Welcome to Gaia! ::

Over the past few months, Kalani had focused on adjusting to her new world. She had started to learn to read and write English; she was in no way proficient in either, but she was good enough to read and write notes to her housemates, at least. Evidently her housemates were old hat at teaching aliens how to assimilate, and Kalani was just trying to keep up. (What an ‘old hat’ had to do with anything, Kalani had no idea.)

And that meant that she owed them. A lot. They were letting her stay in the house, they were supporting her, they were feeding and clothing her. They were teaching her, and keeping her from getting run over by cars (it had nearly happened - several times). She needed to do something to repay them, especially since she did not yet have any… you know, actual money.

But on Kua’kua, they didn’t really have a use for money. Especially not as the planet’s Senshi, but even beyond that - they traded goods and services, more often than not. And since Kalani was severely lacking in any goods, all she had was services.

And she barely had that.

What she did have in abundance were skills of observation. She spent a lot of time watching her housemates, especially in the kitchen, and listening to what they said, how they reacted to different combinations of elements that made up a meal. She began taking mental notes as careful as any she’d taken on the Chaos infestation back home on Kua’kua, because she had a new mission:

Make dinner for her housemates.

Food, being fed, feeding others - it was a ritual, a bonding exercise, no matter what planet you were on, Kalani had learned. And it was the only way she could think to say thank you.

It would be a bit complicated, Kalani learned quickly, because she did not eat meat. She was relieved to learn that meat did not have to be hunted fresh, as it did on Kua’kua, but that did not change her opinion on ingesting it herself - but not all of her housemates were inclined similarly, so she would have to learn how to cook meat, and cook it deliciously, too.

There was something called The Internet, and this became a crucial element of Kalani’s preparation. She watched videos about cooking, a wide variety of meals, until she found one that looked like it might be easy to replicate - something called ‘tacos’. There could be lots of vegetables involved, which felt like a fair compromise if there had to be meat on option as well. She took copious notes, physical ones in a small plain notebook, several pages’ worth until she was able to narrow them all down into something that was, evidently, called a ‘grocery list’.

Kalani had no idea what a ‘grocery’ was, but she understood that such a thing was required before one could acquire food. She further understood that food was purchased on this planet, not traded for or freely given in most cases. She couldn’t do much about her own lack of Earthling money, and she felt that it was sort of against the whole idea of what she was trying to do to get money from her housemates. So she asked one of them, trying to be casual, where food was that you didn’t have to pay for, and was introduced to the concept of something called a ‘food bank’.

Of course, this necessitated someone to explain to her what a ‘bank’ was, and the combination of these concepts being explained so closely together left Kalani with what would turn out to be a false idea of what a regular bank actually was, which led to her wandering into a bank and just - asking for some money - but fortunately, nobody called the police and instead just kindly escorted her out and asked her, fairly politely, not to come back without a guardian. This was especially mystifying to Kalani, who in fact was a guardian, of a whole entire planet, but she didn’t think the nice clerk would understand, even if she tried to explain.

Fortunately, the food bank experience went much better. Consulting her ‘grocery list’, and not without aid of the kind people who worked there, Kalani acquired most of the food items she needed to attempt to cook dinner for her housemates.

It was less difficult than Kalani thought to find a night when none of the others were home. She did want it to be a surprise, and she had a sneaking suspicion that if they were home, they would be - what was the English word for it - hovering. Worrying, about her using technology. But Kalani was nothing if not someone who could watch and learn, and she had watched and learned how to use the thing called the ‘stove’. The oven was slightly more mysterious to her (degrees of something called Faren…Far Height? Kalani couldn’t remember what they were called, but they were beyond her), but the stove? She could handle the stove. The higher the number the little dials pointed at, the hotter the surface was. She had watched many Youtube videos, and this more or less kept her from burning down the house.

(Okay, the smoke alarm did go off once. But nothing actually caught fire, so she didn’t know why the house was suddenly screaming so loudly at her - but this was not the first time that had happened since she’d moved in, and she remembered that opening the windows and doors had made the noise stop last time, so that’s what she did. Quickly. Thank goodness Cersei wasn’t in the house, because Kalani didn’t have time to chase her down and finish dinner. How did humans do all of this??)

In addition to all the things that her housemates could use to assemble their own tacos, Kalani had been pleased to discover that the food bank had a thing called ‘bagged salad’. It had no meat in it, and that was really all she was looking for. From her understanding, the ‘bagged salad’ did not go on the taco, but instead next to it. On the side, so to speak. At the very last minute, she realized that she had gotten too many bagged salads - that the salads were not meant to be eaten, bag and all, one per person, so - there was a lot of salad. A lot.

Finally, her housemates began to trickle home.

Kalani was surprised to find that she was nervous. She had faced down certain death and watched her planet die before her eyes, but she was nervous about sharing some food with the people she lived with?

But nervous she was. She managed to call them all into the dining room, and when they were all assembled, she spoke, and had to reach back to her days as Senshi of a living planet to ensure her voice didn’t shake.

“Thank you,” she began, simply. “This meal is - an attempt, maybe a poor attempt,” she admitted with a faint chuckle and a slight blush across her cheeks, “but an attempt to say thank you, to all of you, as you have all helped me since I arrived on this planet. From letting me stay in your home, to teaching me - well, everything, pretty much, about how to survive here…I owe you all a great deal of gratitude. I hope that someday I will be able to repay that debt I have to each of you, or at least pass the kindness you have shown me on to another being, but - for now, I hope that this meal will suffice to show my appreciation to each of you. It is called tacos,” she said, just in case any of them were as unfamiliar with this concept as she had been.

“You may assemble your own,” she said, gesturing to the serving bowls scattered along the table - all manner of cheeses, ground beef, and a wide variety of vegetables in their raw and cooked forms were spread out before them. There was some mis-applied or over-applied seasonings, and some vegetables that would’ve been better raw were cooked (and vice versa), but overall, Kalani was fairly certain that the meal she had prepared was, to a greater or lesser extent, at least edible.

She still held her breath as everyone took their first bites.

No one immediately perished, or spat out their food, or…burst into flame. She didn’t know what she was expecting to happen, but it didn’t happen, and the tremendous relief that rushed through her was almost palpable. Only after the rest of them had started did Kalani begin her own taco.

It was………

Well, it was fine.

Certainly not nearly as good as the meals the others had prepared, but Kalani herself did not perish, spit it out or burst into flame. She swallowed, gave it a moment of thought, and nodded to herself. In her own estimation, this was passable, and she couldn’t help the smile across her face.

Normal conversation kicked up around the table, and for the first time in a very long time, Kalani actually felt like she truly belonged.

That feeling was enough to carry her all the way through dinner, all the way through the onerous chore called ‘doing the dishes’ (what you were doing to the dishes was beyond Kalani, aside from making them clean, but why didn’t they call it ‘washing’ the dishes then?), and all the way to bed that night. For the first time in many, many, many nights, Kalani went to sleep with a smile on her face.