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It was shaping up to be One of Those Days.

Jafar found that, unfortunately, his professors had lied; Lotuses were not so much interested in sleep as they were interested in no one else getting sleep. Even though he had had Vira for more than a week now, he was hard-pressed to recall any instance in which she was quiet.

Finally, realizing that he wasn't about to get more than four hours of undisturbed rest tonight unless he could find a way of draining her of her energy, Jafar decided to throw all caution to the wind and took her to the most unforgiving babysitter there was: the local playground.

This one was set up in front of the Soriyu school -- giving young Lotuses a safe place to play and future-guardians a chance to observe them (or, as Jafar realized now, giving them warning.)

It had all the necessary things to keep young Lotuses occupied -- a small sandbox, a rope swing, and a large wooden (but sanded to minimize splinters) jungle-gym. It was the far former that Vira delighted herself in (though Jafar couldn't personally understand it; it wasn't like they lacked dirt at their house...) and the young Lotus was hard at work building the biggest sand-lump she could manage.

Vira paused in the midst of her sandlump construction to look at the newcomer, one that was almost as pretty as she was. It had dark hair, just like the other, meaner Thing, and she cautiously fell to her hands and knees and skittered over to him to inspect him more closely.

He was clean! That was a good thing, not like the other animals which sometimes smelled like poo. "Hawaaaaauuuroooo," Vira greeted him excitedly, sitting up and offering him a handful of precious, wet sand.

Jafar noticed the sudden addition of weight to the bench -- someone had sat down next to him. They seemed harmless enough though, so Jafar shrugged it off and tried to decide what he should make for dinner.

Vira tilted her head curiously towards her new playmate, seeing that he was not at all interested in her offering. Was it not good enough?! HMPH! Well!

She turned long enough to fling the sand at her sandlump-in-progress before searching for something else to offer the new Thing in hopes of cementing an early alliance. There were sticks, lots of sticks around, nice sticks, bendy, some with leaves still on, good for chewing and other things! Finding a decent-sized one -- just a little bigger than she -- with some blossoms still attached to it, Vira took it into her hands and dragged it over to the young Lotus boy. "Geoiqn?" She asked, placing it down before him and waiting for his approval.

Jafar couldn't help but smile at the chagrin in the other young man's voice. Politely turning himself so he could face his new conversation companion, Jafar merely looked towards the vague direction of the sandbox before deciding that pointing wasn't going to work. "She's female . From Milva. The noisy one. Yours?"

Vira positively beamed when Rabi finally gave his approval, and she couldn't help letting out a loud victory whoop in celebration. She soon quited down and watched interestedly as the other Thing ('boy'?) approached the stick and sat beside it, looking at the flowers. When he picked one and held it out to her, Vira stared at it blankly and looked between it and Rabi.

Well, he was offering something to her, wasn't he? Vira held her arms out to accept it into her hands and inspected the flower curiously, trying to determine whether or not it was supposed to actually do anything.

Oh! Wait! She understood now! Babbling cheerfully to the other Lotus baby her appreciation for the gift, Vira finally shoved the flower into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

...Kind of. Um. Flowery. It actually didn't taste that good, but for the sake of keeping the other boy happy, Vira swallowed and then flashed him a bright purple-tinted grin.

Thankfully for his sanity, Jafar was unable to witness any of this, instead concentrating primarily on the other young man. "It's nice to know that Vira is able to get along with others of her own kind, then," He thought aloud, smiling wryly at the image of a girlish-looking male Lotus.

He had turned and was peering curiously at where the two Lotuses were playing, attempting to distinguish the colors of the boy from Vira's own orange and dusty-red, but he was soon distracted again by Sankh's question. "I'm blind," He stated simply, wondering if he should start carrying a sign around his neck that said such.

Sensing his nervousness, Jafar was quick to add: "It's alright, it was an honest question to ask." But unsure of how comfortable he'd be answering any further ones on the subject, he carefully decided to change it. "So is he any trouble? Your Lotus."

Vira tilted her head at an angle and stared wide-eyedly as her companion, too, ate a flower. And he.. seemed to enjoy it, too! Was there some magical, secret trick to it?!

..Oh well, she'd just leave the flowers to him if he enjoyed them so much, she decided.

She began to cheer as he made his way over the sandbox, quieting down appropriately as he dramatically swooped his hands down into the sand and sprayed it everywhere. What a mess -- she wholeheartedly approved!

Quickly scampering over to his side by the sandbox, she mimicked him in turn, greedily leaning down into the sand and scooping up as much as she could with two hands before turning and flinging the whole mess of it up into the air. She twisted on her feet, throwing her hands up into the air and spinning around in an apparent 'whee sand throwing!' dance before pausing momentarily to look at Rabi, apparently expecting wholeheartedly for him to join in with her.

--

"A quiet one?" Jafar confirmed with a thoughtful nod, glancing in Sankh's general direction and adding with a faint grin, "Maybe we can trade. I was hoping for a quiet boy myself but ended up with..." It was at that point that Vira shrieked happily in the midst of her dancing. "Vira," He continued, introducing her and hoping that she wasn't terrorizing the other boy. "And yours?"

Vira, seeing her new friend coming to join her in dancing, decided to kick it up a notch -- there was no way he was going to outspin her! By the time Rabi fell over, she was going so fast that she didn't even notice he had stopped (apparently she either had a really good sense of balance or just plain bad sense overall.)

It was only when a shadow fell over her that she finally slowed to a stop, stumbling for a minute before falling over onto her tush. She stared up critically at Rabi's guardian as he scooped up the small boy, tilting her head to the side in a very bird-like way. Where was he going? They only just started the sand-goes-up-and-comes-down dance! (Granted, at her age it looked like every other dance she knew, but it was still a very important one in Vira's world, if only because she'd just come up with it and anything she created was fabulous, of course.)

"Awvwah," She called out after him and his guardian, waving. To all appearances she seemed to be saying 'bye'; of course, those who knew better would have more accurately translated it as 'bring me back a souvenir!'

"It was nice to meet you too," Jafar replied, idly noting that they should probably start heading back too, hopefully this excursion had taken some energy out of Vira.. "And it's nice to see her interacting positively with others." He was assuming this, of course, considering he hadn't heard Sankh's boy (Rabi?) screaming in pain or otherwise displeased by something Vira-related. "I'm sure our paths will cross again, and I'm sure that Vira can't wait."

...Okay, he didn't know if that was true either, but it was nicer than adding, 'Well, Vira can't wait for anything, she's just impatient like that.'

He waited for Sankh's footsteps to fade into the distance before sighing and finally standing up; now it was time to corral Vira and he had the feeling that, as much fun as she'd apparently had, she would still have enough energy left to give him a difficult time chasing her around the park.