any of the children?" Inspecting the man and his book as they stood before her, she questioned further, her brow line gentle, but curious. "... or a courier perhaps?" It was clear the woman was a stand in for the aforementioned 'Ms. Millard'. Down the hall behind her a few of the children who'd been crowding the windows has oozed away and leeked their little heads into a doorway, peering around
Tabitha's back from a distance.

"No, no appointment. I just thought I would come by." He smiled in a short but kind way. The way people do in awkward, personal transactions they have to offer up to a stranger. He offered her his hand in greeting, noticing the way she examined his face. The way any woman should when a man comes asking around an orphanage, "My name is Tag. A friend of mine had spoken of this office and I thought to come visit and see for myself... just quickly." He wasn't sure what else he should tell her. That he wasn't insane. That he didn't know what to tell her. To be on the other end of an examination was strange. He knew what he had wanted to hear from possible parents, but all of that was forgotten when he was trying to present himself to her as he was now.

"A friend.. Tag huh?" For a moment the woman seemed skeptical, but then she got a good hold of his hand and gave it a shake. Tabitha had some pretty dark eyes, but they hit just the right shade of brown when the light got them; they were still staring at Tag slowly. Maybe it was the air about him, or even the way his hand fit, but slowly, after a quick chide over her shoulder to the half a dozen eyes she felt prickling at her back, the woman took her hand back and stepped aside. She didn't quite leave the door yet, she'd remain by the frame to close it and keep a further eye on Tag, no doubt. A large cooky a bit grizzled around his jaw and lumpy on his head peer out through what was no doubt the kitchen farther down the hallway. Every house needed just one bit of muscle, and he seemed it. Satisfied, he disappeared as quickly as he'd poked his head out. Tabitha chuckled at that, before turning back to her visitor. "Well go ahead then. It's always good to see a hopeful face coming in belonging to an adult and not a child." Meaning, yeah; they brought in more faces than they managed to give out. But that was the norm with such places.

There wasn't much he could do for her. Couldn't sing or dance. He lacked that gift men had where they were charming enough to set a woman at ease and convince them to hand over their heart within a conversation. Tag just... couldn't manipulate women with that sort of ease. So it was when she yielded with a kind smile that his shoulders appeared to relax. He nodded toward the kids for a final permission to step over in their area. He wasn't sure how friendly they would be with him. Some, certainly skeptical of the new adult as they had been with all of those that had come before. Others excited, leaping forward, happy at the prospect of a new face though always the meaning of that new face was somewhat misunderstood. Sometimes children left with these strangers,
but what that mean, well, he wasn't sure that orphans had a perfect grasp of it being that they were children. So he stood his ground at the base of their army and offered a small, encouraging wave hello.

"Shoosh, shoosh, get back in here! It's rude to leave a game before it's all done!" One of the older children, a girl stuck somewhere between seven and eight, a very important age, came out from the main sprawl of the living area to chase the smaller, braver children back in. Spying Tag, she flushed quickly and gave a small jerk of her head for him to come in too. Seems that a few of them did know the purpose of the house and the deal with living in it. Others, like the smallest of the group, seemed more concerned with little else other than the small family of friends they'd made; it was a variant collection of children either too old in the soul or still too young to know any better than the nurturing atmosphere they were currently submerged in.

He almost always nods when he's being indicated to. That, or he gets real still and thoughtful. Depended on the circumstance. His nod was visible, like he wanted all the group of kids to be aware that he had nodded at the young girl's direction. He stepped in further, jamming his hands into the pockets of his pants as he did so. His eyebrows arched up as he looked at them, their faces, mostly. Some reminded him of the kids that he had known long ago. Others looked fresher, promising, like they had come here just to visit and were not orphans like all the others. "What's the game?" The one that was so rude to leave and was, often, of the utmost importance to them.

Ms. between seven and eight, though not the oldest in the room where the children were milling about, did seem to have the loudest mouth on her. Taking it upon herself to answer the question that'd been posed, she replied quickly; almost sharply. "Stop, Slow, Go. It's where a lot of us go to one side of the room and then one on the other..." As the chatty little cathy continued to yammer on about the rules and what each command word entailed, some of the children either tuned out, chittered quietly amongst themselves, stared at Tag with open faces, or played smaller games amongst themselves with the few shared toys in the room. One small girl, however, sat quite by herself nearer that big front window facing the street. She cradled a well loved bear, her fingers worrying on his ear as she let her chin down on the sill cushion, watching the people mill to and fro outside.

"I see." Some children's games were the same all over, just with different names. He nodded gravely to her description of the game and distracted his attention on the unorganized others milling around. Some of those fast paced hand slapping games the girls did with song and all of that. There was the quiet child that he recognized; she had a familiar way about her. He looked to Ms. Tabitha and indicated that he wished to go over by her, but wanted permission, first. Sometimes the antisocial children could be violent or particular, the way Autistic kids could be. It may be that going over by her wouldn't be wise and he thought if anyone knew, she would. It was that he recognized her that caught his attention, not that she had been set apart by the others either by their will or her own. He enjoyed that feeling of familiarity.

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This is a session between the players Tag Sentry and Dove Eyes: 6/10/2010