Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Mirela and Tafari will be following those headed to the All Savior's Day festivities ^^))

It was a good ten minutes of wandering up and down the wagontrain before Emelyn found her son. He was very near the end of the wagontrain, standing with a stick and a very pained expression. When his mother found him, she was almost upon him before he turned to her, and she saw that he had bitten down upon his lip and looked quite sick.

"What's wrong?" She asked, only now noticing that the end of the stick he held was hanging in limbo between the wagon wheel and the ground. She did not wait for his answer after seeing this. "What are you doing with the stick?"

He let out a groan, then, as if a spell had been broken, he dropped the stick. "Nothing," he said, a very thin veneer of frustration in his voice. It was how his voice had sounded since they'd left the Twiggle Forest: normal... even sweet- only with a tinge or veneer of frustration or anger or sadness that he couldn't seem to express fully.

Emelyn looked at her son. The boy was still a cloudy white color, and his countenance was one of sweet, childlike innocence. That was what troubled her. He had never been so sweet and loving in all his life. ...But that wasn't her son. Pierre was a surly, impish beast with a love of things sharp and wooden. He loved to be out in the night, and had a taste for thick, must-ridden mushrooms and foul grubs. Now, whenever he tried to do something naughty, he looked pained, as if something inside was chewing at him. He couldn't even manage a full frown- niceness, correctness.... pureness- were his compulsions. He was a sweet child, a gem. ...But he wasn't her son.

"Don't you stick any more sticks into wagon wheels, Pierre. You know that can cause damage." She said it more for his benefit, as if she did not know that he wouldn't have been able to follow through. There was a soft smile on his face, then, and he appreciated what his mother had done. Then she took his hand and led him back down the line of wagons, wondering what would become of her boy.

They headed for the Choosing.

Caroline is surprised to find herself on the arm of a tall, winnowy priestess. Somehow Rojiza and Aisrhan's hands have gotten separated, and Caroline can only just make out Ais' serpentine tail through the myriad of feet, both sandaled and bare.
Through the noise, she hears the priestess offer to escort her through the city. Caroline, struck rather dumb by the strangeness of this whole thing, just sort of nods.

Rojiza, in her infinite childlike wisdom, notes her mother becoming rather daft when confronted with all the smells and sights of the city. A person, gender unidentifiable, whirls past her, pressing a piece of braised fruit into her hand. She looks at it rather dubiously, wondering if it's safe to eat. She looks up at Caroline, who's wide-eyed and fluff-brained, and holds onto her hand tightly. Obviously she'd have to protect them.

Emelyn sidled up next to Marissa, and passed on the handful of torches without taking one. She put her arm around the woman, and resisted the urge to take Pierre in her other hand.

"Hello, Sister," she said comfortingly to Marissa. They were in the same boat, these two gypsy sisters- both with sons changed by the Twiggle Forest fae. Marissa, she knew, had felt the harder pain.

Heather also took a torch and a couple of sweets giving one to Amkia to suck on. She then passed them on still sticking reasonably close to Lor.

Amkia took the sweet happily and played with it in his hands for a while chuckling while also watching the torch his mother was holding onto. He was reasonably happy, nothing could go wrong, even Kala was leaving him alone!

Kala, was annoyed about not getting a sweet but she was looking for the cheetah, trying to pick up the scent everynow and then hoping to find something that could give her an idea of where that other cat was.

Emelyn smiled warmly. It had been a while- not since the forest had they spoken, and even then it was in brief. Before then, it was the ...timely death of the Panoptes, or whatever the blast it was, when they'd spent time together.

"It certainly has. And...I've been... worse." She resisted the urge to give a nodding look to Pierre. It would be cruel to suggest that her own problems with her fortunette son were anything in comparison to Marissa's and poor Kale's. But she was distracted, in any case, by the mention of the Filor.

"Hm?" She took Pierre's hand automatically, for the sake of his not continuing on as she looked over her shoulder. "Twinket sounds about right. I don't know, though. She's the only Filor I've ever seen. So for all I know, they look all alike." The Dove woman turned gypsy shrugged in apology. She was not as knowledgeable as so many of her gypsy sisters.

"We could go ask her. Couldn't harm any."

The priestess continued to direct Caroline and her daughter along with the crowd, the white marks on her face unique, as were all White Sect Priest marks. Her touch was gentle, and she continued to smile down at the woman.

"It's wonderful that you already have a child." She practically whispered down into Caroline's ear. "And go ahead, have some of the fruit. It's delicious- candied, and braised. It's only prepared for special occasions."