Welcome to Gaia! ::

As the boat docked, the bespectacled blonde gazed at the bustling port town in wonder. "Oh, wow! Yona, Allan, come look!"

Behind her, the red haired young man stepped up, looking over his shoulder at the sleeping dark skinned girl behind him. "Yeeeaaahhh... I don't think Ayona can hear you, Rainy."

Reina turned her attention from the view to her friends, noting Allan was right. Pouting slightly, she walked over to her sleeping childhood friend and gave her a good shake. "Yona! Yona! We're here, get up!" But the black haired girl merely mumbled sleepily as she continued to laze about.

"Here, let me try." Allan walked over to the girls, popping his shoulder's as he went.

"What are you going to do?" The knight asked of her friend, but he merely grinned and put a finger to his lips with a wink. Leaning over the sleeping Ayona, he whispered something in her ear, and to Reina's surprise, the girl was awake and alert immediately. But when her eyes landed on Reina, her shoulder's slumped, and she glared at Allan, who laughed.

"You liar."

"I'm just surprised you believed me!"

"I was asleep; of course I did, you a**!" Allan merely laughed harder.

Reina was still confused. "What did Allan say?"

Ayona glared at the boy angrily. "He said you were naked!" She declared, and Allan's laughter intensified. "I still can't believe you fell for it! Can you really imagine Rainy being naked around so many people?"

As Reina began to blush from head to toe, Ayona got up and began chasing the red haired boy. "Like. I. SAID. I was asleep!" She flailed her hands at Allan's head, but he always seemed a step ahead of her, until -

Thwack!

Allan fell to the ground, hit in the head by Reina's fist. Still blushing furiously, the blonde glared at him as she shouted, "Allan, you idiot!"

Allan winced, but continued to laugh until Ayona caught up and kicked him in the thigh repeatedly. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry! Stop kicking me!" Ayona and Reina both turned away from their friend, crossing their arms, and unable to see the grin that crept onto his face.

As Ayona was about to step off the boat, Reina grabbed her by the shoulder. "Yona, wait up!" The yellow eyed girl turned to face her friend, giving her a questioning look. Dropping her hand from the other's shoulder, the blonde wrung her hands together. "I was just thinking that, since this is our first time in Zatao, we should all take our first steps together. You, Allan, and I."

Ayona looked at Reina with an arched eyebrow. "You realize we've been in Zatao for a while, now, right? I mean, the steps we took on the boat already counted -"

Ayona was cut off as Allan clapped her on the shoulder. "Aw, come on, Ayona, you're going to make Rainy cry." Before Reina could say that she was not, in fact, about to cry, Allan continued. "Just go with it, alright?"

Brushing Allan's hand off her shoulder, Ayona sighed. "Fine." Turning to face Reina, however, she lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Are you sure you want your first steps here to be with Captain Hormones, over there?"

Reina blinked, confused. "'Captain Hormones'?" She repeated, causing Allan to chuckle.

"I'm Captain Hormones? Who was it that was all ready to see Rainy naked, again?"

Ayona joined Reina in blushing, this time. "That was different."

Allan grinned. "How, exactly?"

"I was asleep."

"Oh, I see. So it's just your subconscious that's totally pervy?"

"It's not pervy!"

Allan narrowed his eyes teasingly. "Oh? Then how would you describe it?"

Ayona crossed her arms and turned her head, eyes closed. "I just have a healthy adolescent sex drive."

Allan laughed. "Oh, is that what it is? Well, whatever, I guess we should stop talking about this unless we want to mop Rainy up off the floor."

The blonde was positively scarlet as her mouth moved for words. "W-well, let's go!" She gripped Ayona and Allan's hands in her own and led them toward the pier. "On three, okay?" The other two nodded as she began to count. "One... Two... Three!" As one, the three friends stepped onto the pier, and Reina's mouth formed the widest smile she'd had yet that day.

A short distance away from his two friends, Allan tried in vain to find the old man again. "Tch." Sighing, he decided to look for a new mark. He needed the money, after all. Spotting a blue-green haired boy a short distance away, he crept closer. The boy's hair was mostly concealed by a baseball cap and he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. What drew Allan's attention, however, was that the boy carried the air of a rich kid. A grin crawled across his face, and Allan muttered quietly, "Sorry, kid, but you're gonna have to ask mommy and daddy for more allowance...~" Walking up to the kid as nonchalantly as he could, Allan was about to reach into the boy's pockets when the boy turned to face his would-be pickpocket.

s**t.

"Hey, you know where to find the pokemart here?" The boy asked.

Play it cool. "Nah, I just got off the boat."

"Oh." The boy sighed, and now that Allan could get a good look at him, he noted that the boy had a remarkably girl-ish face. The kid looked up at the much taller Allan with his blue eyes. "I just got here, too. Name's Fran, what's yours?"

"Allan!" Reina's voice got to the answer before even he could, and the owner of the voice grabbed him by the wrist again.

Allan gave a soft sigh before turning and giving the blonde a charming smile. "What's up, Rainy?" He felt a weight on his shoulder as Ayona leaned on him and yawned loudly. "And I see you finally woke up, somewhat, Ayona."

Reina continued to glare at the red haired boy. "Return what you stole, Allan."

Allan feigned shock. "Rainy! I am shocked and appalled that you think I would just steal from these people. Think of it as 'an involuntary redistribution of wealth', instead~."

Before Reina could respond, Fran looked up at Allan and tilted his head to the side. "You're a thief?"

Ayona nodded sleepily, still leaning on Allan's shoulder.

"I prefer to think of myself as a modern day Robin Hood." Allan said, turning his charm on the boy he was trying to pickpocket not two minutes earlier.

Brow furrowed, Fran continued to speak. "Why'd you pick me, though?" He paused. "That is why you came over to me, right? To pick my pocket?"

Allan shrugged with his free shoulder. "You just seem like a rich kid, that's all."

The blue-green haired boy sighed. "I do?"

Allan nodded. "Yeah. Doesn't show in your speech, but something about you just screams, 'Hey, I'm rich!' It's kind of hard to explain, kid."

Fran turned to face Reina. "He didn't steal anything from me, you can let him go."

The blonde looked at Fran, then to Allan, who gave a charming smile, and sighed as she released his wrist from her vice grip. "Don't run off this time, please?"

"I won't, I won't~." He said with a grin. Turning to Fran, he put a hand on the boy's baseball cap. "Thanks for being a good sport about it, kid."

Fran brushed the taller boy's hand off his head. "I'm not a kid."

Allan suddenly knelt down to look the boy in the eyes. He was quiet for a moment as he leaned in close enough for their noses to touch. He seemed to be investigating the other's face, causing a small blush to rise in Fran's cheeks. Then, just as abruptly as he had knelt down, he shot back up and shook his head. "Nope. Your face is too girly, so you're still a kid to me, little boy. Maybe once you're seventeen like me, you'll grow into a handsome dude like myself~." He brushed a lock of hair out of his face as if to punctuate his remark and laughed.

Fran gave Allan an exasperated look. "I am seventeen, jerk."

Allan's laughter abruptly stopped. "What." He looked down at the other boy, shocked. "But you're just a tiny -"

Fran jabbed a finger into Allan's face, cutting him off. "And another thing! I may not be growing quickly, or at all, but I doubt I'll ever turn out to be a 'handsome dude' - I'm a girl." Allan gaped as Fran tore off her baseball cap and long hair flowed out from under it. She looked up at him with defiant eyes. "And one more thing! I'm not a rich kid anymore, alright? I left all that when I ran away." Tears began to form in her eyes.

Allan tried to find words to respond with, but before he could, someone clapped him on the back of the head. Ayona was awake now, or enough at least. "Way to go, Lansy. You made her cry."

Allan looked down at the tearful girl with a frown. Kneeling down, he placed both his hands on her shoulders. "Look, I'm sorry." He said as he looked into her eyes. He had broken the one rule he had set for himself - how could he be so stupid? Sighing, he removed a hand from her shoulders and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief he always kept with him - a gift from his mother, hand-sewn - and dabbed at the girl's tears with it.

He gave her his most charming smile as he finished. "You alright?" She nodded slowly. "Glad to hear it." He stood back up, flashing her a wink as he did, before patting her hair.

Francesca walked tentatively over to the bench. What should she say? She didn't know what to do. Comment on the weather? How was she supposed to start the conversation?

Before she could think more about it, Allan noticed her. "Oh, hey." He greeted her with a smile, and she blushed lightly. Maybe she didn't have to worry about starting the conversation, after all. "You guys done talking about shoes?"

"Yes. Shoes. And nothing else." She replied woodenly.

Allan quirked an eyebrow at her, but shrugged. "Alright."

Fran looked back at Ayona and Reina, who were engaged in some sort of conversation. "Your friends are, uh, interesting." She commented, looking back at the red haired boy.

He grinned. "Yeah, they're cool girls. Rainy's kind of spacey sometimes, and Ayona seems like she hates me a lot of the time, but we're good friends. We've known each other since we were kids."

Fran looked down. "I'm jealous. I never had friends like that. I mean, I had my sisters, but, uh..." She trailed off.

Allan looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue, but she didn't. So, instead, he smiled. "That's cool, at least. Rainy, Ayona, and I, we never had siblings." He momentarily thought about taking about his lack of a father, but decided against it. No reason to bring that up.