Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kayde had been running on pure happiness for the past few days. The weight in his pocket, and shoulders, was gone, slipping upon the soft blue skin of his now fiancée. The silver used to make the ring had come from the first little chunk of silver ore he had found randomly in the forests of Jauhar so very, very many years ago when he was working to win back her affections. It felt like a lifetime ago, now. Like a different person. He had sold that silver, than somehow it had made it back to him. He couldn't remember how the conversation had turned towards the origin of the silver ring he had been looking at. When he learned it was the same piece he had given to Chiro to sell for him, he knew it was a sign from the Gods that what he had been debating in his head was right. That he did, in fact, want to spend the rest of his life with Elka and wished to ask her to marry him. He had kept that ring a secret for much of their life together, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it out. Jauhar wasn't the right backdrop. Not when they had no real home for themselves. The time had to be in Matori.

Now, days after finally releasing that secret, the Leaf was walking down the shoreline, listening to the seabirds calling above him and the white flecked waves trying to reach him. There seemed to be a figure down there, knee deep in the water, looking down at the clear ocean lapping around his thighs.

"Hello! Great day, isn't it!"

It should have occured to Kayde that yelling at someone's back while they were so clearly focused on something at their feet would result in a surprise. He had been so focused on his good fortune that he hadn't noticed. He felt awful.

"Hey! You okay?" he yelled, rushing over to the edge of the water where a pale head was visible over the surface of the water.

Hand halfway down to pulling off his boots and wading in after the younger man, Kayde was grateful to see him standing up without aid after the abrupt dunking he had just received. The Leaf breathed a sigh of relief. Good. He hadn't injured someone on his first month in a new place.

Though he couldn't quite hear the words over the crash of the waves and the birds overhead, he gathered what had been said by the movement of the youth's lips. With his upper torso almost completely exposed, the markings combined with the line of pink crystals just under his collar bone betrayed his mixed heritage. So not a native to Matori, either, possibly? Kayde had seen pink crystals before in Neued, on the tribe people who came from Sauti. But the pale, greenish hair and eyes were lost on him. As were the markings.

"Sorry about startling you. My name is Kayde. I just moved here from Jauhar last week." Looking around him, he spread his arms wide in a stretch. "Lovely scenery here."

Kayde stood awkwardly in the silence, blinking in confusion. Guy wasn't much of a talker. He got that. Not everyone was.

"Do you live around here?" the Leaf offered, wondering if they were perhaps distance neighbors. His own house could still be seen in the distance, a tiny dot beside a single tree. Elka had been inside reading when he had declared he wished to take a walk, picking the one direction they weren't familiar with.

Kayde followed the young man's finger, seeing the house easily against the clear sky. The figure in the distance he assumed to be one of his parents, for he looked far too young to be living on his own. But one never could judge based off just one sight. For all he knew, the person could be a friend or another kind of relative. Or maybe even a lover. They all were a possibility.

Not that it was any of his business.

The Leaf turned back, offering as friendly a smile as he could in an attempt to calm the clearly nervous hybrid. "Do you have a name?" he asked gently, stretching out a hand as he spoke, like a peace offering. They were far too apart to shake hands, not that Kayde suspected they would even be doing that if they were close. "I'd like to know what to call you in the future if we meet, again. We are neighbors, see?" He used the offered hand to point back where he'd come to the tiny house in the distance.

"Ah. It's nice to meet you, Minke." Kayde's grin grew, his good mood only growing as it always did when he successfully met a new person. He didn't mind how one-sided the conversation was. Some people had more problems than others connecting with someone else. It only made him want to try harder to give them a good first impression. He didn't mind one-sided conversations. There was plenty on his mind to say for the both of them. And he truly did want to get to know his neighbors. The ones he had back in Neued weren't the most friendly, often shoving him out of the way to go about their day, even when he only greeted them in the morning.

At least Minke wasn't trying to run away from him. As much as Kayde could tell that was exactly what he wished to do.

"Thank you for tolerating me, Minke. I hope we can be good neighbors in the future." The Leaf inclined his head politely, giving a small bow of respect.

The Leaf was taken aback by the sudden loudness of the hybrid's voice. For a moment, the smile slipped in his confusion, but it was soon back, occupied by a waving of his hands in front of his body.

"No. It's my fault for bothering you." He ran one hand through his hair, feeling it flip back into place as soon as he let go. "I apologize. I will stop bothering you and return back home." Giving a short wave, Kayde turned back towards his new home and walked back slowly, hands in his pockets and pale eyes once more going back to appreciating the world around him. He was finding he really loved all the open space Matori had compared to the sometimes suffocating forest of Jauhar, where one could barely see the sky. Here it was clear, barely a cloud in sight, the sun beaming on his face.

He would have a good life here. He could tell.