Welcome to Gaia! ::

He responded fairly quickly and with a grin. So far the island was, over all, better than he had, on some level, feared it would be to utterly start over.

Arorangi was thrilled to see the positive responses and typed a message back to the pair of them:

Oliver spent about half his allotted ten minutes trying to figure out how to reply. Knowing how friendly Arorangi was, this other person could be ANYONE. The young Life trainee was already fretting.



He wanted to add "Are you sure they would like me?" but deleted it before the sentence was typed, and just hit the Send button without any further deliberation.

Zac was carrying a box of fish shaped crackers (cheep tasty salty), he looked admiringly at Aro’s decorations, realizing a few things he perhaps should have gotten for his own room. There would be other chances to go out though he figured, and worst case he could ask someone to swap him goods for a tattoo.

His own shirt was a faded charcoal grey with a tribal shark decorating the front of it, comfortable jeans with a tear in one knee that gave a hint how far down some of his tattoos went less by design than long wear.

“Kia Ora!” He called in greeting, while it’d been said over the phone it just felt right to say it when they saw each other face to face. He shook the box of crackers, which looked like an enormous milk carton.
“Trade you for a pop?” He grinned. He’d drink water just as happily to be fair though.

"Zac!" Arorangi looked very pleased to see his Poly friend and set the soda down to walk over, reaching out to pull the other man into a firm embrace, giving him several slaps on the back in greeting. "I am glad to see you are doing well, mate!"

The crackers were given a grin, Arorangi reaching to grab a second soda from the desktop and tossing it Zac's way. "Help yourself, and I would love to try some of those crackers - and you must show me if you have gotten any more tattoos!" he added, just as another familiar face peeked into the room, looking relatively terrified.

"Oliver!" said Arorangi brightly, and reached out, clapping a hand on the other's shoulder and pulling him into the room. He stood beside the younger hunter and put both hands on his shoulder, grinning from behind.

"Zac, this is my friend Oliver!" said Arorangi happily. "Oliver, this is Zac! He is also from New Zealand, as you can see!"

Oliver may have let out a tiny, pathetic squeak as he was pulled into the room.

"P-pleased to meet you," he stammered, looking much smaller than he was with his head ducked slightly, and shoulders hunched. It was almost comical how scared stiff he was, just to be meeting a new person. The little trainee could feel his heart beating like he had just run a lap around the town.

Continuing on with the conversation prior to Oliver's arrival was perhaps the best thing that could have happened, although he was still too nervous to say anything, his pale eyes showed a flicker of interest as the manta ray tattoo was shown off.

The expression of interest began to reveal more of itself as Zac spoke, until it resembled something more like nervous wonder. Finally curiosity was enough to rival the anxiety. "Y-you d-did that?"

Zac nodded with a smile at Oliver “Yeah mate, I got a whole set up in my room now, I’ll do one for you if you ever want, sound good?” He “Imagine, something like this right over your shoulders say.” He rolled his own as though to demonstrate, or shrug. Perhaps it was a combination of both.

“Thanks mate!” He added with a wide grin at Aro’s appreciation.

“What kinda card game are we playing? Am I gonna have to learn something new or will this be a nice old stand by?” He smiled. “Are we playing for stakes?”