Welcome to Gaia! ::

Bored with stick figures, Casca looked back to the program -- fractions. There was Maddy and Polly, and Lisle next to him, and Ophelia somewhere else down the room -- he leant over and looked at Carl's computer, drumming his claws in consideration a little. He didn't much like typing. With three fingers and one clawed thumb it was kind of painstaking.

"1/2 plus 3/4?" he said. Cascati always liked to mouth out maths first -- it made it easier inside his head. "Three quarters is one half plus one quarter, two halves is a whole, one quarter left over. 5/4, which is 1 and 1/4. -- I hate fractions, mon ami," he said, "at least they're not asking you, you have three pizzas, how much do you share between how many people, because I always want to know: what if some people are hungrier than other people?"

"He probly got it at the ocean," Polly said with a shrug. "Tock took us there after we escaped the fairies for a bit. To check up on the guy that took over the pirates. Then he had be kick him out of leader position cuz he was an idiot." It was all clear cut to her. She shook the hand offered and looked at the computer screen. "He's not ever been on Gaia before we moved here. He grew up on the island, so if he seems a bit weird, that's probably why."

In other words, she might give him a hard time to his face, but she was willing to stand up for him and make excuses at the drop of a hat. "I was only here for a little bit before I went to the island, too. I'm a pirate."

Austin, meanwhile, had brought out a handful of coins and was using them to do his fractions with. It was astonishingly easy when put this way.

"Thanks," said Carlisle gratefully, entering in the numbers as he heard them. It took him a minute to locate the four, but he was gratified to see the correct answer screen pop up. Or he presumed it was the correct answer screen, because it was gone too fast for him to actually read. "Yes," he agreed, "What if some people don't like the flavor of pizza you're buying? Or have to leave early?"

These were not exactly questions that kept him up late at night, but they were fun to think about now instead of trying to puzzle through the fractions. "What were you doing just now, anyway?" It wasn't the program, anyway.

"Being artistic," drawled Casca, and entered in the first three answers to the fractions without even really looking, muttering under his breath -- then, making sure that Beatrix wasn't there (Dr. Darnell had actually gone over to Austin, a little amazed at his progress) tabbed out to the paint program again. Casca was no artist, especially not on the mouse, but he did have fun sprinkling dots of colour around the place. He drew a little stick figure and then immediately sprinkled in a lot of red around its head in a halo: snickering a little, he gave it long black locks. "C'mon. Portrait. Indistinguishable, right, 'Lisle?"

Anything to make him laugh, he thought vaguely and hopefully: Carlisle when faced with mathematics, as far as he could tell, looked more than a little repulsed. Buttoned-in.

Ophelia wasn't the only one who didn't understand. Kaeden just stared at the input box. What the hell was he supposed to put? 'Dunno' wouldn't work here, after all. He looked up as his neighbor called for a teacher.

"I dunno about this either," he said shamelessly, adding his voice to her own call for help.

"Course wood," Polly said. "My Dad, Tock, practically built the one on the island by hand. It's a real ship! We used to sleep in the captain's quarters on a big sand bed because--um... of certain things."

He blinked at the other stick figures on the screen and forced a grin, being just a tiny bit surprised at the macabre stick figure art. It wasn't graphic or anything, not even unsettling, just... Weird. "Yeah, indistinguishable," he said, "Just don't make me die some terrible death like the other guys, okay?"

With a more natural smile, he looked back to the program on his screen. 1/4-1/8? "One eighth," he muttered, resting his chin on his hand and chewing on one of his nails. "No, that's not right..." His first guess was always wrong.

"Course," Polly said simply. "Pirates always live on ships." And as far as she was concerned that was the end of the conversation.