Cam was rolling to the place Astrid had given him directions to. He stopped in front of the place and walked up to it pausing a moment and taking a breath before gathering his courage and rapping his knuckles twice on the door.

The house was a quaint little house at the end of the street. The garage was closed, but Cameron could likely assume that's where her bike was. The garden was looking somewhat well tended.

As he knocked on the door he could hear a thud as if someone either dropped something or fell over. There was movement, and then the door was opened slightly. Out peeked a man in his maybe late 40s or early 50s. Slightly receding hairline, and brown eyes that looked somewhat glazed over as he squinted at the boy.

"Whatsyouwant?" he slurred out, a likely familiar smell of weed coming off the man.

The house looked pretty nice, kinda the place he thought Astrid might live. Then as the door opened and he caught the smell he was a little surprised.

"Uh hi sir, I'm Cameron I was looking for Astrid?" He asked somewhat hesitantly starting to wonder if he was in the right place.

"What? Whyre you.." he started to say before a woman with a strong Texan accent spoke out behind him.

"Roger who are you speaking to?"

The man turned back and muttered "some boy for an ashtray?"

"Astrid. You know, Norweigan girl? How many times...go sit in the room again."

The man shuffled away and a black haired woman with brown eyes opened the door, looking the boy over before stepping to a side.

"Don't mind him dear he's just unwell. You're here for Astrid? She didn't mention who was coming over just that someone was."

Cam watched the whole scenario play out with a bit of confusion that he did his best to keep from his features. As she looked to him and spoke he nodded

"Oh uh yes ma'am." He said as he took her step to the side as invitation and walked into the home.

The inside was rather sparsely decorated, with a room to the left having curtains drawn and the room to the right clearly leading to the kitchen. There was a set of stairs up to another floor as well.

The woman, a middle-aged woman with a very thin figure, moved to the stairs and shouted up "Astrid! There's a boy here for you!"

She turned back to the boy and again seemed to size him up, before speaking.

"I'll give ya two warnings dear. One, don't go into the garage or that room" she motioned to the darker room "and two that Astrid girl is a weird one. Have fun" she gave him a sweet smile before walking into the living room.

From the top of the stairs Astrid peeked around, then motioned for him to come up.

Cam did look around the place noting it's sparse decorations but mentally shrugged at that, some people just weren't decorators he imagined.

When the woman listed her rules he was struck by curiosity and a little confusion. He nodded "Uh OK, thanks."

He looked up seeing Astrid and went up the stairs taking them two at a time.

Once he got up there his voice was hushed "Yo your host family is mad weird, you know that right?"

When he got to the top of the stairs he'd find a bit of a surprising sight. Astrid was barefoot, wearing a very small pair of black shorts and a black tank top. Her pink hair was tied back in a single ponytail, and she wasn't wearing contacts so Cameron could see her natural bright blue eyes. There was a lot of skin showing as if it was summer, even though the house was a little warm but not hot.

"They are just high" Astrid shrugged, but she smiled "good to see you. I have some things I quickly need to finish but you need to go into the room opening the door as little as possible. Vennen shouldn't escape but I do not want to risk it."

She motioned to the white door next to her and unlocked it.

"Quick quick."

Cam was a little struck by the sight once he had taken the time to actually assess Astrid his eyes did a once over and his mouth hung a little open for a second "Uh yeah, just high, Uh huh."

As she motioned he snapped out of it a little "Oh OK yeah." He was a quick boy so slipping into the room beyond the white door was pretty easy for him.

Cameron would find himself in what was, very clearly, a decent sized bedroom. The bed with pink covers was well made and there was a wardrobe next to it. The other side of the room had a table with the beginnings of what looked like a dress being made, and in front of that was the book from class half opened with the worksheet next to it. On the walls were lots of pencil drawings of different things; houses, clothes, and rather poorly drawn animals.

Sitting by the window however was a large looking black bird that looked and cawed at Cam as he entered. Opening its wings, one of which was clearly quite damaged but it looked to be taking off as the click from behind him happened.

"Good, just in time" Astrid said as she slipped past, offering her hand to the bird which did jump down onto it.

"Du er trøbbel eh Vennen" she said with a small laugh, carefully stroking the side of the birds head as she turned to Cameron.

"She just needs a little fly around time before I put her back into cage. I wanted to finish the chapter also."

Cam looked about the room briefly, his attention captured by the large bird that eyed him and then squawked. he watched as it lighted upon Astrid's waiting hand. It was certainly the biggest bird he'd been this close to.

"Did you just say something about Vannen being trouble?" Cam asked listening to the words and trying to piece together meaning. He was, at least temporarily, distracted from things that had distracted him earlier.

"Exactly correct" Astrid nodded with a smile "Vennen is a sneaky little Raven, if you leave a door even slightly open he knows how to open it and he can't fly properly anymore so he would not do well outside. Plus different world here."

She walked closer to Cameron so he could see the bird more. Vennen was eying up Cameron but didn't fly away at least.

"He does not bite, say hi."

Cam looked at the bird closely "Uh, hi. Vennen." Birds for some reason felt different than other animals to him not like a dog or a cat. Talking to him felt strange but not too uncomfortable.

After a second Cam cleared his throat lightly and looked back over the room. A small smile appeared on his lips "figures you would have already started the reading assignment." He said in a bit of an amused way.

The bird cawed at Cameron, which was likely louder than he was used to for a bird. Astrid laughed.

"He likes you. He did not peck your hand."

Pulling the bird back she shook her hand, the bird bringing its wings up then flying off her hand and landing nearby. Even in its flight Cameron would be able to see that he couldn't fly properly, it was lopsided.

"Du skal snart tilbake i buret ditt, så fly litt til" she said to the bird, before turning back to Cameron.

"Oh I finished the book already, I was just going through it again so I could do the assignment. I was nearly finished with the third chapter again" she added with a smile "make yourself comfortable. Will only be a few minutes."

He listened to the Norwegian, thinking maybe it was so different from English after all. He was quickly relieved of that idea as he didn't even get an idea of what the words could have meant outside of context clues.

He chuckled and shook his head before looking about the room "aight, I'll let you focus." He looked about and only seeing one place to sit he very gently sat on the bed trying not to disturb the sheets too much. He pulled his headphones and covered one ear and listened to some music while he waited.

The bed would be quite hard, although the covers looked extremely thin. There was movement as well as Vennen moved along the window closer to the bed staring at Cameron.

"Vennen behave" Astrid said without turning around at all, making notes and muttering quietly to herself as she wrote and read the book in front of her. The bird did indeed stop moving towards Cameron, although it didn't stop staring.

After the length of one song she sat back.

"Ferdig. Sorry, I mean finished" Astrid turned back to look at Cameron "was not too long I hope? That homework is finished at least, did you read yours yet?"

His eyebrows raised a little at the firmness of the mattress but he shrugged as the music played and he was bobbing hos head to the music.

At one point he looked over at Astrid as she read and got a little more lost in the action than he meant too. As she leaned back and spoke he snapped out of it and slipped the headphones down to his neck his eyes had darted down to the floor

"Oh nah nah its cool." He smiled looking up "and no I don't usually do homework until closer to the due date." if i do it at all he left that thought unsaid.

"Not surprised you tend to get it out of the way immediately."

"If you did it earlier you would have more time" Astrid shrugged as she stood and turned on the spot to face him. Or rather just past him, when she laughed before moving to sit next to Cameron.

"I think Vennen thinks the cables on your headphones are worms. What are you listening to?"

He waved a hand kind of dismissively "eh it all gets done." sometimes.

He did think she was staring at him when she turned around and froze up a little but slowly relaxed as it became clear that she was looking at the bird. Though he tensed a little again as she sat on the bed next to him.nit fully just a bit, a tiny amount of nervous energy.

"Hm?" He asked at her question as his brain caught up to his ears "Oh, I'm listening to the latest tape from A Tribe Called Quest. They're a hip hop group, been around for a minute since like the 80s. They do a lot of interesting stuff mixing in jazz and R&B elements to they songs some people been calling them alternative hip hop."

A tapping sound came to the window.
//GM intrusion