Welcome to Gaia! ::

When Fallon was little, one of the first coping mechanisms that she developed to battle her obsessive-compulsive disorder was writing. Not writing as in composing stories or poems, just practicing her handwriting. It stemmed from a school assignment that attempted to teach cursive script to a generation that would never actually need that knowledge beyond a signature. Sitting at her tiny desk in her bedroom, Fallon would trace the letters over and over and over until they were nearly identical. What differences that existed would not be noticeable to the average eye, though due to inconsistencies in the quality of the writing surface and tiny muscle twitches her hand, the letters were never quite perfect. It took her many years to achieve this muscle memory to get so close to a uniform script, and now as a 15-year-old, Fallon's handwriting looked like something that a computer might of printed out, not the true freehand of someone with a pulse.

Unfortunately, once she achieved this, it lost some of its helpfulness. Sure, it might calm her down to recopy a page from a book, or to do lines of cursive q's, but lately, Fallon was looking to expand her repertoire. So she left Crystal Academy that afternoon and headed to Ink & Pen, a small store in the boutique district that Fallon so loved. The man who owned the store often taught classes in calligraphy, and Fallon had signed up two weeks ago for a beginning lesson. She loved how calligraphy looked on paper, and the teenager knew she would get years of OCD distraction out of this new venture. Worth it? Most certainly.

Pushing open the door, Fallon slipped inside, the tinkle of a bell signaling her arrival. The store wasn't too busy. One or two people milled about near the collection of colored inks, and Fallon took a minute to check out some hand-pressed paper sitting in a rack by the door. She was a few minutes early for the class; she had time to kill. Thumbing through a stack of recycled paper stationary, Fallon lifted one package and slowly flipped through the pages, the musty scent of sandalwood filling her nose.

Fallon glanced to the door to see a teal-haired girl enter. Very pretty, especially the hair. Wait -- no. Not a girl. She shifted her weight slightly, hands frozen over a stationary set. Usually, Fallon could detect a female silhouette from miles away, but she had been distracted by this (as she could now see) boy's face and hadn't noticed at all that he was a, well, he. In all her years, she had never seen a more appealing male specimen. Too bad Fallon wasn't really a switch-hitter.

Drawn in by his general appearance and apparent cleanliness, Fallon felt herself drift toward where he perused the goods, a pleasant smile playing across her lips. "I'm sorry, but I must tell you. You have very beautiful hair," she said, sliding up beside him. Fallon was happy to give compliments to others when they deserved it, and if there was one thing Fallon could appreciate, it was a well-groomed individual. His outfit was nice too, very simple but paired together nicely. That afternoon, Fallon was wearing a typical casual outfit: a lilac belted A-line dress ending just above her knee with a pair of opaque tights, a structured gray jacket, and a pair of gray pumps. Her Star of David earrings dangled on each lobe, and a simple silver bracelet graced her left wrist.

Fallon kept smiling at the lovely boy, hands trailing idly over the selection of pens and paper displayed on the table.

When Howl spoke, Fallon only found him more appealing. She was a bit of a snob about grooming and manners. She believed that people from France and other European nations had more refinement than other parts of the world. The fact that he had an accent only made her smile widen. His compliments on her jewelry brought another smile. Fallon glanced down to her bracelet and touched at it. "Thank you," she said, slipping into the easy rhythm of expected polite behavior. It was not often that she met another person who could do this dance in time with her. Ah, how nice to meet someone else with an appreciation for these things. "I purchased this bracelet at a store two shops down. It's called The Gilded Leaf. I've seen sticks like those there inlaid with roses. A little pricey, but quite lovely." With a manicured hand, she gestured to the decorative sticks in his hair.

Her eyes fell to the goods on the table before them. There was a very lovely cream diary. Fallon fingered the cover while the boy spoke. "My name is Fallon," she said, extending her hand in greeting. If they were going to talk, then she certainly wanted to know the boy's name too. She wouldn't want to be called "miss" for too long. "I know a lot about the paper sold here, a bit less about the inks. The pens are so varied it is hard to be familiar with them all. They sell a variety of ball point pens near the back. The fountains they keep up here." She gestured to a case to the left of them. "The nicer calligraphy pens are kept in a locked case near the back classroom. I've just started getting into calligraphy. I'm actually here to take a class in the back." Each of her directions was accentuated by a hand gesture.

It wasn't hard for Fallon to memorize how stores organized themselves, especially stores she frequented often. If the boy described what the pen he wanted looked like, chances were Fallon would be able to find it, but she didn't want to volunteer that information. It showed too much about her OCD, more than she liked to share up front. She smiled again and waited for the boy to ask a more specific question.

When Howl took her hand, Fallon smiled. It was a bit odd to be kissed on the hand in greeting. It had happened to her several times in France with the older generation, but never in Destiny City and never with someone as young as Howl. My, my, he was very formal, not just polite. It never occurred to Fallon to share her last name. She wanted Howl to call her Fallon, and she was not going to call him Mister Wickham. Here, their particular brands of polite behavior diverted.

She brought her hand back to her side when he released it. "Nice to meet you too, Howl." When he turned the conversation back to the contents of the store, Fallon listened carefully, nodding her head. She had never used a traditional quill pen. It left her fingers completely ink-stained, which drove her crazy. "They sell quills, yes. They are over here," she said, leading the way to the opposite wall of the store. There was a large case hanging on the wall, probably meant to display fancy china but instead filled with a myriad of feather resting in clear glass jars. From where they had been standing before, a curtain had blocked the display from view.

With one hand, Fallon moved the curtain aside and gestured for Howl to pass through before her. Gender rules in common courtesy were somewhat lost on Fallon. Everyone should hold doors open for each other. Everyone should pay for the dinner sometimes. She hardly thought about what a "girl" should do. "They put the finer ones on top, and then each shelf is one of subsequent quality and rarity," she said, glancing around for the shop owner. Raphael was a kind man with salt-n-pepper hair and a lean build. He looked more like a model than a middle-aged shopowner. It made him hard to miss, which is just what Fallon did. "Hm, if you need more information, Raphael can help you. He owns the store. I don't see him wandering the floor, but I can check the classroom for you, if you'd like." The class started in a few minutes so he was probably just setting up and keeping an eye on the security camera.

Their brief conversation was quickly becoming a game of Follow the Leader, but Fallon didn't mind. Howl was pleasant and attractive, and with her passion for penmanship, Fallon could talk about Pen & Ink until her voice failed her. Briefly, her eyes graced the case, lingering on the more subdued feathers -- shades of gray-blue and muted mauve and sage green. Quills had never appealed to Fallon, too messy. Perhaps, though, they might make a lovely decoration for her writing desk? She pondered this as she began to move toward the back classroom, stepping around a bin of recycled paper scraps.

Fallon turned over her shoulder to smile at Howl. "It's just this way," she said, gesturing with her hand. The door was as nondescript as the rest of the store, just a simple brown fiberboard slab with a gold handle. Reaching out, Fallon twisted it and again held it open for Howl. From where she stood, she could hear Raphael talking, probably on his cellphone, but he had told her she could come early to the classroom. Raphael understood how Fallon needed to have extra time to organize her space.

When Fallon finally passed through the doorway, Raphael looked up -- at first with annoyance. Then he recognized Fallon, and it showed in the slumping of his shoulders, the casual wave of his hand. He went back to his phone conversation, which seemed to be happening in another language. Not French, unfortunately. Portuguese. The classroom was composed of a large square of desks all gathered around a center table. Blank parchment sat in a stack on a shelf on the far side of the room. A projector whirred lazily in the background, but the screen was not pulled down. The empty inkwells sat unwashed beside a sink on the far wall. It was ten minutes until the class, but nothing looked set up.

Confusion crossed Fallon's face, and Raphael spotted it. He crossed the room in a few long strides, cupping his hand over his cellphone. "Allo, Fallon," he said, giving her a quick kiss on either side of her face. "So sorry. My mother is being... difficult." From where Howl and Fallon stood, the screaming voice of an angry woman was clearly audible on the other end of the phone. Raphael smiled apologetically, then rolled his eyes. His gaze flickered briefly to Howl, a much larger smile crossing his features. "I will have to meet this lovely friend of yours when I have the time to be polite," he said, not glancing over to Fallon. "Should be a few minutes." On the other end of the phone, the woman's voice made an angry sound. "Maybe more." Raphael looked flushed, pink spots visible on the part of his chest his button-down left exposed.

"Do you need help with the classroom?" Fallon asked, waving a hand at the bare desk and ink-less pots.

Raphael's face lit up, but then his mother shouted again and the smile vanished. "Oh, yes please, Fallon. You know where it all goes?" Fallon nodded. She had never taken the class before, but in her conversations with Raphael about paper and Europe, she often followed him around the store, many times ending up in the back classroom. She knew how he set things out by heart, and if she made a change here or there.... well, it was only for the better.

In a flash, Raphael disappeared to the other side of the room, opening an identical door to the one they had just passed through and shutting it behind himself. Fallon turned to Howl. "His office," she explained, gesturing to the other door. "My apologies, Raphael is a very frazzled man, but very kind. If he said he will be back in a few minutes, he will be back, I promise. Can you wait that long?" The smile returned to her face, but her eyes kept straying to the wall of supplies. Her mind was fast at work. What would she do first? The inks? Clean the pens? The paper? It was an organization-enthusiast's dream!

Howl was very agreeable, Fallon's favorite characteristic in another person. Excellent. He would make this very easy. She smiled again, touching at the edge of her blouse. "Thank you, Howl," she said, crossing immediately to the stack of parchment. Slim hands organized the pile into a neat group. Fallon walked around the circle of desks, placing three sheets in front of each chair. She stopped every so often to go back and readjust the sheets, tapping at each edge until it reached some indiscernible "right" spot.

"Do you attend school in the area?" Fallon asked, hands still moving over the paper. It was nice to have a little company while she prepared, especially a polite, charming, attractive boy. Her day was certainly getting better. After she doled out all the parchment, Fallon moved back to the supply shelf, grabbing the appropriate number of ink wells. Raphael usually had them clean, but Fallon's mouth pricked with displeasure to see some lingering stains. There was a sink in the far corner, stuffed into an alcove created by the perimeter of Raphael's office. She brought the inkwells there and began to methodically wash them.

It did not pass Fallon's attention that Howl had deftly skirted a direct answer. Oh well, he likely had his reasons. Fallon was not the type to pry unless she had some kind of personal investment in the information, which she didn't. Besides, she wasn't big on discussing the whole history of her schooling either, namely the massive chunk of memory loss known as Barren Pines. To most people, she simply said she used to live in France, but now attended Crystal Academy. It was true; it simply left out an entire period of her life.

Slipping her fingers into the inkwell she held, Fallon retrieved the white cloth she was using to dry it. There were vague stains of ink, but a white cloth was necessary to assess how total her cleansing had been. Stacking the cleaned inkwells on the ledge with a series of light clicks, Fallon followed the new path in the conversation that Howl had forged. "Oh, where are you from? I am relatively new to Destiny City as well. I was born here, but I moved with my parents to France for most of my life. I only just returned to attend school here," she said, shooting a polite smile in his direction.

Speaking of France in general made Fallon's heart lift. It was her adopted home, and she wore it with a sense of elitist superiority that made her love it even more. When Howl complimented both her country and her manners, Fallon paused in her meticulous cleaning and turned to offer him a soft smile. "Thank you so much, Howl. I must say your manners outshine mine, but I often forget what it is like to be around someone with the same sense of order in interaction." Maybe Howl didn't look at manners as Fallon did, but in her eyes, Howl's adherence to form was an appreciation for order above all else. What could be greater than an ordered universe?

When Howl spoke of his own heritage, Fallon could not hide her smile. "I've visited England. Only London though. I wish I had a chance to see the countryside," she said, lifting another inkwell. Despite living so close, her parents were not happy about traveling, and they did very little of it. The trip to London was through her school, but she enjoyed the crowded streets, the perfectly organized lines of rowhouses. "I never picked up the accent, though I can certainly impersonate one quite well. We didn't move until I was a bit older." Fallon was sad about that, but she didn't reflect it.

Fallon turned back to the sink and resumed her washing. Who was it that Howl had met? Fallon wasn't certain how many French imports lived in Destiny City, especially ones their own age. Just as the thought crossed her mind, Howl voiced it aloud. They were certainly on the same wavelength. "My mother tells me there is a decent-sized population of French families here. After all, that is how she met my father," Fallon began, drying the last of the inkwells. She lifted them neatly into her arms and crossed back to the supply shelf. "Personally, I know a girl named Pierrette. Very lovely girl, especially for her age." Fallon was only a few years older than Pierrette, but she spoke as if that time was a decade. Thinking of Pierrette brought back memories of Barren Pines, but Fallon held up her carefully constructed mask of pleasant ambivalence in front of Howl. She hadn't spoken to Pierrette since the whole incident, but from the list Imogen gave her, she knew the girl was alive. "Why do you ask?" Fallon set the inkwells in a row and began to search for the jar of ink.