Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was hard for Sadie not to fall back into old habits when she had found herself injured again. There had certainly been a few times she'd lay in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours, feeling sad and scared and sorry for herself and maybe even angry when she was feeling much of anything at all.

During the better times, she was able to remind herself that this wasn't like the eye. The doctors all seemed confident that she'd have full movement back within another month or so, if she was careful and did a little physical therapy. The if hung over her head, but the situation overall was much better than it could have been. She was trying not to close herself off as much, either. She'd been texting people, mostly her family and therapist, but they’d all been being sweet as sweet about everything. She'd even asked for help cleaning her apartment, which meant it was currently free of any takeout boxes or laundry.

She didn't automatically reach out to her friends, not wanting to worry them, although she didn't mind telling her powered friends the vague details, the ones she could share over texts. She'd told Solieyu a little of what was happening, earlier, but she wasn't exactly prepared for the sound of something happening in her hallway, or the sudden text from the Mauvian telling her to open her door. She did raise an eyebrow at that.

Then, of course, she opened the door.

The apartment building Soleiyu would find himself delivered to was simple, but sleek in a way that felt intentional. It was modern, or maybe minimalist. In any case, it was updated. The walls were crisp white and the floors a stylish warm gray wood. Even the ceiling lights didn't seem to buzz too badly.

Sadie, when she cracked open the door to her apartment, was mostly presentable. She had changed out of her pajamas and into leggings and a hoodie. Her right arm was noticeably in a sling. That was part of being careful. Her hair was the one thing that was giving her trouble. It was unbraided and undeniably tangled.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the mauvian sitting in her hallway. Her jaw dropped, and she brought a hand up to her mouth, but it did little to hide the smile that started creeping wide as wide across her face. “Soleiyu! Hello, my handsome friend,” she said, voice brimming with excitement.The compliment came out automatically, as it often seemed to come up in the texts and she didn’t mind trying to make him happy. She glanced at the basket. “What’s this?”

She froze, then, and looked up and down the hall before she continued in a different, almost stilted tone, “I mean, um, hello, kitty? Are you lost? Do you want to come inside, maybe?”

Hopefully he would. She didn’t know how long she could pretend he was a cat.

The apartment was a studio that was just large enough not to feel cramped. A half wall separated off the bedroom. This side had a small kitchen, her computer desk and her art desk, and a TV and couch. The crisp white and gray color scheme continued in from the hallway, but it was softened a little by Sadie's light bohemian decor. Fabrics featured heavily. There were cushions, rugs, floaty curtains, and possibly too many pillows. There were also, of course, plants just about everywhere she could squeeze them in. There was an entire rack of them by the window, and a few hanging terrariums. A snake plant sat on the coffee table. A fiddle leaf fig was next to it on the floor, and a pothos vine was curling around the TV.

Sadie gave him a quick scratch behind the ears, then picked up the basket and closed the door behind them. It was only after she’d set it on the kitchen counter that she took a closer look at the contents. For some reason, it was the band-aids that made her heart melt the fastest. She was still a little wide-eyed when she turned back towards her guest, as if she hadn’t quite processed, but the corners of her mouth were beginning to turn up.

“This is sweet as sweet,” she said. “Is it, um, for me?” All the trappings of a present were there, but it seemed rude to assume.

The smile faltered, though, as she carefully curled her good arm around the injured one. “I didn’t mean to worry you,” she said, voice softer. Her brows knit a little at that. One of the hardest parts of all this was knowing that the getting hurt affected other people, too. “I hope you can see that I’m okay. Well-” she trailed off, not knowing quite what he’d been expecting. She hoped he could see that she was alive and get some comfort from that.

She took a few steps out of the kitchen to a pile of pillows and knelt down to get more on his level. “But you’re very welcome here. The biggest thing that will heal me is time, and I can’t think of a better way to spend some of that time than with you.”

She leaned into the forehead bump, almost as if she was a cat, herself. Her long hair surrounded them like a curtain, and she savored the moment, lifting her good hand to run her fingers across the side of his face and through his fluff.

Then she leaned back, a hint of worry creeping into her own eyes. The teasing went neatly over her head. “You know you don’t have to buy my affections, don’t you?” she asked, trying to hold his gaze as best she could. “You’ve proven your kindness twice now, once when we were just strangers. You’re welcome here, and if it’s nosy to want to see your friends?”

She leaned down close to him again, her eyes closed. She scratched gently under his chin. “Well, I might be a little nosy too.” She had been known to show up unannounced.

“As far as this,” she swallowed, and rested her fingers butterfly-light on her arm, “I went to a meeting. It was for, um, training, but mostly I was looking to make friends, and it was working. I was meeting lovely people, until it was all, um, attacked.”

Sadie was not really one to hide her emotions, and she gave a heavy, frustrated, sigh.

“I was trying to turn off the lights so we could escape before they closed in, but I ended up separated from the group. I took a hit from a general,” she said, her voice soft and almost distant. It had all become a blur after that. “It’s not broken, just a deep wound. This is just so I don’t jostle it so much.” She wiggled her fingers from inside of the sling.

Sadie was well aware that she was never quite in one piece, these days, but she could forgive the Mauvian for that one. It was true that that the last battle could have been so much worse.

Anyway, it was hard to worry about any of that with such a sweet friend by her side. "Okay. As long as you're not feeling coerced," she said, her tone much lighter, "It is nice as nice to get pampered, sometimes. It does make your visit that much sweeter. Just, be careful." Her eyes glinted, and she reached out to tap his nose. "I might be the one showing up at your house next time, with my arms full of ice cream."

Gifts were his love language, maybe. She could work with that. She just might have to find out where he lived, first.

It took some doing, but she pulled herself out of the pillow nest and went over to look through the basket a little more closely. "Let's see. These caramels look delicious." She glanced down briefly. "You'll help me eat them, won't you?"

The band-aids were probably what made her smile go the softest, but the little device all done up in cellophane was what she pulled out. She held it as gently as a hummingbird egg and ran her thumb over the iridescent shimmer of the packaging. "Is this what you made?"

Maybe it was the fact that Sadie always tried to think the best of people, or maybe it was the fact that anything that wasn’t stated outright tended to go over her head, but it wasn’t until that moment, when she saw the tiny Soleiyu bouncing up and down in the device, that she realized her Mauvian friend might have a little bit of an ego on him. Well, maybe even a lot of one. It was a good thing that Sadie was facing away, then, because she had to bite her lower lip hard to keep from bursting into a fit of giggles.

Still, she could see just from the wrapping job that it had been made and delivered with care, and that alone made it a precious thing. She pulled back the cellophane with gentle fingers and laid it carefully to the side before she took a closer look at the device itself. It was perfectly sized for her hand, and the pixel art was darling.

Of course she liked it. She couldn’t have disliked something that a friend had put so much of himself into. Even if in this case, it was a little literal.

When the threat of giggles had passed and there was only a grin left, she turned back to him, cupping the device gently. She was still a little in awe of the whole thing. “This is beautiful, Soleiyu,” she said, holding it up so that she could get a closer look at the pixels and all the smaller emblems. “Did you do the art on this?”

More of the detail became apparent as she tried out pressing the buttons and was greeted with a voice clip. “And voice acting, too? You’ve put a lot of work into this, haven’t you? I can see that. This is sweet as sweet. I love it.” Her voice was almost rapt and nothing but genuine. It was a lovely gift.

He could just never find out that she also thought it was hilarious.

For the next half-minute or so, Sadie was fully focused in on the little device. It was only after she'd beaten a game and fed the small Soleiyu that she looked away and instead started scratching the real Mauvian.

"I'll think of you every time I see it," she said, her smile still the littlest bit too wide, even as her heart melted knowing that he didn't want her to miss him. "It's going to be much harder to feel lonely, knowing that you put so much work into something to keep me company."

Although a toy couldn't purr in a way that calmed her to her core, or nuzzle her fingers when she was least expecting it. Her smile softened again, and she looked Soleiyu in the eyes. "But I'll take the real you while you're here, okay?" She tilted her head. "Should I give you some treats, too? Not just the things you brought, I've got some, um-" she trailed off and opened a cabinet. After a moment of fishing around, she pulled out a glass jar full of kernels. "Fancy popcorn?" She could only go so long when trying to host before things came back to food.

She set it next to his candies, and looked it over. "It'll be just like we're kids in the movie theater, but also elegant."

Well. A little elegant. She still hadn't brushed out her hair in two days.

"Oh, I would love that," said Sadie, following Soleiyu's gaze to the rest of the apartment.

There were no shortage of cuddle up. There was more than one pile of cushions, and there was definitely a focus on softness and comfort throughout the space. The best blankets, though, were all piled up on the couch across from the TV, and they were slightly tousled from Sadie's earlier nesting. She gave a gentle wave in that direction, now. "You can pick something out if you want, while I get this ready. I've got Netflix, Hulu. Oh, and Disney Plus. It should be all logged in."

She wasn't sure that she liked that you had to have so many streaming services, recently, but she'd been willing to splurge a little on having options while she was all cooped up.

Soleiyu got one last scratch before she turned her attention to the kitchen. She gave a long glance to the microwave, but in the end she pulled out a skillet and some organic local butter instead.

She had some lovely ingredients sitting around in the corners of her kitchen. After today, they would probably stay in their cabinets for a while longer. For a friend, though, for someone who had come over when she'd been staring at the wall and had chased off the worst of the fog from her mind with his presence and kindness?

She could at put her best effort into a movie snack for him.