Welcome to Gaia! ::

Location: Gambino Aquarium (downtown branch)
Time of day: Late afternoon
People involved: Mouse, Ravi


One would normally not want to be anywhere near a building that's constructed mostly of glass that contains thousands of gallons of water, but throw in a few tropical marine animals and suddenly that place is much more than a constant drowning hazard waiting to happen. This aquarium had just seen a large number of visitors - the school year was just beginning, and many lucky children had started it by visiting the educational attraction. The last few streams of people from various schools were just filtering out the building into the Gambino-face-emblazoned buses that would cart them back to entirely less appealing places.

A handful of dawdlers remained now: besides the aquarium staff cleaning up paper plates and gum wrappers littering the tile floors, there was the occasional college student or marine biologist sauntering between exhibits pretending they were doing something important. A few eccentric couples and families could also be seen, thinking of this for some reason as a fantastic place to have a date or family outing - those poor, misguided souls.

Still other people remained: these were mostly the weirdos who just enjoyed looking at fish and pressing the audio buttons that would send a crackling, too-loud androgynous voice across the exhibit, coolly explaining the habits of some random organism that could be observed beyond the glass. Amongst these individuals was a short, green-clad girl, a small jar tucked under one arm and her soul bottle hooked into one of her belt loops. Her free arm was rested against one of the guard rails that separated the visitors from the aquarium; it seemed that she was intently watching some bottom-dwellers glide and wriggle across the and pebbles with muted interest as an audio box nearby spoke of chambered nautili that could be viewed above.

If Mouse were to hear those complaints going on in Ravi's head, she wouldn't be so sure that there should be that much guilt involved in them. To bestow a soul upon new life was no laughing matter - even though this was all scientific research and that left room for mistakes, she felt the pressure to try and find the most suitable one she could think of. She had been here all day combing through the exhibits and trying to find ideas, thinking that her knowledge of marine life could somehow spur her towards the right direction. Alas, too many hours were spent listlessly watching jellyfish bob across the artificial ocean.

This entire day was going to be marked down in her book as 'counterproductive' and 'a waste of time'. Her lack of inspiration was making her feel particularly forlorn-

"Aagh!" was the cry that harmonized eerily with the taller man's "Oof!", and the jar she was holding fell from her grasp, and her brain suddenly alighted with panic as her hands scrambled to catch it. Fingertips brushed its surface and juggled it inches above the floor until a lucky maneuver landed the container square on one of her palms. She shuddered back to a standing position, quickly regaining her composure... the jar, however, seemed at first to be full of vapor, but after recovering from the trauma it condensed back into a tiny cloud. A soft and oddly sad patter of rain could be heard from within.

"Hmm...? Oh... I do, yeah," she quickly answers, glancing at the soul bottle the man's eyes had locked onto. "Well... not yet... have to fill up that thing and wait a while first." The woman chuckles a bit, though it seems a bit lacking in good spirits. Tucking her fel essence into the crook of her elbow, she asks, "So, then. Unless I misheard your question, where's yours?"

"Oh-- the name's Mouse, by the way."

"Ah, coincidences like this happen," Mouse replies with a small, dismissive gesture of a hand. "Maybe it'll make things a little easier somehow-- two heads, and all that. Nice to meet you, then," she says decisively, bringing out her own hand for a polite shake. And, with the introducing out of the way, she sympathized, "I'm not making much progress either, so I guess we're pretty much in the same boat in that regard. You think the ocean would be diverse enough... but it's not." Her eyes cast meaningfully towards the constructed abyss they're standing by. Dozens of sea creatures went on with their lives, none having the appeal either were looking for.

Holding out her jar so Ravi could see it more clearly, she chipperly said, "Yup! It was sent to me by mail a few weeks ago." Mouse briefly paused as the taller man dug through his pockets, trying to regather her thoughts on the sullen cloud the jar was holding. "It's... a Cloud of Despair. You know, like the kind of cloud that's said to hover over depressed people? This one was right over Doctor Kyou's head for a while until he contained it. He gave me a story behind how that happened, actually..."

And her monologue ceased as she noticed the vial that Ravi had produced. She had never seen another fel essence before, and this opportunity made her heart leap with newfound excitement and wonder. "Mistletoe?" she parroted, adjusting her glasses a bit in the universal gesture of analysis, leaning forward a little bit to get a better look. That's definitely what it was; even the most total of recluses would be able to recognize that tiny sprig of leaves anywhere. For some it meant hope and budding romance. For others, it was the object of unimaginable nightmares and a symbol of how a situation could suddenly get really, really awkward.

As she peered ever closer towards the vial and its contents, she asked Ravi, "What makes it unusual enough to be a fel essence, then?"

"No kidding, you have to wonder... as well as what else he has." Mouse grins at the comment about Doctor Kyou. At his own explanation, the girl's smart enough to pull herself back a few inches, even though right then it was a bit... difficult... for some reason. "It... forces you? Wow, I bet our friend from the Lab has an interesting story behind that one, too..." And there her thoughts went, wondering how that one was found. Her mind responded by feeding her a picture of Dr. Kyou finding a small amount of people latched like suckerfish to the branches of a mistletoe-infested tree.

Oh, yes... indifference, aloofness, and general apathy towards romance seemed to make either of them more difficult to persuade, even by corrupted magical force emanating from a common Christmas decoration. Though she wasn't about to admit it to herself, however, Mouse was feeling a slight tug from the Forceful Mistletoe that was gradually getting stronger the longer it was out in the open like that. She wasn't about to try and jump the short height probably needed to reach that odd goal or shoot out and arm to try and pull him down, but that hard-to-ignore -feeling- was there. It fed her imagination deceptively pleasant images that she was trying to beat down with loud internal noise.

It's just the FEL ESSENCE, you're NOT going to screw things up!

The Cloud of Despair thundered irately, and seemed to start producing more rain - the sound was a bit like a faucet being turned on at full blast. At the same time those inexplicable urges given by Ravi's fel essence began to warp and corrode, making Mouse feel a powerful sense of longing. She felt lonely and full of unrequited feelings, and the thought of bringing them out or acting on them felt more futile than trying to bring down a brick wall with water balloons. Her face reddened slightly as she backed off a few inches more, saying "I think I should keep a distance from that." in an uncharacteristically remorse tone.

Kyou must indeed have gone through a lot to get these fel essences, and some day he would probably be asked to give accounts on all of them. However, he wasn't at the aquarium at that moment, so that would have to wait for another day. The cloud continued its tiny downpour, darkening slightly in color and casting flickering shadows onto Mouse's increasingly lifeless hands. It was easy to imagine that the fel essence was somehow enjoying this, even though clouds weren't supposed to think or feel... then again, it definitely wasn't an ordinary cloud.

A handful of seconds floated through the aquarium before the girl gave a response. "I can't exactly fit this in my pocket." And it's true; the jar wasn't conveniently small and slim like the vial that Ravi's mistletoe was kept in. Looking around morosely for other options, her eyes found a smattering of tables down the hallway. "Oh, right, the food court," she muttered, pointing listlessly. "I could put this thing down... get some fish and chips, we could... exchange ideas? For souls?"

The petite woman hasn't burst into tears just yet. Her composure was waning just as quickly as it had with the mistletoe, however, though with this the effect was almost completely the opposite. A bit of latent power from the other essence made her feel something akin to lovesickness, and she adds, "That is, if you think I can help you at all." And not waiting for an answer, she shuffled over to the table closest to the entrance, quick to carefully set the bottle down.

"Oh... thanks. I'll owe you for that." Coffee sounded like a good idea, maybe some hot caffeine would help straighten things out in Mouse's current state of mind. Setting the jar down on the table and out of her hands cleared things up a bit, but she was still glowering a bit as Ravi returned with the coffee tray - she was shaking her head a bit, abruptly striking her forehead with a palm in the effort to get some gears loose. "Sorry about that," she said with a small smirk, grabbing her cup and beginning to dump cream and sugar into it without remorse. "I had no idea something like that would happen... thought it had to be over your head to work. Next time I'll be more careful, and maybe wear a pair of gloves."

She continued to add more condiments to her coffee as Ravi talked about what was going on with his situation; if it kept going on the way it was, it risked ending up as white coffee before long enough. "Endless possibilities can do that to a person," she began. "I'm starting to wonder if it would have been better to just be told what soul to catch. I've been drawing a blank since I got mailed this thing." The soul bottle was freed from her waist and held contemplatively in her hand for a moment as she tried a taste of her drink. Nope... still a bit too bitter. More cream and sugar was stirred in as the indecisiveness both of them were having remained.

"Well... at least we know that we're not looking for something from the ocean?"

A zoo. The thought was strangely amusing, causing Mouse's mood to swing back into its normal default as she chuckled quietly at the idea. "Now, there's a thought. I'd probably end up getting angry at the stupid kids who throw popcorn and soda cans at the animals instead of making any progress." Not to mention she couldn't stand those places since they could get so depressing... it was, however, an intriguing idea. "You have a good point, though... I've probably seen every animal you can find at a zoo in the books I've been looking at, but it's always better to see the real thing up close." It wasn't that books made everything mundane, per se, but they only showed the parts of the world that could be described in words and pictures. Photographs and colorful description... not even the greatest of poets and painters can perfectly emulate life. Or so this person sitting across from Ravi believed.

"Who knows... the soul you find might not be the right one just because it's a certain creature that fits with the essence." After all, animals can be just as different as people-- anyone who has had a pet and cared for it knows that. To give something for her fingers do while she thought, Mouse had begun to tear the empty sugar and cream packets littered on the table into tinier and tinier shreds. Soon there was an accumulating pile of little paper triangles as she suggested, "Maybe we should try and approach the problem differently, it'll take forever to narrow things down one by one like we seem to be doing... not to mention how some people've used paranormal or mythical beings." Sure, the visit to the aquarium had knocked dozens of classes of animals and plants off of her list, but to go through the entire process like this? That was just ridiculous. At least she knew personally that she didn't want something fancy like a... dragon, or a fairy, or whatever in that area she could find. Giving that much inherent power to a Raevan who would clearly be emotion-based just sounded like a bad idea.

Well, then, what could a different approach be? "Instead of thinking about what soul you're looking for... maybe we should ask ourselves what we're looking for in a soul."

Mouse's brow wrinkled with concern at the sound of Ravi's little gasp of realization - she hadn't been paying attention to what he was doing, so didn't immediately associate it with what she had said. Whether it was out of humility, arrogance, or pure obliviousness, she didn't think making a suggestion like that would spark such a reaction. So when she looked up to face him again, the girl was half-planning to make a remark about how the coffee was still strangely hot or bitter. That idea stopped when she saw that he was thinking, and then he wryly posed her a question.

"Let me think... I don't want it to be something fierce, that would be a mess... same thing with something that's too docile. Fear can be just as dangerous as anger," she pondered, looking thoughtfully at the contained raincloud on the table. This was the first time she'd approached the problem from this angle too, so it took her a while to piece together an answer: "I think I need something rational on top of everything else."

With a daring little smile, she then said, "Now it's your turn, if I can impose."