Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was the best of summers, it was the worst of summers, and Giulia had already experienced both of these days. She had gotten invited to birthday parties, almost drowned (well. She’d been saved, and probably could have saved herself, but her hero had been so cute!), had made new friends while picking up trash in the park, had hung out with Ara multiple times, had collected almost all of the Star Charms (the VIOLET charm was hanging on her phone today, actually), had watched the meteor for a few minutes with a new friend named Ahri (well, Ahri was a white tiger lily, and she didn’t know what Ari’s parent was named- she had forgotten to ask), and she had found a nifty little wispy creature and been attacked by a very rude member of the negaverse! There were almost certainly to be many more summer adventures to come… but there had also been one (or like, one hundred) very small problems.

Thunderstorms.

Storms were causing all kinds of problems with the electronics in the house, and more than once Giulia had gotten funky texts. She had gotten any number of phone calls from wrong numbers, even though their name showed up in the Caller ID on her phone as being one of her friends, but the number involved wasn’t even in her address book. The Caller ID would also come up blank a lot, and when she said help the person on the other end would babble and hang up- Giulia didn’t try and call them back. Aidan had gotten some video calls from some weird guy in a hoodie, and voicemails were getting deleted and everything. It was very uncool, especially if the grown ups were right and this was the work of some stupid high schoolers with too much time on their hands.

The worst part (much more than all the problems checking in on her favorite web novels) was that it was raining all the time! That made it very hard for Giulia to be able to make plans for the summer with some of her bestest friends in the world. The blonde wanted to be having the most awesomest summer and have grand plans for her birthday! She wanted to go to the lake with the horses and some friends, and have a picnic, and do all kinds of fun things, but how was she supposed to make plans to do that when she never knew when it was going to rain? Lady Luck was far too old now to enjoy a trot in a rain shower, and most horses probably didn’t like Thunder and Lightning any more than doggies did. Plus the point of the lake was to go swimming, and even a BABY like Hope knew that you didn’t swim during a thunderstorm, because you could get hit and DIE.

Of course, today was a perfectly fine day, but her birthday was exactly three weeks away, and the weather app on her phone couldn’t give an accurate forecast for that! All five foot nothing and eighty pounds of Giulia Montgomery hunkered down where she sat, sulking. Okay, fine. She knew what she would do. She would ask the smartest person she knew for help.

She didn’t wait for Lucia to say anything. As soon as the call connected, Giulia began talking to her friend. “I need HELP.” She cried out dramatically. “I need you to come save me. You’re the only one who can help me!”

Giulia babbled into the phone, missing the fact that the voice that had said hello did not, in fact, sound much like her best friend. Her ten (almost 11) year old brain disregarded the inconsistencies with the situation, and she rolled full steam ahead with her drama about location, and how difficult things were to plan, and "Lucia, I swear-"

And then she paused. There was an angry unfamiliar voice on the other end of this phone call, and a quick glance at her call said clearly that she had dialed the correct recipient. "Um, it's Giulia? Lucia, you goose, check your caller ID." Or... what if this was one of Lucia's older friends now- oh, a mature person, and perhaps she had just been embarrassing by showing off that she was still young? Or maybe- "Do you have a cold, Lucia? Your voice is really weird..."

Staring out her bedroom window at the stupidly sunny day, the blonde wished that the rain would stay away so that the rest of the summer could be pretty like this. And here she was, sitting inside instead of having tea with her siblings and her niece in the garden. "I'm not a psycho, I'm just concerned about my birthday, okay? This weather is stupid, and I just want to have a party with ponies."

Giulia's brow furrowed as she pulled her phone away from her ear to look at it. "What are you-" Lucia knew what kind of- "Unicorns? Everyone knows unicorns are-" Or wait. Was there a senshi of unicorns that Giulia hadn't yet heard about, or met? No- Lu wouldn't hide something that awesome from Giulia... would she? No.

Her voice was rich with confusion as she replied with- "The ponies at the sta- hey, are you feeling okay? You're acting real wier-"

Oh. OH. The strange hoarse voice. The weird ignorance her friend was displaying. Calling Giulia a psycho, and not- there was, clearly, only one explanation.

"WHO ARE YOU, and how did you get my best friend's phone?!" Indignation filled her voice. "Did you find it? Did you steal it?? Or- did you kidnap Lucia?!" Oh no! A kidnapping would be awful!!! Should Giulia hand up and call the police, or- or-

"I called Lucia!" Giulia shot back firmly, triple-checking her caller ID, and her call logs. She didn't know how to prove that he hadn't kidnapped Lucia, though, because if he had her phone and she texted, he could pretend to be Lucia, and if he had Lucia, he could have her pretend not to be kidnapped.

It was a complicated situation now, and all Giulia had wanted was to talk to someone about her birthday party!

Giving a sigh, Giulia glanced at her phone, thinking back to all the other phone problems she had been having lately. "We might have a messed up connection," the blonde said finally, "I'm sorry for getting mad. I dialed my friend's number straight out of my address book, and this has never happened before, so I made an assumption." the person on the other end of the line did seem pretty offended, after all, and Giulia supposed that it was reasonable, especially if they weren't a kidnapper and had somehow gotten the call due to an issue with the cell phone company.

It was entirely possible she could be in the wrong, and if so, she owed the person an apology.

"I don't sound anything like Giulia when I'm sick." the blonde countered his teasing with a small giggle. "You have a point, though, and you don't sound much like her dad either." Giulia stared at her phone for a moment, thinking. She had been awful rude to this person, and he said he wasn't in a sunshiney mood... "Do you wanna talk to me about why you're not happy?" she asked after a moment. "I have good ideas sometimes, maybe there is something I can do to help?"

She giggled at the stranger again though, leaning back and staring at her feet. "No unicorns. They aren't real. But I do want to rent the stables, cause a lot of kids in my class last year haven't been able to ride horses before, and it's fun to do. So maybe I can share my birthday by giving my friends an experience they haven't had for themselves yet. And then we eat cake! After, of course, you don't want to ride a horse for the first time on a cake-stuffed tummy. Trust me."

Your Lucia, My Lina. Giulia hummed, nodding her head even though he could not see. "I understand." she assured him, and meant it. She wouldn't be in a sunshiney mood either if she had been trying to get in touch with a friend, and instead got in touch with someone else who wasn't listening good, and then accused them of kidnapping... "I hope you and your Lina get in touch. Thank you for the birthday wish, Mr. Lucia." She didn't know what the stranger's name was, and wouldn't be surprised if he didn't tell her.

But that didn't stop her mischievous laugh as she called him Mr. Lucia.

"I hope you have a better day, and thank you for not hanging up on me." that would have solved his problem really quick, but he'd taken the time to listen and explain. "Stay safe in the storms!"