Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Papa has work to do, you know," Afia said in his sternest voice while his children, La'eimi and Toku looked on. Admittedly, he wasn't a very strict parent, so 'stern' wasn't something the still-quite-young Kaha'iko excelled at. More than proper respect for their parent, La'eimi and Toku feared something closer to a toddler's tantrum from their father if they were disobedient, and Afia's tantrums rivaled even the higher-pitched fits of his children.

He went on. "You two best find a way to entertain yourselves. And remember to stay together, yes?" Afia prompted as an afterthought. "Don't wander too far, and don't leave each other's sides. We will meet back here once the sun is at its highest point in the sky."

La'eimi hummed thoughtfully. He didn't mind sitting relatively idle at his father's side while the other man worked on beautifying textiles for their village, and he was sure his little sister Toku didn't either.

However, as all of them enjoyed 'beautifying textiles,' it did tend to get a bit cluttered and busy behind Afia's little market stall with all of them around. La'eimi liked to touch and tug and prod at whatever his father was working on, and he had his own opinions on the designs his father should be crafting. So it was, in fact, better for business to send La'eimi and Toku off to manage themselves for a bit. And not at all uncommon for them, at that. Even a village as sizable as Waipuka wasn't terribly daunting for them, and once sent off, La'eimi and Toku darted away from the stall together.

They didn't make it as far as they may have liked. The pair usually liked to heaf to the village outskirts to see if there were any reeds, stones, or foliage to forage through, but something else caught their attentions today. "Is that a Menehune girl?" La'eimi asked as he blinked at a brown-skinned and dark-haired girl waiting in line at one of the stalls.

Toku swam up to his side and squinted in the direction he pointed. "They'd don't usually make it so far north..."

"The Menehunes' clothes are a little dark, aren't they?" La'eimi retorted with a little grimace toward the girl. "They really look like they live in the mud..." She hadn't seemed to have taken any notice of them, and it really wasn't La'eimi's business to rectify this atrocious attire, but whether it was or not, he decided immediately that it was up to him to do something about this dark blotch swimming through the rivers.

He swam forward, and as he came nearer realized that the girl was taller than him, older, but that seemed irrelevant. "Hey, girl," he called. "You're not really going to wander our market wearing something like that, are you?"

While La'eimi was the sort of boy who was never afraid to speak his mind, his younger sister was a somewhat quieter, more judging sort, who preferred to gossip at a distance, rather than right in her target's face. Not to say she was frightened of people, but as her brother caught the Menehune's attention, she couldn't help but shoot a grimace toward the older boy. It might have been nice if they'd decided together if they wanted to bother with someone else! But it was too late now, and La'eimi wasn't going to be the one to back down as the Menehune drew nearer.

"I don't see your kind often," he replied matter-of-factly. "But I've seen them before. All of you are... a bit dingy." Maybe it was just the combination of their dark skin, dark hair, and dark clothes that made it so, but La'eimi even thought the brown in his own attire was just crisper, like the beautiful bark of a young tree, rather than a muddy swamp color.

A drew a finger to his lip and nibbled thoughtfully while his blue eyes scoured the Menehune girl, Lilioa, as she'd introduced herself, up and down. "Even if they're normal where you're from, you aren't in Elehun, anymore... You really ought to get with the fashion."

"Look, it's a bit of a pain since we're pretty busy." Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Toku smile at that. 'Busy,' indeed. They'd needed something to entertain themselves with while their father worked! "But you look like someone who could use some guidance in the art of style." And she hadn't even been cross with them after they approached her, so that seemed like as good a start as any. "I'm La'eimi, and this is-"

"Toku," piped his sister immediately. "Why don't you let us help you out today?"

La'eimi couldn't say why he thought a lone Menehune girl would come this far north. Maybe she'd been bored with the scenery of home, or maybe she'd wanted for a fresher, cooler climate than the swamp provided. Liloa had probably come to Waipuka with some sort of purpose, but whatever it might have been, La'eimi didn't mind brushing it off. She had agreed to join them on her own! So even Liloa must have thought that whatever she came to do wasn't more important than style.

'Good,' La'eimi thought. 'She has proper priorities.'

"Alright, we may as well get started gathering materials and supplies," he decided as he took Liloa's hand in his and gave a gentle tug away from the food merchant she'd been standing in line for. "You're in luck meeting with me and my sister," he informed her. "If we find anything very good, we'll be able to take it to my father for him to fashion you something truly amazing and more in-line with the trends up here."

"With us to guide you," came Toku's voice as she slipped up to glide at Liloa's other side, "You'll be sure to only have the best materials. We know where all of the most shapely leaves can be found."

"And the shiniest stones," added La'eimi.

"And the crispest reeds," Toku finished. "You should be so fortunate to be in our company."

It was still a bit of a pain to share such secrets with an outsider, La'eimi had to admit, but since she was just a swamp girl, Liloa wouldn't likely be around long enough to make too much use of anything they showed her. It would be a simple task to collect a few leaves, a few shavings of bark, and maybe a nice pebble or two to give to her so that she might not be such a dark splotch in their clear, blue waters.