Welcome to Gaia! ::

Xei simply stood there, absorbing everything he could about this 'Glee Harmony'. Each additional piece of information was one more bit of the ever-growing idea in his head, and idea of such annoyance that it may permanently stop her from ever setting foot in the Library again! The mention of Alexi snapped him back out of his plotting (he had missed the mention earlier), and he all but shouted, "Wait....Alexi's back?", completely missing the digression at the end of Forte's small speech.

"Any friend of Alexi's is alright in my book, and if you don't mind, I have an idea to keep this 'Glee' away from the Library so long as this building stands...but I haven't seen Alexi in years, sorry to run, but it's been ages! G'bye Forte, it was nice meeting you!"

These last few words didn't come from Xei, so much as they came from the off-white blur that was the robes flapping aimlessly behind his rushing form.




(For the sake of the moving-on, lets assume that he either finds Alexi and they talk for a while, or he completely fails and will try again later)

Evelyn sat in the back seat of the Hummer, next to the sighing Aloisius. He would frequently mutter things about “beautiful blonde” or “perfectly gorgeous.” Evelyn figured he was mooning over some girl—which was rather strange for her to think of. One of her sisters had once told her that Aloisius didn’t moon over anyone. He was a heartless man only out for himself. Then again, Evelyn had long suspected that she used to have a crush on him. Armin was driving. As usual, apparently, since he handled the car with such ease. Andreas sat shotgun, looking blankly out his window.

Evelyn thought back to the dock. Six different people stopped her before she even reached the car. The conversations all seemed to be the same…

“Evelyn! Where have you been?”

“The Temple of the Overseer.”

“The Overseer? Why would you do that?”

“Well, simply put, the Overseer and his disciples and acolytes are some of the greatest people I’ve ever met with a wonderful, benevolent sense of purpose.”

“Oh, Evelyn. How nice. That sounds like it suits you. Benevolency and all.”

“Well, thank you. That’s sweet of you.”

“Take care! Tell your grandmother I say hello.”

“I will!”

Honestly, she couldn’t remember half of the faces who stopped her, let alone their names. Oh well.

The car ride passed in an almost comfortable silence, the hum of the engine and a distant song on the radio the only noise. There was a bubbling of anxiousness and excitement in Evelyn’s stomach the closer they got to her childhood home.



Evelyn jumped out of the car before it had stopped, and ran across the yard toward a figure. Adeline flew from her shoulders and flapped about until she landed calmly behind and walked slowly after Evelyn, possessing as much grace as a bird can.

David Harper barely had time to turn and face his niece before her body collided with his in a hug.
“Evelyn!” he exclaimed, his voice warm and welcoming. Evelyn smiled taking in his scent. Home. Rose of Sharon. Some other soft, sweet smell that was so faint, it was almost unrecognizable.

Her face burrowed into his shoulder, and his face fell into her hair. “Uncle David, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Sweet Pea. You changed your hair.”

“It’s enchanted. Don’t worry, I still have hair as blonde as yours.”

“And the eyes?” He held her at arm’s length and inspected her eyes. “Oh, yes. Still the same. That’s my Sweet Pea.”

[6 Days Later]


It was another ruddy afternoon sports session for the combat division. Today's game - lacrosse. As usual, Gloria was the one leading out in the field. Jessie never deigned to participate. He stood in the shadow of the Temple, lurking there more out of habit than anything, glaring down at the teams playing on the white sand of the beach like a monolith. Today, however, he was watching even more intently than usual. Lacrosse resembled a game that used to be played by young men at home - but saying that and watching the human version in action might give you the wrong idea. From Jessie's perspective, this clumsy, duck-footed, uncoordinated brawl was not worthy of comparison. Saying lacrosse is "a bit like" a game from his homeland was like saying a monster truck rally is "a bit like" ballet.

It was setting his teeth on edge. Every fumbled pass, every time the ball touched the ground, the barbaric tackling. And what's more, it was slow. Painfully, painfully slow. He let out a small hiss of air, like a constricted sigh.

"Are you okay?" Lacine finally asked, from her seat nearby.

"Look at it. Is this really what passes for a sport up here?"

Lacine blinked. "You're... not impressed? I thought they were playing really well."

"By whose standard?" he snapped, folding his arms even more tightly across his chest, "Not mine. This is an ugly display, absent of any poise or skill. Look at them, beating into each other. It's a disgrace."

The blue-haired priestess thought about this for a moment, her hands clasped genteely in her lap. "Then why are you up here? Why don't you go and tell them that? ...You're here to teach them, right?"

Down on the pitch, Gloria called a halt. "Stop, stop, stop! You," she said to the attacker she had her eye on, "What do you think you're doing? When you've got an opening for a tackle, tackle, don't just stand there and watch the ball sprint by. Keep your hands together on the stick, and when they get by you, give 'em a whack around the middle!"

"No, no, no!" Jessie barked, causing everyone - including Gloria - to jump out of their skin. Suddenly, he was walking towards them, just a few metres away across the sand, and they hadn't even noticed him leave his lookout point. He moved like a goddamn ghost. Gloria glanced down at the lacrosse stick in his hand. No - he wasn't going to... was he...? "Do not do any of that," he continued, bringing the stick up and bracing it in both hands.

"Captain...?" Gloria asked, feeling very small.

"Relax, Gloria. You haven't done anything wrong. This whole game just isn't good enough. It's barbaric. It's time you all learned how to play properly, not like savage monkeys."

"In my home," he began, walking through the crowd, which parted for him, "Young boys - children, and teenagers - play a game that involves a stick with a holding cage, and a ball. This is what I'm going to try and demonstrate to you today."

"Let me recite the rules: There are no rules. There are no teams, so you can all forget about that. It goes without saying that the ball never touches the ground. We do not play inside a box," he instructed, "The goal is to get the ball from one side of the island, to the other. Whoever does that first, wins."

The players were all looking at each other nervously. Holy s**t, they were thinking. This sounded like lacrosse on hardcore mode. Cross-country, no teams, no dropping the ball...

"And we do not tackle. This game is completely non-contact. Nobody touches."

"That's crazy," a girl in the crowd frowned, "How are we supposed to get the ball if we can't tackle?"

"There are many means, but none of them involve brute force," he said. "Pass me the ball."

The boy holding the ball tossed it to him - he caught it effortlessly in the short net. "Today, we'll play from north to south, to make it easier for you all." The island was much wider west-to-east than north-to-south.

"Now - are any of you going to try and get the ball off me, or are you all just going to stand there?" he said. Everybody looked unsure. But a couple shifted forward, interested to give it a go. Tantalisingly, Jessie flicked the ball up into the air and caught it again, then again, higher. The ball came down and he bouncedit off his shoulder, then off the side of the stick, then off his knee, then back into the net. "I don't see anyone trying..."

Gloria rolled her eyes and pushed her way past a couple of the others. "Alright, alright."

Hmm... no tackling, eh? She brought up her stick. If she could make a lunge and a twist, like a disarm, perhaps she could pluck the ball out of the shallow net. Jessie saw her hesitance and flicked the ball into the air again - she saw her chance and thrust to catch it, but, springing into the air like a dancer, he caught it again an inch before it touched her net.

"Oh, Gloria," he smiled, "You're going to have to try harder than that."

But when she lunged at him, he twisted away and sent the ball into powerful flight. Shocked, Gloria sprinted after it, but suddenly, he was there, half a kilometre in front of her, easily catching his own throw.

"Holy s**t," Gloria gasped, still racing to catch up, "He's fast!"

The ball went up into the air again, and he was gone, nothing but a black smudge in the distance. How is that even possible? There were legends about heroes like Cuchulainn, who could move fast enough to catch their own throw a mile away, but they just weren't possible. She looked around and, thankfully, everyone was following. "Keep up!" she shouted, "I think I'm gonna need some help!"

Gloria reached the end of the beach first ten minutes later, where Jessie was already seated on a weathered sea rock, playing catch with the ball by himself again while he waited.

"I appear to have won. Care for another round?"

Incensed, Gloria flew forwards and, to her surprise, he tossed the ball across to her. Triumphant when she caught it, she turned - but he was there, and, with a movement so deft she wasn't sure she'd seen it properly moments after, he'd scooped the ball out of her net and into his own, and was gone again, disappearing down the beach like a gazelle. "What the fuuuuuuuuuuck"

The others would stop him - they were a couple of minutes behind her in a pack, which was good. Numbers made things harder. But Jessie smiled when he saw them all coming towards him. Gauging the distance of his throw, he put it up high into the air, much more straight vertically than before, and continued straight for the crowd. They were all going to run right into each other.

"YOU'VE GOT HIM!" Gloria shrieked, pelting down the beach as fast as she could - but far too far away for anyone to hear her, "SOMEBODY GET THE BALL! DON'T LET HIM PASS!"

Then, their master sprang - high, high up, turning in the air many feet over the heads of his students. Impossible. Only an Olympian could dream of jumping that high, that acrobatically. A couple of people screamed, and the crowd instinctively split, terrified he'd come down on top of them. But he landed on his hands just beyond the crowd, gracefully backflipped, and caught the ball just as he returned upright.

"Holyshitholyshitholyshit"

Jessie won again, and again, dragging his class back and forth across the island at a pace that would've been brutal if they weren't used to their drills. He'd just claimed his fourth victory and avoided them all yet again. This time, they'd hung back and waited, forming a sophisticated blockade several rows deep. Somehow, he'd slipped past them all, snaking around sticks and arms and bodies with the ball never once in danger of being deprived from his net. It was then that Lacine jogged down across the sand.

"What are you all doing?!" she asked the panting, groaning students. "I don't know if you've noticed, but he's kicking your asses!"

"Yeah," Gloria grumbled, "We know."

"I don't like this game," one of the girls whined.

"I can't believe KIDS play this where he comes from!"

"This is impossible," a boy said, "We're never going to beat the Captain - he's just too good!"

"Weren't any of you listening to what he said at the start?" said Lacine, "If you've all learned anything from your training with the Captain, you'd realise that this isn't about brute force. It's about speed, and skill. And if speed and skill don't work, you need to use strategy. You're not thinking like an elven warrior. That's where you need to start."

Jessie made it to the other end of the beach again, with absolutely no one on his tail. He started back along the sand. Everywhere was completely devoid of movement. Hmm... something was different. They were planning something. That was good.

He caught his own throw out of the air, and suddenly two of his students shot out like arrows from the sides, scissoring their sticks at the target. He dodged them both, just by a hair's breadth - but then there were two more, coming at him from the front and the back. Dodging and ducking, his stick slithered back and forth from all four of his close-quarters attackers, just managing to keep the ball out of their clutches as they all fiercely attacked from each angle. "Now THIS is much more like it!" he laughed, tossing the ball up vertically and slipping under an arm to escape. Before he could catch it, however, Gloria took a running leap at them, net poised high in the air, and caught it herself. Raucous cheers erupted from further down the beach, and Gloria turned to wink cheekily at her instructor. Not so impossible after all.

From then on, the rest of the combat students put up a damn good fight. Nobody else ever managed to win, but it didn't matter - it was exhilarating, and it honed and tested their skills more than any other sport they could've played. By the end of the early afternoon session, the humans were exhausted and aching, but the girl who'd whined earlier was squealing. "Did you see that?! I nearly got it off him! Do you think he'll let us play again next week?"

Gloria was left behind to sort the equipment out with Jessie. But when everyone had disappeared inside the Temple for lunch, Lacine included, she picked up one of the sticks and threw it at him. "Here," she grinned, "I want to practise."

He caught it, and picked up the ball. "You're not hungry after all that work?"

"Not for food. C'mon."

A commotion could be heard from the outside. There were few people who took notice of this, but most of them resided in the girl's dorm. And (this was just a guess) but quite possibly the reason for this was because the commotion involved the Captain of the Combat Division, Jessie.

"Oh my! It's the Captain!" one of the girls shouted.

A few other girls ran toward the balcony to catch a glimpse of Jessie.

"Aww man, he's so cute!" another girl said.

"I know!"

While the girls continued to squeal over Jessie and watch the game from the balcony, one unusually-dressed girl slipped away and started rummaging through her belongings. She was apparently looking for something. Once she found it, she slipped away to the bathroom.

A short while later, the girl emerged from the bathroom wearing what appeared to be a cover-up. A pair of sandals graced her feet. She went to her bed and began rummaging through the drawers underneath again. As she did, a few of the girls noticed the noise and started talking.

"What's that?" one of the girls asked. "Oh, it's that one girl...what's her name...?"

"Oh that's...the one chick that plays the organ, right?" another girl asked. "I heard some weird things about her."

"Yeah, me too! Did you hear she used some weird magic on that Glee girl the other day?"

"Yeah, I also heard from Glee herself that back where the two of them came from that girl was bad news!"

"We should stay away from her then."

"Yeah, I think it's for the best."

"Ohmigosh be quiet! She's right there; she can probably hear you!"

The composer finished gathering the remainder of the things she needed: a pair of sunglasses, a large hat, and a towel. She placed the hat on her head before heading for the door. She could feel the girls' eyes on her all the while. Before she stepped over the threshold, she turned back toward the girls.

"Rumors are so unbecoming," she told them. "Remember that."

Putting on her sunglasses, she headed for the beach.



~~~

The day was sunny and clear, just the day Forte liked best. There were a few people on the beach putting on some sunscreen while on the sand; not an easy task, she knew from experience. The musician was glad she'd put on sunscreen while inside. Still, she missed the comforts of the Music Room, but today was too good a day outside to pass up a nice swim.

Forte put her towel on the sand and took off her hat, setting it down on the towel. Looking around, she made sure no one was paying attention to her. She then took off her cover-up to reveal her swimsuit: a fantastic red number that she'd bought back home. Thinking back, Forte was glad she'd taken some of her fellow warriors up on their offer to transport some of her old belongings to her new residence. The swimsuit was one of the belongings she'd chosen, and now it was paying off.

Taking off her sunglasses, she set them and the cover-up inside the hat. Overturning it, she left her sandals next to it and then headed for the water. It was rather warm, much to the composer's surprise. She headed out a little further, took a deep breath and dove under. When she surfaced a few seconds later, her entire body was wet, her hair covering her face nearly completely.

"Haha!" she laughed, brushing it aside so she could see. "I almost forgot how much fun this was...if only we'd had a decent pool back home to swim in...and by that I mean a pool that that...egoist didn't frequent."

Forte turned over onto on her back, occasionally treading water and doing the backstroke to keep herself afloat. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"But still," the musician said to herself. "This is rather nice."

A few minutes later, something came over her. A feeling...one she'd felt a million times before. It was inspiration for a new song, and boy was it coming in droves. Forte opened her eyes, realizing that she'd left her music book in one of the drawers beneath her bed. The new song would have to wait to be written down. But that didn't necessarily mean it had to wait to be created.

Standing upright from her position in the water, she looked around to make sure no one was in the vicinity. To her relief, she was the only one in the water. Laying back down and swimming the backstroke, Forte began to think and while she did, she began to hum the notes quietly to herself.

Evelyn felt rather foolish as she approached the Temple. She had an entourage…and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Yes, she was thrilled to have Gilroy there with her—someone to talk to no matter what…but it was a pain. She was to be escorted by one of the Alton brothers at all times, in addition to her life-long friend and apparent butler.

She walked a few steps ahead of the four of them, but somehow, she could still hear Andreas’s teeth grind at the pace, even though it was as fast as she could go without running. She sighed and eased up her pace, and beckoned Gilroy forward. The pair then picked up the pace, leaning in and whispering.

“Do you think this is really necessary, Roy?”

“Evie, you got your hair chopped off in a battle.”

“I know, but daddy doesn’t know that.”

“And? For all he knows one of people here did it!”

“That’s ridiculous! No one at the Temple would dare hurt a fellow member in such a way.”

“Sure. You’re all one great big happy family and can sing ‘Kumbayah’ until the clams come home, and me and the Altons won’t disturb it one bit.”

“Roy, why on earth would we be singing ‘Kumbayah?’”

“You’re avoiding the point.”

“I suppose. Fine. I get it. I have no problem with you being here. I have no problem with Armin being here. I don’t even really have a problem with Aloisius being here—although Adeline might. But Andreas? He’s more likely to end up hurting someone here then a demon would be. Really.”

“Hey—he’s gotten a lot better. I think your grandmother’s been making him go to anger management therapy or something. At least, that’s the rumor around the house. And besides, he’ll only be standing outside of your door while you’re asleep. You won’t have to deal with him.”

“Sure. I’m certain that he’ll be a pleasure to be around, and I’ll sleep like a baby knowing he’s directly outside of my door.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Evelyn—who was rather surprised Gilroy had kept an even and quiet tone through their conversation (perhaps he was learning to control his little anger issue?)—stopped the conversation when she saw Jessie and Gloria out on the beach. She did a pirouette her mother would have been proud of before waving rapidly as she approached the pair, her entourage in tow, quickly whispering to Gilroy, “Roy, that’s Jessie, the Combat Master, and Gloria, his assistant.”

“Yes! Finally. I’ve missed the Temple.” Evelyn hugged the Combat Master for a brief moment—taking extra care to make sure she didn’t hit him with her hat—before moving away and pulling Gilroy forward. “Jessie, this is my dear friend Gilroy. Gilroy, this is Jessie.”

Evelyn smiled and gestured toward the woman standing adjacent. “And this is Gloria. Gloria, Gilroy.”

At that moment, the trio of Alton brothers arrived behind. Andreas looked indifferent, Aloisius made a waving salute, and Armin bowed slightly. Evelyn had already decided that she would do her best to ignore them if they were acting as bodyguards and not as friends—or whatever the equivalent of friendly begrudging servant could be applied to Andreas.

“Nice to meet you, Jessie, Miss Gloria,” Gilroy said, respectfully bending his head toward the pair.

“Thank you. I’m certain I will enjoy it here, if Evie’s letters are any indication,” Gilroy said.

“I did very much,” Evelyn replied to the combat master’s question, a smile as big as she could muster on her face. There are not three dangerous bodyguards behind me. There are not three dangerous bodyguards behind me. There are not three dangerous bodyguards behind me.

“Did anything interesting happen at the Temple while I was gone?”