Daycare, literally

[achelord]

A combination of parents being busy during the day and the horrors of war leaving a bunch of orphans meant there were always a bunch of kids running around The Vault that needed looking after. It was just a fact of life. But child wranglers get sick, sometimes. Or just need breaks. And, as a wandering monster hunter, Ziel did not honestly have a lot to do with most of his time while the Corsairs weren't actively plotting any operations.

So Ziel had volunteered to take a few shifts keeping the youngest corsairs from hurting themselves. He wasn't the most active of daycare providers, spending as much of his time as he could sitting down and cycling ether through his body in his standard meditation patterns, but he routinely got up to break up scuffles before they could get out of control or make sure everyone was included in whatever the current activity was. He wasn't particularly smiley about it, but he had a surprising amount of patience, and he talked to the children like they were grownups and took them seriously. This strategy seemed to go over pretty well for the most part.

To anyone who knew the dour man, this probably felt like an unusual place to find him, but outside of the times he was drunk (and he was stone cold sober right now), this was probably the least stressed anyone had seen him in months.

At this exact moment, he was sitting cross legged with his eyes closed while a two year old slowly climbed up his back, using his hair and horns as handholds. If this bothered him, he gave no indication of it.

Comments

[fish4science]

"Eeeeeee..." he's riding Ziel! How cute is that?? Angelika certainly can't stop the high pitched noise that escapes her throat, before she clamps down on her mouth with a free hand. No, this is Too Cute. How dare that child be so adorable, and Ziel be so calm and...fatherly? Maybe not fatherly, but certainly some sort of ideal is manifested here. If she had a camera, she might take a picture-instead, she'll have to commit this to memory.

[achelord]

The child riding his head might not have distracted him, but his warrior instincts warned him he was being watched! Ziel emerged from his trance to stare directly at Angelika.

Then, he slowly rolled his eyes upwards, trying to get a view of the source of the weight on his head.