Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Hi! Brrrreep." A strange, tanned and feathered boy answers the door and mimics the sound of an electric doorbell quite vividly following his prior sound outburst. Besides looking rather unkempt, Heke looks to have been in the middle of trying on outfits; he's wearing a knight's helmet, giant fur lined boots, and is holding a spatula.

He tilts his head in a very bird like manner. "Mommy's inside. Who're you, pretty maiden? Brumbrum." He holds the door mostly open and leans his chin onto the thick frame of the cottage doorway, leaning back on the boot heels.

Heke looks slightly hurt, but recovers in a heartbeat as he gallops along behind the visitor. He absentmindedly leaves the door open, but after a minute, it closes itself without a sound, anyway.

"Are you here to play mid-evil chimes with me, hekk?" He trills a little under his breath. "You can be maiden I save!"

Exi emerges from the kitchen, removing and tossing aside a flour-dusted pink apron. "What's wrong, darling?" she asks Ranza directly, noting how angry the child approaching her appears to be. She thinks quickly; did she do something to tip her over the edge? Hopefully not, but Exi can't remember everything and everyone who's affected by her actions! She plays with the hem of her shirt nervously.

Exi, tossing aside all social norms, grabs the girl and buries her in a hug. She hushes the girl softly, trying to calm her down. (It's something she's seen on one of her hundreds of movies, a la her Get-used-to-this-planet plan!)

"Hun," she practically purrs, brushing fingers through the girl's dread-like feathers as she steps back to give the girl some air, "Tell me what happened. I'm sure it wasn't half as bad as you thought it was."

Heke, meanwhile, has returned to his toys, but he looks rather nervously over his shoulder at the older girl and her unusual noises. He'll remember those to copy later.

Exi nods as a sympathetic gesture, and her face falls into a very solemn and pouty expression, as if she feels the depths of pain the girl does, or is just a very good actress. Probably close to the second, because she has no recollection of a garden or of what importance it plays. Unless it's that one in that Bible book, but Ranza is not named Eve, so it mustn't be that story!

"How did you lose it?" she starts to say, but quickly does damage control with, "Er, uhm, how exactly is it gone? Can't you grow new gardens?"

Special place? Now that's something Exi understands! If someone were to tell her that her pumpkin patch and cozy cottage home was going to be bulldozed and paved over for a mini-mall, she'd be one pissed off cookie to deal with.

"Ranza, darling, that's awful! Dreadful!" She collapses in her armchair, which isn't hard when you're in a tiny, crowded place like this one. "Isn't there something you can try? Like, like, can't you petition them to stop? Or go hippie and tie yourself to a tree!"

She pounds a fist enthusiastically into her open palm. Yeah, proactivity! It's only after Heke lets out a little coo that she snaps to it, and shakes her head slowly, as if brushing off a daze. Very carefully, she adds on a question. "How does your brother feel about this, Ranza?"