Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yuurei had come home late, but Lucia was still downstairs. She hardly noticed at first, the frei was just splayed across the couch with a smile on her face. She was watching something on TV -- a movie the woman thought.

"Why are you grinning so much?" Lucia was wearing a cool skirt-like thing "Where'd you get that?" She was used to Lucia's constantly changing clothing.

The sigel could not believe that Yuu did not notice yet. "It just showed up when I grew." Floating upwards and spreading her wings, she grinned at her guardian.

Yuurei looked at Lucia for a moment, her mouth slightly ajar. Her eyes were wide as she took in the raevan's new form. She stood for a full minute just staring in awe. "Wow."

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It was not until the next day that Lucia ran into Ty. He had been out all night, only returning in his day-old clothes, but smelling like he had had a shower. It had been a fun night at the club with a girl he had met not too long after arriving in Gaia. When he got home, Lucia was sitting on the couch in the rec loft where he always worked. "Holy s**t, Lucia! What happened?! Why do you have a stomach?!"

The sigel floated upwards and flew into Ty's arms for a hug that almost knocked him off his feet. "I grew!"

"No s**t, Lu! You're hot. You're gonna drive guys crazy." Ty sat down and had Lucia do a twirl. Smiling, he nodded his approval.

Catching Butterflies

Who: Elai, Luka, Lucia, Ty
Where: Durem Insectarium - the Butterfly Garden
When: Early to mid afternoon
Weather: Just the day for a picnic

Running into a new frei and his guardian. . .

Lucia’s breath caught in her throat when she got the phone call. Shot?! And he’s in the hospital?! Her first thought was to go visit Rivener. Damned his feelings about her. She would not dress up at all, but just slip into his room and do her best to be quiet, tell him she hoped he’d feel better, and go. But in her head, she could only imagine him upsetting himself, pulling stitches, and having it not end well.

She had told herself she’d leave him alone and give him time until Christmas. But this changed things. She would not visit, but she’s have to at least send flowers. Pulling out her laptop, the sigel looked online for the perfect bouquet. One of the first ones she found, she knew was the one she would send.



To: Rivener Delaran
Message to Recipient:

Lucia paused in filling out the form. She didn’t know what to say. ‘Feel better soon! Love, Lucia’ could work, but it was so impersonal. Did she want him to know she sent it? Just for him to ignore it or throw it out.

The kitten let out a sigh.

To: Rivener
Message to Recipient: The ship is safer in the harbor, but no one built a ship to sit in a harbor. Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.

I hope you feel better soon. Halloween is coming up; so get better before that important holiday.

From: A Friend

Smiling sadly to herself, inwardly happy she didn’t cause the problem this time, Lucia pressed submit, and put in Yuu’s paypal information to get the order. It would be delivered by noon tomorrow directly to his hospital room. He wouldn’t know it was from her, but she would feel better. She wouldn’t ignore his situation. And she wouldn’t hurt him by showing up. It was a win-win. Well, almost, she thought sadly. She still missed his friendship.

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The delivery guy in his crisp white and gold uniform gave a sigh. The middle-aged guy had fallen into this job when he was laid off. It wasn't the worst job, and, he looked at the card, at least he didn't have to sing this time. Rivener. Weird name. Walking into the hospital had been easy enough. Figuring out where this guy was being housed was a little harder. The receptionist was seemed to be sitting on some object that was penetrating - well it didn't matter. As long she gave him the directions.

Walking to the right set of escalators, he waited until he could board one. The flowers in his hands were kind of pretty. The card was nice too. He stepped into the elevator and pushed the button to get the the right floor. It had some weird hippie quotes or something. But they kind of resonated with him. "The ship is safer in the harbor, but no one built a ship to sit in a harbor." Well that made sense. His father had served in a nasty war, working in the navy. Too many people for his taste had climbed in the elevator after him. So of course they were making like 10 extra stops and his was the furthest away. So the ship reference was pretty telling. "Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead." What a morbid person. But it was true. What was he doing in this job again? From: A friend? Really?! This bouquet wasn't cheap; it was being sent to a hospital as a get well. And the person didn't sign their name? Something seemed weird, but it wasn't his job to question it, he thought as he finally found the right unit. It was almost noon. Perfect timing. He didn't really want to do this job. And it made sense. He had taken the safe route. He had stayed on Gambino instead of relocating his family to an area of Aekea that was much further away. He could have had a great job, but he hadn't wanted to uproot them. But maybe, with his older son getting bullied in school and his daughter wearing shorter and shorter skirts, relocating might not be a bad idea.

R. Delaran. This was where the nurses had directed him. The door was partly open and knocking a few raps against the door, he walked in.

"Delivery for Rivener?" he asked the patient. But the sheets stopped about half way of where they should. Wow this guy had had a mess happen to him. He lost both of his legs. Smiling pleasantly, he didn't know if this Rivener would take the card's advice, but he was thankful to this mysterious flower-sender. There was plenty of time to be dead.

Handing the flowers to the guy -- with horns and wings?! Crazy hippie kids, he left, leaving Rivener to the flowers.

[date placeholder]

Lucia lay on her back in the sun. Her eyes had been closed and she was sporting a black leathery string bikini top. Her bounty was slightly spilling out of the small triangles, but it was nothing anyone would be arrested for at a public beach. Tanning had been a recent hobby since she’d mostly fixed her sleep schedule. Tanning during the day. Drinking and going out to clubs at night. And sometimes tossing in work too. Well she had been tossing in work. Until her closet overflowed and her bank account was still dry. She was reluctant, but quitting seemed like the best thing. She’d have her friendship with coworkers (hell they were the people she went drinking and dancing with), but she’d hopefully find a job where she didn’t essentially work for goods.

To say her shopping went overboard would have been an understatement. When she had her own money and didn’t need it for anything else, she was not a saver. Not in the least. So she spent because it was burning a hole in her pocket – or purse as it was. So she had shirts. Jackets. Skirts. Pants (Yes. No legs and she had pants). Shoes (let’s not go there). And enough jewelry that she couldn’t wear it all in a month if she tried. Well…maybe if she tried. But that was neither here nor there.

Her spine curved as she soaked in the sunlight, breathing softly. Turning onto her stomach, the kitten grabbed her tea (at first Lucia had brought out milky bubble tea, but she learned quite quickly that she could not bring dairy into the heat – it wasn’t really throwing up but more of a convulsion that got the curdles out of her body) and took a slow sip. The cold sweetness, somewhat diluted by the mostly melted ice, soothed her warm body. She grabbed the iPad, another thing she bought with her own money, and pulled up the current book she was working on. Recently Lucia had expanded her taste from textbooks and trashy romance novels from Rei’s library to fantasy and adventure (which were Ty’s choice genres) and mystery and classics (which were her own). However today that wasn’t what she was looking at.

Lucia today was learning to speak Latin. She had a slight grasp of a few modern languages already that she downloaded instructional books on – German, French, and Italian. They were helpful after she ran into a few spirits who only spoke those languages. However there was one person – a blind man (or former man) with a far away look in his blank eyes and a sad temperament. She had worked out that he was speaking Latin. She could kind of hear the root words that some terms in English stole from the dead language. But she had no clue where to even start with the language.

Seriously. How the hell was she supposed to learn and speak a language no other living person currently used on a day-to-day basis. Sighing, she jumped right into the part where she had left off. “Quis forsit?” she said out loud, hoping her pronunciation would not be awful. Maybe she could get him to write it down and tell her what was wrong. So she could spend tomorrow translating. It didn’t help that this man came to her only as the sun began to dip towards the horizon. And he only stayed until the sun stopped radiating it’s glow across the sky (creating all of those beautiful sunset shades she valued).

With that in mind, Lucia lay down the iPad (some comedian called it a tamPod when it was first released and, though she immediately wanted one, she never got over that wonderful pun). Crossing her arms and pushing her hair to the side off of her back, the kitten lay her head down on her arms and let out a content sigh. For now, she would relax. Once the sun drifted far enough down she would dress. She thought about the old man whom she knew little about, other than his is name was Lucius. And though as much as she tried to persuade him that her name was Lucia, he kept calling her Lucretia.

PRP with Shu