Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Children's Section of the library was currently being held hostage by one little girl alone, who had piled all the beanbag chairs up into a strong fort wall to hide behind with a stash of Clifford books (and any other bright, colorful picturebook she thought looked interesting at the time.) Taji was still in her school uniform -- a pleated beige skirt, a pink tie, sensible socks and sensible black loafers, pink ribbons in her pigtailed hair, and a short-sleeved white button-down shirt with an emblem on the pocket that declared her a student of Westchase Academy. School had just let out for her, but her older brothers (who were supposed to walk her home, of course) were being detained for another hour for detention, and she was bored.

Reading was still not something that came naturally to her. The Clifford books were good, but she had read and looked at them all twice; the Children's Section was already fairly limited in its selection, with loads of books frequently checked out by parents and teachers for their own charges, and all that was left for perusal was either not very interesting or, frankly, too hard for her to keep up with. She had, out of curiosity, climbed up the stairs to the second level -- where all the 'adult' books were kept -- just to see what was up there: shelves and shelves of books with no pictures in them. Her future was not looking very bright.

She did find one that seemed impressive-looking enough though, and seeking to protect her own treasure hoarde of books, returned to the Children's Section to camp out there. She was currently sprawled across the floor on her stomach, kicking her legs, bent at the knees, listlessly at the air, and looking at pictures of kidneys in the anatomy book she had 'rescued' from upstairs. She had no idea what significance it held to be given four pages of illustrations, except it was bean-shaped and she didn't like beans.

Though Taji loved company, she was not inclined to pay much attention to the girl picking her way past her -- she hadn't said hello to her, or anything else for that matter, which might mean she was a grouch (the sort who would tell her to put all the books away and straighten up those beanbag chairs for chrissakes, whatever a chrissake was.) She did look a little lost though, and had very pretty hair, but also looked like the kind of girl who would be friends with her older brothers, and none of her brothers' girl-friends tended to be nice to her...

Letting out a breath, Taji very self-conciously held her legs still so as not to kick the other girl, and turned a page in her book.

Darsais might have passed through with absolutely no confrontation too, if it weren't for something rustling in Taji's bookbag that decided he wanted out, and wanted out now.

With a small squeak it tipped over and deposited a small creature, simultaneously furry and feathery, that was the epitome of a visual seizure. It was an icy blue color for the most part; the ends of its limbs were pale yellow (and probably glowed in the dark). It had wings and a tail the color of space dust, and there were so many conflicting streaks of colors in its hair that it was impossible to say what color it was at all.

He (did this thing have a gender?) looked up at Darsais with big purpleblueredohgodwhatcolor eyes, opened his mouth wide, and sneezed on her boots.

"Vesper!" Taji sat up as if a shot had gone off, twisting around to face the Pala. He was out of arm's reach for her but still only a short distance away, right next to the girl that had passed her. Looking sheepishly up at the girl in an attempt to determine whether she was mad -- or about to punt her Pala like Rhine had told her he'd been tempted to do -- she scooted forward and scolded him, "Say 'excuse me'! Don't sneeze on people with your icky Pala germs!"

"'scoosi," said the creature, wiggling its tail and beaming up happily at Darsais. See, see, he had shared! He had shared germs with her, now they were friends.

"Kah-wai-ee?" The young girl repeated with some confusion, mentally attempting to parse out this word. "Ka... Hawaii? No, we're at the library." She nodded emphatically, "Unless you mean his name, then it is Vesper."

She merely nodded to the other girl's next question -- it seemed a little weird to Taji to claim ownership over a living breathing animal creature-thing, but then again, she did have to clean up his poop, which accounted for something she guessed.

"Pala!" The creature confirmed his race, and wobbled forward to get a better look at Darsais as well. He reached for her boots with little grabby fingers and immediately latched onto the laces. Taji kept a wary eye on him but otherwise figured nobody was in any imminent danger -- Vesper did not seem the type to bite people, and this other girl clearly was not interested in harming him.

"You c'n pick him up if you want, he likes that," she grinned, reaching forward to pat the Pala on the head, before continuing somewhat shyly, "I'm Taji. What's your name?"

She made note of the stack of books that the other girl had been carrying but didn't recognize any of the titles. They did look interesting though, all sorts of neat illustrations on the covers...

"Ohhhh. Yeah, I guess he is.. kawaii. Kawaiiiiiiii!" Admittedly it was a fun word, and seemed far more fitting than the snippy harsher sounds of 'cute'. It was not a word Taji had ever heard used before, but this girl seemed pretty smart. Besides which, how impressed would all her friends be to hear her use this new fancy word?

"Wheeeeeeee!" Vesper squeaked happily as Darsais picked him up, kicking his legs and allowing his wings to flutter a little for balance. He was probably meant to fly someday, though as it was, his wings were too small to support him and he had neither the strength nor the dexterity yet to keep himself in the air. Making someone else bear all his weight was the next best thing, the Pala felt.

Meanwhile, Taji was looking rather alarmed at Darsais' next statement. A super-genius whiz-kid? Her? For merely reading this boring book with pictures of people's guts? "I couldn't find anything else to read," she said a little dazedly, but pointedly said nothing to refute the other girl's judgement. Well, she never claimed to be supersmart herself, so if Darsais wanted to think that, it wasn't exactly lying, was it?

Eager to prevent any sort of testing or surprise-quizzing, Taji hurriedly fumbled towards the next topic of conversation she was interested in, "What are you reading?"

Held up a little higher, Vesper was now in easy reach of Darsais' scarf -- and quickly equating the taller girl to a colorful, glorified jungle gym, the Pala took advantage of this by reaching up in an attempt to grab onto it and climb up.

Taji was distracted by the detailed illustrations the 'book' seemed to be comprised of -- books filled entirely with pictures?! She had found her calling! Taking the manga from Darsais, the young star spirit eagerly flipped through it and 'ooh'ed and 'ahhh'ed at all the costumes and fight scenes. "What's Batman?" She asked curiously, in between flipping through pages. She did pause long enough to say proudly, "I know Superman, though! He is faster than a bulletin board and stronger than...." What was it, a train? "...Strongmen. My best friend, Con, he told me all about it." She nodded for emphasis and returned her attention to Sakura's adventures.

And not quality reading? Phoo! This was far more interesting than reading about Spot and Spot running and seeing Spot running over the hills and far away and off a cliff. Granted, the pictures of guts had been interesting enough, but this was far more shiny and gratifying. Taji set it down long enough to wrestle a beanbag free from her fort and, dragging it over to Darsais, plopped herself down into it to read the manga more thoroughly.