Welcome to Gaia! ::

Shauna giggled at Asra's reaction to her growth spurt, giving him a squeeze and flicking her ears a little just to hear the tiny jingles of her earrings. When she was let go she did a little spin for her friend, grinning at Stala as well after hearing her cousin compliment her. "A good big, right?" She bounced on her toes for a moment before more voices caught her attention, whipping her head around--whipping herself in the face with some of her hair in the process--and gasping with delight.

It was that girl! The girl Asra had mentioned to her! Jocelyn! Shauna's smile brightened as she waved to Joce. "Hi there!" Wow! She'd never been older than everyone before! This was so much fun! And Joce really was a pretty girl! She gasped when Calumet walked in...or rather stomped in! He was such a quiet boy but boy was here still noisy! With a squeal of delight the fox threw her arms around Calument, careful not to smack Asra or Joce.

"Cal! It's so good to see you!" Haha. She was taller than him too! How funny! Shauna giggled at the thought of being taller than all her friends, letting go of Cal after she felt she'd hugged him enough. "Really?" Shauna blinked, ruffling Cal's hair a bit and stepping back to allow room to breathe. "Well, we're family!"

Excitement was giving this girl ADD or something. Something shined in the corner of her eye and caught her attention. What was shining? Was it something she could have? Shauna gasped again when she saw who it was. "Ror?" She only knew one kid with a cat's cradle with many different colored beads! "Ror!" She cheered, leading him inside and hugging him tight. "You've gotten so big since the last time I saw you!"

No sooner had the mirror-boy started walking towards the inside of the room than when an oddly familiar person appeared and began squeezing the life out of him. He stiffened for a moment as the fox-lady spoke, trying to make sense of this sudden wall of physical contact... and then he realized that he was enjoying the sensation of being hugged like this. His own arms mimicked the gesture Shauna's had made, squeezing her midriff with as much enthusiasm as she was.

When it was all said and done he pulled away and simply said, "Hi, Shauna." It didn't really matter to him that his memory had more holes than a sponge and her name and demeanor was all that was familiar... she was nice and warm, and he knew she was her friend.

The boy with the blue tattoos standing nearby, however, was less familiar than Shauna, and Ror quickly walked over to him in a gliding gait. He had seen something somewhere... was it on TV?... about greeting new people, and following what it showed him, he removed his hat and drew the hand holding it across his chest, greeting Calumet in a low and grandiose bow.

“What have you done…”

Lillian had felt him before she could see him, a beacon of light amidst that dark and soulless world. It was an instantaneous reaction, the welling of hatred in her stomach, the screaming of those thousand voices.

Kill him.

Rip him.

Rend him.

She could feel the souls writhing inside of her, and it took nearly all of her focus to suppress them from lashing out at the Harbinger as he appeared silently behind her. Theirs were the only lights now; there were no more forsaken glimmers to be found on Aliith.

“In time,” she murmured softly back to them, her dull voice almost a gentle, calming coo.

“Lillian,” Halexei repeated, his usually soft voice now stern. There was no more music in his tone, no more sing song enchantment. It was all business and ire, “What are you doing here?”

“Changing fate,” she responded simply, her dark lips curving into that familiar grin.

“You are not supposed to be here. You are not supposed to be-“

“Alive?” Lillian interrupted calmly. She could feel Halexei’s rising concern, and as she spun upon her heels to face him, she could see it etched upon his androgynous face. A face which slipped into vague surprised as his eyes fell upon hers. “Don’t worry, Lexi. I’m not.”

That moment of surprised passed as quickly as it came, and the Harbinger’s face fell once more to irritation. “What would Asrafel think if he-"

"Shutup.." she hissed. "Do not speak of him as though he is anything more than a puppet to you. All of them... you do nothing more than use them to you own ends."

Halexei fell silent for a moment, as though he saw some extent of truth in her words.

"I told you, child. Fate cannot be changed, and you are fated to die.”

“Oh?” She replied, laughing faintly. It was a hollow sound. “But you changed it, Harbinger. You changed all of our fates, did you not? This..” She gestured to the cold ash and dust that was Aliith, “This was our fate, don’t you remember? You changed us. Our benevolent guardian.. our creator. You damned us to the fates that you-“

“Enough.” Halexei said suddenly, his voice stronger, harder than before. He looked almost mortal, with his features twisted that way they were, his eyes narrowed. “You would never understand my reasons. Your fate must be met, Lillian. You will ruin everything.”

Halexei stretched out a hand to rest upon Lillian’s shoulder, and the Shattered felt a familiar pain jolt through her. “If you can not accept your fate, child, then you force my hand.” Lillian felt the souls of those whom Halexei had left to die here, the thousand of people whom had not been given their second chance. They reached out, and thin black tendrils wrapped around Halexei’s hand.

It was there, that brilliant, bright light. That angelic soul. It was beautiful, whole, untarnished. She needed it. She wanted it. She wanted to tear it to pieces and listen to him scream.

Rip him.

Rend him.

Tear him.

Lillian could feel them, hungrily extending towards Halexei’s soul, winding around it in serpentine fashion. She had no control, and would not have stopped them if she could.

The scream of the angelic was almost melodious. The way it harmonized with everything around it. Those few panes of glass in the dilapidated buildings which had remained intact shattered, as Halexei withdrew his hand and stepped quickly back. Wide eyed, he stared at her, at the tiny, bright light floating in her grasp.

“How does it feel?” she seethed, as the tiny piece of his soul flickered in the palm of her hand. “Can you feel pain now, Halexei?”

“You will never change your fate, Lillian.” He spat the words as though they were poison, his face a mask of contempt. The beauty of immortality unraveled in his compressed features. “You are damned. That much cannot be changed.”

He vanished as quickly as he’d come, leaving the Shattered standing alone amidst the streets of her dark homeland.

“And now,” Lillian murmured, smiling fondly at the glimmer, “So are you…”

It'd taken a while to get the girl out of that house. Seclusion wasn't good for a child, especially one who was locked up in a house with a psychotically protective and nervous father, another father that was prone to dangerous accidents, and with a sibling who would sooner murder her slowly than try to make friends. But to convince Tyr to let her take Raeanne out of the house and to the party at the Benedict Centre, Enoh had to promise everything from cleaning the house everyday to staying a weekend with Serkan. Usually there was giving up of the firstborn child, but she'd already borne her first AND she'd sooner kill him slowly than give up any of her children, even if Rae got hurt.

In any event, she'd gotten Raeanne out of the Xerxes household, and ushered the unblinking ragdoll child to the party she'd heard about from first her husband, and then her son. As out of place she'd be in that particular scene, she figured it was worth it just to give this poor (and creepy-looking) child more contact with the outside world.

The two walked in silence, the shapeshifter holding the plush yet warm hand of the unblinking child. When Enoh had first showed up at the door, Raeanne had been wearing the pathwork dress from her halloween costume, the one in which she'd dressed up as Sally from The Nightmare before Christmas. The shapeshifter, unable to persuade the child into changing into something else, grudingly had to admit that the outfit suited Rae.

Finally, they made it to the Center, both still never having said a word to the other. Raeanne stared up at the place, then looked through the doors at all the people who had already shown up...and thought it would be best to try and escape. Looking up at Enoh, the girl's inverted green eyes widened, shaking her head as if she refused to go inside. Sighing, Enoh only nudged the girl through the doors, whispering something about it being good for her to meet people outside of her family.

Pushed inside by a motherly hand, Raeanne had no choice but to stare wide eyed at all the people, gripping her overgrown sewing needle closer to her as she shuffled forward, somehow managing not to trip on the long trail of reddish black thread that seemed to spout from an unfinished stitch on her lower left leg.

Cal carefully extricated himself from Asra's grip, needing air after his Close Encounter of the Boob Kind, and almost ran into an unfamiliar masked-and-hatted boy who was...bowing? To him? That was different, but not unfamiliar--people on television bowed to each other all the time! It was usually followed by the bowee curtsying in return, and then they would dance and happy music would play and credits would roll and he would lose interest and turn on cartoons instead.

Except the bowee was usually a girl, and there were dresses involved. Cal certainly wasn't a girl, but maybe...Cal's tongue poked out as he concentrated. He'd never really projected anything as stable as fabric--speech bubbles and smaller images were more his specialty--but after a moment, a rainbow-colored, see-through "skirt" appeared to cover his lower half.

He had only just grabbed the fake fabric and began to curtsy when he was attacked from behind. Cal flailed, unbalanced by the extra weight, and tripped over his own two feet as Shauna released him once more. The illusory skirt disappeared as he fell onto his a**, and he smiled sheepishly up at the boy who had bowed to him.

She felt abashed, like a small child on their first day of school, when Shauna leaned in. She aimed an elbow at Asra’s ribs, giving the young fox-woman a petulant shove of her lower lip. Inside, however, she was bristling with glee – did he really speak so highly of her? Joce felt her cheeks warm delightedly.

Asra’s voice was a comfort she had not heard in a long, long time. She embraced it readily, listening to the cadence and geniality of it before she really paid attention to the words. Her gaze was appreciative and unblinking, though shame twittered in her belly from her earlier assumptions. Of course Asra had invited her, how could she assume otherwise…?

“Thank you.” So soft it was barely a vibration in the base of her throat.

She gripped his hand when he tugged her to meet the other, and dared a laugh when she was introduced. The noise was unexpected, and she clapped her palm over her mouth as though regretting the sound ever passed her lips. The new girl was the most curious thing she had ever seen, but….

Joce reached behind her and expertly withdrew Spinelli from her tiny backpack – he was really the only thing that was in there, and looked a little worse for wear now that he was out.

“You remind me of Spinelli,” she said bluntly. She offered the bear, whose single eye shimmered despite the scratched on it. "Except, you know...you have two eyes...."

The Shattered shot a speculative glance at Lonan, brow crinkling, and turned herself back to Rae.

"Really? The furball grew?" His tone is as flat as it's always been to those who do not know him. For Asra though, he can probably spot the hint of amusement and the faintest blush on high cheekbones. Not to mention the rather bold, for him, attempt at a joke.

Then it was gone, replaced by a faint furrowing of the brows and a gentle touch on his forehead. "Are you alright, Day? You seem... tired. Out of sorts." One of the dark wings came up, wrapping lightly around Asrafel's shoulders.

When the new person came bounding through,yelling at Asrafel the eyebrow shot up to get lost in his hair. He didn't confront her but neither did he pull away, letting his wing stay right where it was.