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Io would honestly have preferred it if Kanth had led her to the HQ, but she wasn't going to force her into anything lately. Her housemate was just a bit rattled, and Io didn't blame her one bit.

The directions she'd written down hadn't helped much, though. The piece of paper was now thoroughly crumpled, and erased, and rewritten on, and squiggled on with pens that were halfway dead and didn't feel like working right away. The important thing, however, was that she had MADE IT. Granted, it was mid-afternoon rather than morning now, but she had still made it.

Grinning, Io basked briefly in her moment of triumph over the twisting, confusing, mazelike city streets, then slightly shifted the pale child she carried and started into the building.

Vavalion, himself energized by Io's victorious confidence, looked about with eager alertness as they entered. He tended to be wary of new places, but this time he seemed to settle right in.

Maybe, Io mused, that might have something to do with her not particularly seeing anyone else here at the moment. Vava always did like it better the fewer people were around.

"Hello?" she called tenatively. "Aw man, I came out here to maybe meet some people... don't tell me I showed up on a ghost day."

Io's white, silver, and blue running sneakers turned as she heard something, adjusting her glasses and glancing towards the couch.

"Did that couch just move? Hey, I was kidding about the ghosts... oi, Vava!"

Vavalion didn't seem to hear her - he was crawling towards the couch, seeming fixated on it. There was a fretful little knot of worry that had seemed to suddenly manifest under there somewhere, and he wanted to see what it was!

As he reached the couch, he peered curiously under it, his unblinking eyes widening slightly as he found Demare. There was a person under here! A worried person. But people didn't belong under couches... his face scrunched up a bit in confusion, and he tried to wriggle under, determined to investigate his discovery. Maybe it was a couch-living person.

But Io stepped over, picking Vavalion up before he could wedge himself irrevocably under the piece of furniture. "What are you on about, Vava... see something shiny or something?"

"Mwa!" he declared, pouting a bit in protest and waving towards the couch. "Ppffffvvvvv..."

Io sighed. "We really need to get you to talk more, Vava. Nothing much comes of being the quiet one, you know? Now what did you see?" Peering around the couch curiously, she saw that it looked a bit tilted and pulled it back and out to see what was pushing it up like that, taking the weight off of Demare's hands.

Blink. "Oh!" Well, that certainly wasn't what she'd expected.

"Ah... what's to forgive?" Io asked, rubbing the back of her neck a bit sheepishly. "You don't sound the type to be sneaking under there to look up girl's skirts or anything... not that I ever wear skirts."

Blinking, she suddenly realized that her mouth had kind of run away with the whole comment thing, and managed to look even more apologetic. "Gah! Where're my stupid manners? I'm Io, and this is Vavalion... I only... um... found him recently, I guess, so this is my first time at this place... by the look of you, you must be a Legend too, huh?"

Io set the couch back down on the floor as it was properly supposed to sit, then let Vava down as well.

Vavalion sat on the floor, giving Demare a long, odd look. There was something strange about the blot of emotion that he saw there, but he couldn't quite figure out what. The older child seemed harmless enough though, so eventually Vava gave up and just smiled at him.

"D'murrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" Vavalion had shown to learn names quickly, especially of those he liked. He followed up by patting his own forehead and declaring, "Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv'a!"

"Well, to be accurate, Loki was the one who found him," Io replied, flopping onto the couch to watch them. "I dunno if you've met him... Kanth's Legend. I think he said something about finding Vava in a tree of all places. Go fig." She gave a brief shrug, although her expression was a bit more thoughtful than the action implied, as if she was just now rolling around the question of what the serpent boy had been doing there in the first place.

"Vava's just kind of been one big coincidence, anyway. It starts to creep me out sometimes, but then again, he's a bit too cute to be creepy."

Sensing and reflecting Demare's curisoity, Vavalion crawled closer to him, staring up at him with slitted, unblinking eyes. He then proceeded with one of the first things he liked to do when meeting new people - reaching up and pulling on the first pullable thing on Demare that he could grab.

"Ack... I should have warned you," Io giggled a bit. "He yanks. I'm not sure what that's about, really."

"Maybe... it seems more like he's investigating you or something to me, though. Sometimes if you're holding him or if you get close enough he'll pull and prod all over." Io gave a bit of a chuckle, brushing her ponytail back as an absent-minded precaution to keep it out of grabby-reach. "I've only ever seen him do that to people though, not his toys or anything."

Vavalion seemed fascinated by the length of cloth he'd found, letting go of his own blanket some to inspect it further. People always seemed to have long clothy things coming off of them, and he wanted to know what it was for! He lifted a corner to his mouth, chewing on it a bit as he took in a long breath, tasting its scent experimentally. As if to drive his serpentine appearance home, his tail lifted under his blanket and cloaklike clothing, coiling up and thudding against the floor and his back a few times absently.