Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Why'd you have to come along anyway?" Merlyn hung from his knees from the top bar of the jungle gym and waved the small nerf gun around wildly. "I'm big enough, and I can protect myself! I have a gun, see, and Omega came with."

Lapis folded himself into a lotus position at the base of a nearby tree. "Your father says that I must come with you if you go out alone, with the UFOs about."

"You're a big party pooper." Merlyn fired a dart at the comet serpent, who didn't flinch, knowing full well that his small charge's aim was less than reliable.

"It shoots DARTS," Merlyn called back. "How come you're hiding in a tree? Are you a ninja?"

Lapis brushed the minor rain of debris off his clothing and moved slightly away from the trunk. "It is a nerf gun," he told the small figure above him. "Not a real gun."

"Of course I can climb," Merlyn pointed out scornfully. "I climbed up here." He nimbly turned himself back right-side-up and slithered down the jungle gym. "Ninjas are people who dress all in black and throw pointy metal stars and knives called kunai and you can't see them, so I guess you're not a ninja, because I see you." He tucked the nerf gun into his back pocket and dashed over to make his way up the tree.

Lapis sighed and moved off to sit on a bench, where at least he wouldn't have bark pieces on his head.

"Uh huh. They make hand signs and then they disappear in a puff of smoke." Merlyn scrambled up onto the branch and balanced himself neatly, then demonstrated a complicated set of hand signs, ending by clapping his hands together. "Like that, but it doesn't work when I do it."

He peered curiously between the branches. "Have you seen any yet?"

"What did it look like? I saw one on TV but I never saw one here." Merlyn took his dart gun back out of his pocket and aimed it at the starry sky, squinting along the barrel with a serious expression. "Lapis said the UFOs are what make the circles in the grass, did you see those?"

"Duuuuuuude," Merlyn said, impressed. "Did it shine lights on you and make you go up inside it and scan you? Did you see aliens?"

"So, so, if they're really bad guys all we have to do is sneeze on them?" Merlyn conjectured. He'd seen that movie. He pressed one of his nostrils closed with his thumb and attempted to sneeze on purpose. It didn't work, and he only succeeded in halfway losing his balance and having to grab at the branch to stay sitting.

"My name's Merlyn. What's yours?" he offered, after he'd stopped swaying.

"If we have to make them go away and sneezing doesn't work, we can use ray guns and magic and it will be fine," Merlyn said confidently. "I live over that way," he added, and pointed. "Except that if you go out the living room door, the other part of the house is in another world."