Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gaius' ears flattened back as he winced. "Crud! Sorry... I didn't mean to mess up your name... it does start with an S, right? Maybe an Sh... Sharon?" He looked down at her, hoping she'd take mercy on the doofus and just tell him the right name again. There were so many people he'd only run into briefly on this island, it was hard to keep everyone straight, unless they really looked unusual...

"So, uh, what brings you over to the construction site?" he asked, perking back up. "Come to help with the building? I don't know that we have anything a girl like you would want to do right now..."

Gaius sighed in defeat, wings slumping as he folded his arms. No mercy today, she was enjoying this! "Hmph..."

Her mention of Billy brought a raised eyebrow. Somehow the idea of her dealing with that surly, slimey character unnerved him, but she seemed to have come away from it alright. "You did? Audition? That's great!" he said, breaking into a smile. "What kind of performance?" He shrugged away the bored comment, tilting his head down a bit. Ah, pegasus. That label had brought him some serious trouble recently... But that was something he didn't want to dwell on, not here. The momentary darkening of his eyes cleared and he was his friendly self again. "Was it dancing?"

"Shenzi!" He snapped his fingers. "That was it! I should've known it was something weird..."

The description of the encounter with Billy made Gaius facepalm and groan. What kind of man would say that kind of stuff to a young lady, hell, a teen like Shenzi? It just wasn't proper! "Geeze, I'm sorry... he is a bit of a slimeball... glad nothing happened, though. Just... yeah. He's kinda unpredictable, so be careful, but I think he means well."

"As for a band," he brightened up, "I think that'd be fun! I mean, there are others on the island who like to do that kind of stuff, and it'd be great to see a performance up on stage..." He looked back at the frown and faultered, rubbing the back of his long neck. "Er, that is, if you don't mind performing with others..."

"No offense meant," Gaius grinned back.

He looked confused, one ear twitching back as he asked, "Hm, why would you need poles for dancing? ...Oh! Does he mean like those Chinese acrobats?" Gaius held up his hands, spread apart, as if he was holding a staff horizontally, in demonstration. "Where they do the flips and stuff?"

It hadn't occured to him just what Billy had been thinking of with pole dancing. In his mind, it was far cleaner, with graceful flips and stunts. He grinned excitedly. "That'd be really cool if we had something like that here!"

Gaius' cheerful, boyish grin slipped, slowly sagging as Shenzi laughed loudly. What had he said? Not like acrobats? He frowned slightly, ears quirking up as he listened, his eyes widening. "S-stripping?!" he stammered, a blush crossing his cheeks. And Billy had suggested that to her? He facepalmed again, red-faced at both the idea, and that he hadn't known what the implications were. "Er, uh, I-I don't think that kind of performance would be appropriate for a girl your age..."

Gaius grumbled something as Shenzi continued to laugh. It still wasn't right! He gave a light snort and shook his head. "Good! 'Cause if that's what Billy is... er..." He blushed, blinking. Shenzi's little add-on had caught him off guard. Had she winked? He must have imagined that. It took his mind a minute to recover from the derailing and he straightened up a bit. "Uh, right, I'm sure you've got something better... still, I think it'd be fun to get a lot of people performing. Maybe we could put on a musical, you know?"

Turning back to the wheelbarrow behind him, Gaius hefted up the handles with a grunt. "Of course, we have to get this stage built first! And we've only just begun!" His feet dug into the ground as he pushed and began trundling it towards the edge of the perimeter again. "Maybe you can help afterwards with costumes or something," he suggested. "I don't think they have anyone working on stuff like that yet!"

Gaius' cheeks flushed a bit as Shenzi mused on singers, and he was glad he had his back to her so she couldn't see. Truth was, he was a good singer himself, but no way he'd ever admit that to anyone... He hated singing in front of others. It was his stage fright.

"Well, I'm sure any sewing ability would be appreciated... I'll have to see if Billy's found anyone to manage that kind of stuff yet, though. I mean, I don't even know what kind of performances he has lined up yet!"

The wheelbarrow lurched to a stop as he reached his destination and planting a foot against the wheel to steady it, tipped the thing forward to let the dirt tumble out in a pile. Then down came the wheelbarrow and he backed up, swiveling the thing around to head back the way he'd came. "It's too bad this got started up so late... It would've been fun to have a Christmas pageant or something," he chuckled. "Like back in school and all."

"Hehe, yeah..." Gaius' smile continued to be warm as they walked. What Shenzi rolled her eyes at, Gaius remembered fondly. It was hard to get into the Christmas spirit with all that was going on around them... but maybe there was some way he could help...

"I should probably get back to make sure Marshall hasn't chopped off his foot with the shovel," he said, smiling apologetically at Shenzi. "I doubt he'd be happy if he caught me chatting with a pretty girl while he's slaving away!"