Welcome to Gaia! ::

The day was remarkably warm for the time of year it was, as if the sun was running the final distance of warmth before summer gave way into autumn. Not a cloud in the sky... MoogerMint mused to herself, a mild smile gracing her features. She could probably enjoy it a bit more, if the sunshine didn't burn her pale skin so badly. Just my luck; I completely forgot the sunscreen, she added after searching her bag for the plastic container, black-tipped ears folding backward in irritation.

Hajari fumbled with the lower hem of his shirt, a nervous habit that he started developing when he found the need to do something with his unoccupied hands. He blinked his eyes to his guardian, noticing that she wasn't in the best of moods. "You okay, Mom?" he asked, "We can go home if you don't want to be out."

Slightly startled, she looked up from her bag, slowly withdrawing her hand from it's depths. Before she was able to catch herself, she couldn't help but let out with a snort and a chuckle. It seemed like only yesterday that she was asking practically the same thing to the harpy child at her side, trying to urge him to stop being so antisocial. True, he was still as cripplingly shy as ever, but at least he was trying to come out of his shell. "No, no, it's fine. I just forgot the sunscreen, is all. I'll be fine; I brought some water," she brushed off, holding up said bottle to wiggle it and let the water inside swish against the walls of the container. Hajari gave a meek smile, and the woman immediately realized that the boy had been half-hoping that she would want to head back. She nudged him in the shoulder, huffing playfully, "Heeey, now! You haven't been out and about in a while -- you need some fresh air! Besides, when was the last time you were out just to have some fun, eh?"

The boy bobbed his head in understanding, knowing by now that it was a lost cause to argue. It wasn't as if he didn't want to be out during the last warm days of summer, it's just that... it had been so long since he had gone anywhere other than the grocery store, or anywhere else for an errand. He had a hard enough time with his words before, but now...

Now, all words seemed to fly out of his mind, his emerald eyes growing wide. "Tire swing!" he nearly shouted in excitement as he pointed to the structure. He hadn't actually ever been on one, but what kid didn't like playground equipment made out of unusual items? It gave a different atmosphere to the beach-side area, and Hajari wasted little time in jumping into the unoccupied tire, clinging onto the thick chains holding it aloft.

Mint choked on a laugh at the reaction, "That was unexpected."

Fumbling, Hajari nearly slipped off the tire he was seated on when he heard his name being called. The suddenness of it was so unexpected, and it didn't help that he was flighty by nature; luckily, he was able to catch himself with a taloned foot to the inner part of the tire, though not before his heart started racing with the added adrenaline. "W-Wha..?" he sputtered before he turned his eyes in the direction the familiar voice had originated from. The first thing he wanted to do when he saw the familiar faces was to jump up onto the tire and wave frantically in excitement, but like it always seemed to happen, this was replaced by fear that he may have forgotten something important, may mess up somewhere, and the lowering self-esteem.

He tried to shake it off, and decided to meet things halfway -- he gave a small wave back and flashed a smile. He was so confident the last time he had seen them... though that was after he warmed up to the encounter. Hopefully it wouldn't take long. Well, it shouldn't! He knew them! They were really nice, and Sybil had already stated that there was no reason for him to act that way around them. They were already friends, so it wasn't like he had to 'prove himself' again! Though... maybe he had to prove it to himself again?

He swallowed the thoughts, trying to shirk off the shyness, but it only managed to resurface a little when Sybil mentioned how much bigger he had gotten. Perhaps it was a good thing that boys grew in height later in comparison to girls their own age, as Hajari was still rather short, or he may have felt that much more embarrassed. Stretching his legs out a little as if he could examine his height this way, still seated on the tire swing, he forced a smile, "I-It's not bad, is it?" More importantly, "I bet you'll be growing soon, too!" They were around the same age, so he liked to keep it that way, to feel as if he belonged somewhere.

The harpy-boy glanced to Ritsu as he began apologizing, mildly confused before he linked the words with reactions he had just been feeling. It felt nice to know that he wasn't alone in the shyness, even if Ritsu's was more pronounced than his own. At least he understood? There was no hesitation in his smile, "Why would I want you to go? You're my friend!" Shouldn't he be taking his own advice? The words seemed to let him relax more, "'Sides, you didn't know if we were busy or not, right? And mom took forever getting the phone hooked up." He could probably have come up with a number of other reasons, offering Ritsu an 'out.'

He paused for a bit upon thought, then scooted himself over so that he was taking up a minimal amount of space on one side of the tire, "Wanna swing with me?"

MoogerMint, meanwhile, was watching the interactions with a grin. However, she was also distracting herself with a book under the shade of a tree -- which she promptly started using as a fan as opposed to the reading material it was made for. Her expression didn't change as she spotted Rime, and she waved a hand in indication that she should join her, "Naaaw, I don't mind at all! Please have a seat!" She patted the grass next to her, already using a beach blanket herself, "Hot day today, isn't it?" Ahh, how she did seem to enjoy stating the obvious.

Hajari couldn't help but feel badly for Ritsu, noticing that although Sybil wanted to join in, the older boy was reluctant to. He fidgeted slightly in place, eyes downward, hoping that he didn't make the situation worse by offering the seat to them. But Sybil knew what she was doing, right? She knew how to handle Ritsu, ways of getting around his petrified exterior... He hoped, at least, seeing as she did a pretty good job of it when it came to Hajari himself.

However, the swing managed to rock around fairly well, for someone so unsure. As a precaution, the harpy boy couldn't stop himself from tossing out a few words, and before he knew it he was calling out over the wind as it whipped past his feathered ears, "Y-You don't have to push if you don't want to! We can do something else!"

Counteracting Sybil's directions probably wasn't the best idea he'd had, however, as his eyes quickly darted back to the girl sitting across from him. "H-He doesn't look like he's having fun," he stammered, feeling the need to explain himself. He didn't want anyone unhappy, nor angry with him, but he didn't know how to remedy the situation. Granted, his words were a little late in coming.


MoogerMint snickered, "No kidding? Me, too. Always preferred the Winter, probably always will." Her views, she knew, were based more on opinion than anything else. It didn't really have anything to do with a need, as it appeared to with Rime. She rocked back against the tree that stood rooted behind her, sitting at a more relaxed angle as she continued to fan herself with her reading material. In fact, she could be more generous about it... "Care for any particular section of the newspaper? Picked it up earlier today," she offered, in case Rime wanted something that may cool her off a bit as well.

She nodded in reaction to the other woman's statement, feeling the same way about the trio being there. "Been a bit slow around here, hasn't it? Had to get the boy out of the house, he's become a bit of a hermit as of late! Granted, that's partly my fault. Been busy with other things, and it seems like he won't get out of the house if nobody's accompanying him," she explained, before her eyes lit up on a thought. "Maybe he'd get more fresh air if he had friends that nudged him out every once in a while? They could visit each other more often; seems they always get along," she speculated with a bit of a nudge. They lived nearby, didn't they? It was a good opportunity to boot him out of the house every once in a while without him gaining too much of a clingy personality. Well... more of one, at least.

Hajari wasn't sure what to say in a situation like this, let alone if there was something he could say to begin with. He wanted to be supportive of Ritsu, wanted to be able to say something that would help the boy settle down and relax a little, but his mind was drawing a blank.

He stayed seated on the tire swing even after Sybil hopped off, taloned toes curled up in a tense worry as he maneuvered his head to see past the chains holding the tire aloft. They were suppose to be having fun today, and he hated seeing anyone so upset, least of all a friend. He jumped as the chance to help the situation appeared, nodding vigorously to Sybil's question in agreement. "I wouldn'a been any better," he added quickly, trying to help. After all, he'd never pushed anyone on a swing before. He tried to flash a small smile, but it may have only come across as a grimace as he climbed off his seat, trying not to fall off as he set his feet on the ground.

Once he was able to get himself untangled from the swing -- he still wasn't very used to his longer limbs -- he made his way over to the two siblings. "That sounds good!" he replied with a nod, glancing to see if Ritsu seemed like he wanted to go beachside as well. He held his hand out in an offer to help Ritsu up off the ground, adding with the smile he was unable to get across earlier, "I can push next time, okay?" In all honesty, he looked at Sybil's leadership skills as a blessing than anything else.


Mooger's book seemed to be held open for no reason by this point, her hand holding it mainly because she had forgotten to put it down as she watched the kids play. She nodded an answer to Rime, agreeing with the observation. "I believe they're one of Hajari's first friends, come to think of it," she mused after a pause, slightly distracted with what was going on at the tire swing.

After it seemed things were resolved, she continued as if they hadn't stopped momentarily. "They've definitely made an impact on Haj. I think Sybil's made him a little less self-conscious about his own actions, and Ritsu's helped him become less focused on his own worries," she said, as if she were thinking aloud. She didn't know if Hajari had made the same sort of impact on anyone else's lives, but the harpy had definitely started changing for the better. "I wonder if he'd keep on that road if he was able to see them more often, y'know? For all I know, he could see them as family. He's known them about as long as he's known me," she laughed.

Hajari nodded slightly in response to Ritsu's answer, hoping that it would also be what the older boy would prefer as well. He hoped it was, for the harpy wasn't really paying attention to what he himself had wanted anymore. Granted, he was just fine, being able to spend more time with the siblings, so in a way was already fulfilling his own interests.

Instead of dwelling on it, he tried to get into the part that Sybil had thrust upon the three of them. Snickering, he tried to imagine what sort of "treasure" they could find on the beach. Surely they wouldn't be able to come across actual buried treasure, right? Still... the thought was intriguing.

As for Sybil's slip-up, it hardly registered to the boy. This may have been attributed to the fact that he rarely sat down to read anything, but "interested explorers" sounded accurate enough anyway. He could always play with the sort of pirate-speak he heard in movies, after all. "We shove off!" he stated as he followed along, hoping that wasn't erroneous of him to use. He wasn't used to playing the part of someone other than himself, flushing lightly almost immediately after finishing his sentence, That was a little bold...

To hide it, he started off toward a patch of rocks, slick with the water from the lake. He hesitated, trying to determine where to catch his footing, when he heard Ritsu's quiet comment. Turning his head, he spotted the boy's captive item. A bottle? "Hey, I wonder what was in that," he stated, making his way back over, "Maybe something fell out?" He didn't want to just throw it off as someone's litter.


Mooger snickered at Rime's observation, more out of an appreciation for the sentiment than anything else. "If it wasn't for their situations being exactly that, that would sound almost poetic," she mused. Eh, who was she kidding? She still found it poetic anyway, despite it's pinpoint accuracies. "Almost makes you wish everyone saw family like that," she added, absently picking at the grass around her.

Snorting, the woman nodded, "Tch, yeah. No kidding." She frowned slightly, "They shouldn't have to go through all this. I mean... for some actions, it might seem like an equal punishment to send them to Gaia, but..." She shook her head, coming up empty with anything to finish the sentence off with. Instead, she came to the resolution, "They don't deserve it. Life is harsh enough, without being sent somewhere that's basically purgatory."

True, she could always make the stance that she didn't understand everything completely, the workings of the Banir Kinder Adoption Center, but she knew enough. Shrugging, she added, "Though that could just be 'me the treehugger' talking. Not sure."

Hajari's grin grew wider in amusement over Sybil's description of what may have happened to the message that once resided within the bottle. In the assessment, Hajari managed to ask himself why there weren't more people with imaginations so wild, so contagious that they made even the shy harpy eager to participate in the play. The shackles of his fear were still present, but he started to attempt to ignore the pull they inhibited.

With a light mulling over, he mused as he watched Ritsu take the bottle over to their parents, "Maybe we could find some clues to finding the spies, and get the message back." With an almost mischievous grin, he added, "Maybe the prince would reward us for returning it to him?" If nothing else, it might help otherwise ordinary discoveries that much more interesting, and lessen the weight of a possible 'false positive.' After all, anything could be a clue, right?

His taloned feet scuffed a little at the soft ground, hoping he wasn't making anything uncomfortable. After all, it wasn't every day that he was able to pretend he was someone he wasn't without any negative backlash -- it was all in the part he played! Thinking on Sybil's comment, he nodded in response, "Spies can be rather sneaky. We'll just have to be sneakier!" Well, this was becoming a lot more exciting!

Watching as Sybil snuck off, Hajari made a motion as if to see around something that might have blocked his view of her. In a stage whisper, he asked, "See anything? Is it safe?" Glancing around, as if he expected to see someone peeking out from behind one of the trees that outcropped the area, he proceeded slowly down the embankment, keeping his eyes peeled for the slightest of movements.


Mooger nodded as she listened to Rime's added remarks, frowning a bit at the realization. Some of them were merely babies, weren't they? "It's horrible, ripping them away from all they know like that," she grumbled, her black-tipped ears folding back against her head. "Though," she added after a bit, "I suppose you're right. For a demon, it could be for the better. Still... don't they have family?" Not that family was always a good thing, if they were in on horrible practices.

Her eyes lifted to see Ritsu, and a broad smile slid across her features. That's right, enough with this depressing subject. All that mattered were that these children were now in loving homes. They didn't need to be reminded of their histories, not now. Hajari had enough nightmares about his own experiences, they didn't need to be drudged up unwarranted.

"Oh, what a nice bottle," she mused, always finding the most common of colored glass to be a pleasure to the eyes. Nodding, she responded with a quick, "Yeah, we wouldn't mind at all!" Curiously, she glanced to Rime for her comment, wanting to ask about it but feeling it best to ask when Ritsu had left, for fear of keeping the boy longer than he really wanted.

Hajari nodded sharply to Sybil's warning, but didn't pay attention long enough to notice if she had seen it or not. Had to be careful, huh? He folded his tea-stained wings back, pinning them to his forearms to lessen the amount of space they could take up as he scanned the area some more. It was interesting; for being such a public area, there wasn't much litter around. Maybe this particular little beachside park was just too out-of-the-way for most people. Either that, or there had been someone that had gone by recently to pick up the debris.

He frowned at the thought, That'll put a damper on things. Well, there had to be something that was missed, right? Ritsu had already found the green glass bottle, after all!

Brushing past a small tangle of a bush, his tail feathers caught a bit of plastic. Passing it to his hands, he noticed that it had been holding together a six-pack, but the holes had all been cut, so no animals could get caught in them. He started getting a bad feeling about this, but couldn't quite place two-and-two together. Oh well, he thought to himself as he started sneaking back over, At least they care about the environment?

He walked around the rocks, crouching as he went, before arriving back to Ritsu as Sybil came up with her own find. He smiled at what they had both presented, trying to formulate what may have happened. Unfortunately, he was coming up empty. Holding out the cut plastic, he said, "Well, at least they don't want to hurt the fish and birds. Maybe the spies aren't bad guys; maybe they thought the letter was something bad instead?" Or maybe, they should just keep looking around? He snickered a little at his thoughts, "Nobody found the letter, though? I wonder if they took it with them, or ripped it up to get rid of the evidence."


Mooger couldn't help but shake her head as Rime explained the histories that she knew of the kids she took under her wing. They all had it so hard, the woman could only imagine what all they had to go through, and she knew by experience that she could only imagine the tip of the iceberg, in most instances. "Those poor kids. In comparison, we all live life in luxury, don't we?" she noted. Leaning back, she scanned her memory for what all Hajari had said about his own parents. Honestly, he never went into detail, just emotion. "Haj seems to put his parents on a high pedestal when talking about them, but I'm not sure if he ever really knew them," she replied in relation, "He has nightmares about being abandoned, but I'm sure that's normal for a lot of the kids from the agency. It's so hard to console a kid when you've only got imagination and general knowledge to run off of, none of the experience." She winced slightly at the thought.

Hajari nodded at Sybil's determination that spies could be good guys, too. It would definitely make the story they were looking at that much more interesting, as well as -- from what he gathered, on first inspection -- that much safer to be in the area. Well, that could be good; sneaking and crawling around the area could lead to scrapes and bruises, and as much as he didn't mind it himself, he didn't want anyone to get hurt, either.

He jerked slightly as the story took a turn toward the darker. Trying not to pull his feathered ears back in concern, he attempted to come up with a counter to the suggestion. Some way that it couldn't be true, or a better outcome that could be justified. Unfortunately, as much as he liked to project optimism, he oftentimes never felt it. He tried thinking harder when he noticed Ritsu tense up out of the corner of his eye. "Mmm... w-wouldn't there be clues that would be easier to find if they didn't get to him in time?" he offered. He took a quick glance around the area again, making sure he wasn't about to mess the idea up. What would happen to an area if a prince died in it?

Turning back, he smiled reassuringly. "If any prince died here, I don't think we'd be able to come here. They'd probably block it off, make it into a memorial. Like... like a shrine or something!" he said, nodding sharply, "I think he's fine. In fact, what if there weren't spies in the area, but just people following him to make sure he was safe?" He paused a moment, tapping a finger in thought, "Like... the king was worried. But then what could have been in that letter? Was it even to him? Was it maybe a call for help?" People sent messages in bottles to get rescued, didn't they?


Mooger grinned widely at Rime's statement on the matter, nodding in whole-hearted agreement. She didn't want to overstep her bounds in any statements she made, didn't want to assume things, but rather to keep an open mind. "That's what we're here for," she agreed, rocking back forward. The only worry about that was that the kitsune wouldn't pan out to be a decent enough parent, being so young and playing a lot by ear... but wasn't that what happened to a good portion of parents, when they were on their own?

She was glad that the subject could take a better turn, that it could leave off on a happy note. In fact, she was a little embarrassed that she had let a conversation that seemed so depressing carry on as long as it did. This was suppose to be a fun day, wasn't it? There was no use looking to the past right now when one had their whole future ahead of them.

Watching the trio of kids, Mint was unable to truly make out any words that were being exchanged. "They're so active today," she mused, "It's good to see them like that, having so much fun."