Welcome to Gaia! ::

The room chosen for the party had been decorated in hearts of red and white; there was a point in this, for in fact, the room was void completely of pink. Tiny red lights seemed to be floating over the tables; round and bright. The tables themselves were rectangular in shape and made to sit several people; there were four round tables in the corners of the room. Clearly someone had intended these to be for couples. Vases of thornless roses (or where they lisianthus?) adorned each, brightly colored and--were some of them changing? The edges of the petals seemed to darken into shades of blues and purples that complimented the reds and crimsons of the flowers.

Soft music played in the background, soft enough that one could hardly discern what it was. At times it sounded classical, at others it sounded like pop; perhaps it depended on the listener’s taste as to what they heard. Candles had been placed on the round tables, and though the flames flickered and moved with the slightest breath, no heat radiated from them.

Along one wall were several long tables, which had not only been ridiculously decorated with hearts and what looked like live, tiny cherubs clothed in red drapes and floating above the tables; they were filled with food. Heart shaped cupcakes, brownies with red and white heart shaped sprinkles; and then came the main course. Howl was a firm believer in dessert before dinner; and he was hosting it. Beyond the tables of food and seating, there were games. Plastic arrows with a poorly designed target; beanbag toss, a game with balloons you had to sit on to find out what was inside--a prize ticket, usually. Candy and heart shaped confetti were also laying in wake within the balloons.

Howl was wearing--almost exactly what he had worn last year. There were very few differences. He was wearing a red and white satin suit; he had made it quite clear that pink was a color to be hated, and would not be caught dead in it after the mishap with a certain mage. Heart shaped silver buttons lined the suit in a fashionable way. It was a nice effect, with the black slacks beneath it. To top his ensemble off, he was wearing his signature sunny smile. This year, however, the wizard wasn’t intending to flirt with every girl who entered the building. In fact, this year, he had something more important to do. His hand was in his jacket pocket, and he seemed to be fumbling with something square shaped.

Beside him were his two cousins, Samantha and Reiya. Both had seemingly followed his example of not wearing pink. Sammi was dressed modestly--sort of. She wore a thinly strapped dress, red at the top and as it went down to her knees, it faded to white. There was a rose petal pattern near the bottom.

Reiya had opted for darker colors. Valentines, she figured, was not a day to be celebrated. It was commercialized, it was abused. People used it to waste money on others; if someone truly cared about another person, why did they feel the need to purchase items to win their love? Wasn’t love based on trust? She was wearing a crimson short dress that reached barely past her hips with black leggings underneath.

"Mama!! Mama we gonna be late!!" A tiny body bounced around on the couch behind his mother, his normal attire changed into the more official of his clothes, and he had gone from looking like a little marshmellow, to a rather neat looking choir boy. his taste in fashion bothered his mother just a tiny bit, but... Well, you like what you like, right? Even if you look like you just came out of the 9th century.

"Yes sweetie, I know. I'm all ready now." She turned around, revealing her new look to her little baby, who oohh'ed and ah'ed over her. Instead of her normally short hair, she had grown it out since the time she had decided to go reclusive, as well as having let her ears started to show. It no longer bothered her that they were pointed and awkwardly shaped. Especially since her baby seemed to find it beyond entertaining to tug at it. She had also changed to wearing dresses once more, and for tonights event, she had chosen to wear a rather... Slender fitting lavender evening dress, showing off the curves she was slowly, but surely gathering. Believe me, she at first, wasn't going to bother getting dressed at all, but after her baby raided her closet, he wouldn't stop crying until he had his mommy in the pretty, silk thing. Though it wasn't quite Valentine's Day colors, She wouldn't be caught dead wearing pink.. Such a hideous color...

"Feli, you got your shoes on?"

"Yesh mama!" With that, Alome picked up her little pasta-loving baby, going to the place where the invitation stated.

~~

Upon arrival, Alome saw that the place was rather empty right now, and sighed. She really hopped that some kids Feliciano's age would be around soon. Making it through the maze of tables, she tried to find one that was near an exit, just in case Feli went through another one of his pasta flinging rampages.

Sitting down, she organized her belongings, aka, Feli, and made sure he had a booster seat, before setting him down to explore.

"Go make some friends, okay?" Alome didn't quite feel like interacting with anyone. Not that she had anything wrong with them, she just felt... Old. Sure she was but a child herself, the heaviness of raising her Feli on her own seemed to way so heavy on her at all times. Maybe today, she could finally relax.

"Yes mama!" With that, he toddled away, hoping to find some pretty girls to chat to.

"This is stupid." It had to be the thirteenth time Dimitri had said that in less than ten minutes, and it was growing thin on his minuscule cousin's nerves.
"YOU are stupid, and you just don't like anything fun." She bickered back, glaring at Dimitri. They were walking, miraculously, from their house to the party that Dimitri had received an invitation to.

At first, he had tossed it immediately in the trash. He'd wanted nothing, nothing at all, to do with the stupid, frilly, girly holiday.
But then Luka had grabbed it, and Katia had seen it, and it'd all gone down hill from there. It had involved a lot of puppy dog eyes and a lecture from his Dad about being nice to his sister; which was stupid, he scoffed, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets. He always had to be nice to Katia, and do what stupid Katia wanted.
Why couldn't he do what he wanted? Which, before now, had been to stay safely at home, building the model air-ship he'd gotten from the craft store. Right now, however, he had a deep desire to shove Katia's sunny a** in a puddle.

Sunny, however, was only a word to describe her disposition. Flaming PINK would be the word best used to describe what she was wearing. She was usually covered in the color, but it seemed she had pulled out all of the stops for this stupid holiday. Ribbons and frills and ruffles and bows; hearts decorated it all, hanging from her ears, all three of her bracelets, and the necklace she wore. She had little heart patterned ribbons tying her hair up in cutesy-wutesy pig tails, hearts on her tights, on her shoes...
She looked like a Valentine had thrown up on her.

Dimitri, on the other hand, was sullenly and stubbornly dressed in black. All black. A black fedora, black shoes, black coat, black shirt. His father had given him a red tie with a white heart on the end of it, but that was stuffed in his back pack; which, currently, was being carried by the heart-bedecked Luka. Bedecked in so much as he had cut out a big red construction paper heart and taped it to his chest. He didn't much like clothing, but he did seem to like decorations.

The Shadow didn't seem to be paying attention to his Host, or her argument with Dimitri, as he zipped into the room that was decorated for Valentines. Chirupping, he looked around, wondering where the other shadows were. Was Cain here? Kouki?
He frowned.
He didn't see any.

BUT, immediately, he saw Howl; and, beaming, zipped over to hug his head.

"Ja! Lu~!" Luka trilled, snuggling the wizard. Who now had black hair. Not that Luka cared. It was Howl! And if Howl was here...
He mustered up his concentration, and his little lips fumbled as he tried to mimic the sound that Puff made.
"P...pff...u...ff..." Despite his startling ability to mimic entire musical scores, forming actual words on his own seemed to be difficult for Luka. He had mastered a few syllables, and a few one syllable names; but those were few and far between, and stringing said syllables together nearly caused him to burst a blood vessel.

The kids, of course, had not walked over alone. Viktor would never have allowed that.
Still outside was Kali, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. She was waiting, though she wasn't sure if he would even show up, for Lance. She didn't want to go in without him. Not that she was entirely positive he was coming, but Luka had managed to chirp 'Cain' into the phone enough while she was calling him, so she assumed that the point was delivered.
Dressed in a red dress, since she couldn't wear pink to tease Howl, she wondered if it was okay. Nothing like the Valentines gift she had for Lance; THAT was at home, and certainly not appropriate for a party that children were attending. Actually, it wasn't appropriate for any sort of party, anywhere.
However, the dress-like shirt she wore accentuated her curves, like all of her clothes did, and had it's fair share of cleavage. It stopped above her knees, a little bit poofy, but not too fancy; she wore black leggings beneath it, with a little white heart embroidered on the side of one. Despite her hatred for her lack of height, she wore flats; strappy stilettos, after all, were impractical.

Katia looked up as she heard a voice, wondering who it was. A young girl, who she did not recognize. She cocked her head to the side when she saw her, but smiled cheerily.

"Hello! Who are you?" Her dress bounced as she turned, as did her pig tails. She really enjoyed being dressed up so prettily. It was fun!
"My name's Katia. This is Dimitri. Don't bother talking to him. He's foul." She waved a dismissive hand at her brother, who tossed a thunderous scowl in her direction.

Foul. Pah! KATIA was foul. A foul, pink cloud of oppressive cheeriness and...and...
And he wondered if he could sneak out and go get Balto. He COULD stick the Shadow in his back pack. Having a friend here might make it tolerable...

Cookie, it seemed, was one of the few who seemed completely content with the color pink this evening. Her long pink hair was loose and brushed back, small dark pink-red flowers in her hair. Her usual pink collar had been put aside for a black one with a small pale pink-red rose design. Though it was rare for her to even mess with full on dresses, the small chimera was happily decked out in a little dark red ballgown with black ribbons and pink-red rose details. The dress's skirt had several layers so it was warm, and it hung down just so that most couldn't see the slithering snakey-tail underneath, mostly just seeing a little fuzzy girl going by in a dress. Sure, Cookie looked shorter than usual, but she got to dress pretty!

Seeing as the girl was getting bigger and going to be at an event with friends, essentially, it was okay for Lam to drop her off. She could behave herself and the woman would have some time to spend with her wife for the holiday.

On the opposite end of the spectrum of dress, came Xanatos. His messy red hair was still just that, but allowed to hit his face and sweep around in a more flyaway look. His usual workman's browns and brassy colors were replaced with a fine deep indigo velvet coat, a black silken vest, and a black shirt - somewhat more gray than his vest - with white pinstripes. His pants were black like the vest, and his fake leg had been refitted in a fine silver, a special end put on it to keep it from scratching or clunking too hard on the dancefloor.

Looking around, he grinned - this Howl guy liked to throw parties a lot (being this was the second invitation he'd gotten from the dude) but he certainly could set up a snazzy place. Plus the music had a lovely beat to it and there at least seemed to be a decent number of pretty girls around of all ages. A nice little shindig, to say the least!

Howl's attention was instantly on his wife as she entered. He gently pried Luka from his head, putting the little shadow down next to Puff before smoothing his hair. "Go play," he urged. He hoped that for once, the two shadows could find something that would keep them busy--other than himself, that was. Elegant and sauve though the wizard was, he seemed somewhat flustered as he made his way towards Sophie. Was it a sign of nervousness? Surely not.

"You look beautiful," he said as he moved in front of her. She did, too. The dress set off her hair beautifully--though he was positive that she wouldn't agree. He gave a slight bow before, with a flick of his hand, offered her a rose. Red and still sparkling with dew.



"Happy Valentines, Sophie." With one swift, graceful movement, he stood and placed a kiss upon her cheek. "Come with me?" He gestured to a vacant corner. The question he had for her could wait until later, yes; but Howl had never been a patient wizard. He wanted to hear her answer. He wanted to know what she would say.

Feli began to explore the ball room, bouncing around with an excited vigor. This was the first event he'd ever been to, seeing as his mother was being a recluse for a while. But now, here, he was so happy to come outside, and to meet new people.

And new people meant interesting people! One such one was not too far away, and Feli gave a slight shudder. He looked like.. Well, he wasn't sure, but he was weird looking in the infants mind. By weird, he meant kinda cool, with a silver leg, an eye patch and all sorts of other interesting dohickies. With much excitement, he bounced over to him, poking his leg.

"Hey Misser! You so cool! You foot cool too!" In his mind, he was being sweet, complementing him in his rather innocent, yet slightly air-headded manner.

Alome was right on him, racing over to pick up her infant, blushing bright at how rude he had been! She couldn't really blame him, though, one, the boy was rather... Intriguing to look at (she wouldn't say it out right, but she had noticed him as he entered, though she turned instead to give Cookie a wave) and Little Feli wasn't the brightest crayon in the box at this point, he thought with his heart, rather than his brain most of the time..

"I'm so sorry! Please, forgive my little boy!" She exclaimed from the rather dapper young man, squeezing her boy tight.

"Mama! I did nuffin wong!"

Eve smiled when she saw Cookie and walked over. The ragdoll hadn't seen the chimera in a while and she hoped that Cookie and her family had been well. She smiled in greeting and hugged her friend.

"Hi, Cookie. I hope you have been well."

Keya smiled shyly and replied in the same timid voice as before, "I'm Keya Ravena. Nice to meet you, Katia and Dimitri."

Aquarus, already knowing that Eve was fine on her own, decided to follow Keya, thinking the little girl needed some watching since she was the more shy of the two children. She smirked and waved, feeling a little out of place at such a party. If she had a date for the evening, Eve would have come alone with Keya. The witch didn't do valentine parties very much.