Welcome to Gaia! ::

Mai was meandering aimlessly about the school grounds, partly to get accustomed to her new surroundings, partly to peep at all the interesting students milling about. She hadn't really paid too much attention during orientation.. the press of warm living bodies was far too distracting. It certainly couldn't be her fault that she was smooshed up against someone when there were just so many people right? She sighed happily in remembrance. It was really quite saddening when everyone began to disperse and she couldn't decide on which body to 'casually' follow out of the auditorium. Tragic.

Oh well. So what if she probably missed the important stuff. She was sure she would figure the school thing out as she went along, and if not.. well she would deal with it later.

She was floating along when she passed a feathered boy carrying a sizable stack of books. His warmth was attractive, but what else caught her eye as she moved past were the tail feathers swishing behind him. One was kinked and a bit singed, and for some reason she was infernally distracted by it.

Turning suddenly, she began to quietly waft behind him. Reaching out and with a determined look to her face, she boldly attempted to groom his mussed tail.

Mai peered up at him from her slightly hunched over position, his damaged tail feather held delicately between her fingers. After a pause that was probably uncomfortably long, she gave him a lazy smile.

"Oh, hello," she said warmly.

She held his gaze for another long moment. Then she returned her attention to his tail and began to work at the abused plume again.

Well, botheration. She couldn't do much about the slight scorching, but at least she managed to straighten out the kinks a bit and smooth the barbs so that the burn wasn't so very noticeable.

She lifted her face again when he spoke. "Pachua," she repeated mildly, staring at him a bit to fix his face in her mind (she was so bad with names!). "No, I don't believe I need assistance right this moment." Mai gave him another languid smile as she straightened herself. Standing, she was just a few inches taller than he was, though without her heels they would have been about even.

"You have such a gorgeous tail, Pachua," she remarked, her smile widening to show that it was a little crooked under the seal that partly obscured her face. "And... you can call me Mai if you like." Before giving him a chance to respond, she stepped casually forward and draped her arms over his shoulders and leaned into his back as if they had known eachother for ages. She rested her chin on his shoulder and added, "It's so wonderful to meet you."

She certainly was sunning herself. Or at least, something remotely like that. Pachua's body heat was marvelous, and Mai soaked it up happily, unmindful of the fact that her cold was probably seeping into him as well. She was pleased that he didn't immediately hurl her off and throw a nasty fit (like the two students she did this to earlier had done). It was certainly her lucky day to find someone like him on her first day of roaming about, lucky lucky.

"I ammm," she said slowly, in response to Pachua's question. "We're in the same year, then?" Mai blew a puff of chilled breath on the air. "Maybe we'll have some of the same classes," she mused, her lidded gaze following the other students who were walking by, staring right back at the as they peered curiously at the pair.

A small wisp of semi-transparent bluish fire floated into their vicinity at that moment and circled lazily about them a few times. After a third rotation, the wisp floated over to Pachua's books, as if it were trying to make out the names on the spines.

"Oh," Mai said realizing she was probably starting to make him uncomfortable with the chill coming off her. She gave herself a mental kick for lapsing on her manners so soon in the school year. For the third time.

"Thank youuu," she said, her voice echoing a bit, "but the shawl wouldn't help." She was somewhat bewildered that he would even offer it to her in the first place... was it a cursed shawl maybe? Did monsters have those kinds of things? She was pretty sure he was a monster anyway.

With a regretful sigh, she let herself become incorporeal for a moment and fell slowly forward through Pachua. The wisps of her indistinct form flowed about him in a cloud for several moments before she re-solidified, standing in front of him now and facing him fully. "But thank you for sharing with me," Mai said, offering another crooked smile. "Youuu living things are usually so stingy with your body heeat."

She eyed him more attentively now that she'd had her fill of warming herself. She liked his coloring. "Hooow did you hurt your tail anyway..?"

Mai made a twitch that was probably a lazy ghost version of a laugh as Pachua rambled on.

"Sunning," she said, tilting her head to see him better around the piece of parchment stuck to her face. "Youu would let me join you for that?" She thought for a moment. "Willll your mentor be there? Is he also waarm like you? What is he like?" She blinked slowly, almost losing her train of thought. "Is that why you wrapped him up, to sun together?" Mai found the idea of a sunning "pile" to be absolutely scintillating.

"I've heard of Quetzalcoatls," she remarked, reaching forward to touch one of the scales on Pachua's neck curiously. "I thought they would be colder... serpentss and all."

Meanwhile the ghostly little flame wisp seemed to glow appreciatively at being afforded a better view at the books. It hovered close, its bright core of flame churning lazily.

Well he certainly was adorable, Mai thought with something like a mental purr. And willing to let her mooch some of his body heat to boot! She wondered if he would still feel that way after a week of her following him around at all hours.

"Demon," she said, interested. "I would like to meet himmm some time. Do all of the first years get Mentors? I haven't been offered anything like that." Though admittedly, she probably wouldn't have noticed it if it were mentioned in the enrollment paperwork anywhere.

Her mind backtracked, as it often did. A bit of a habit she developed since she had a tendency to overlook things. It was handy for her own devices, but it usually threw people off when talking to her, since she often jumped subjects out of the blue. "Whooo stuffed you in a locker?" She asked, her eyes going a bit wide.