[zapdragon555]

((Replies from me have to be a bit shorter because I seem to have suddenly developed tendonitis in my dominant hand; will try to be prompt though! Darn timing :'|))

Esfir was whispering things for Dukhaan to write down, which he gladly did with some amused smile on his face. When prompted by Noah, he took a second look at his slip of paper, squinting at it and sounding out the words slowly. It seemed he wasn't a very adept reader, but Dukhaan didn't interfere.

"It says..." Esfir began, blinking at the paper. "There's a boy named Moony... and... he likes the moon?" Esfir blinked a second time, then laughed. "D'you think that's a joke? It says he's 14... an Adawockee, huh..."

"14-year olds can be tricksters, but... let's assume he's being truthful, yeah?" Dukhaan offered with a small smile, though he had a bad feeling about it. The moon? That was asking a lot.

[Freezair]

((No worries! You take care-a yaself. Short responses are better down to the wire anyway, yeah?))

"So... What do we do now?" Noah asked.

"Ooooh! Isn't it obvious?" Bestie bubbled over with excitement. "We get to go SHOPPING! Why, I bet if we hit up all the trendiest shops, we could find some beautiful silk scarves--and perhaps a fine top hat! And if we do any window shopping on the side, well, there's no harm in that..." She sat on  Noah's shoulder puffed with excitement, a chirping borb of joy.

"Really? Phew! That's a relief. I thought we were gonna have to find some elves to make the presents ourselves!"

Noah turned to Esfir. "If we're going shopping... I know where we could go for something with the moon! My new friend showed me! Do you like science stores?"

[zapdragon555]

((True that!! xD Feel free to speed them through shopping if we wanna end this on a coherent note!))

Esfir blinked at Bestie as she began prattling on, visibly astounded by her astute knowledge in the realm of shopping. "Science stores?" he echoed her, eyes shining with interest. "I've never been to one! Science is so cool, though!"

Dukhaan smiled as the kids interacted, and he glanced back at the Bigheart woman, waving with a friendly smile to let her know they'd be back as soon as they got their presents. "Alright; Bestie, you seem to know where you're going, so you lead the way," he said with a nod, pocketing the pen once he'd turned in both of their applications.

[Freezair]

((I wouldn't mind keeping this going for a little bit after we hit the post number! But I would like to keep this from being overlong--a short 'n' sweet little RP!))

"Come on!" Noah shouted.

And then he wasn't there.

There was a bright red streak that passed through the crowd. There was a sudden gust of wind. There were people gasping. There was a clacking sound that might have been hooves on cobblestone--but how did it go so fast? Then the noise got closer and Noah reappeared. Bestie looked visibly fluster.

"Sorry," Noah said bashfully. "I... forget not everyone runs fast like I do."

"I'll say!" Bestie grumped.

"I guess I'll walk," Noah said. "Come on! It's two blocks this way, so follow me!

"They have lotsa cool things there," Noah said as he walked. "You can get chemistry sets and books fulla pictures of volcanoes and glow in the dark stars--my friend's favorite--and they have a big bin of pretty rocks near the entrance and you can fill a bag with as many as you can fit in them for twenty keystones!"

[zapdragon555]

((Sounds good to me!! I'll happily continue this past the benchmark once my hands are cleared up))

Dukhaan had blinked and missed it, his eyes as wide as Esfir's as the two brothers stared at the place Noah had been moments ago. Speechless, the two exchanged a glance, mouths slightly agape. It was only when the boy returned that they closed their mouths and came to their senses, and Esfir was the first to speak. "Wow!" he cried, fists punching the air. "That was amazing! Sooo amazing!"

The two followed Noah at a slower pace, and Dukhaan was glad to be moving again--it was simply too hot to stand still for very long. "Sounds like this store is right up our giftee's alley," Dukhaan mused, nodding his head.

[Freezair]

Beneath his scaly-furry face, Noah was blushing. Both because he'd forgotten and because Esfir seemed so pleased by him. It was kind of nice to be "cool" for once.

Soon they found themselves in front of a store. The front was warm and red, but a sharp, minty smell drifted out the open door, cool and refreshing. The sign above the store had a stylized atom, and the title said, in a bubbly-looking font, "PROFESSOR WILDSIDE'S LABORATORY." Noah lead the way inside, followed by a fluttering Bestie.

The inside was as wild as the title promised. A place near the back called the "BUBBLE CHAMBER" was absolutely full of soap bubbles. Rainbow-colored light danced against the wall from translucent hanging sculptures. Stars and planets adorned the ceiling. The walls held everything a scientifically-curious kid could want: Sea Monkey and triops kits, bug nets, rocket-building sets, lemon-powered clocks...

And, as promised, a giant bin of rocks near the door.

Bestie flew immediately to the bin and put her claws around a brilliantly transparent piece of quartz. "You three look around all you like! I'll be... amusing myself over here," she said. Immediately she began rooting through the rocks for the prettiest stones.

Noah laughed. "Come on! The space stuff is over this way!"

[zapdragon555]

Dukhaan and Esfir went wide-eyed at the interior of the place, their mouths falling open as they hovered near the entrance. It was obvious that neither of them had ever seen a place quite like this, much less walked into one. Esfir was much quicker to bounce back and run after Noah, laughing with delight at how colorful the place was. Dukhaan eyed the pretty stones, admittedly a bit interested in them, but figured he needed to keep an eye on his brother and Noah. "Alright--we'll meet you back here," he nodded to Bestie and darted on quick feet after Esfir, quickly grabbing the young boy's shirt sleeve to hold onto him while he let his eyes wander around the place.

"This place is so cool!" Esfir exclaimed, keeping close behind Noah as his eyes darted every which way. "I've never been here--has this always been here?" Not that they could come very often, given they lived a little ways away, but it was nice to know that it was here.

[Freezair]

"It hasn't been here, like, FOREVER forever, but it's always been here as long as I've known," Noah said. He looked back toward Bestie, perhaps hoping she had more information, but she was lost in a world of semiprecious stones. And even if she wasn't, she'd grown up in the area around Terrance Park and hadn't been outside much until making friends with the children there. She knew about as much as Noah did.

The space stuff corner, with a sign above it that said "FOR SPACE CASES," had all kinds of glow-in-the-dark and light-up stars and planets pasted on the wall next to it. One of them was advertised as a Moon Clock--it looked like the moon, and it lit up from inside to show the current phase of the moon.

"Hmm. I wonder if that's moon-y enough...?" Noah wondered out loud.

[zapdragon555]

Forever was a fairly short time for someone as young as Esfir, so he took this information to mean that this shop was absolutely timeless. It was like some giant treasure trove of neat knick knacks, and it made Esfir's eyes shine as he ran after Noah, Dukhaan struggling to stay close behind him.

"Slow down, Esfir," Dukhaan called over the hum of air conditioning and various trinkets tapping and rattling. Distantly, he could hear some old recording of a commentary of an old moon landing. His eyes flicked to the screen in question, a small TV on a display shelf, and he let Esfir go for a moment to stop and watch it.

Esfir walked into the space corner, eyes flicking around at the different gifts. At the thing Noah pointed out, his eyes went wide, and he grinned. "That's so cool! It follows how the moon looks?" he asked, bouncing on his toes. "How does it know?" As someone who hadn't been in school for terribly long (and who often skipped school to go to school with Dukhaan, when the latter found it in him to attend), simple things such as this seemed mind-blowing.

[Freezair]

Noah tilted his head at the clock. "Maybe it knows by... um... maybe somehow, when the light of the moon hits it, it knows how much light it gave off and it matches it?" But no, that wouldn't make sense. Then the clock would have to be able to be hit by the light of the moon, and then you'd be able to see the moon and why would you need a clock? "Or maybe... it senses the rotation of the earth... somehow..."

The attendant walking near the space section giggled. "While I do like your hypotheses, I can tell you what it actually does," she said. "It has a small computer in it with a calendar programmed in. You just put in the date in the back, and it'll keep time and show you the phases of the moon with the computer."

"Ahhh," Noah said. That did make sense.

"By the way," the attendant said, "is there something specific I can help you boys find?"

[zapdragon555]

"Hmm, yeah, that'd be cool, but sometimes there's clouds. Sometimes the moon isn't even there at all!" Esfir countered Noah's first guess. The second one seemed cooler and more viable, to Esfir, even though he himself couldn't feel the earth spinning. He was still pretty suspicious of that. It seemed like if the earth was spinning, people would be dizzy all the time--which they weren't, so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to him.

He blinked up at the attendant when she walked up, his eyes shining slightly as the girl told them. Somehow, that was disappointing, but a tiny computer was still pretty neat. "Ohhh..." he mused, nodding slowly, just to echo Noah. At the girl's question, he perked up, nodding his head. "How much money for the moon clock?" he asked, pointing at it. "We're being santa!"

Dukhaan seemed to finally tear his eyes away from the vintage video, blinking at the young woman talking to Esfir and Noah. He walked over, embarrassed that he'd let his little brother get away, and plastered an awkward smile on his face as he walked up just enough to hear if Esfir was saying anything embarrassing to her.

[Freezair]

"Oh, you're doing that Secret Santa in July thing, huh? Neat. Well, as you can see here," she said, pointing to the small stack of boxes that contained moon clocks, "they cost 45 KS each."

"Wow," Noah whistled. "That's a lot for kids like us..."

It was at this moment that Bestie tore herself away from the box of rocks and fluttered back towards them. The Ms. Wilson overheard the conversation and immediately butted in. "Excuse me! Pardon me! I have diamond feathers," she said. True, it wasn't immediately obvious, but it was true--she had a superpower, and that was turning herself into hard, shimmering diamond. "Would that do?"

The attendant screwed up her nose. "I'm sorry. Thank you for the nice offer, but I don't think we can take that. I wouldn't know how much it's worth!"

Noah looked at Esfir and the returning Dukhaan with desperation. They had to be able to get that clock. They just had to! It was the most perfect gift in the whole store for their Secret Giftee!

[zapdragon555]

Esfir's face fell as well, his expression shifting into a disappointed frown. That was a bit steep, even by Dukhaan's standards. Their family wasn't very rich... But he really wanted to buy that clock for Moony!

Dukhaan ducked as Bestie flew past him, startled, and watched the exchange curiously. He blinked, then fished into his pockets, digging around for some change. When he pulled it out, it looked like he had about 35 keystones, and he rolled them around in his hand. "Do you... do you think we could work for it?" he asked, tilting his head at the girl. "I have 35 here, and all, but... we could, I dunno, move boxes? Shelve stuff?" He looked sheepish, the keystones still in his hand. There went his cigarette money for the next couple of weeks, but it was a far more worthy cause. He needed to quit, anyway.

[Freezair]

The attendant lady smiled. It wasn't her usual big how-can-I-help-you smile--it was more subtle and real. She sighed an acquiescing sigh. "I can see this is very important to you," she said. "And I definitely agree--it's a wonderful gift for anyone who likes the moon. How about this. We offer a special discount for people who are signed up for our member's club on their birthdays. The club is free, and it's 30% off anything in the store. That'd lower the price to about 32 Keystones." She winked at Dukhaan.

"Cool! But... what if it's nobody's birthday right now...?" Noah said. He was slightly hopeful, but he didn't look ready to give in to hope. Even Bestie, who was slightly more manipulative and certainly more self-centered than Noah, didn't seem to have realized the easy loophole in the system. After all, how were they going to know that it wasn't any of their birthdays?

[zapdragon555]

Dukhaan blinked at her smile, then rolled his eyes away with a kind of light flush on his face, thinking. "Oh, you know? Heck--that's crazy. My birthday just so happens to be today!" Dukhaan said, putting on his best liar's grin, tilting his head at her. "Well, technically it's at 8:00 pm tonight, but, heh, do you think you can let that slide?"

Esfir squinted at him, then at the woman, then seemed to tilt his head up and count internally. His mouth moved slightly as he did this, mouthing months and days. "Hey, that's not...!" Esfir stopped, his brain working, then folded his hands behind his back and crossed his fingers behind his back, a nervous smile on his face. "Th-that's not right--you were born at 7:00 pm, right?"

"Ohh, that's right," Dukhaan continued, nodding his head, admittedly hating that he'd gotten Esfir to lie, too. It wasn't so bad if it was just Dukhaan, but he preferred to keep his little brother honest. Still, this was for a good cause. "So! Member's club. Can I sign up for that?"