Welcome to Gaia! ::

She walked slowly, much more slowly than usual. There was no risk to her cherries at the treehouse and she had just pulled off a maneuver worthy of... of... Nemesis couldn't even think of someone trying what she had had the guts to try. The butterflies that had plagued her before actually seeing Tock and the adrenaline from actually seeing Tock were forgotten in the euphoria of victory.

But she wasn't that high on her own success that she missed Danny's approach. Only a blind kid, one without her own talents, wouldn't notice the elephant stamping through the grass. If anything else, Danny was likely to find the cabbages because he'd stomp in the middle of one and realize it hadn't broken. She quickly dulled down her wide smile into the usual apathetic frown- or something like it, anyway, because even if Tock thought he could get into her head and learn her code he was wrong, because each page was written differently, and the keys to each place's code were hidden between the two layers of island hemp in her sandals. They'd never outgrow her, not before the cabbages were found.

She took out her book and held it up, as if comparing locations. Underestimating the opponent was the way mediocre people got killed (images of Danny sitting on her until she died entered her mind briefly) and no one could possibly think Nemesis mediocre.

Her displeasure wasn't feigned as she looked up. Nemesis's mouth curved abruptly downward. "Checking my map," she said, "if you want a guide back, get someone else. I'm going to go join the berry collecting group." That was how she supported her mapmaking- from collecting berries for ink, and adding what was left over to the group's stores as a whole. Then she would show Ahja her maps, and her below-average quota generally was forgiven. No one's memory was perfect.

A corner of her mouth quirked upwards for a moment; she stored the information away, thinking that it might make good insult fodder later. When she wanted to prove her superiority over him, again. But the frown was up next time he looked at her. "You and every other kid on the island." No way would she give one of her maps to another kid. She'd gone through the trouble of going to Tock and she had an arrangement that would prove that her maps were the best of the island, even beyond that little blinking thing that the people had had. Even if they were the only maps on the island.

"No and no," she said shortly, despite the fact that she could see him quite well. Nemesis pressed her helm down on her head. Not that she was nervous, but the way he was waving his arms made her wonder. Did he really think she was blind? "I have better things to do."

"Don't touch it," she snapped. With a sneer, she pointedly turned away and took several steps towards a tree, then ran her fingertips over the lines on the page of her book. She didn't need to. But it amused her to screw with him.