When Hayden walked through the door after he got home from a long Thursday at school (why did three of his teachers have to assign tests that day?), he was expecting his parents to be in the living room, perhaps complaining about the days work. This was not that. This wasn’t even close to the top twenty things on his list! In fact if you were to tell him this was the outcome of walking through the door not even a minute ago he would have laughed in your face and told you that you were somehow more sleep deprived than him.

“Hayden! You’re Home! I got a surprise for you! You’ve been adopted!” an almost familiar voice said in a sing-song tone. Yeah no, this was definitely not what he expected, in front of Hayden was something trying to be a person. It was definitely trying to be what was probably a human male, but it was wrong, its presence was the most notable in all its Old-heavy-Watching-Power glory. It was too human in a way, he’d heard people use that to describe creatures in novels and he’d never fully understood until now, how something not human could look too human, even now he couldn’t entirely pin down the feeling. But this creature definitely fit that description.

To make matters worse, it had a face, body, and outfit that was clearly meant to be his dad. It wasn’t. It looked at him with a gaze so similar to his dad, but it held something that spoke of an unfamiliar emotion that he was sure no human, much less a sane one, would ever be able to feel. His father’s normally sky blue eyes that matched Hayden’s own were gone, replaced with a deep navy blue, which appeared to (and probably did) have pinpricks of light which were blue or red tinted white.

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Hayden was wildly out of his depth here. Sure he knew of creatures better than the general populace through his apprenticeship, he was still only well versed in basic, low-level magic. He wished in that moment that he lived closer to his mentors.

He was familiar with how to handle creatures diplomatically, in theory at least, so obviously the first thing he said to the creature was “. . . But I already have parents?” You know, like the nervous mess of an awkward teenager he was. On the bright side he could have said much worse things to this creature.

“Of course you have parents! What would the adoption be for if I wasn’t your parents?” Did it seriously not only make the claim that it was his parent, but both his parents? “I’m not your parent for nothing little Stella,” Back to the singular then, was it. And what was a Stella?

“You look unwell, perhaps you should sleep a bit before dinner” the creature commented, with a tone of worry slightly seeping into its previously excited one.

Before Hayden could so much as speak again, barely managing a gasp and flinch, it was in front of him, his face already in its cold-warm hands. The world was suddenly out of focus as his eyes blinked as tired and slow as the rest of him. He felt himself yawn as he was pulled into a rather comfortable hug. The last thing he heard before his navy eyes shut was It? Dad? Mom? say “I’ll wake you up before dinner, little Stell.”