Welcome to Gaia! ::

Smerdle had always enjoyed aimless running. As a child, she had indulged in a good old-fashioned sprint around the block whenever she liked, but adults had little reason to engage in such activities, and until very recently, she had been trying to emulate one. Shye was good for many things - laughing, crapping himself, playing peek-a-boo - but the thing Smerdle enjoyed most about the kid was that he gave her excuses.

So that was how they passed the sandbox; Smerdle jogging, eyes bright and smile firmly on face, and Shye sitting up in his garage sale red wagon, wings fluttering behind him. They were a streak of bright colors and clanging metal until the baby screamed.

Smerdle skidded to a stop. "What?!" she asked, following Shye's stubby, pointing finger to another boy, a pretty normal looking kid until you got to his feet, which were kind of flaking off. Interesting. "All right, come on. Socialization!" Smerdle lifted Shye out of the wagon and carried him the few short feet to the edge of the sand.

"Oh, hey," she said to Azhar. He was so quiet and she... really wasn't. She grinned sheepishly. "Sorry to bother you. I can be quiet, really."

"That's okay, we kind of were," Smerdle said, her smile still wide. She slid onto the bench next to Azhar and pulled back her knitted cap from where it had flopped over into her eyes. "It sure is a nice day," she sighed, stating the obvious. "I'm Smerdle. Raquel actually, but no one calls me that." She held out her hand to shake, if he was so inclined.

Shye looked over at the well-made castle and nodded slowly in response to Ziya's question. He didn't have a very good grasp of spoken language yet, none at all actually, but he understood a surprising amount based on body language and tone of voice. People could be ridiculously easy to follow when they weren't necessarily trying too hard. The pointing helped too. Shye scooted closer and added a few small fists of sand to Ziya's pile before momentarily glaring at the older child's awesome sand castle tools. They needed some of those. He flapped a bit to fall over onto his hands and knees before crawling over to the bucket and placing his sand-covered hands on it. He and his new friend would build a sand fortress. Surely this other boy would see that his bucket was going toward a good cause!

"Oh, hey, you too?" Smerdle reclaimed her hand from Azhar's friendly shake and clasped it in her lap with excitement. "He used to be the winner of a paper airplane flying contest," she said, unaware of how ridiculous that might sound. "Like the plane, not the kid who made it or anything. He was kind of glowing out of the corner of my eye, and when I picked the plane up, I knew there was someone in there. I couldn't just leave him, so I brought him home and he became... that," she finished, pointing at her son. "His name's Shye, even though I don't think he is."

Not meeting any resistance, Shye pulled at the bucket until it gave, toppling him onto his back and folding a wing under his body. He didn't cry out, instead his face scrunched into a little unhappy mess for a second before he got himself straightened out. His wings didn't exactly hurt when they were creased, but it wasn't the most comfortable of sensations either. He rolled over onto his stomach and braced himself on the overturned bucket. There, all better! Sliding forward, he unintentionally pushed quite a bit of sand inside before he reached Ziya, offering the open end of the bucket to the other boy. He had no idea how heavy the bucket would turn out to be, full of sand, but that was the last thing on Shye's mind at the moment. He laughed sharply at Ziya's clapping and joined in, alternately bulldozing sand and smacking his hands together.

"Yeah, really weird," Smerdle said before trailing off into silence. She too watched Shye and Ziya play, wondering if they were the same sort of creatures inside. It seemed that every other kid in Gaia nowadays came from some inanimate object or another, and Shye was no exception. Could these two have been born for the same reason? She blinked, breaking out of her blank stare. Hey, as long as they got along, who was she to have such deep thoughts? "Ziya's cute," she said. "Shye can be demanding, but he's cute most of the time too. I think I'll be able to predict his moods better once he's been around longer." Smerdle was a new mother, but something about the whole experience felt extremely familiar.

Shye hit at the bucket a couple of times before helping Ziya to push it over. He sat and stared at it, not really comprehending the fact that someone had to lift the bucket again before they could see the new sand shape. He stuck sand-covered fingers in his mouth and watched Ziya to see what to do next.

(( That's okay! heart ))

Smerdle nodded. "They don't seem like they need us as much as normal kids do. I mean, they're still babies, but they do a lot more than any babies I've ever seen." She smirked. Well, she might have spoken too soon.

Shye looked up at his guardian. Maybe she could help! His eyes widened as Smerdle mimed lifting the bucket off of their new sand tower. That was it! Shye pulled his hand from his mouth and slowly freed the packed sand from its plastic prison. He smiled. Ta da!

Smerdle didn't really know any other babies personally, so she just nodded. "I definitely like Shye the way he is. He's more fun than all of these other stroller-lumps I see around combined. No offense to your niece, of course."

Shye watched Ziya as he pushed sand into the bucket again. Hmm. What could he do? Well, Smerdle had given him a pretty good idea a second ago, so stealing another one would probably be just as cool! Shye peeked at the older kid's castle, noticing the moat right away. He didn't know what it was, but obviously it was necessary. He sunk his fists into the sand, opened them and scooped, making a tiny hole that half filled with sand again once his hands were out of the way.