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Indigo was not having a good day.

It had started when she'd rolled out of bed and stepped on a pile of jacks she'd left by the bed the night before. Those had hurt, and she hopped around on her room on one foot, saying some of the choice words she'd heard her mom use when she'd burned herself on a hot pan. It was just her luck that Aunt Tizzy had heard from the other room, and came in to scold her both for using bad words and not putting her toys away. Close to tears, then, she'd sat down to let Aunt Tizzy help her put her hair up for the day, only to have the distracted little demon end up breaking her favorite hairband by overstretching it.

So they left her hair down, and she plodged downstairs to have breakfast. Mom was in a rush, and not only that, she was angry and snapped at Indigo for not getting up earlier. Indigo had yelled back, only to have Mom storm out of the house, slamming the door on her way out and disappearing down the road in the car before Indigo even had time to run after her. Aunt Tizzy took off, too, so Indigo had had to make her own breakfast, but she ended up spilling most of the milk on the floor instead of in her cereal, so she'd had to eat it dry after she used up the last of the paper towels soaking up the spreading milk puddle.

Since Mom and Tizzy had shown no signs of coming home during all that time, she'd sat down right there on the kitchen floor and had herself a good long cry. It didn't make her feel much better when Mom came back, either, to yell at her again about the mess on the floor and then storm upstairs to bang more doors and scream at Tizzy.

At that point Indigo had kidnapped one of her plush dolls and left, walking the short distance up to the D-Corp headquarters only to find out she couldn't go in and see her dragon egg that day, and worse, her favorite class had been canceled. So here she was in the playroom, cuddling her plush and trying desperately not to cry.

She wasn't doing that good a job of it.

((Not at all! In fact, I'm delighted. biggrin ))

The creak of the playroom door opening and closing again, and the distant strains of a mumbled conversation, intruded only slightly on Indigo's private misery. She'd pulled one ear of the plush into her mouth, chewing on it for comfort as she had when she was younger; when she looked up to notice the visitors, she cut a slightly ridiculous sight with the plushie dangling from her teeth.

She was quick to spit it out, giving a long sniff and rubbing at her eyes with one arm as she noticed the presence of another child. Perfect--just when she least wanted to be social. But the other little girl was much younger, and Indigo wasn't one to be a bully... She slid off the edge of the table she'd been sitting on, wrapping all four arms around the plush and taking a step or two toward Earako.

"H-Hello." Her voice had a bit of a hitch in it from the earlier tears, something she was quick to rectify with a noisy clearing of her throat.

Well... That wasn't too bad. The younger girl didn't look liable to bite her head off or get angry at Indigo, as people had been doing all day--so it was with a small amount of trepidation that she ventured a smile at Earako. "'M Indigo. 'N this is Bedo," she said, offering the plush for inspection on introducing him. She took a moment to look Earako up and down--she had WINGS, like Ligeia, and pretty white fur and awesome ears--before adding, "What's your name?" Couldn't hurt to be nice, after all, and she looked out of place, too.

At least this other girl seemed nice! And trying to keep her melancholy mood from affecting others was doing Indigo a great deal of good in terms of actually recovering from it.

She struggled for a smile. "Earako," she repeated, saying the name slowly to get a feel for it. "That's a pretty name. I don't know anyone else called Earako." Glancing down, abruptly shy a moment, she fondled one of her plushie's ears. Only to reach suddenly for her hair with her right upper hand as Earako mentioned her having "horns". Did she suddenly sprout horns while she wasn't looking?!

"Horns?" Blinking and confused, Indigo glanced up again--and then realization dawned on her. "Oh! Oh." She wiggled her antennae, grinning suddenly. "Those're my antennas!"

"Uh-huh!" Indigo gave another wiggle of her antennae. "I smell with 'em!" She tapped her face with an upper hand. "Much better 'n a nose. Not horns, though." Noticing the other girl's nervousness, she added, "Do you know Anoki? He has really nice horns! Almost as long as my antennas!" This acting cheerful thing actually seemed to be improving her mood--but not like Indigo would complain! She'd been in a really bad mood before.

The velvet worm tilted her head to one side, antennae bobbing along with the motion. "Do you have special ways of finding things, too? You're a bat, right? You can hear really well, I'll bet!"

Fortunately, Indigo's mom was probably too lazy to do much "taking care of" anyone that didn't pose immediate bodily harm to herself or her daughter. Besides, it didn't look like the velvet worm much minded being stared at; in fact, she was just as happy to have someone to show off for.

"Ooo. We played on the slide. It was fun! 'Cept I don't think my mom likes 'Noki's mom; they yelled at each other and it was scary." The thought of that unfortunate encounter made Indigo's antennae droop; she recovered quickly, though, with a shake of her head.

Earako could hear pictures? This made Indigo's eyes go wide once more in astonishment. "You can hear pictures? That's neat! Really bright light bothers me, too--an' things get all blurry far away. Mom says I might need to get glasses. Maybe not like yours; I don't think they'd be that cool."

She looked down at her dots, grinning proudly at this, before holding one gold-spotted arm forth for inspection. "He won't? I really like coloring on me, too--but nothing shows up an' Aunt Tizzy gets mad." She pointed with a lower hand to the other girl, adding, "I bet markers look really pretty, 'cuz your skin's white, like paper."

It really had been scary, that possibility of a fight brewing between Indigo's mom and Anoki's. Fortunately only a couple of slaps had been exchanged and they shook and made up afterwards, but Indigo had been really frightened at the time! Especially 'cuz Anoki seemed like a really nice kid.

She was most definitely impressed by the echolocation, no bones about it! "Wow," she said. "That's so cool! I always walk into stuff when the lights are out..." Granted, it didn't hurt much, but it was still annoying! "I bet you'll be really good at it when you're all grown up. That's really neat!"

Indigo hesitated a moment as Earako offered her an arm, chewing on her lower lip. LAST time she'd drawn on someone she'd gotten her hair pulled for her troubles, and Yeesha still hated her for ruining that dress--on the other hand, Earako was asking. And if her dad hadn't said NO one could draw on Earako... "Okay! Lemme go get some colors! I bet there are some in the toychest." Indigo beckoned with a lower hand as she pattered back to the table, setting her plush down before making a beeline for where all the toys were kept.

This was going to be fun! "Do you want dots like mine, or something else? Oo, I could draw flowers on you! I'm good at flowers..."

"Flowers an' dots it is!" Indigo proclaimed, as she reached the storage crates. In short order, toys and non-marker art supplies went in every which direction. This whole four-arms thing was awfully handy when she was looking for stuff... The velvet worm rummaged a little while, coming up with several crayons clutched in her lower left hand and a box of markers in her upper right. A rubber ball discarded from her lower right bounced away, fetching up against a wall and lying there, abandoned.

At last, Indi turned about to grin at her new friend--and new canvas. If she were a little taller and not so soft-looking, the grin and the sparkle of mischief in her gray eyes might've been worrisome. "Okay. What's your favorite color?" she asked, then added: "Mine's red, but not e'rrebody likes red, so I thought I'd ask."

She had, however, uncapped the red marker already, letting the sharp scent of the fixatives in the dye fill the room. Her antenna nearer to it scrunched up; ick, it smelled weird!