Welcome to Gaia! ::

A disembodied voice echoed down through the old house. "Miiilllaaaa? Are you still down there?"

The teenager rolled her eyes, and stretched her paws out from where she lay on her beanbag. It had been two hours since her mother had called down that they'd be "gone in a half an hour, and she only had a few more things to do...". She'd since given up the hope that they'd be home in time for her to watch that documentary on shark attacks that she'd been looking forward to.

"No, I died!" She called back. There was a pause before her mother's voice reached her ear again.

"Good to know. Just a few more minutes, sweetie." Then she fell silent again, and Milla knew that she wouldn't hear from her mother for a good 'nother 20 minutes or so. Maybe longer. So she curled back up in the beanbag and went back to doodling in her idea notebook.

Milla started at the unexpected voice- but a quick turn revealed its owner, and she calmed, relaxing back into the blue beanbag.

"No- I died an hour ago. This is me rotting." She waved a paw to the ceiling, indicating where her mother was. "We've been here forever. Remind me to never go on errands with her again. ...What are you doing here?"

She scooted the referred to notebook towards him.

"It's my idea journal. I keep one with me whenever I remember to, and there's one sitting next to my bed. I want to run my own business when I'm older, so I write out any good ideas I can think of to be successful." She looked up at Rome, thinking not for the first time that she liked the looks of him- her favorite color had always been blue, after all, and this skull monkey was predominately so.. "And this one," she flipped back through the tan colored ring binder to the beginning, "is my lemonade stand plans that I had. I did this one when I was in elementary school. I had eleven flavors." She said, a self-satisfied smile on her face.

Her eyes scanned the words, and it translated into a smile that played across her face.

"Very nice." She circled the reminder twice and then turned the page, to where she had her old list of flavors and prices.

"Eleven flavors- regular lemonade, extra sweet, semi-sweet, sour surprise, raspberry, lime lemon, strawberry, watermelon, mango melon lemon, cherry, and malted.

Tigers?" She said, once she'd closed the book. "That's awesome. I love animals- but I wouldn't want to be a vet, either. Then I'd have to hurt animals. ...Even just to help them."

Right then she stretched again, cuffing her own ear with her paw to alleviate an itch. Then she turne back to Rome. "Are you excited about high school?"

"Gods, I know what you mean- I'm already sort of dreading that my mom is going to be teaching. And she's trying to talk my sister Tam into teaching, too! Maybe even Tawn!! I feel like.. the principal's kid, or something." Then she remembered the last thing he'd said- it having been temporarily blocked by her rant.

"Sports? That would be pretty cool. But I don't think my Mom is very athletic, so she wouldn't even think of starting any teams herself. I'd really like a swim team."

"Ah wicked!" Milla said, borrowing a phrase of her mother's. "You know how to surf? Wicked cool- where do you go to surf?"

"Man, I'd love to learn how to surf. I've only ever been swimming." She flipped her notebook open again, and wrote near the back 'must learn to surf. And scuba dive'. Then she flipped the pencil over the back of her paw- she was going to catch it in the other paw, but it fell to the ground with a slight misjudgement of space.

"Whoops." She picked it up, and put it on the notebook, then slid them both together to Rome. "We need to think up some sports for high school. I don't think I can stand the idea of being a lump all through school."