Welcome to Gaia! ::

It didn't take him long to shower the smell of fetid rainwater and mud away from him, leaving in its wake the spicy scent of whatever herbal soap it was that his mother insisted on buying.

A moment later he'd wriggled into a clean set of clothes, deciding on a pair of slacks, a solid gray T-shirt, and a clean blue unbuttoned overshirt. It wasn't what he'd call dressing up, but it didn't look like he'd just rolled out from under a bridge either.

Satisfied that he looked civil, and that he had his wallet with him, he propped the note he'd written against his keyboard, and moved briskly through the house, snagging the car keys from the coffee table and the cel phone from its charging dock.

Stepping out into the night, he eased the door closed behind himself and jogged to the driveway to slip behind the wheel of Talon's Camaro. He had no car of his own yet, as he preferred walking or biking from place-to-place, but he'd still gone to the botheration of getting a license anyway once he'd been deemed old enough. This was the first time the effort, however, had actually paid off for him.

Letting the motor purr for a moment in idle, he backed onto the silent residential street and headed in the direction of town.

Zhane found himself a bit disconcerted as he drove down the sidestreets of Barton, making his way to its center. The streetlights were still invitingly on, but many of the places of business were closed for the night.

He hoped that they hadn't just agreed to meet in front of the locked doors of a dark shop somewhere...

The idea was both disappointing and disquieting. What if she thought he'd done it on purpose and that he was some sort of freak? .....in the same vein, what if SHE was?

That line of thought, however, was quickly derailed as he crested a hill and was greeted by the welcoming glow of the neon sign of the coffee shop that bathed the street and illuminated the shape of a couple of cars parked in front of it.

Thank god for small favors...

He pulled up alongside the curb, parking a safe distance from the other two vehicles before getting out and allowing himself a brief stretch. His small membranous wings beat at the air briefly, working the kinks out of themselves before settling themselves back along his shoulders.

The glare on the windows from the lights inside prevented him from seeing who was there, but there was clearly movement inside.

Steeling himself, he headed for the door and nudged it open, the thick aroma of coffee beans wafting out at him. Truth be told, he'd never been much for coffee, but he supposed with as much complaining as he'd heard his dad do about how it was impossible to GET coffee at a coffee shop anymore, it wasn't something he needed to worry about.

However, thoughts of coffee were quickly put on the backburner as his eyes scanned the inside of the shop and halted on the owner of a pair of what were decidedly butterfly wings. And they decidedly DID shine like jewels in the light.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected Nani to look like....maybe the quiet mousey girls one sometimes saw in the library that hid behind a pair of glasses and let their hair fall in their face to hide from people....but wow. Just wow. This was clearly a girl who only spent time online because she felt like it.

"Nani?" he asked, raising his eyebrows and offering a hesitant smile. If it WASN'T her, then this was the most insane coincidence ever...

Hearing her say his name erased the last of his doubts as he stepped within a friendlier range. "Hey!" he grinned, leaning against the counter as she picked up her coffee. "Nice to meet you. Well....in person, I mean." he added, inwardly kicking himself for stating the obvious.

"Have a good drive over?" he asked, oblivious to her eyes' scrutiny of his person as he slipped into one of the sturdy wooden chairs

"You have a mustang? Awesome." He was only acquainted with one Mustang before....it was a chop job that Meka had picked up as a cheap stand in for his car when it had died. Because its body was so many different colors, it had been affectionately called "The Muttstang". Though he imagined Nani's was probably nicer.

"It was all right." he said in response to her question, shifting a bit to get comfortable in his seat. "Had to check to make sure the storm was over in the other room before I could leave, though." He suppressed a sigh of exasperation, and looked briefly about the shop before returning his gaze to her "Nice to have some quiet."

At least it was a different flavor of quiet than he'd be getting at home...which was the tense silence of knowing he and his dad were going to grumble at each other over breakfast the next morning over his coming in late.

He twisted in his seat to follow the direction of her finger, squinting to see the shape of the car against the glare of the window. Beneath the glow of the streetlights, though he couldn't see any details, he could at least see the silhouette of a sleek-looking vehicle that shone with a flawless paint job.

"Geez...that's one hell of a gift." he breathed, saying it to no one in particular. Someone must have liked her a lot....but then, Nani seemed to give off the aura of someone who had many friends. He'd expected it to be an awkward meeting in person with a lot of hemming and hawing now that there was not a computer screen dividing them with time to think out and say the right thing.

He was glad, however, that it wasn't.

"Uhh....lived in our house probably about two years." he told her. "I kinda don't go into public a lot, but that's my own fault. I get sent out to the store to pick up something for dinner and end up wandering in the backwoods somewhere." He accompanied it with a shrug and a lopsided smile as if she might find it stupid. If she did, he wouldn't hold it against her....it sounded, at face value, like a pretty spacey thing to do.

"Guess we must just have different places we frequent. I'm pretty sure if I'd met you, I would've remembered."

He chuckled in response to her teasing, feeling a faint heat in his cheeks that quickly passed. He didn't talk to girls often....in that aspect, he was probably no better than the vast majority of internet guys, but he was letting it roll off of his back as best as he was able.

"You'd be surprised the sorts of things you could find there." he told her, brightening at the fact that she'd not been offput by it. "I THINK I finally remembered to email you those pictures I took of that cave I found last week..."

'Found' was maybe too graceful of a term. He'd lost his footing while looking behind a river waterfall and sort of fallen into it...but it had, nonetheless, been a lovely place. And his camera, thankfully, had not been too drenched to take some photos when all was said and done.

"How about you?" he asked, propping his head under one hand as he watched the indoor light shimmer through her wings. "I bet you've probably been much more interesting places than the woods." he grinned.

He found himself flattered when she said that one of the pictures had the privilege of sitting on her desktop and he'd been about to offer to take her to see the cave for herself next time she had a free moment, if she liked, but felt the words wither on his tongue as she rattled off the places she'd been to and seen.

Well...! A mermaid pool certainly trumped the plethora of abandoned construction sites, factories, and cabins he'd explored.

"I--sorry. Didn't mean to stare." he said, averting his eyes briefly to the tabletop as she tied her hair back before relocating his gaze carefully back to her eyes.

"It sounds really pretty." he said after a brief pause that he hoped didn't feel awkward. "It's been awhile since I've been near a lake..."