Annette
At the offices at Newton's Cradle, the "Government" Aspect is at full display. The walls are a dull white with equally dull gray accents, lined with filing cabinets and shelves full of color coded binders. Dim light filters in from the half-drawn venetian blinds. Every corner has a plant that, no matter how real it is, always manages to feel fake.

In this environment, Pernilla Karlsson's office is almost alien. The furniture is antique and wooden, almost certainly thrifted, and whatever parts of the walls aren't covered in bookshelves are instead adorned with colorful embroidery. Every corner of the room where space could be found is home to at least one potted plant, all of which are very visibly genuine and alive, and an earthy scent emanates from the potted soil.

Pernilla, herself, fits perfectly in her office — she's the kind of timeless woman who looks old and young at the same time, with her graying hair and still-youthful face, and the combination of 50-year-old thrifted styles and decidedly modern homemade knits she wears, in an assortment of warm reds and yellows and browns with the occasional green and white accents. As Barric enters, she sits on the far side of the desk, watering the flowers in the windowsill. She doesn't look at him — though she still directs him to "Come in, come in. Sit down." She has a noticeable accent.
Cynthia
Barric's hand wrapped around the doorknob of the door. He leans down and pulls up his pant leg slightly to scratch one of the socks that covered his feet underneath his boots. Despite how uncomfortable it made his sense and kinda muted it, he still wore them out of politeness here. It seemed improper for him to not wear any here. 

He listened for a moment before opening the door. Undoubtedly looking extremely strange just standing outside a door with his hand on the doorknob. No vibrations seemed to come from the room. 

So the person he was meeting with was likely sitting or standing still, doing something he couldn't pick up. Or just sitting there doing nothing. He debated standing there for longer. But a quick glance at the clock told him that he'd likely end up late if he continued standing here.

Barric opened the door. The smell of something hit him. The only way he could describe it was soil. A quick scan of the room explained why. Plants covered almost every inch of the office. All vibrant colors. Barric squinted his eyes the woman was tuned away from him watering plants, but she still spoke to him. 

He nodded at the invitation to sit down. Taking his seat in the chair that sat across from her desk. He slouched slightly forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his upper thigh. He watched as she continued watering, waiting for her to begin to speak to him again.
Annette
Pernilla turned away from the flowers and left the watering can on the desk next to a stack of papers, apparently unbothered by the risk of water damage to just about anything. She smiled warmly. 

"Let's start with names, okay? I'm Pernilla. I'm going to be the person you should go to if you need help with something — classes, your room, food, what-ever it is you need help with. You're Barric, yes?" She pulled out a form and a ballpoint pen.
Cynthia
He watched as she turned away from the plants placing her water can on a stack of papers. The move confused him a bit but he supposed they weren't that important if she was willing to risk spilling water on them. He actually got a good look at her now that he was close to her. She seemed on the older but still youthful. A strange mix of both. 

Barric nodded. "Yeah, I'm Barric." He seemed to start off strong with the yeah, but trailed off to a murmur when speaking his name. A consular of sorts, he assumed. He knew little about how non online schools worked, but all his research into how normal teenagers lived had pointed to Pernilla being a consular. 

He paused for a moment, tapping his fingers together. "Why exactly am I here? If I'm allowed to ask that." He wanted to be standoffish with her like his brain was telling him to, but honestly, she was the best source of information for him.
Annette
Pernilla scribbled something on the form. "Of course, honey," She cooed, "You can ask anything you like, but..." She hemmed and hawed for a little while. "The law— No. I will be honest. You are here because you grew a large tail. Ordinary humans do not do that, Barric. Your parents do not do that. They cannot take care of you or teach you about this. We can."

She clicked the pen. "Your parents did not talk to you about this?"
Cynthia
Barric scoffed. "You act like they talk to me about anything." He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. "Trust me, I'm well aware that normal humans don't do that." He murmured. His eyes wandered around the office. The woman was writing on that form on and off. She seemed to need to write something down every time he opened his mouth. 

It creeped him out. "You going to keep writing every time I say something?" His drawl seemed to make its appearance as he grew frustrated.
Annette
"Yes," She answered bluntly. "I have to fill out the form. It's the law." She paused and took a slow breath. "But you can see what I write. It's not a secret. Just paperwork and, uh— Bureaucracy."

She clicked the pen again. "Your parents kept you shut in — have you kept up with school?"
Cynthia
"No, that's fine. Just was curious if you were writing everything or just a few things." He continues, letting his eyes wander the room. Picking out what he could see. 

Barric nodded. "Online. I haven't been to an actual school. Unless you count this." He made a hand motion to the surrounding room. He wasn't really sure if they could count this as a school or as a medical institution of sorts. "Could've been a worse education or not one at all. I know how to read and do everything I should know how to." He huffed a bit. "I at least think I do."
Annette
"I'm sure." Pernilla nodded, not entirely dismissively. She quickly scrawled a laundry list of things onto the form, then grabbed another piece of paper from a folder and squinted at it. She then handed the same paper to Barric.

"Could you read this for me, please?"
Cynthia
Barric furrowed his eyebrows, a bit annoyed. She seemed somewhat dismissive of his claim and not fully convinced. The long break between questions for writing what seemed like a lot of things didn't soothe his anxieties. He reached forward, snatching the paper out of her hands. The writing was typed and small. All of it sat neatly on the otherwise blank piece of paper. It was only about 3 or 4 sentences. Did she not believe him? The earlier thought at been a small insecurity eating away at his brain. This seemed like a flat out insult.

He looked up at her, confusion etched on his face. "Do you not believe me?" Barric looked back down at the paper. "Actually nevermind don't answer that." He didn't give her any time to finish anything she had begun to say before he began reading off the paper. Barric seemed to pause at the longer words, furrowing his eyebrows and taking a moment to process them. He'd lost track a few times and repeated himself two or three times before continuing. 

It didn't take him long to finish reading the paper aloud. But it seemed he struggled with certain words and keeping track of the words he had read. He placed the paper on the desk again, sliding the paper back to Pernilla.
Annette
"Thank you," Pernilla acknowledged. She wrote a few things down as well, once again. "I'm very sorry for the trouble — the documents I have about you mentioned some vision problems, so I wanted to know if they were a problem for your reading."

She paused.

"I did notice something, but I don't think it's because of your vision— would you be okay with doing a test for dyslexia? It doesn't have to be now."
Cynthia
Barric blinked. There was a deafening silence in the room. He bit his tongue, avoiding snapping at the woman. "I'm not dyslexic." He'd tried to ignore the vision statement, but his brain, of course, wouldn't shut up. "I'm not blind or anything either. I can see you just fine. I could read that paper.." He paused for a moment, debating on his response. "Somewhat okay." He finally settled on. He didn't read it perfectly, and he would not sound flat out delusional by saying he did. 

He leaned back in his chair again. "My vision and reading are just fine." He seemed to think repeating it would somehow nail it into the woman's head. Or manipulate her into believing him.
Annette
"Okay." Pernilla did not believe him in the slightest. She did not, however, do anything about it — if the poor boy wanted to insist that he didn't want or need help, then she wouldn't force it on him. "Like I said, it's a test. If you ever change your mind and decide you want to be tested, just talk to me, okay?" She gave Barric a patient smile. "We can test your vision too, if anything happens to that. We can even get you glasses if you need them. You just let me know."

She looked down at the form, began writing, then paused. Then, she changed her style from scratchy, flowing scrawl to a more clean, blocky script intended to be easy to read — she didn't want to write something that Barric couldn't read. *Files mention vision problems. Could not confirm them. Keep an eye out.*

"I think I've gone through everything I need to — unless there's anything you need help with? Just ask."
Cynthia
Barric tapped his fingers against his forearm. He ran his tongue along his teeth, debating on what to say now. He watched what the woman was writing. "I want to read the paper." He doubted he'd be allowed to erase or white out anything. But he'd at least like to know what he had to fake to throw them off his back. 

"Who the hell said I have vision problems?" The doctor back home was a fucking idiot, so he doubted they got that information from him. The man had told his dad that Barric's jaw swelling to double its size when he was 10 was normal and that he had no reason to panic. He liked to think he hid the issues pretty well from his parents, but you never know what they end up finding out. After all, parents seem to know their kids best.
Annette
"Of course. Do let me know if anything needs correcting." Pernilla handed the form over with a patient smile.

At the top, it read ***NI-40b Resident Intake Form*** In big, bold, unmistakable lettering. After that, it was all checkboxes and text fields — name, date of birth, assigned ID number, health, disability accommodations, educational standing and more such personal details filled out in rows and columns in Pernilla's rushed handwriting. Two other sections in particular were of note, though: "Classes and electives", listing a long list of school subjects — English, mathematics, sciences, history, among others — and "PNC report", a full overview of Barric's powers and oddities as well as several cryptic sections full of abbreviations that Barric had no basis for understanding.

"I can't tell you who told us that. I'm sorry."
Cynthia
"Why not? It's my own damn medical history. You ain't breaking any Hippocratic oath or whatever it's called by telling me that." He glanced over the form. Some of it wasn't interesting, at least not to Barric, who knew himself well enough already. He tried coming up with any memory of seeing the abbreviations but came up blank. "What are these letters at the bottom?" He ran his finger down the side, still trying to come up with an idea of what each could mean.

Who the hell told them about the sense? He hadn't mentioned that to his parents on the way here. So how the hell did they know about that? "How'd you know about the last power? I haven't mentioned that to anyone." He flipped the paper around and slid it back across the table, pointing at the section like Pernilla needed a reminder of what it said.
Annette
Pernilla stayed quiet until Barric slid the paper back across the table. "I'm happy to hear it's accurate, but I really can't say where we get the information. I'm sorry. As for the letters — it's part of our systems for... Grouping powers. I learned about it in Swedish, so don't really know how to say most of it in English. Sorry."

She seemed unable or unwilling to really help much with those kinds of questions for whatever reason.

"If there's nothing else I can help you with?"
Cynthia
"I didn't say it was completely accurate." Barric huffed, yanking the paper back across the table. He could be really annoying and attempt to get more answers out of her, but he couldn't push her too far. At least not yet. If he found out more, he'd make sure to hound her about what he found out. He stared at the giant letters, stating he might have vision problems. Barric wasn't fully sure why he was so hesitant to get diagnosed with vision problems, but it just wasn't something he was keen on having as a label for the rest of his life. 

"How do I get you to remove the vision problems comment?" He knew the likely answer to it. But he was hopefully going to avoid it and just get the thing off. However unlikely that was.
Annette
"You could go get an eye exam from the nurse?" Pernilla suggested innocently. "But, really, it's no problem. It's just there so the other teachers and staff know about it if it ever comes up. If your vision is fine, it shouldn't be a problem."
Cynthia
He glared at Pernilla. "Can't you just remove it? You have no proof of it. You're going to have the teachers and staff worried about nothing." He looked down at the papers again. "If I take it and turn out to have vision problems, what happens then? I get treated like a blind idiot?" He ran his tongue over his teeth again, slightly annoyed.
Annette
Pernilla's usual patient smile hardens a little. "*No,* You would get a pair of glasses, and your teachers will give you class notes on paper or on a computer if you can't see the blackboard. I'm sure you wouldn't be the first one here who needs glasses. Nobody thinks you're an idiot and nobody wants to treat you like you're an idiot." 

She slowly slides the form back to her own side of the desk and rests a closed fist on the table, palm down. Her eyes meet Barric's. "I can't make you take the test. But if you won't take it, I can't remove this warning. If you cannot see, or you cannot read, we need to know, because our job is to help you finish school. And that is more than hard enough without any of our students being secretly blind. So either we know for sure if you're blind, or I warn the others that we don't. Your choice."
Cynthia
Barric instantly felt a little insulted. But he gritted his teeth this time before responding. "I can read. You saw me read. You heard it." He responded through the gritted teeth. He wasn't trying to tick her off yet. He knew he would eventually, but he was starting to feel personally insulted. He sighed, pinching his nose again. "Just keep the warning on there, then." He finally reeled back. Getting into an argument with her right now probably wasn't completely ideal. Even if he was the one on the verge of starting one.
Annette
"Okay." Pernilla sighed. "Unless there's anything else, I think that's enough for today. You can come back another time if you need to."