Welcome to Gaia! ::

Landon watched as Andrew blushed and rubbed the back of his head about his comment about the Frenchman. Maybe the boy was closer to France than he'd thought? He grinned. "Don't tell me you got a French girl," he teased, wondering if the younger bro had indeed gotten a girlfriend. California wouldn't mind filming them sometime, but after tonight's harrowing experience, he was definitely going to ask.

He twisted over in Charlotte's direction when she suddenly materialized behind Andrew, thanking him for the Napa wine. Landon nodded at her. "You're welcome, Carol," he said, borrowing a nickname he had used on her before. "You can take another if you like. It's easy enough to make." Indeed, Landon had made these just hours ago using grape juice and magic, literally.

Then Tennessee offered to hear out exactly what was on California's mind and even inviting him to stay over at his dorm just in case. The Westerner blinked, wondering if this was an honest offer. After all, few of the states ever worried about him and his problems because he could almost always bounce back to his feet and smile. But Andrew wasn't the sort who would ever lie, and it seemed that California's distress was very obvious if Tennessee would offer his own dorm as refuge. If Hawaii was there as well, maybe he could forget this party with her, or at least drown it in a lot of margaritas. Landon was about to agree when he remembered that was also Christian's dorm...

No matter, he decided with a clenched fist. I have a score to settle with him. And what better way to do it than now? Landon nodded. "Sure; if you don't mind, I'll come over. I do need to catch up with Leilani, after all. When in the world did she get hurt?" The Westerner's eyes widened in shock at the fact that he hasn't known about what had happened to his little Far West sister.

"Though if Christian is there, you might want to watch out for your carpet..." Landon looked around almost conspiratorially before pulling out his camera and revealing the highly incriminating shot he had taken of Christian and Rutilio to the two states. "This is what happened..."







Out of San Francisco:

[

I'm Conne, stuck in the shadows of larger states, I really am a state! I swear! Why can't anyone notice me? I'm not a no one, I'm Conneticut, the Constitution State, remember me?

Landon raised an eyebrow at Leah's ignorance and dragged the conversation back to the subject of his broken TV. "I can't believe you forgot my name," he stated flatly. "It's Landon. Landon Blackwell Jones of California. Now what did you do to my TV...?" He temporarily left the group to manually inspect the device, using a screwdriver to open the back. Just as he suspected from the smoke billowing up from it, the capacitor had blown and was leaking its toxic contents onto the board. Quickly and carefully, the Westerner pried it out and used a solder to replace it with a fresh capacitor before screwing the bolts back into place. Then, he switched on the TV to make sure he'd done it right. Just as Landon hoped, the screen flickered back to life, an LG menu displayed across it.

He returned to Leah and the others and shook a finger at her disapprovingly. "You blew out the capacitor," he scolded. "Good thing you told me, or else it might have shorted out the motherboard."

(phone)

(icons are linked to songs either from or about North Carolina. Not all of them are necessarily my favorites.)




"Oh uh thanks for the offer but this is fine." she said politely and stayed around for a bit listening to the conversation between her two brothers. Her face fell at the video. It looked as if it had been taken not that long ago. As much as she wanted to deny it, it looked legit. Charlotte could only watch Andrew's reaction as wheels spun in her head to come up with a logical explanation. Far as she has known the two always had it out for the other but she wasn't aware of their friendship back from their early days as she was busy with her own issues. "But- Chris was drunk so it could of just been one of those spare of the moment things..." she finally spoke since it was the only thing that made sense.

The Tarheel state turned to Massachusetts with eyes waiting and wanting know if she had just misheard. "What do you mean by Ruitilo sleeping with me? I made sure there was plenty of space between us last night." She blushed with the last bit as she realized she just admitted to having Florida sleeping at her dorm the night before.

I'm Conne, stuck in the shadows of larger states, I really am a state! I swear! Why can't anyone notice me? I'm not a no one, I'm Conneticut, the Constitution State, remember me?

The State of Tennessee
☀Andrew S. Hickory☀

Andrew was struggling to process Landon's big discovery. This went against everything he knew about Florida and Georgia. They had been at each other's throats for as long as he had known them to the point of nearly killing the other. It was insane to think they could possibly have any other kind of relationship, right?

... Actually, no. There had been a few times he had walked in on them in compromising posses or situations before, but Christian had always reassured him it was all a misunderstanding. Andrew never had a reason to believe his big brother would ever lie to him about anything. While it was upsetting to find out he had a male love interest (and it was Florida of all people) the most difficult part for Tennessee to understand was why Georgia would hide it from him.

Landon's words were like a knife through his chest. The younger state's eyes flashed with betrayal and injury as he looked up at the Californian when he brought up losing their big brothers. T-That was impossible! Maybe Florida could do something like that, but not Christian. They had been through too much and survived too much together for Georgia to abandon him now for some former Spaniard. Landon was wrong!

But for some reason Tennessee felt shaken to his very core and his chest swelled with anxiety as he stood there in stunned silence while Massachusetts and California babbled on about a TV. As they fumbled with the meaningless contraption, another major revelation slowly sunk through the fog of shock and his orange tinted brown eyes turned to North Carolina. Had she been tricking him to about her relationship with Florida...?

"S-Sis?" he asked softly, his voice laced with the betrayal and confusion he felt painfully throbbing throughout his entire body. What did she mean by keeping plenty of space? Why was he anywhere near her to begin with?

Why was Florida suddenly trying to take away two of the most important people to him away...?

Grade 9
The Volunteer