Welcome to Gaia! ::

Niklos strolled in through the front door; Throwing his bag down the hall, leaving a nice mark on the floor. He laughed; Howling like a monkey and walking making alot of noise into the dining room. He grinned at his father's rather smug expression. Niklos sat at the nearist empty seat and put both of his dirty old sneakers up on the table.

Alyekzander had barely managed a frown at Domanik's atrocious greeting when his younger brother had just as suddenly grown impatient and stalked off. That suited Alyekzander just fine; he was terrible company anyway. That man would not know how to keep a civil tongue in his mouth unless the poor victim of his attention was painted cobalt blue with a creamy leather tongue. Alyekzander had to pause in his walk to the dining room to properly appreciate how ridiculous that mental image was. Then he shook his head and continued.

By the time he reached the dining room, he was the last to arrive. And by the look on his father's face, late was not fashionable. Alyekzander gave his father a cool nod, choosing not to acknowledge the older man's disfavor. His father knew well that Alyekzander was, in his mind, bending over backward to accommodate his father's wishes. That thought made him look to the woman. He had to admit she cleaned up well. She looked elegant... but that lacked the ability to truly impress him. His mother was every inch the lady every time he laid eyes on her. Even the cancer had not taken that from her. As these thoughts flowed through his mind, he gave the woman the same cool, polite nod he had given his father. After all, what was she to him but a new extension of his father?

Alyekzander approached the table and plucked up Niklos' sneakers. He thought better of declaring that their step-mother could not be pressed upon to clean up after him like a child any more; that would likely embarrass almost everyone but Niklos. "Unless you plan to eat them, they do not belong on the table, Niklos." He said instead, tossing the shoes against a wall. He hardly believed he could do any more damage to them than they already had.

He could not decide what he found most disgusting. Niklos putting his filthy shoes on the table was horrendous, to be certain. But how did that compare with the sister dressed for a funeral? He had to admit, if only to himself, that the other girls cleaned up well. But that one? Honestly, even a funeral did not call for such an elaborately mournful looking bit of frippery. But how did even that compare with Maksim who was decidedly not present? He had quite expected it, but it still grated on his nerves. It was irresponsible. Even Niklos and Domanik had shown up, for God's sake. "Maksim will not be joining us, father. He had a prior engagement." Alyekzander said aloud as he took a seat. His father had no doubt already figured out Maksim would not show, but now there was need to make a big to-do about waiting impatiently for him to stroll in late.

Madeline's eyes lit up when the food was finally brought out. She didn't dig in like she would've at home, instead choosing to eat like a normal person. Or a normal rich person. Her mother seemed extremely happy about this, possibly because she didn't want to be embarrassed by her daughters.
Madeline was determined not to embarrass her mother, although her sons were doing quite a fine job themselves. These kids were practically raised by her mother? If Dad hadn't died... would she have ended up like this? Markus was good, and Alyekzander was okay if you got past the annoyingly polite attitude.
Dominick and Niklos weren't leaving a good impression, but they were probably trying not to, just to drive them out of the house. As angry as Maddie was about being forced out of her home, it made her angrier to be forced out of her new one. She decided to set down roots here, no matter what it took.

Madeline snapped out of her thoughts. "Nope," she grinned mischievously. "They aren't at all." She returned to eating, her face all innocence. Her mother obviously hadn't caught the pure mischief that had crossed Madeline's face just moments before, for she was delicately eating the food that had been placed in front of her without a care.

"Madeline." She smiled at Niklos. "I like it here. Bit large for my tastes, but I'll get used to it." She paused, smiling. "And not wanting to be rude? Where's the fun in that?" She grinned at him.
Her mother was giving her the evil eye now for suggesting that rudeness was fun, but didn't say anything to her daughter.

"That would be nice!" She smiled. "Thanks!" Her mother had chosen to ignored them, although not before motioning for Niklos to get back to his original seat, or at least sit straight forward, and eat. Madeline smiled at her, giving the 'everything's fine here! No evil plans!' look to her mother.

Cecelia quickly recovered herself from her laughing fit, only to find mother glaring at her. Cecelia turned her head away, ignoring her own mother. She was, however, old enough to be living on her own! She kept her smile on though, even though Cecelia could now tell it what hopeless. Her mother had obviously told her husband about Cecelias antic's. That much would, or should, have been obvious from the start.

Everyone was so chatty, so ready to jump into this new experience....

Why wasn't Naomi?

The girl sat very quietly at the large extravagent table, almost unnoticeable by anyone, as she slowly began to eat. Thankfully this gave her something to do, for otherwise she was sort of huddled up in the seat, staring at the table with a zoned-out sort of look. There was no point in giving these people a false idea of who she was, so she ate like she normally would (yet tried not to be TOO rude). Her mother had given her a small smile when she entered (and thankfully no where-is-your-pretty-dress look), and the father a neutral stare. Perhaps that was what had nerved her; the man sitting next to this woman that was supposed to be her mother. This was her mom, not some little lady to be controlled! Things were changing too fast....

She focused her mind on the others; two of the boys were doing an excellent job of embarassing their father, Alyekzander was being mostly normal, yet with the slightest bit of sarcasim. Her sisters weren't doing too bad though; they were able to make most of hte remarks without glares. Although if anyone should be glaring at anyone, it's the kids to the parents.