Welcome to Gaia! ::

Luciana shrugged. "If you want to talk about where you're from. You can talk about whatever you like," she offered with a cheerful smile. She was curious to hear about where other people lived, how they lived. She wanted to be talked at. She missed discussions like this. She had been alone far too long.

((Sorry for the long response. I was on the phone with my uncle.))

((I think I shall jump in! I need help fleshing out this character a little more anyway.))

Aria stared at the phantom door standing in the middle of the street. She had been so focused on the noises behind her that she had walked straight into the thing. She stepped to the side, looking around the object and raising a fair eyebrow at the fact there was no building attached to it. She returned to the front of the door and, letting the urge get the better of her, opened the door as if it were attached to a building. She quickly pulled the door shut as she caught a glimpse of a room on the other side and heard voices coming through. If it weren't for the pounding foot steps coming up behind her, she would have left the door standing there.

Looking over her shoulder as the first soldier rounded the corner, she grabbed the door knob and hurried her way through. She unintentionally slammed the door behind her, but was too breathless to apologize at the exact moment.

She ran her fingers through her sandy colored hair, groaning as she pulled a twig from the wavy locks. She looked down at her dress. The white fabric caused the mud and dirt to pop out and the golden embroidery was coming apart. Fighting back the tears, she trudged over to the counter and asked for a glass of water. She wanted more to try and repair some of the damage done to her dress than drink the liquid.

For a few seconds Maggie only tapped her fingers on the bar. She still worried about boring Luciana, though if she really wanted to hear...

"I have a family," Maggie began. After a moment of thought, she added, "Sort of. It's just me and my mom." She paused, wondering how much detail Luca would want. Finally she settled on, "I don't see my dad much," as an explanation. "We live in just a normal neighborhood. Not too many other kids..." Maggie was already running out of ideas of what to talk about. "I go to school?" She offered just as another woman walked up on her other side. The woman looked as though she had just been rolling around in the woods. Under the dirt, she, too, was dressed very nicely. Maggie didn't want to stare, but she was worried about how the woman had ended up in such condition. She also had to remember that she was in the middle of a conversation.

With such a pitiful description of her life, Maggie tried to change the subject. "What about you?" She asked with a sheepish smile.

"My sister and I never went to school," Nyssa said. "We spent our childhood being lectured by a man our father hired to keep us in check. Papa was never around. At least Haavin taught us to read." She smirked. "Wasn't so bad, though. We had our own adventures."

The entrance of the woman in the white dress made her jump, and for a second she held her hand to her chest, feeling her heartbeat trip and stutter inside her ribcage. "Goodness," she murmured, unsure of what else she could say. The woman seemed pretty intensely focused on her dress.

"Anyway, Luca, this Shadowcaster... Is he magical?" Somehow, the topic was back and Nyssa didn't care as long as she was here. Here, whatever that meant, was isolated, cut off from Exos and all of its problems.

((I just thought I'd shove my way back in. :3))

((I love this place; I always learn so much!))

Nyssa patted the empty seat next to her, sure that nobody would mind. What could a little more company hurt?

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," She said. "It's just nice to see people coming in here. There's no need to apologise. I'm beginning to feel a little... odd." She turned to Luciana, but the question was a general one, "Do you think we'll be able to get back home easily? I'd not really thought about that before..."

"I'm Nyssa." She extended her hand. "This is Luciana - Luca - and, uh, Maggie." The young woman allowed a moment for the other girl to get comfortable, and then leaned over. "That's a real pretty dress you have there. I mean real pretty. I don't think I've seen anything like that, well, ever."

Nyssa didn't know what had come over her. Suddenly, being here, she was a different person. She was kind - and most weirdly of all, she meant what she said. At home, if Calista had worn a dress like that Nyssa would have worried what that would mean. She would have wondered what kind of trouble could be on the horizon and begun planning what she could tell Papa if he found out this time. She sighed, looking down at her own dress. It was an old thing; it had belonged to her mother once, although she never remembered seeing her in it. Papa never thought to order new frocks, and lately the girls had even resorted to digging through their mother's drawers to find kickers. If only Calista knew she were here...

"Great Mif!" Nyssa made an 'o' shape with her lips. "That sounds terrible. How on Exos did you manage to get away?" She rubbed at her arms, feeling a wave of geniune distress roll over her. Exos had done away with that kind of brutality centuries ago - or at least so she had learned. She shuddered. How could people be so callous?

Call it naivety, but Nyssa could never see herself getting into a scrape quite so alarming. All of these people made her glad that Calista was at least human - and a human girl at that. She was seventeen years old, and a pest to be sure, but never dangerous. Being here warned the young woman to count her blessings. The next time she and Calista were together, she would once again try to quell her sister's rebellion against their father's neglect. It would only create a mess that she couldn't get out of, after all; nothing good could ever come of it.

"It was purely by accident, actually. I was looking for my sister. Instead, I found this place." Nyssa shrugged. "Calista is always running off; she usually likes to spend her free time in the centre of town. You know, flirting with working boys and ordering expensive cocktails - only in the smaller places, though. Where the people don't know who she is. Most places won't serve her because they know our father wouldn't approve."

The girls' father was second generation Pastora nobility, meaning that the family had once been powerful. Then they had carelessly - or perhaps purposefully - allowed their immediate family to reach adolescence without reclaiming the title. Although still powerful, the Carson family now had standing only in Pastora proper. Nyssa sometimes hated her father for his pointless rebellion against the Regent and his daughter, and his refusal to reclaim their family title, but there was somewhere deep down inside her yelling that her anger was unfounded. What did it matter, anyway?