Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lorika smiled at Gilroy welcomingly and reached out to warmly shake his hand as he came close. "An honour to meet you, Gilroy. Of course, of course you can stay. The more the merrier!"

Her attention turned to the three black-clad men just as Evelyn got round to them herself. She began looking at them with pleasant interest, smiling at each of them in turn, but as Evelyn made her introductions, her expression flickered to puzzlement.

"Bodyguards?" was her immediate reaction, "What do you need bodyguards for?"

Of course, it almost immediately struck her that this was probably a silly thing to ask. They'd fought in wars; people had died. Innumerable people, in fact. Lorika had very nearly died herself. Evelyn had been there, at the climax of the Second War - she'd witnessed the Sentinel in her beastly, twisted form gut her with her giant claws.

So to argue that there was no danger at the Order at all would be pointless. There was danger, when it came to defending Gaia from evil. But everyone looked after each other. On a day-to-day basis, staying at the Order was probably safer than riding in a car, even with professors with a penchant for setting hair on fire strutting around. They were like a big family. Nobody got left behind. Nobody else needed bodyguards. The closest the Order got since disbanding the Temple Guards was Jessie and Gloria, though particularly Jessie - he was always the first to leap upon intruders (indeed, as he had upon the bodyguards when they'd first met), and he prowled around like a particularly threatening guard dog all through the night.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so - however I sounded," she corrected herself, giving a little, soothing gesture, "I just didn't realise you felt like you needed extra protection. Is there... something you're afraid of...?"

Again, this was probably a silly thing to ask, seeing as Evelyn was taking up lessons in combat in addition to her magic. Of course she must've felt concerned for her safety. But Lorika had been under the impression that Evelyn wanted to and was capable of looking after herself. Why had she brought back three imposing men to do it for her?

~About an hour after my last post



"That's more like it," Forte said as she looked in the mirror at her redressed self. After a nice swim, there was nothing like getting cleaned up and into clothes again. She made sure to take her composition book with her this time, having yet to write down her newest song. The girl decided to head to the Music Room.

On the way down the stairs, she saw Glee walking inside from the beach, stomping her feet angrily. She was soaking wet. Wanting to avoid her but not miss out on the schadenfreude, the composer held onto the banister and waited. Luckily she was high enough on the stairs so that Glee couldn't see her, but not enough so that she herself couldn't see.

Shortly after, Glee's tantrum started.

"Ugh! Why did those guys have to do that to me?!" she whined. "First they insult my loss in the swimming race against that...freak and then they have to go and make fun of my musical skills?! How DARE they?!"

She continued her tirade below and after a few minutes walked back out to the beach, for reasons unknown. A puddle was the only evidence that she'd even been in there.

The composer slowly descended the remaining stairs.

"Hmm...perhaps I should pen a new song in addition to the one I have to write down," she said to herself. "Something entitled, 'Ode to a Stuck-Up Airhead'."

Forte thought a moment.

"No, that would be a complete waste of my energies," she added. "Ugh, I feel my I.Q. decreasing even at the thought of it..."

Suddenly feeling an overwhelming feeling of hunger, the musician decided to head over to the canteen for a bite to eat. She decided to take her time, just in case the cliche about eating after swimming and vice versa was true.

~~~

Forte arrived in the canteen a few minutes later and looked around for a secluded table to sit at. She needed to write down her new song and figured it was a good way to pass the time. Besides, she wasn't sure what she wanted to eat anyway.

Finding an empty table near the back of the room, the composer sat down and opened her book.

"Now let's see...how did it go again?" she asked herself quietly.

Softly humming the notes of the song again, Forte began to write it down from memory.

Lorika cocked her head , taking all of this in. "Well... I'm not saying they wouldn't be useful, in a crisis. I just didn't know that having people in charge of watching you was what you wanted, Evie..."

Evelyn blinked rapidly, attempting to come up with a response. Not a lie. Something she could say. This, of course, had been on her mind. She had lines rehearsed. Why couldn’t she remember any of them? Of course, she had also had to deal with the thought of losing her privacy—not that she really used her privacy much. But she really didn’t feel like discussing that. She wanted to pretend it was all okay. She wanted to be able to say that it was her choice that she had bodyguards, not her father’s.

However, Evelyn did not feel like discussing any of that. Lorika had asked if having people in charge of her was what she wanted. “NO, OF COURSE NOT,” she wanted to scream, but she didn’t. She wanted to be okay with this. Certainly there was some good reason she had come up with for why she would be okay with being under constant surveillance. What had she thought up…?

“Yes. I’m afraid for my fellow acolytes, you see. These three may be under strict orders to protect me, but they are also here to help protect everyone else. The last thing I ever want to see happening is for any of these people—any of my friends—to be hurt. I can’t stand to see something destroy us, or our home again. The wars…the explosion…it’s all far too much. I don’t know what I’d do if someone else died during a peace time.”

Professor Panda flashed before her eyes, and for a moment she thought she even saw him, standing a little ways off, behind Lorika. She blinked and he was gone. This wasn’t uncommon for her, but she detested it. She wouldn’t even think about the Professor—and still, he’d show up somewhere. It was as if some part of him still resided in the Temple. It made the things she was saying feel far too real. She recalled the dreadful explosion—recalled the destruction. She breathed in deeply, attempting to dispel the image.

“I cannot rest easily thinking that something bad could happen to anyone here.”

Aloisius stepped forward, as if to speak. Evelyn could already see the magic forming a flower in his hand for him to give to the priestess. She quickly stepped in front of him, to speak for them. “Each of the Altons, and Gilroy, were members of the Order during the First Sentinel War. They are particularly fond of the Order and its members.”

“It is a blessing to be back. I look forward to talking with you later,” Evelyn said, smiling, before curtsying to the Priestess and exiting.

“Well, she’s a bit preachy, isn’t she?” observed Andreas, quietly after they were outside and out of earshot.

Armin looked aghast. "SHE'S A PRIESTESS, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?" he whisper-shouted at his brother.

Gilroy replied with an actual facepalm, as Aloisius sighed and mumbled “I wonder where the beautiful elf is…”

At that, the three brothers began pushing against it each other like children.

Evelyn looked exasperatedly at her company. “Boys, really?” She had completely stopped to turn and glared at the trio. Gilroy slinked to Evelyn’s side to remove himself from the crossfire.

They all stopped their movement and looked at her. It was clear that Evelyn was in charge now. They were at her command now, not the other way around. What had changed? Not much but a transfer of the oath.

“I’m sorry, Miss Evelyn,” Armin said, bowing.

“Yes, terribly sorry, Miss Evelyn. A woman as beautiful as you should not be subjected to our rough-housing,” Aloisius chimed in, bowing as well.

Both of Andreas’s brothers elbowed him at the same time, forcing him to speak and move forward in a mock bow. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” Another elbow. “Miss Evelyn.”

Evelyn placed her fingertips lightly against her forehead in frustration. “Thank you, boys. Come on now. I want to see if my room is still has all the books I had in it.”

Footsteps descending on the stairs snapped him out of his thoughts. After all, they sounded a bit more...'clack'-ey than walking on flat ground. Or something. Regardless, there was at least one person coming back down from the upper levels, and since Xeiashi could detect his friend's aura again...

"EVELYN!" he shouted as he launched himself across the room. Why walk when you need to practice your levitation, right? Only halfway through his arc did he notice the posse following his friend dutifully...and it was too late to correct his trajectory at this rate.

He landed on...someone, or maybe it was a something, based on the fact that the landing was only slightly less painful than landing on a rock. He couldn't really tell the three black-haired posse members apart anyway. But he landed on one, and both parties involved let out a gasp of pain at the impact, or maybe it was just two from the recently-flying one. Landing......would be an excellent avenue of study Xei decided as he struggled to his feet and launched into a sentence that would put a sugar-hyped child to shame.

"Evelyn! You're back! Where did you go, and why did you go, and why didn't you tell me because I needed to discuss spells and we know how Thomas and Cressa are so that left me pretty much talking to the new casters and they're so BORING!"

Only when he paused to take a breath did he notice the glares being directed at him. There was no time to count the number of angry faces.




(Bang, headshot)

The multitude of people in the canteen were talking, laughing, eating and making merry. They were oblivious to the girl in the back of the room, but that was to be expected; after all, watching a lone girl scribbling in a journal wasn't very interesting, was it? However, despite the simplicity of this act, what was being scribbled was most interesting indeed. It was a song, but not by any means an average song. This piece of music was being written by a master musician, and one who desired to create something huge.

This song the girl was currently engrossed in writing was only a part of her grandest vision.

Putting the final touches on it, the composer looked at her newest piece of music lovingly.

"Perfect!" Forte said to herself. "Another piece of my symphony is complete. This is absolutely wonderful!" She would've hugged the paper, but it would get crinkled and that wouldn't be good.

At that moment, she was approached by two unfamiliar girls. They had strange looks on their face, leading the musician to believe that they had an agenda. They stepped closer. Forte recoiled and pushed herself away from the table slightly. But the girls weren't after her. One of the girls picked up the song she had just finished writing and looked at it. She showed it to her companion and the two of them started laughing.

"What is this?" the first girl said through her laughter. "As if anybody can read this crap! Is this supposed to be music? It doesn't even look like music! Seriously, who writes this kind of stuff anymore anyway?"

The second girl continued laughing. "Yeah! And what's with you hiding back here? Why not join the rest of us like normal people? Oh wait...you're not normal, you're just a freak!"

"You gonna play this on your stupid organ later, freaky-freak?" the first girl asked. She and her companion laughed even more.

Instead of reacting violently or even angrily, the musician just pulled herself closer to the table again. She placed her elbows on top of it, interlacing her fingers and resting her chin on top of them. Then she stared the girls down, her eyes narrowed and an evil grin on her face. Although slightly, the two girls recoiled in fear, and the musician could sense this.

Laughing quietly, she addressed her two aggressors.

"Oh this is lovely," Forte said with a slightly devious tone. "It's like High School all over again. Such fond memories...people telling me how creepy I was, people telling me how much they hated me, people running away in fear at the mere sight of me...mmm! How well I remember it!" She giggled devilishly at the thought, but then quickly returned to staring at the girls.

"Tell me something," she said. "How do you two know I play the organ?"

The girls didn't answer.

"What proof do you have to back up your assertion? Hmm?" the musician continued, staring them down all the while.

The girls remained silent and unmoving.

"I thought so," she said. "You can't prove that I play the organ, or that I play anything else for that matter. For all you know, I write music merely for my own enjoyment. However, let's say you're right and I do play an instrument. But which one? Perhaps I play the piccolo, or maybe the harp, or even the bagpipes. But you have no way of knowing this, now do you?"

The girls gasped and stepped back out of shock, still not saying anything.

Forte laughed devilishly and leaned forward slightly, still resting her chin on her interlaced fingers.

"In order for you to know that I play the organ, and to address me so rudely, someone would have had to tell you," she continued. "Am I correct in assuming you were told by that half-wit making an idiot of herself over there?" She gestured to her left a few tables down. Glee was on top of it and singing like she was a pop star, with a few of her cronies cheering her on, singing along with her and even chair-dancing along with her.

The two girls looked over and then looked back at the composer. "N-no," the first girl said. "Sh-She didn't tell us anything!"

"Really now?" Forte said, dropping her hands and standing up. The girls shrieked as she approached them. She closed her eyes and sighed. "Truthfully, I couldn't care less what other people think of me. I know what I am, I know what I'm not, and I sure as hell know I'm not going to let any of your stupid, unfounded comments get the better of me." She looked them dead in the face as she said this, making them recoil even more.

"And I'll be taking back my music, thank you very much," she said, taking the piece of paper out of the first girl's hand. As soon as she did, the two girls ran away from her as fast as they could, cowering all the way.

"Say hi to my nemesis for me, would you?" she called after them, giggling deviously all the way. Sitting back down at her table, she looked at the piece of paper. Everything was fine; there was no harm done to it at all. But then she realized one crucial part was missing from it.

"Oh!" the composer said. "I almost forgot...."

She picked up the pen and wrote a symbol at the bottom right corner of the page. It was a stylized "F", which in music of course meant "Forte". Her name. Now the piece was truly hers.

~~~

Glee finished her number to the applause of her fellow admirers. She threw out her arms happily, blowing kisses to the audience.

"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you so much!"

She laughed with her friends as she got down from the table and started chattering away. But this was not to last, as the doors of the canteen and a strong-looking, pink-haired woman walked in. Looking around, she saw the girl and approached her table.

"Are you Glee Harmony?" the woman asked.

Glee looked up at the woman. The instant she saw her, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

"Oh my God your hair is so pretty!" the girl cooed happily. "Oh my God you have to tell me your secret!" She and her friends laughed cheerily, agreeing with her statement.

"Are you Glee Harmony?" the woman repeated, this time a little annoyed.

"Yes," the girl answered, completely oblivious. "I'm Glee Harmony. Do you need something?"

"As a matter of fact I do," she replied. "The High Priestess would like to see you about an important matter. Follow me."

"Oh...okay," Glee said, a little unsure. She got up from her table, assuring her friends that she would be right back.

With that, the two women departed from the canteen.

~~~

Forte watched as Glee was taken out of the canteen by a pink-haired woman she'd never seen before. She resisted the urge to burst out into laughter, but something else she saw made her stop and think.

Jessie, Cressa, and another woman were sitting at a table across the way. She hadn't seen them since the first debacle with Glee had taken place in the Temple.

I guess I should go apologize for my recklessness, Forte thought. But they probably won't even listen to me...they probably think I'm such a fool...

Nonetheless, the musician gathered her belongings and headed over to their table, all the while preparing for the worst.


((Easter Egg hidden in this post. See if you can find it. 83))