The Looking Glass Book Store

[Draconia St George]

"Do hexcuse me!" Draconia pardoned herself from her friends. She'd spotted a familiar face walking in...

"Essi!" Draconia greeted the new ghoul. "'Ello! You found the Looking Glass! Are there any books I can help you find?"

Draconia checked the clock...plenty of time before she had to get ready for her date.  

[Estrella Espacio]

Essi had found herself scanning the books. She even found an out of date constellation encyclopedia! Well, she started reading it then found out. Picky much? Oh! The nice golden ghoul from earlier!
"Greetings miss Draconia!" Essi smiled. "Any books?...." Confused Essi face.
"Ahh well...I truthfully somehow managed to get lost and ended up here...if you'd like, perhaps some book recommendations you could give me?" "Perhaps some help-...." Interrupted by who Essi could only assume was a worker, handed her a 'Self Help: Anger Management for Mummies!' book.
"Not what I had in mind but thank you!" Looking at the cover reminded her....
She took out her gift list. 'Lin McGearlock' had a question mark next to it.
"Miss Draconia...do you by chance know this Boo?" Essi hopeful face.
 

[Draconia St George]

Estrella Espacio

"Miss Draconia...do you by chance know this Boo?" Essi hopeful face.

"Lin! Of course I do!" Draconia nodded. "We actually went on a date last week. It went...well, it was certainly interesting. Giant-mecha-at-the-ice-scream-shoppe interesting."

Draconia wondered what happened to that mecha-suit Lin had kludged out of bathroom parts.

"At any rate, we decided just to remain friends. Are you his Secret Santa Claws? What are you going to get him?"  

[Shadeaux D Gloom]

Melody Nocturna

She twiddled her thumbs, "So, erm, is your head alright? It seems you had a nasty fall," she kept her head down to hide her eyes changing a multitude of colors, it always happened when she was nervous.

"Hm? Oh you mean this?"

Shad pointed casually to the bump on his noggin' and waved it off.

"Nah. I just did that when I walked into that book case over there ... then when my head hit that counter over there ... and I fell down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night when my feet got tangled in my sack...."

Shad stared at her for a moment through his dark shades and he sighed to himself.

"Smooth, daddy-o. There went your cool points just FLYING out the window!"  

[Estrella Espacio]

Draconia St George

"Mecha....what?" Essi shook it off. Not important to this situation...she thinks..
"Well I had planned on baking something but I'm not sure he'll accept it..." Flashback to his distrust of her. That dense boo Harry had the brains of a lima bean. He should have told Miss Draconia by now! If only she could 'butt into affairs' like some monsters. Didn't she have a date with Herne too? One should never base a relationship/start with lies!! ~~
 

[Melody Nocturna]

Shadeaux D Gloom

"Smooth, daddy-o. There went your cool points just FLYING out the window!"

Melody gave a small giggle, "I understand, I'm quite clumsy myself, I can't count how many times I've had my hands too full and fallen over the smallest thing."

Hm, this was going better than she thought.

She played with the ends of her hair, before clearing her throat to shoo away the awkward silence that began soon after, "So, um, can I say something? I know this will sound very odd but..."

She slowly raised her head letting her multitude of eye colors show, "Um, well," she let her face slowly grow red, "When you lost your glasses in the creepeteria..ahem," she was trying to cut to the chase as best as she could, "I caught a glimpse of your eyes and I thought they looked..um..very nice," she caught herself, "b-but not in an odd way! Like very pretty, well um, not pretty. I mean handsome, er, well what I'm trying to say is,"

She covered her face in embarrassment, "Oh ghoul I'm not very good at this.."

Oh ghoul, if she could swim away from the sea of awkwardness she just created she would have swam miles already.  

[Necrolin Rosin Ni Blue]

A black slithery portal then appearifies right behind Estrella.

Estrella Espacio

Nekki practically shoots out of the apendage-y portal and trips into Estrella, teary eyed. "I'm.... I'm s-sorry...!"  

[Shadeaux D Gloom]

Melody Nocturna

Shad slipped his beret from his head and reached back to give his scalp a scratch when Melody complimented him on his eyes -- annnnnd he froze. A ghoul thought his eyes were pretty? Better still, MELODY thought his eyes were pretty! r attractive ... handsome? Whatever! That's a good thing, right!? He'd just have to assume so because she was the first person aside from his beastie to really get a look at them, so he had to assume...

His cheeks flushing, which looked odd on a boo with ghastly grayish-blue skin.

"Y-you, uh... seem to be doing a wiggy job. And... well, I like your orbs too. Especially when they change colors ... yeah like that! Whoa... trippy."

He cleared his throat and slipped the beret back on his noggin, then began to fidget.

"So you... well, we kinda got our time split before you could... are you going to the Lamia chick's Winter ball?"  

[Gryff N]

Gryff was fidgeting as he walked into the Looking Glass. His perpetual sneer kept curling and uncurling, his talons flexing. Why had he agreed to take part in this archaic gift giving ritual? It was just a bastardization of an appropriated howliday anyway!

Nevertheless, he'd agreed to participate and that meant he had to procure a gift for the...person. Assuming they could read. Gryff wasn't entirely hopeful on that. Maybe there were picture books.

He scanned the room impatiently, peeking around shelves. The sack man was there (sense of style: acceptable), speaking to the purple ghoul. They wore not quite matching shades of aubergine and eggplant. He rolled his eyes. Matching outfits? How typical.

He smelled the thin tin fizzle of magic in the air, it also smelled vaguely like stale cupcakes. Probably portals then. What an awful lot of people. At least a few still appreciated the value of a book. Well probably, unless they were also here for pictures books, which they probably were. He had to hurry before too many people started patronizing this establishment.

There, in the corner he spotted Draconia with two whoevers. Gryff hasn't seen them before but that wasn't unusual. Most monsters were beneath his notice.

Draconia St George

"Draconia! I need to know where your simplest picture books are. Preferably not too many lines. I don't want to confuse my..." he shuddered "secret Santa."  

[Draconia St George]

"Oh dear!" Draconia helped Essi and Nekki up after their tumble. Such accidents were always likely to happen when one dealt with portals. "Are you all fright?"

The opportunity to talk to Essi about Lin was lost as Gryff came up to the trio of ghouls, utterly ignoring the plight of Essi and Nekki - which was typical for Gryff.

"Oh, Ello, Gryff!" Draconia greeted him, and politely introduced the two ghouls she was with. "This is Estrella Espacio and...I'm sorry, I thought I overheard yesterday your name was Necra?"

Gryff was not to be distracted with the pleasantries of introductions, though, and Draconia quickly found herself led away as Gryff asked to be led to 'simple picture books.'

"Picture books?" Draconia wasn't quite sure what was more fangtastical - the fact that Gryff was asking to be shown something instead of just harumph-ing his way through the store like usual, the fact that he was buying for somemonster besides himself, or the fact that somehow he'd been coerced into joining the Secret Santa Claws hexchange. "Who...who are you buying for? If I may ask, of course."

Draconia didn't want to damage the sanctity of Secret Santa Claws!

"Whatsisname. The bro." Gryff waved a hand dismissively. Draconia scratched her head.

"Heath?"

"Ugh. NO. The OTHER bro."

"Nero?"

"The OTHER OTHER bro."

"Manny? Deuce? Clawd? Chase?" Draconia rattled off names of mansters that might fit under the 'bro' classification. Gryff snapped a claw at the last name.

"Chase. Yes, that's the one. I'm thinking something simple. No words. Bright colors and shapes. Maybe with rounded corners." Draconia tried to shrug off the edge of scorn in Gryff's voice. He was TRYING to do something nice, after all! Draconia put on her smile.

"While we do have a few books like that, they're mostly for hatchlings or baby monsters. And Chase may be a bit....'bro,' but he's, dare I say, a bit more grimtellectually advanced than a baby. In fact, he and I were in Advanced Dragonomics together this last Scaremester. He's incredibly good with money and finances. It comes of living the simple life on his family's farm."

"Farm? Is it goreganic?" Gryff automatically asked. "Free trade, no pesticides? GMO free? Small batches? Sustainable?"

"Of corpse!" Draconia answered. "Dare I even say, some of the strains of crops they grow are...artisinal."

THAT rated an eyebrow raise from Gryff. Was it possible that he would look at Chase in a new light?  

[Melody Nocturna]

Melody covered her eyes in embarrassment, "Oh! I'm sorry, it always happens when I'm nervous!" She explained feeling her cheeks grow redder.

Shadeaux D Gloom

"So you... well, we kinda got our time split before you could... are you going to the Lamia chick's Winter ball?"

"Oh, yes," she tried to shake off her shyness as best as she could, "that was what I was trying to talk to you about but never seemed to get a chance to do so...." she bit her lip, "so....,"

She just had to let it out.

"I had Draconia tell me when you were coming to the store so...we could have a chance to talk about it," she pulled on her sleeves, "i'm sorry if that sounded odd. I just really wanted to talk to you..."  

[Shadeaux D Gloom]

Melody Nocturna

Despite his nervousness and level of discomfort over trying to ask a cool werekitten out, that particular confession caused the sack Boo to break out into a smile. And had she been able to see behind his shades, Melody would have seen Shad's eyes flash temporscarily all-black -- a sign amongst his kind of happiness.

"You did, huh? Hm, how very clandestine!" The flush to his cheeks a match for her own. "And it worked! Here we are!" He held his arms out, motioning between them. "Having our very own!"

Shad shifted his hands into his pockets and started to fidget, kicking an imaginary pebble with his shoe.

"Soooo! Since we were totally on the rail, and I don't want to be on a solo flight at this swingin' trip, and I bet a slick werekitten like you doesn't either ... and I'd sure like to wail with a total mazda... I guess I gotta ask... I mean I want... well..."

Gryff sighed from where he was looking over some merchandise with Draconia's assistance, just around the corner from where he could easily overhear Shad's nervous rambling. He leaned back aeound the book case to frown (duh!) between the two...

"Oh for... He is attempting in his own inept way to ask you out. On a date."

And stepped back just as easily, laving Shad and Melody staring after him. Shad turned his head slowly to the ghoul of his screams and pointed in his direction.

"What he said."  

[Melody Nocturna]

Shadeaux D Gloom

Melody felt herself glow a deep red, and her eyes fall into a deep shade of pink, the deepest they had ever been. All that was in their pastel sea sight was Shad waiting nervously for her response.

She looked down at her shifting feet and smiled placing her hands firmly on her lap, "Oh, wow, well....yes," she looked back up shyly, "I'd very much like that."

Finally she had managed to say yes after all her time of waiting. She said yes.  

[Estrella Espacio]

Essi might or not...she did, Nekkis' fiddling with her body knocked her out cold. She couldn't hear Draconia calling her or anything. It was very quiet. Which was ironic since she was in a bookstore.
"Where...did I get sent now?" Mentally drifting somewhere....quite necessary to return to her host body...before....
"Wake up you fool....it doesn't make a lick of sense to let ONE MONSTER..."
"Silence...oh! There it is!"
Dream sequence over. Essi woke up...her shimmery body took a minute to...well..be starry again. Not long enough to notice without blinking.
She saw Nekki staring at her.
"Good evening..." She muttered out nervously..~  

[Necrolin Rosin Ni Blue]

Nekki lifts herself up from her smooshed victim. Face turning paler than ever, her eyes begin to well up with dusty tears as her dry lips quiver. She was right about to break down in tears... Right on top of Estrella. "I'm..." she murmurs, "I'm... sorry...!"

Due to her otherwise dead voice, her sobs sound more like rasps, kind of like a dying golem. "Uahhh...! Sniffle..."

Her mind amok, Nekki flops her fishy body on to the poor Estrella and hugs her, tears running dust everywhere. "Agghhh..."

Estrella Espacio