Welcome to Gaia! ::

Pruu looked up from her gathering, antennae practically twitching with curiosity. It sounded like a limbara was charging her way! Who on the isle ran with such disregard for stealth? She plucked up the basket that she was using to collect wild mushrooms and slipped into the shadows for cover. Someone was running as fast as they could, and the steps were of the heft that she assumed it must have been some Yaeli. Probably saw their own shadow and panicked... Her footing around earthlings was still touchy, so it was best to avoid interacting with them.

The closer the steps got though.. it sounded even smaller than a Yaeli. She crouched forward to get a look, eyes widening when she caught a peek of a dark form stumbling by her. It was the size of a youngling, probably only recently learned to walk! Where were her mothers?

With a deep frown, she straightened up and stepped out with her mother instincts briefly taking over. "Child!" she called firmly. Wait.. the skin wasn't as grey as she had thought, and that hair certainly wasn't red...

By Elzira, it was an earthling child! They were naturally smaller than Aishan younglings, so Pruu couldn't quite tell their age. How was someone so small walking around on their own? Surely the parents weren't too far off.. but she couldn't hear anything beyond them. Pruu rolled her eyes at the sobbing child, eager to continue on her away. Yet.. that teeny body wracked with fear... It made her mother instincts tingle, and she reluctantly turned her attention once more to the kid. "I do not know where your mother is. You should go back the way you came." Was the kid even old enough to understand?

Her expression remained deadpan, but her stomach flinched. The mother was dead..? She looked the direction the child had come from, eyes narrowing slightly. It must have just happened then, right? Had someone unwittingly crossed the Elarians? Well, it was no concern of hers, really.

She heard the child moving, but wasn't too concerned at first. Even an earthling child couldn't pretend such deep fear for the sake of trapping an Elarian, and she could kill it with a flick of her wrist if she needed to. Torn between listening to the desperate pleas and watching the pathetic stumbling effort, she was shocked to suddenly find the youngling clinging to her leg. "Hey!" She wrinkled her nose and raised her leg to give it a little shake. The youngling wasn't budging. Time for logic! "So, your mother died and now someone else is watching over you. That is usually how it goes. Otherwise, you would be living alone. Know that there is no one out here who would care for you, so you might as well go back."

Took? Pruu felt herself pause and look down at the youngling curiously. It still made sense that the child would feel like it'd been stolen away, but they way it was being sobbed out... "Daddy?" It took a moment, but soon enough Pruu's eyes were widening with surprise. Daddy was the father of earthlings, wasn't it? The male counterpart of a mother. "You're saying you still have a father out there?"

It was only an earthling... but her belly felt a pinch of ache. Was this thing saying it had been kidnapped from their family?! "Where is your father then?"

The child had actually been taken from their family? Someone had killed the mother and run off with the child... Pruu could be brutal, but even she would never think to take a youngling of any kind from their home! "By the beach.." She gave her leg another experimental shake, sighed, and held out her hand. "I can't take you to the beaches if you're stuck to me like that."

Though her hand remained down and open, the rest of her body stiffened. No Yaeli at home? Elzira save me.. "Did you take a ride on a boat? Cross an ocean?" she asked hesitantly.

By Elzira's grace!! The child was stolen from the big island?!

"We should get you to the docks then," she decided. "There will be many boats that will be able to take you back home." Since it was unlikely that the child was carrying money, she would have to go home first to pick up something to trade with the earthlings for supplies... Giving up her own things to help an earthling child... It really was a crazy world. "What is the name of the place you live, so we know which boat to put you on to?"

Pruu's expression flattened a little. "You don't know what it's called?" She closed her eyes and tried to think. She wasn't very well versed in the lands that make up the big island, but she felt she could figure out most of them. She'd heard the name before since it was a common port for ships around there. "Matori? Does that sound right?" If that was the case, it would be a fairly easy trip for the child to take.

Looking at the little hand clinging to her own, she pursed her lips and gave a surprisingly gentle tug. "Come along. We will have to stop at my home first to pick up a few items for your trip." She couldn't be seen walking around with an earthling though! Her mind spun with ideas on how to mask the child. A simple hood wouldn't cover everything. Maybe she could swipe a good, big cloak before anyone saw? Or maybe go the old fashioned route and just roll it in the mud? "Have you had a mud bath before?" she asked idly. A cloak would normally be better, but this was not a normal situation!