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Kala beamed and nodded. "S-sometimes...s. Pr--Prolo take m-me down...own t'th' s...sea evernownthin," she forced the last four words out with great haste, just to see if she could. She pondered for a moment. "B...but I...never swimmed-ed wi-if summun...un. I like t'r--run on th peach," Kala finished, unknowingly mispronouncing 'beach.

Kala fidgeted, a distant look coming into her eyes. She turned her dull yellow eyes towards the beach a few hundred yards off, and twirled her staff around her wrist. For a moment, it seemed that she either hadn't heard or was choosing to ignore Makai.

"Th...sea-ea...is s-so big...igh," she finally stammered. She chewed her lip, and fidgeted some more. She couldn't get her clumsy little tongue to express her apprehension--nor could she even think of the words to say. Despite being of a water-bird, she liked the feel of the earth beneath her hooves. Progolo had told her that the sea was so deep she could go under the water and never come back. At first she'd thought that sounded like a grand adventure, exploring under water and never coming back to the occasionally boring island hut, but then Progolo had tried to explain drowning...

And Kala was terrified.

Kala cocked her head. Tire swing?

What was a tire?

What was a swing?

Well, whatever it was, it sounded kind of fun! She liked to make herself dizzy! She smiled, but shook her head no. She snuck a glance at Progolo, trying to determine whether or not he would let her find out about this 'tire swing' by his current manner, but she couldn't tell. He was just reading one of his massively oversized books...

She tapped her staff against her head idly, wondering if she dare ask. Progolo always managed to conjure some horrifying stories about things Kala thought might be fun.

Kala gave a silly giggle at the rumblies in Makai's belly, and poked his gut experimentally with her staff. "Y'hungree?" she said. "Prolo...o...was as..su..asspposed ta...ta...make l...lunch..." She wheeled about where she was and waved her spotted arms wildly to distract her keeper for his absurdly large book.

Progolo's eyes reluctantly moved up from the pages at the gesticulating. When she saw that she'd gotten his attention, she called out something which was, as it often was, unintelligible. But her gestures gave him a clue...In her early days as a child, Kala had invented simple signs to indicate what she wanted. Now, she was wringing one of her ears with her long fingers as she tried to stammer out a request for food using words; reminiscent of the earaches she used to get from dunking her head in her food bowl as a gryphon.

He placed the book aside, and stood. "Would you two like to eat now?" he offered helpfully, raising his voice a bit so it would carry.

(( "Especially the gestures he wasn't supposed to use..." xd ))

After a frantic nod, Kala again nearly wrenched Makai's arm out in her excitement as she dragged him over to the porch. Progolo watched, cringing at her roughness, before stepping back to allow the two children inside.

He closed the door behind him, frowning in disapproval at the mess Yaraif had made with the candy, and pondered over what to fix for lunch. As he thought about it, he realized that finding what Makai liked would be an excellent way of determining what he was composed of without having to blatantly ask.

"What would you like to eat, Makai?" Progolo queried calmly, drifting towards the kitchen. Kala had already manhandled the boy to the table, jabbering unintelligibly about how he was going to have rough time sitting down in the straight-backed chair with such a big tail. For Makai's benefit, the man began to tick off choices as he dug through his small refrigerator. "I have vegetable soup I can warm up...shrimp, green salad...a bit of carp...diced chicken...fresh celery...fruit...wheat rolls...and I can make some rice, if you'd like that?" Progolo offered, hoping he'd listed SOMETHING the boy would be partial to. You could never assume anything with Aerandir...Kala, for one, liked shrimp and greens, but vomited when she ate any other kind of meat. Blanche, on the other hand, was quite partial to chicken and beef...then their was Tayte, who'd eat catfood for every meal of the day if he could...It was one of the most fascinating things about the Aerandir race, from Progolo's biological perspective. A race of people, comprised of individuals so different from each other it was difficult to even call them a race.

"Seafood..." Progolo mused, extracting the large bag of fresh shrimp he always kept for Kala, along with the package of carp. Interesting...the man logged that away for later, carrying the foodstuffs over to the preparation table.

Kala watched Makai's antics with amusement while she, too, sat down. She preferred to sit on the edge of her seat, the way Progolo did when he played his instruments, so she didn't have to worry about squishing her bony little tail.

Yaraif heaved her little body, notably plumper than it had been before, onto the dining table, moaning. Too...much...candy...The small fey gazed blearily up at Makai, feeling vaguely guilty, but not enough to apologize for the stolen marshmallows. Besides, maybe he wouldn't notice...

Progolo decided now was a good time to make a point. He smirked at Yaraif across the skillet he was frying the carp and shrimp in, saying "So, Yaraif, what would you like for lunch...?"

Yaraif glared at him, and grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like a cuss word.

"Th-tha's n...not very-y nice~" Kala said, poking Yaraif's swollen tummy while idly spinning her staff with the other hand. Progolo was always warning her that her fidgeting would break something, but in her young mind, a broken object was a small sacrifice for entertainment. As her capricious mind flitted over this, Kala began to wonder if Makai's Person was as stiff as Progolo.

"M'Kai~wha's-s y-you're Prolo l-like?"

In Kala's mind, Persons were only available in a few categories. All Keepers were Prolos. Kala's Prolo didn't have a name...just Prolo. Sometimes people were idiots and called him 'Progolo'...but Kala forgave them out of the goodness of her heart. All male Prolo's were just called Prolo's, unless they had facial hair...then they were Sahins. Tayte's Sahin was called 'David,' which Kala speculated was a taller, happier subspecies of Sahin. When it came to women...that got complicated in Kala's mind. Since the first woman she'd met was Blanche's keeper Emi, Kala had surmized that all Prolos with those strange curvy bodies were Emis. However, Emi looked like a wingless Aerandir...whereas most curvy-bodied Prolo's did not. That was sorta weird. She couldn't decide if Doris was a gray, round-eared and tail-less Emi, or if perhaps Emi was a actually a sub-species of Doris. The latter seemed more plausible, since there were a lot more not-furred curvy-bodied Prolos than there were Emis, but...Doris was all gray and had funky lines on her face...

Thus turned the cogs in Kala's simple mind.

Yaraif turned a slightly gentler face on Makai at the compliment, flicking her violet hair. Ah, at last there was someone who could appreciate her! Kala giggled and poked her again.

Progolo shook his head, realizing that parent-hood had filched his identity, and wondered idly that Makai had known exactly what Kala had been asking about. He rued the day he'd have to sit Kala down and try to explain to her that 'Prolo' was a name, not a species. Not even a name, at that thought. Kala had picked up the nickname 'Prolo' from Yaraif, who had an obnoxious tendency to drop syllables from English words. Makai was just lucky he'd didn't have any extra syllables to drop--thanks to Yaraif, one of Kala's nicknames (Pinky) had been morphed into the word 'pee.'

The man tipped the hot shrimp and carp onto a plate to cool, and reached for a box of minute rice. As he added the water, he listened with restrained curiosity to Makai's description of his 'Prolo.'

Kala, too, listened, but with more obvious interest. She was actually more entertained by the way Makai's hands were flailing about since she didn't understand half the things the boy was saying, but by the look on her face she seemed to be hanging on to every word.

"Perhaps she shall," Progolo chimed once Makai had finished his performance explanation, placing two small plates of vegetables before the children to munch on while they waited for the rice. "You and I need to discuss lesson schedules with...Wyvern?...anyway, hm?" he added warmly to Makai.

Kala required toying with her food before eating it, so she built a little celery fort, besieged it with carrots, and drizzled the mess with ranch dressing while emitting some very peculiar sound effects. Yaraif watched bemusedly, wishing she wasn't too stuffed to play. But, alas, those marshmallows were coming back with vengeance...

Progolo chuckled softly. "You're welcome. Oh, Kala...for heaven's sake..."

Kala looked up innocently as Progolo carried the dishes over to the table. He set the plates down, loaded with fluffy white rice, fried carp, shrimp, and thick wheat rolls, and offered Kala a paper towel for the mess she had made. The child took it and began to rub at the white splotches on the table, but she just smeared them more than anything. Progolo shook his head. "Here, let me clean it up...You eat your lunch, alright? There is salt and pepper over there if you two want any..."

He scooted Kala's chair aside, making its occupant giggle ("Again! Again-n!") and did a more sophisticated job of cleaning up the "acid rain" the girl had poured all over the place. When the flamingo child found that Progolo wouldn't push her chair around anymore, she attacked her bed of rice, a pirate in her own mind, seeking buried pink, plump treasures.