Yan's Homestay

<(OOC: Yumlandian = Mandarin)>

A peaceful afternoon greeted Yan and Tatianna as they climbed out of the station. A clamouring of swallows on a nearby power line caught Yan's eye, prompting her to whistle back at them. After a beat of silence, as one they wiggled their little tuxedo-tail bums and beeped back to answer the strange chirrup, to which she hid a giggle behind her hand. The other hand hadn't left Tatianna's since they got off the train, cool and smooth like a river stone in the older girl's palm. "I'm named after them," she clumsily restarted their conversation, which had stagnated somewhat in the endless stair-climbing. "Yan is 'swallow' in Yumlandian. Like the bird, not the thing you do to food," she hastily corrected. The sun on her dark sweater made her feel like a toasty little oven, and it came out in the laziness of her grin and the slouch that kept bumping her into Tatianna's side on accident...well, maybe not totally an accident, but hey, the older girl was radiating heat like a space heater, she was just asking for space invaders...heh, space invaders, there was a game she hadn't played in a minute.

Oh right, she was talking. "My family name's Lei, for thunder. Little, uhh, dramatic, right?" she kept babbling as teenagers are wont to do around a Cool Older-But-Still-Young Person, wanting to be seen as similarly cool and interesting. "But, but you put the two pieces together, right? And you get a teeeny-tiny lil' thunderbird. Just like SandMan!" SandMan, still riding Yan's shoulder and, it was true, precisely the size of a little perching songbird, could only facepalm.

"I'm not that small," he whined.

"Not where I'm standing," Yan smirked. "My homestay is just ahead here," she indicated a line of row-houses. She guided her human tether up a short staircase, stopping in front of the door. The faint sound of panting could be heard on the other side. She blanched a little, turning to Tatianna. "Uhhh, just fair warning, my host family is a little eccentric, and more importantly there is a lot of dog about to happen," she cautioned, and slunk the door open. Almost immediately, Tatianna was set upon by about 150 pounds even of pure, overjoyed Leonberger, who had discovered an exciting New Thing to smell and lick and generally just dog all over. "Oh my god Kaiser no," Yan tugged on the dog's collar in a feeble attempt at restraint, not an easy task when the dog outweighed her by half.

"OHO! HALLO leetle Yan! And who ees thees?" a magnificent blonde boulder of a man becried, effortlessly wrangling the beast back inside. "Ein Freund? Excellent, please do come in, do not mind leetle Kaiser!" In seconds, the entire party was swept inside, dog and all. All the while, the man was booming, "What you want, we shall go for the hiking, ja? Or the mountain-climben? Come, I prepare Kaiser's harness at once!"

"We were...actually gonna hang out in my room and use the Net, Mr. Johansen..." Yan looked a little shrunken under all the attention.

"AH! Yes, you are young, you must be cool in front of your cool new friend, this I understand!" Her host father swept a massive paw-like hand towards the staircase, ruffling his dog's ears with the other hand. "I will take this boy for adventure, instead. And I will have you call me Gunther someday! Or Papa! Now, Kaiser, we are off!" Massive hound at his side, the man bounded away in search of outdoor adventures, nevermind that it was nearly evening.

Yan yawned, tugging on Tatianna's hand a little to pull her towards the stairs. She guided the pair to a bedroom marked with clear signs of her living there (chiefly an abundance of beanbags, sweaters, and blankets coating the floor). "Sorry 'bout that. Grab a seat anywhere...or a flop," she demonstrated just that, flumping bonelessly into a beanbag. "Computer's just there, if you wanna send PurgeMan in." An errant hand poked out of the beanbag, pointing at a beat-up old brick of a laptop on the desk.
As the two exit the trainstation, Tatianna couldn't help but be taken back by the familiar setting. Her house was just across the road from the station, but the blonde kept quiet around her younger compatriot. How did she get roped into this adorable bean's life again? Oh right, train sleeper. Hah. Hearing her words, Tatianna nodded a little, and even gave a bit of a giggle to the Thunderbird joke. "Well, Tatianna is a semi-common Sharo first name, y'know. Something something saint's daughter. I forget the details. Now Yuchira has a bit more depth. It's an old Den name for willpower, my father was from Den City, mom was a migrant who was in Sharo for a while. She doesn't speak much about it." Of course, she continued by tacking on, "So strong-willed saint-daughter and thunderbird. I like it."

Tatianna didn't mind the pauses. and from her belt, PurgeMan walked alongside them, or at least... imitated a walk cycle to give the illusion the semi transparent knight of fire and death was walking alongside his beloved operator. The two looked natural together, despite the floral pink top, and casual jeans with those equally bright converse, especially with Tatianna's black-metal, punk PET, and the nature of her Navi.

At SandMan's whining, PurgeMan couldn't help but stifle a laugh, "Not in our world."

Upon finding themselves down the street, and clearly near her own neighborhood, which happened to be two streets behind here, Tatianna smiled broad. Good, Yan lived close, so she could visit often. Tatianna's mother could even make those all-too-famous and warming 'Kolbasy kolbasnyye', Sausage Rolls! A Sharo treat. Nevertheless, Tatianna was eager to stand her ground and hug that huge Leonberger as he licked and panted. "Aaah! Hahaha! Whozzaprettypuppy?! You are! Yes you are!" clearly a dog owner in the past, Tatianna also seemed very clearly apt at handling dogs larger than her. Tatianna did have a Doberdane in the past. Oleg was the best boy, even after he passed. "It's okay, Yan. I had a dog about his size when I was little. My best friend before PurgeMan came into my world."

That was when she got a look at Gunther Johansen. Holy stars he was massive. Tatianna took a little bit of a blink, before nodding. "I'm a bit of a tutor as well, Mr. Johnson sir, my Navi and I are going to be taking SandMan and Yan here virus busting. We could defrag a few devices here while we're at it if things are slow." "Guten tag, Herr Johansen. Ich bin PurgeMan, und Tatianna sind meinen Operator." ...Since when did PurgeMan speak that language? Tatianna was dazed again when he heard her heavy, bulky navi speaking so fluently, rather than being a bit forced. A heavy, killer navi clad in huge armor and lots of firepower speaking that? How stereotypical.

Oh now that laptop was ugly. Tatianna felt envious. It was so old, so... dusty! She loved old tech! At once, she borrowed a beanbag as well and flumped down as well, not before taking Yan's laptop to set between them, reaching into her own bag to pull a USB splitter out. This was to ensure the two could jack in on the same port and save processing space on the laptop. "Alright, here. Let's jack in. I'm ready to put in some work to get our homepages linked. Maybe we could work on your's?"
A thundering bark and a cry of, "ADVENTURE!!!" echoed from the open window, along with the last curls of warm afternoon breeze. Yan hummed with satisfaction, curling into her beanbag. "Whoooa, check this thing out," she marvelled at the ancient cord, "haven't seen one of these since I was a kid." For old time's sake, she plugged the cord directly into the PET, rather than using its laser feature. "Terminal's up, SandMan, you ready?"

"Not even a little bit!" SandMan cried, but disappeared from the PET regardless, Net-ward bound.

For a beat, there was silence. Then a sleepy giggle came from somewhere within Yan's beanbag. "That's funny, I think that's the first time since I was twelve that SleepMan hasn't been pretty much right next to me. Or, you know, in the next room when I use the bathroom, or change, or...well, you know what I mean." She fell silent for just long enough that Tatianna might wonder if she'd fallen back asleep, then spoke back up, "Y'know, this is really nice of you. I dunno if I've said yet, but thanks for coming over. Sorry if it's not too exciting."

Suddenly she sits up, something seeming to click in her head. "Wait, what was that you said about homepages? What's a homepage? Oh god, do you need a homepage to jack Navis in? Did I just throw SandMan in the digital garbage? Granted that'd be hilarious, but he's, he's okay right?" Her lip quivered just enough that she had to bite it, forcing herself to breathe normally. It was fine, this was fine, just one more thing she didn't know about Internet things, right? Right?