Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tianara took a deep breath and nodded quickly, straightening her shoulders and looking around. Her eyes widened as they went through the crowds - she'd never seen so many people in one place. Tracking the movements of first one person, then another, her fascination was evident. She looked like what she was - a naive little creature who was amazed by the smallest things.

When they entered the shop, Tianara lingered for a few seconds by the doorway before following Joshua in; of course, that gave Adrian plenty of time to notice her. When the man addressed her, it took Tianara a second or two to realize that he was speaking to her, and another couple to look up at him and realize that he was a nice-looking guy and his smile showed frank interest.

She glanced down again, a faint blush coming to her face. Merfolk courting rituals were much more subtle than that, and she had to make herself look up to meet his eyes. Then she smiled a little, shyly. "Hello," she greeted quietly, trying to recall what Kiro had taught her about human forms of introduction. "I'm Tianara. It's..." The words fled her mind and she hurriedly struggled to find them again in English. When they came out, however, they were a rather garbled mixture of her own tongue and English, with a very pronounced accent. "Asmari kol...I...I mean, nice to meet you."

The words of her own language had not been an average greeting; rather, they had been the first words that came to mind, those being Worthy one - the natural response that would come to Tianara when she heard someone degrade themselves as being unworthy, however jokingly.

Tianara, her lips beginning to curve into a more honest smile - Adrian seemed very nice - paused. Her eyes widened a little bit. Oh no. What could she say in answer to that? Although her blush darkened a bit at his earlier words, she was too busy stressing over how to answer his question to really respond to it.

She wanted to look at Joshua for help, but if she did that it would look suspicious, wouldn't it? "Oh," she faltered, "it's a...more of a dialect than a language. I don't...I don't believe it has an actual name." Gathering her wits as best she could, she continued, "I learned it awhile ago, when I was...away, and it...creeps out at odd moments." She managed a weak smile.

Tianara's return smile was slow and gentle. She had already decided that Adrian seemed like a very nice guy, so what was there to be worried about? Her impression was strengthened when he changed the subject for her.

About to reply, she glanced over at Joshua when he stepped into the conversation, a little startled. He sounded a little bit annoyed, which confused her. Wasn't she supposed to be learning about other people?

She gave Adrian a quick, apologetic look. Really, she had no idea what had gotten into Joshua. Shooting him a curious look, she went to take a look at the maps that Adrian was taking off the wall. "May I see?" she asked.

Not that she really knew what she was looking for (or at), but she was trying to be friendly to make up for Joshua's uncharacteristic snippiness.

Fascinated, Tianara reached out with one hand as though to touch it, but stopped just short of actually touching the map. Instead, she traced the lines in the air just above it with her finger. "Yes," she murmured, forgetting for a moment that it was someone she'd just met and not Joshua she was speaking to. "Yes, these could work."

Her gaze drifted to the second map that he held up so that she could get a look at it. She thought that one might be helpful as well, and was about to ask him what he thought when she remembered with a start that this guy didn't know why they were looking at maps. She wanted to slap herself - how could she so easily forget things that were that important? Instead, she glanced back at Joshua, wondering why he was hanging back. He must know more about these things than she did - why wasn't he coming over to help her?

So, making the best of it, she looked over the map of the Pacific critically. "It's very nice," she said at last. She glanced over at Joshua one more time, noticing the look on his face - what on earth could he be thinking of? Dismissing it after a moment, since Joshua would say something if it was important, Tianara looked back at the map. "What would you use a map like this for?" she asked, nodding at the ocean map. It wasn't just to fill the silence - she was honestly curious.

It wasn't something she ever thought she would really get into - maps seemed a very, very human sort of thing. But all the same, it would be nice to know. There were a lot of things she was learning from Joshua, too, that would probably just be nice to know. And she quite liked Adrian, in her shy way. If all humans were as kind as he and Joshua, things might be easier.

Tianara leaned over the counter a little to get a better look at what Adrian was pointing at. She nodded slowly, seeing what he meant. "That one would probably work," she murmured at last, giving a little nod of approval. Although she would ask Joshua to be sure, she thought that a map like that would be more beneficial to Katalina and the merfolk than anyone else.

Among the maps, she noted, was what appeared (by the label) to be a world map. That one would probably be the best for what they were looking for, she decided. All of them would be okay, but that one would work the best - it had context. And since Sorry didn't know the names of the places she was looking for, she would need context.

At last, she smiled up at Adrian. Although she wasn't sure exactly what 'no charge' meant, she could tell by his tone that he was doing them a favour, and she was grateful for it. "Thanks," she said. It wasn't particularly eloquent, but it was the only kind of response she knew for that sort of thing. "We'd really appreciate that."

She walked to the back room and disappeared into it, waiting for the other two to join her with the maps. In the meantime, she wandered over to the lamination machine to try and puzzle out how it worked.

Tianara glanced up and flashed Joshua and Adrian both a smile when they came into the room. She was a little surprised that they had taken so long, but she didn't know much about how long payments and transactions were supposed to take, so she assumed all was normal. If it wasn't, Joshua would tell her, right? She could find a way to help out with...whatever the problem was. At least she hoped so.

She was fascinated by the machine from the moment Adrian brought it to life, watching it beep and whirr. She made a little, almost squeaking noise of worry and surprise when the map disappeared into the machine, only to let it out as a little breath of relief when it came out the other side completely fine. Except...it was shining now, where it hadn't before. It was glossy, glowing in the light. Beautiful.

Amazed by the transformation, she reached out to touch it almost without thinking about it.

Tianara looked up, startled, when Adrian clasped her wrist. She blushed a little bit and glanced down at the floor. "Sorry," she murmured apologetically, wondering why. It was so pretty - surely it couldn't be dangerous? Coming from a lifetime surrounded by cold water, Tianara had only the most academic concept of fire, heat and burns and no idea of the amount of pain they could cause.

But she did understand that certain things burned and certain other things did not. She was pretty sure paper burned under heat. "Why doesn't it burn?" she wondered, taking the cooled map from him and turning it around in her hands to examine it. "Paper burns, doesn't it?"

She wasn't exactly sure what plastic was, either, but assumed that it was probably the glossy, shiny stuff between her fingers and the paper that had not been there before. But aside from that, his explanation made perfect sense, and she found herself nodding.

After a minute, her eyes cut to him. She felt the slightest hint of...something, some sort of strange emotion, coming from him. It was one she would never have expected under the circumstances, not from Joshua, and she had to ask. "Are you annoyed about something?" she inquired quietly, looking curiously at him.

Tianara glanced over at Adrian, surprised. For a second, she'd forgotten he was there. She had to stop doing that, she told herself - thinking that because she was only speaking to Joshua that only Joshua could hear her. So she just smiled at Adrian and nodded. "Okay," she replied lightly. "I don't spend much time with heat."

As soon as she said it, she was seized by a mental spasm of panic. Once again, she'd treated Adrian like she would Joshua, without even thinking about it. Once again, she'd said something that someone who didn't know would be confused by, and she would have to explain. What if he asked what she meant by that? What if he asked where she'd lived before she came here? What had she been thinking?

Her eyes wide with the realization of a total faux pas, she looked quickly back to Joshua. Help! She didn't even have to say it - her frightened gaze said it for her. In the shock, she barely realized that he was telling her he was fine. She hoped so. Because she was scared out of her mind now.