After several uneventful days, 7 to be exact. A strange man dressed in what seems to be a laboratory coat came to the orphanage, he arrived donning a top hat and wearing a satchel around his shoulder.
The man stood outside the gates, watching the children play; seemingly monitoring their behavior.
The children, afraid of the man, searched for Lorea who was hanging wet bed sheets and other kinds of fabric on a clothesline and asked her to scare him away. Lorea felt uneasy, she quickly bolted to the scene to find out the man's intention.
"Excuse me, sir? You can't be here, please leave the orphanage's ground," said Lorea, the anxiety she felt was almost palpable.
The man who had arrived at their little orphanage did not once take his gaze off the children, even when Lorea was speaking to him. Lorea was afraid, perhaps the man was a pedophile? Or maybe he is someone who is here to adopt one of the children.
She gestured for the children to go inside and wait, some followed her order; but some also stayed behind to watch.
"Oh? But i am waiting for someone though?" the man said.
"And who would that be?" Asked lorea, trying to pry more about the man's purpose to be here.
"I believe his name is Donald? The Director?" Answered the man.
"The director's not here right now, I think it would be best if you come back later in the afternoon," suggested Lorea.
"I'm fine with waiting," the man said as he plucked a daffodil off the ground. He walked towards Clementine, crouched down and gave her the single piece of daffodil.
Seeing this caused the warning signs in Lorea's head to go blaring about. She quickly distanced the children from the man and pushed him outside.
Lorea insisted, "I think it would be best if you come back later on in the day for Donald, Mister. And please do not come in contact with the children, I don't think they would like that."
The man sighed, put on his top hat and said, "Very well then, I'll see you later Miss Lorea."
The man compliantly left without causing any trouble. However, the thought did not escape Lorea's mind, did she do the right thing? Was there a better way to do things that she could've done? What is Donald's relationship with the man?
She blamed herself, what if the man had come to kidnap a child and she didnt notice? Would she have been able to deal with the guilt then?
In her mind, she made a vow to always stay watchful when it comes to the children's safety.
Suddenly, she asked herself, "Did I.. tell him my name?" Bewildered, she pulled herself together and went to see the children, counting them one by one in case that a child really had been kidnapped.
Letting out a sigh of relief, she told the children to stay inside for the remainder of the day and went back to hang fabrics on the clothesline.
A couple of hours later, Donald returned back to the orphanage and asked Lorea if they had any visitors, to which Lorea replied with by talking about the mysterious and suspicious man that had come to observe the children play, she told him that she thinks he's a kidnapper and shouldn't be trusted, and how she had driven him away from the orphanage.
Finally, she realized that she should've asked for the man's name, but thought that he probably wouldn't give her his real name anyway, so what was there to regret?
Donald informed her about the man, supposedly he's a doctor who had come to the orphanage to do check-ups on the children to make sure that they aren't and won't get sick.
Completely nonplussed, Lorea went all red and told Donald that she would apologize to the man for the way she conducted herself, now she finally understood why the man was eyeing the children's behavior! He must have been observing them to see if they had any irregularities in them.
But she had more questions, why didn't the man introduce himself as a doctor who had come to inspect the children for diseases? Where did Donald get the money to hire a doctor to come to their orphanage? Considering how they are barely ever funded by the city lord.
However, she is confident that all of the children are healthy, as they are forced to become a self-sustaining establishment, the ingredients for the meals she and another of her colleague cooks everyday had all come from the garden that the workers and even the children had grown by themselves, everything is always fresh.
Had there been any surplus of harvest, they would even sell them to the town to get extra money, rarely did they ever have the need to go out for supplies, they had thought about all of these very carefully.
Proud of having taken care of the children all very well, she completely forgot about how she had almost let the children get kidnapped. But of course, now that her suspicion has faded, she knew that that scenario wouldn't happen either way.
Inside their room, Clementine and Uriel discussed the man who had given them the daffodil. Clementine thinks that the man has motives, while Uriel thinks that the man seems quite nice.
Unlike normal children, both girls respected each other's opinions, they turned a wooden mug that they had laying around in their room into a makeshift vase for the flower and went out to the field to play with the rest of the children again, hopefully, uninterrupted by the appearance of the strange man.
While playing, the Director and Miss Lorea called for the children to come gather round and listen to what they had to say.
The Director explained to the student about who the strange man that they had encountered this morning was, he told them about him being a doctor and coming here to do evaluations to make sure that all of the them are safe from any sort of diseases. He told them all to better behave themselves when the doctor came back, and examines them.
A majority of the children got scared, afraid that when the evaluation went on, they were gonna be told that they are sick and need to take in medicine.
Uriel told Clementine, "See? I knew he was a good person!"
"I guess you were right," acknowledged Clementine.
The day went on without any issues or interesting things happening, and the next day the doctor came back as told together with the Director. Lorea thoroughly apologized to the man and told him about how he should've introduced himself first lest getting misunderstood.
The man introduced himself to the children, he said that his name is Morgan Sigoth, the third son of baron Sigoth who rules over a small piece of land on the eastern side of the kingdom. He apologized to the children if he had scared them yesterday, and gave each and every one of them a piece of candy wrapped in paper and told them to eat it before going to bed because otherwise it will expire soon.
Lorea and the Director gave him puzzled looks, but questioned it not.
The doctor stayed in the orphanage for a couple of weeks, in the first day, he assessed all 12 children of the orphanage and wrote down their information on a book.
On the second day, the doctor stayed inside the little room that the Director had given him temporarily without coming out at all.
And on the third day, the doctor finally came out. He approached the children who were gardening together with Lorea and told them about their current condition. He said that he had good and bad news and told the children to choose about which one he will tell first. Most of the children all chose the good news first, the doctor started to list out 8 names, and told them that whoever's name was called, they are healthy.
The children whose name was called out were all shouting and even hollering dirt at each other, seemingly happy that the doctor's verdict did good on them.