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Three mornings after Sati had last spoken to Amerald, had agreed to hand over a strand of hair and be a part of his experiment, she was at the door to his shop again. She had a lock of said hair in her hands, and was wrapping it tightly around her fingers, and then releasing it again, all jittery nerves, belly full of butterflies. Of course this wasn't real, that had been her conclusion after a day or so of sorting through the events that had happened inside the store...but then who would go to this sort of trouble to prank a stranger?

Back and forth, back and forth - the one thing she did know was that she wanted to see Amerald again, and if this was not a giant joke, whether or not he could do as he said. Could he really make a child? And she would find out what the feather was for as well, it was back at home, still on her antique dressing table.

She briefly wondered if she should have bought it with her..Sati realised she was beginning to attract odd stares, how long had she been standing outside the door? She shook herself and pushed it open, inhaling the smell again.

She looked first at the desk, to see if he was seated behind it as he had been on her first visit.

'Of course.' Sati replied, smiling and acknowledging the compliment with a little flick of her hair. She watched him go through the same door as he had on her last visit, her breath held. She realised she was doing so just as he returned, and breathed again. Which was good, as when he walked back leading a little girl by the hand she about fainted. As it was she sunk to her knees, her sari billowing around her legs as she did so, a hand over her mouth, the other pressed hard into the ground to steady herself.

She bit the skin on the back of her hand, hard and inwardly yelped, dropping the hand.

'Sh..' she almost swore, stopping herself as swiftly as the word was started, looking at the little girl. No, no swearing. It wasn't the childs fault that she was well, impossible. Her existence anyway. Her appearance wasn't so bad; she had skin like Sati, and her clothes, although strange, were obviously of an ethnic bent like her own. Her hair though. That was definately, well, peculiar was as good an adjective as any.

But she was beautiful.

'Yes.' she replied, finally finding her voice and not an expletive this time.
'Sorry it's just, there was this part of me that was just so sure this was a prank or something.' she looked at Amerald.

'She's really real though - you really did it. She's, she's my daughter?'

'Talika.'

The name just slipped out, tripping off her tongue. She looked from Amerald to the little girl.

'It means 'bird' in my language. She can understand English fully?'
It could be a foolish question, if she was the actual age she appeared. But it had been mere days since she was last in this shop so assumptions should definately not be made.

Sati held out a hand to the girl, the bangles on her wrist making a gentle jingling noise as she did so. She watched as the girl canted her head to one side, looking at where the noise had come from and moving towards them, extending a small hand, a finger pointing. When Talika was close enough the finger touched the bangles, moving them so the noise happened again. She smiled, saying nothing for now, but eyes showed a quiet joy in the chiming sound.

Sati moved her other hand slowly, watching as Talika's eyes alighted on it and placed her hand on the childs shoulder ever so gently. Talika moved the finger again, placing it onto Sati's hand, and then another, probing fingers pressing into Sati's skin as if she were seeing that they made of the same...stuff.

'Hi.' Sati said, and Talika mouthed the word back, and then said it, her voice faintly melodic as if she were chirping the word to Sati.

Sati nodded, for the moment her eyes fixed on the child before her. Her hand moved from the girl's shoulder to her face, giving Talika's cheek the lightest of pinches and smiling. Talika moved the probing finger, tracing it over Sati's lips, following the curve of her smile.

'Okay.' she said, nodding and glancing at Amerald as he left the room. Talika also watched, her eyes following every move as silently as she had taken in everything since Sati had seen her.

'I guess you're taking it all in, I suppose it's alot to process in a short space of time.' Sati said to Talika, taking a length of the girl's hair in her hand and then letting it fall away again.

'Time?' Talika echoed, and then traced a circle with her finger, moving it clockwise.
'Clock.'

Sati nodded.
'Yes, a clock counts the passage of time. You're very clever.' she wondered who had taught her that, or if it was something she had just observed in the time between her creation and now.

Sati looked over at the door again and back to Talika. She felt that maybe getting to know her would happen with more ease in her own place, and so she stood, a necessity at this point as her legs had started to go to sleep. She brushed down her skirt and straightened, holding her hand out to the girl. Talika looked at the outstretched hand, her head cocked to the side again. She moved to grab not the hand, but a bangle, hooking her finger in it.

'Okay, what ever makes you happy.' Sati chuckled, and walked towards the door, her new daughter trailing just behind, the ends of her hair swishing at her ankles as she moved. With the door closed behind her she looked about for Amerald.

'Yes, I think we should.' Sati felt Talika let go of the bangle and it slid back down to join the others. The girl looked up at Amerald and gave one nod before turning on her heels and pattering up the stairs, her steps making little thuds as she went.

Sati watched, and then turned her attention to Amerald again, following him down the hall and then stepping through the door when he opened it. She walked down, lifting her sari up with one hand so that she wouldn't catch it with a foot and fall, the other hand lightly sliding down the railing.

At the bottom she turned, waiting for him to join her this time.

Sati looked around, peering at her surroundings in what light there was. When Amerald lit the candles she flashed a glance at the flames and blinked a few times, waiting for the light spots to stop dancing in front of her vision.

She didn't answer him straight away, bringing her hands up towards her chest, the left cupped in the right, the left palm turned upwards towards her face. She flexed her fingers, staring at her hand for a moment as if she'd never seen it before..or she was searching for something.

'Yes.' she replied finally, looking at him over her hands.
'She's mine. No one is taking Talika away.'
She dropped her left hand and placed the her right in a fist this time, striking her breast, her heart.

'She's in here..she's beautiful. And fragile..and how? How did you do it?' she asked, moving over to him.

'Talika is, she's healthy, this thing you do, it doesn't make anything..wrong?' Sati wanted to know that now, before the girls place in her heat became indelible. If she knew in advance if there was something to come - then maybe she would be prepared.

'Interesting non-answer Amerald.' Sati said, raising a brow. If he wouldn't tell her today, he would one day. One day Talika would have questions of her own, such as where she came from - even if they had the same skin colour, their hair was vastly different, and there was no father. And never had been.

'Uhh, sprouting feathers? What do you mean..' she waved away his concerns.

'I'm a private person, I don't have a room-mate, or a boyfriend at the moment, and the entrance to my place is tucked down the side of the building.'
A wig was an interesting thought, as she couldn't imagine a young girl wanting to stay cooped up in one place for a long length of time.

'Defend herself how?' she asked. Before she saw what was in the basket she thought he might be offering some sort of weapon.

'Well they are very pretty, but I don't see how they would be able to help?'
Sati wasn't into magic, or anything esoteric beyond her own religious beliefs. She liked things to be tangible.

'I hope that's a good thing.' Sati replied, falling quiet and listening to his explanation. It was odd indeed, Talika's father was a bird?

'So that's why she has green hair? How does she come to be the age she is, and not a baby?'
It obviously wasn't the same as the fertility processes that couples went through that had problems to have children. But she wasn't a clone either because a clone was a copy of something that already existed.

'So, feathers at some point then.' she folded her arms, looking away, a finger tapping. She gave him a wry look at his next words.

'Oh people think they know me; my parents, Shiva bless them, think they have me figured out, I'll do the dancing thing, attempt to get into films as a choregrapher, and then fail at that, then have no choice to be set up with some nice doctor that's a son of one of their friends. It's why their not pushing me into getting married yet, they think it will happen eventually on its own.' she shook her head.

'I just rambled away then..anyway, I'm private, my affairs are my own. When I have them.' she winked at Amerald. She would love to take him home to meet her parents, just for the fun of it, to see their faces. Not only was he not Hindu but also older than her. It would be a trip.

'The process would hurt her?'
She snapped out of her idle thoughts at the mere mention of pain. Should she put Talika through that now, so soon after she had been..made?

'I think if I were to agree to this, possibly not fire, nor water in the hands of a child? My place is neither waterproof nor fire retardent, as most places aren't.'