Welcome to Gaia! ::

He looked like a young boy again, his face a mask of wonderment as he watched the colorful and graceful bodies of the sea maidens as they went about their business. He'd never seen anything like it....he wondered if he'd ever see anything like it again.

As her hand squeezed his, he squeezed back, not even seeming aware he was doing it. Though they were still beneath the water, still the word he uttered was unmistakably formed by his mouth

"Wow...."

He looked to Nani, and then back to the mermaids, seeming torn as to where to better focus his attention. She needn't have worried about him telling anyone of this place....he doubted anyone would have believed him even if he DID.

As he felt her hand slip from his, Zhane dragged his attention away from the mermaids, turning in time to see her twirl, her laughter silent under the water, save for a small trail of bubbles.

Through the computer, she'd seemed to him like a girl with problems, though what those were, he could not even begin to guess as he watched her. Had she been much smaller, and in a forest glade somewhere, she could easily have passed for one of the bright and carefree pixies he'd seen in picture books when he'd been small.

It was as if, at least in that moment, she embodied freedom as he watched her hair fan behind her in a golden shimmer, free of its tie.

Smiling back at her, he swam up to be where she was, supposing she knew better than him where was and was not acceptable to be while down here.

He surfaced a short distance away from her, coughing a bit as he took in swallows of the cold night air, the water-breathing enchantment fading for the moment as it was no longer needed.

His hair, seal-sleek and plastered to his head, hung in his eyes once more as he gave a jerk of his head, flipping it impatiently out of them as he looked for Nani, turning to find her behind him.

"Well, you're right." he told her with a grin that he hoped didn't feel half as stupidly-wide as it felt, swimming closer. "That's a lot better than anything I'VE seen..."

It was going to be hard to sleep tonight.....not only that, it was going to be hard to find anything that matched up to what she'd shown him. It made him wonder if there were other places such as this waiting to be discovered. Maybe he'd been going about the exploration thing all wrong...

He paused, seeming to mull it over before giving his head a shake. "If they find out I'm gone, I'm already gonna be in for it." he shrugged. He followed her cue, taking one damp strand of her hair and tucking it back behind the tapered point of one of her ears.

"So, its not a big deal. And I'd love to see more of your home." he told her. Like her, he didn't want it to end. Here had much more appealing things to offer than the concept of going back to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours.

He felt an inner pang at having to go home and suppressed a sigh. If she -lived- in a place like this, he could see why she would be eager to do something normal now and then. For him, though, he existed in what passed for Gaia's version of normality. And something like this was a rare and wonderful thing. Something he found he wanted more of in the worst way.

He heaved himself up onto the bank near her, reaching down to take up the tail of his overshirt and wring water out of it. "Maybe." he agreed reluctantly.

There was a beat of silence before he lifted his head to look at her through damp strands of bangs.

"Nani? Thanks for sharing this with me..."

As she brushed his hair aside, his eyes closed to make her job a little easier without worrying if she would accidentally poke him.

At least that's what he told himself.

He felt his brow meet the warm flat of hers once again, as it had in the coffee shop when she'd brought them here. His eyes drifted open again, finding his gaze completely devoured by her own, the fluttering of her wings and the faint call of the mermaid's song making everything seem dream-like and unreal.

What if it all was a dream?

"Guess....guess we should go if we're going...." he said, stumbling on his words a bit, though made no effort to move.

He didn't protest as she moved away, to a degree, relieved she had. You always heard people in the movies talking about how they ruined everything by getting caught up in the moment. He'd always thought it was stupid, but guessed it was one of those things that you never knew how accurate it could be until you were placed in such a situation.

He got to his feet, lacking her ability to summon magic to dry herself and remaining sodden as he moved toward her, quirking a brow in intrigue. "A gift?" he questioned, one hand absently trying to brush grass from the seat of his pants.