Welcome to Gaia! ::

There were thirteen doors in the hallway.

Onora had never been the type to let superstition put her hackles up, not at home anyway, so maybe it was the change (in the air, the season, the world, the smell) that made the whole thing make the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. Standing in the doorway to hers and Morris' temporary room, the teen had the distinct look of wishing like she had an excuse to carry a weapon in case something popped out of one of those doors. Unfortunate, she thought, that carrying around a sword to beat off door monsters was going to make her seem like an utter lunatic to anyone who happened to catch her.

Not that she'd met too many people - guardians, Fa'e or otherwise - since coming to Gaia -- which, in some ways, odd that. At home (and it was odd to think that in some ways home didn't even exist here; it wasn't as if she could book a caravan and go visiting, was it? Onora chewed the inside of her cheek unconsciously.), newcomers would be swarmed by invitations to take walks, to meals, to playing cards and board games, riding horses, hawking in the spring and summer, swimming or fishing or--

Onora nearly jumped out of her skin when one of the doors in the hall finally popped open.

She held the door like a shield, one hand gripping the knob and half of her body tucked behind the wooden panel. The whole thing made her feel uncomfortable vulnerable; doors shouldn't have been so lightweight. Onora set her jaw, unaware of the fact that she probably looked insane peeking around the edge of a door. Stubborn and brave was more like it, she told herself. Not just anyone would face off a giant collection of what looked like rock and earth. That took a certain brand of bravery.

That's the story she fully intended to stick with anyway.

"Who are you?" Onora demanded around the edge of the door, proverbial hackles on end. Morris, buried in bed covers in the room at her back, grumbled something unintelligible in response, probably something along the lines of 'Nnghf,gobacktosleep.'

Onora bit the inside of her cheek hard and glared out at the creature in the hall.

Maybe a better question would have been 'What are you?' Though, given the simple fact of where they were - Maladine, this place gave her headache the size of the Ruevan - probably...

"Onora." She answered swiftly, gripping the edge of the door and the knob, peeking over her white knuckles at the great hulking 'Amitai.' "A Fa'e?" Onora prompted as she gave him a cursory one over. Her tone was clipped and short, quite obviously a little nervous to anyone who spoke the language naturally, but this Amitai was either too dumb to understand or not familiar with the words themselves. She wasn't sure if that was a blessing or not.

"What are you doing here? Do you live here too?" Lords and Ladies, she sounded all of nine with all these questions...

"Oh-nor-uh," she corrected automatically, a knee jerk reaction that bubbled out of her before she could do anything about it. She shut her mouth an audible click of teeth a moment later. Deep breath, count to two before you open your mouth and make an idiot out of yourself.

"I'm...Fa'e too. I guess." It was good to know, she supposed. Better than not knowing anything at all. Still, she hadn't exactly made fast friends with the Fa'e she had met thus far and the welcoming hadn't been exactly... the whole thing just kind of made her itch - supposedly belonging to something but not really knowing how to fit comfortably there either.

She bit the inside of her lip and examined Amitai from around the edge of the door. Well, not dumb she guessed, or at least foreign enough for the blame of his slow speech not be laid entirely on the doorstep of his intelligence. "What are you doing here?" she repeated a little more slowly. "Do you live h--"

Onora jumped back a little as he crossed the hallway with little more than a stride, the other Fa'e thick fingers bumping against her door. She took the door back with her, not quite willing to surrender her protective barrier.

"You--" She cleared her throat and straightened a little, tipped her chin up and squared her shoulders slightly. "Just being careful." Scared, paranoid? Ha. Don't be silly.

"Man? A girl took us." Onora remarked absently, talking a good deal more than she might have usually, apparently babbling over her nerves -- Lady Maladine, he was huge. She'd known tall people in Roruel, but being tall was one thing. Tall wasn't really what Amitai was. He was tall and broad and looked like he could fold her the wrong way over without even meaning to. She kept a close eye on those heavy looking hands, set to slam the door and hide out in her closet if something suddenly happened to make him angry - who knew what might make these people go absolutely nutters. It wasn't as if Anya had given her and Morris an examination to make sure they weren't totally inside before dragging them to Gaia; how did they know they hadn't brought a real psychopath over and set him loose on the world as they knew it?

Not that...beyond the whole scale thing, Amitai seemed to dangerous really.

"Uh, no. No, it won't break." Though, glancing between the other Fa'e and the door, Onora was beginning to realize the thin wood would have made a piss poor shield against Amitai's fists if he'd been more keen on putting them through her shield than chattering at her in broken Roruelian (damn, what did they call it here?; Ingish or something equally ludicrous). "I was just, you know, making sure it wouldn't. Uh. Full off." Onora laughed nervously and finally snatched her hands away from the edge of the door. "Good news," she proclaimed. "I think it's safe."

Oh.

Oh, well. That was. Huh.

Onora stared at the hinge yawning away from the door frame, glancing sharply inside the room to see that Morris had slept through the mini apocalypse in the doorway. "Oops," she managed absently as she eyed the splinters of wood and the like. She glanced quickly sideways at Amitai and let herself drift as subtly as possible a few inches down the hallway. You know, just in case she had to made a mad dash for --

Oh who was she kidding? If something went wrong, she was probably skinny enough to stuff herself somewhere where the broader Fa'e couldn't reach her. Letting go of a heavy breath of air, Onora twisted her shoulders slightly and forced herself to settle into some semblance of 'not going to die, not going to die.'

"Where are you from?" she asked, beginning to tinker with the edge of her dress' sleeve. After a few days of wearing spare clothes, she'd finally gotten back the dress she'd expected to be utterly ruined by the rain they'd slogged through on the way out of Roruel.

What kind of name was Czechoslovakia for a place? How did people even learn how to spell something like that, much less say it?

Not that Onora had time to deliberate for too long over the weird jumble of letters that would probably be needed to make such a strange word because Amitai was apparently worried about something and they were going somewhere - because it wasn't exactly in her to brook an argument when he was spewing a whole jumble of terrifying sounding consonants and in such a hurry to get away from something in the room he'd come from. Onora had absolutely no intention to stand in the way of someone who could probably run right over her without even noticing.

So she gathered her long skirt up on both hands, gripping it well above her knees so she could hopefully out distance whatever lumbering gait Amitai owned, and made a beeline straight for the staircase and down. Granted it meant those twisted symbols and intricate knotwork, seared into the skin on her legs and the caps of her knees by whatever design nature had intended, were showed off for the entire time she was taking the steps downstairs three at a time but Not Getting Run Over definitely took priority of flashing her knees at someone.

Besides, Onora got the feeling that her knees weren't going to offend much of anyone here. Sure they were a little knobby and freckled, but not exactly scandalous.

Onora whirled around a little, tracking his motion warily. "I-- What exactly are we running from?" She let her eyes cut up to the top of the stairs, clearly expecting to see someone twice Amitai's size up there if he was so scared of this thing. She glanced at him where he'd hidden himself under the stairs -- well. As much as someone Amitai's size could conceal himself anyway. Flustered, she let the hem of her skirt drop back down over her calves.

"Are you sure you don't want to go outside or something?" she finally offered. It didn't seem like hiding under the stairs was going to be a very successful long term plan. Surely whoever he was running from would eventually track him downstairs and which point, frankly, Onora didn't really see how they wouldn't find him. Subtlety...probably not the other Fa'e strong point.