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"Honey, please don't play with Mummy's hair.." Alaina discourages Elly through gritted teeth, as the toddler runs her fingers up and through her mum's fauxhawk. The little girl laughs to herself as her fingers stick together from the transfer of hair gel.

To continue to discourage and not be tempted to fwap the girl's hands away from her personal space, Alaina shifts her daughter from one shoulder to the next, juggling, too, her purse and a tray. If not for Garrett's outstretched hands and fast, cautious reflexes able to perform preventative balancing measures, the tray would have surely toppled and gone their lunch would have been.

Relief washes over the tired twenty-something year old's face as she peers over Elly at her other charge, the red tailed hawk Eden boy with a twitchy right wing. "Thanks, hun," she murmurs, helping him to guide the tray down onto a free table.

Alaina first seats Elly in her stroller, then picks through their order to distribute the meals. But in the time between handing Garrett his chickenburger and 2% milk and unwrapping her own quesadilla, does Elly clamber right out her stroller and toddle on over to Amanae's table instead. She barely reaches the table's height, her fingers curling on the rounded edge, her head tilted back in order to see better.

"Hi! I'm Elly!" she chimes in her best loud toddler voice.

Elly gives a slightly toothy smile, waiting, wide eyed, for something to happen. Her tail snakes very slowly at her ankles, slightly tenting her cute little pink and yellow sundress.

Alaina turns and lets out an exasperated noise at finding the stroller empty, jumping immediately to her feet and scanning the perimeter with her mouth drawn in a concerned line. Garrett, taking the cue from his mother, gesturing over his shoulder at his sister naught two feet away, before taking an eager bite of his burger.

Weaving around the tables, Alaina snatches up her daughter by the hand, startling the poor girl into actually frowning for a split second.

"My apologies, miss," she sighs tiredly, switching between giving her daughter a stern look, and looking upon Amanae apologetically. "She's a bit of a monkey, and I don't mean that just because of her tail."

Alaina, who was about to turn back to her lunch, stays stationary and tilts her head at how dead-on this stranger's question was. Still, suspicion told her to play it off as best she can. Never know if this person could be a.. bounty hunter from another planet, looking for someone in particular, or something.

"Yeah, as it just so happens, she is," she answers carefully, keeping Elly within grabbing distance if her paranoia were to ring true. "How'd you know?"

Elly, meanwhile, tries to peer up over the edge of the table at what Amanae is feasting on. "Fries?" she inquires softly, feeling her way around the tabletop.

Elly continues to feel around the tabletop blindly for some delicious, delicious french fries. Something catches beneath her stubby fingers and she pulls it, finding nothing but a napkin for all her trouble. She wrinkles her nose and shakes it off her hand.

"Fry, fry, fryfry!" she sings to herself, reaching up on her toes this time.

Alaina gives Elly a tug to pull her back onto her heels, to which the toddler narrates, "Oof!" unnecessarily. But from what she can tell, her daughter is in no real danger, and she's once again left apologizing for the tot's behaviour.

"Someone else with her type of tail, huh?" she croons, tilting her head at the notion with sincere bemusement. She'd have to find these people.. and maybe thank them for the little blessing-in-disguise that Elegy has turned out to be for her. If they're the ones responsible, that is.

"You'll never get such mismatched appearances as with my kids, I tell you... At least no one's makin' stupid comments to me anymore of, 'Ohhh I didn't even realize you were pregnant..!'" Alaina rolls her eyes as she lifts Elly in the air and to her chest. The girl follows the motion by keeping her hands out and eagerly reaching toward the table, finding the new height most beneficial, at least for a second or two before she got too high.

"Thankoo lady!" Elly coos in delight and takes the fries delicately, eating them one by one as the adults have their conversation.

Alaina absently brushes her fingers through the end of one of Elly's loose pigtails as she looks upon Amanae with faint admiration. "God, you sound like I did a year ago," she responds, bemused at the thought. She gestures with her head at the other table, toward Garrett, who has already finished his burger and is now making his way through the onion rings. "That'd be my boy. And you've met my girl."

"The boy came from a leaf. Most ridiculous thing you've ever heard, is it not? And Elly here," Alaina continues, rocking the munching girl in her arms, "Well. Seems you might know as much as I do as to her origin."

She grins a little, her heavily shadowed eyes crinkling a little. In a bit of an acquired juggling act, she shifts all of Elegy's weight into one arm and offers the other for a handshake. "I'm Alaina, so long as we're doing introductions."