Welcome to Gaia! ::

Harriet sat on the end of the bench as he ate, preferring to stand but not wanting to seem rude. So far, the ice cream tasted pretty good. Not quite his thing - but then, he didn't eat many things like this anyway. Alice seemed to utterly love it.

Happily sitting under the tree with Fiona, the white haired Herald was already digging into her treat. She ate it slowly - with grace her father had taught her - but was obviously enjoying her treat and her bites were just a little quicker than usual too.

"I understand." he said softly, with a smile. "Thank you." he said with a nod.

Grinning broadly the girl nodded. "Yeaaaaaaaah! It's so yummy! Almost as good as those chocolates from Daddy's factory! He had them shipped just for me and Bella, they're nummy! I should bring you some when I visit!"

"I don't know where Daddy found me. He mentioned he'd show me when I was bigger." the girl explained happily. "Bella would like to help us too! She's my big sister - did I say that before? She's really nice. She's an allllllllllllllllien!"

"No. Bella's white - though kinda purply. She says she used to be totally gray and bald and have no real specific eye formation and no mouth or NOTHING! Now she's got pretty blue-green eyes and she's very pretty. She's on Gaia to learn what inspires her to make her form as pretty as can be! She's a special shape changer! When Bella's reading me my bedtime story - or when Daddy is - she turns into the characters so I can see them and it's funny." the child explained emphatically, gesturing wildly as she did. Luckily, she'd put her ice cream down beforehand.

"Yeaaah.....or he says he used to make the candy. Now he doesn't have to do much at aaaaaaaaaall. He's the boss and just designs stuff. And makes sure everyone who works for him is doing o-kay!" the child prattled on happily, in between bites of her frozen snack.

"What's your house like?" she asked then, suddenly wondering.

Alice stared at her in bewilderment for a short while, trying to piece out what this place must look like. A wrap around porch? A court yard? What were those? She had heard of a court in stories but that was about it. She had never seen such a place given where they lived.

"We have a big apartment at the top of a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg building. There are two apartments like that up there - pant houses or something like that, Bella says - and Daddy and I live in one and Bella lives in the other. We've got a balcony and a pool on the roof. Bella is going to put a fellascoop on hers and Daddy and I have a little garden on ours." the child told her new friend, gesturing as she spoke, arms moving in such amusing ways.

The child stared happily at the picture and clapped her hands as she did.

Harriet walked over quietly and removed the empty ice cream cup from where she'd left it on the table in her distraction and went to throw it out along with his own. While he was over there, he checked his pager to see the time and check when Bella might be getting off of work - she usually left him a message about that. In a few moments he'd returned to quietly sitting with the group and watching his daughter and her friend - Bella still had a while.

"What sorts of pictures does she take?" Alice asked, cocking her head to the side again. She seemed to do that a lot.

"Awwww, that's sad. I'd have liked to take my animal friends.....not that I have any of those." Alice seemed particularly saddened by this - almost enough to make Hatty stand up and go investigate what was wrong but it cleared before it got to that point. "Did you meet African people?"