"How's it s'possed to look?"

"It's supposed to be blue on those parts and green on those other parts, see, and we're using these tools to make sure it goes on really smoothly - if you use your hands there'll be fingerprint shapes in the paint and you might accidentally touch part of the house with the wrong color and then it's hard to get off."

Fika pulls out a wad of hair and forms it into an impromptu brush which she dips into the green paint.

"I can be careful!"

"Nuh-uh, kiddo -"

"She's not a -"

"What the fuck ever, anyway you need to find someone who wants you to use their paint and their house, and that's not this paint or this house."

It's too late, she is already painting a bit that's supposed to be green on the second story.

"Kiddo, no!"

"Do we call mental health nuisance on an amalien -"

"I think maybe we call the boss and let her make the call..."

Fika is doing such a good job with the painting!

They call the boss. The boss says to take video and give the kid an impromptu painting lesson and try not to let her do anything that'll be hard to fix with another coat of paint later.

She gets a real paintbrush and a slightly exasperated tutor.

She is willing to use the real paintbrush, though she still uses the wad of hair for little bits. She's actually really good at this, and is especially skilled at climbing to reach hard to get to places, without disturbing any of the wet paint on the way.

...gosh. Okay. When she has all the necessary information she can just... help them paint the house, sure. They take turns getting video clips.

She would be happy they accepted it but actually she never noticed they had an issue in the first place.

Paint paint paint.

"You going to be here tomorrow?" a purple asks as they're packing up around the onset of dark.

"Dunno! Do you paint this house every-day?"

"Not this same one, but we're doing the next one tomorrow!"

"If you keep showing up you can get paid, you're good at it!"

"Why'd you get paid?"

"Because the person paying us wants us to do this and paying us is how they get us to."

"But it's fun!"

"Sure! But we need to make money, so if they want us to do this fun thing instead of a different fun thing they pay us."

Fika is confused about why they need to make money but she guesses that animals need to do lots of things amaliens don't need to do. 

"Oh."

"Also did you see a pretty white rock about this big?"

"Nope, did you leave it around here recently?"

"Yeah! I saw it but then this city got built here so I don't know where it is."

"If it was before the city I don't think it's going to be easy to find, sorry."

"I think I'm prolly a better finder than you, don't worry."

"Good luck with that, then."

"What's your name, anyway, little climb-and-paint-er?"

"Fika!"

Fika boops him on the nose with some paint and scrambles off.