Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a fortunate turn of events that Josh had spotted an advertisement for this auto garage. It was even more fortunate that this garage was also close to a bus stop. Certainly, the locations Josh and LuLu could travel to had been drastically limited upon the loss of his truck. Conversely, he could only bum rides off We'rika so many time before the man got touchy about it. It was impossible to ask once he got into one of 'those' moods.

It was getting awfully tiresome relying so heavily on Gaia's local transit to take him from point A to point B. He was long overdue for a new set of wheels. It had been a few month since his truck had finally given out, but the boy had already seen enough interesting characters and had close calls to last him a lifetime. This garage promised cheap parts and, if luck was on his side today, maybe a cheap ride for him.

He skipped the last step on the bus with a small hop. LuLu skipped them altogether as she floated behind him. Her head scanned from one block to the other as she scoped out the new area. It was nothing too exciting in her opinion. She had seen enough industrial yards littered with broken mechanics in that the sight no longer intrigued her. She flicked her wings and moved past her guardian in what she assumed to be the direction of the garage's office.

She was already danging halfway off a seat in the waiting area watching some daytime soap opera by the time Josh entered. He shot the sigel a glance as he padded to the front desk. His palm was about to give the bell a brisk swipe until a woman shuffled from the back. The boy leaned upon the counter to get a better look at her. The grease stains and auto parts logo on her shirt told him that she was just the person he was looking for.

Josh spoke with a soft smile, "Afternoon! I saw in the newspaper that you sell auto parts here. I was curious if you happened to sell anything... well... more intact and ready to drive off the lot?"

Josh nodded in quick succession after each statement which left Lette's mouth. His spirits soared higher bit by bit as the promise of a new car grew more real. He did not think he could grow more elated until the word raevan slipped into the conversation. The boy's eyes blew wide and excited. "Yes! Are you one too?!" He leaned over the counter, practically on top of it, as he continued, "She came to me when I was young. Younger than most guardians actually! I am Josh and her name is LuLu."

LuLu cleared her throat with a faint croak which hung in the air. Her eyes flicked from the flat screen, and Ricardio's saucy romance, just long enough for her to make eye contact with Josh. She spoke evenly, "Car."

Josh smacked his palm on the front counter as though their reason for being there had completely slipped his mind. "Umm, right! About the car?"

You could see the sigel's eye roll back into her skull before she sunk back into the chair.

"I thought it was illegal to use one of those while you were operating a vehicle," Tatiana murmured, crossing her arms and looking out the window. This was a very new part of town for her. Everything was really- but that wouldn't be a factor to her duress. She glanced back at her guardian, squinting at his government issued PDA. Camille had strictly told her that manipulating a cellphone was an illegal offense, said it was also dangerous, just for when she had more body to actually drive.

Harrison's dark eyes flicked over to her, lines forming on his forehead as he lofted a brow. He looked around, hand draped over the steering wheel gesturing to the cars surrounding them. He didn't look concerned, "Tati, we're in traffic, not moving anywhere."

Tatiana hugged her arms tighter and jutted her lip slightly, eyes narrowing. He was still operating the vehicle- even if it was in slow traffic. The light in front of them switched green and the Raevan held her breath, counting, waiting to catch Troxel too wrapped up in breaking the law that he broke another law.

Unfortunately her guardian's response was immediate, lowering the device and following the flow of traffic. He caught Tatiana's disapproving gaze and gave her a charming grin, dimple cratering one cheek as he spoke, "Besides, I gotta badge."

"But you fly helicopters, you're not in traffic patrol,"

"Don't matter, law enforcement is law enforcement. I'm not police either- federal agencies are a bit 'bigger' than government," Harrison explained, lighting the screen up, lighting the directions to Lette's Garage. She'd been on the LAB 305 contact list- grandpa car was in dire need of a new timing belt and Tatiana needed to get away from the llamas. He was worried she'd start spitting.

The frei busied herself by playing with the end of her high ponytail, debating tying some of her silver bangles onto the end of it. She didn't have time before Troxel navigated them into the small parking lot- loud screeching coming from the hood as was expected for something with a jacked belt. Tatiana held her hands over her ears, fingers pressing into the downy feathers there.

"That's a hideous noise, Harrison!" She shouted, Troxel was laughing, and exited the vehicle. She left her guardian and moved towards the door, flinging it open. As she entered she called to the expected clerk- "My guardian's car is possessed by half of hell-- oh!"

Tatiana snapped her wings to her back, placing her fingertips on her cheeks as she gazed at the empty counter, "Whoops."

The hamsa slowly spun on her axis- a little wobbly and took a gander of the room. There was a sigel, gazing at the television. She hadn't seen many Raevans since her birth and this was a bit embarrassing. She gave a nervous grin, a tiny wave that lit the room up with the chiming of her bangles.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt," Tatiana said, nodding to the television as she did.

Lette’s eyes slitted slightly as she stared back at LuLu’s snarky attitude. Whether this small female was frustrated over her lack of an adventure or not, she shouldn’t be so rude to either her or her guardian; especially having never met the mechanic before in her life. She was going to be a fun little Raevan to get to know. In fact, Lette almost relished the idea of pushing her buttons and drawing LuLu out of her anger.

Smirking, she nodded towards Josh and closed the door behind them as they left, responding without lowering her voice at all "Don’t worry about anything, Hun, lil miss would have to do a whole lot worse to get under my skin." Opening the second set of doors that led out of the back of the garage to the car lot behind the building, Lette tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "So what’s got your Raevan’s existential knickers in a twist? Haven’t seen that much ‘tude in a while. Oh, and watch your step out here, there’s a lot of miscellaneous car pieces and equipment scattered all over the place."

To emphasize her point, she reached down and picked up a discarded rubber tire from the ground in front of the door and hiked it up to rest on the top of a pile of them beside the door. Wiping her hands off on her pants to rid them from the black dust that seemed to accumulate on all tires, her head cocked as she heard the telltale screech of a timing belt complaining of old age coming from what seemed to be the front of the building.

"Must be another customer," Glancing around to see if she could see the receptionist out taking a puff, she sighed. "Excuse me for a second," she warned before taking a deep breath of air, "ROSAAAAAAAA! CUSTOMER. I’M OUT BACK IN THE JUNKYARD." Grinning sheepishly, she looked back at Josh. "Sorry about that, what were you saying?"

Laughing outloud, Lette moved to place a hand on the guardians shoulder to steer him in the right path through the yard. "I've definitely dealt with a whole bunch of people sassier than that one, that's for sure. But no worries, I'm sure she'lll work through whatever it is that's frustrating her."

Turning a corner around some old heaps of cars that surely couldn't even roll down the street, yet alone crank on for use, the mechanic pointed to the 15 or so cars that were arrayed in front of them. "Alright, so, these cars are about all we have in terms of working pieces of machinery. Many of them aren't in the greatest condition, I warn you, but because of that most of them are really cheap. Their owners typically brought them in, didn't want to pay the cost of repairing them vs the cost of the overall car, so we took them in to use for spare parts or situations like this. What exactly might you be looking for or for which uses?"

"Oh neat, so you're a photographer? That's cool! What sort of focus do you have? Buttttttt, I do think we have an option of two in the back, follow me." Walking through all of the junk spread across the yard, Lette made a mental note to clean up or organize the place. Just because there was a junkyard behind the garage doesn't mean that it had to be a yard full of...junk. Or at least not a landmine full of it.

Turning into the second row, the mechanic drew up beside an old brown pick-up truck and leaned against its hood. "Alright so these next three heaps might be what you're looking for. As you can see, beside this truck here is about an 8 year old station wagon, it has some tears in the upholstery, but overall it just needs some mechanical adjustments. Beside it is most likely going to be your cheapest option, a 12 year old van with a bad gasket, in dire need of new brake pads, and some tubing has been bitten through by some resident mice; not to mention some heavy street lovin' on the body itself. And finally, the last option is a 9 year old minivan that just has some electrical issues and would prolly be the most expensive option. All in all, I can throw in any repairs to the car at-cost of the parts, as a Guardian discount, and bundle that cost together for its sale price" she narrated with a quick wink in his direction, "but I don't see any of these options setting you back too far even with repairs. Go on and take a look, feel free to ask any questions. I realize I didn't really ask what your budget was like, but I'm sure there's something here for you." Hiking her boot upon the front bumper, Lette pushed herself up onto the hood and sat back as she let the young man peruse his options.