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Soho blinked, astonished. "You mean it? I mean..." She paused, trying to think out the ramifications of the offer. It wasn't as if it would hurt this unknown girl's feelings! She wouldn't remember, so she probably wouldn't feel anything about it, right?

It would be like reading a piece of ancient history...

Silva stayed silent. If Ruby got the diary he could burn the thing before Sunil got it back. That would save him a lot of problems. For the first time since the conversation began, he smirked. Soho's natural instinct to meddle was starting to work out for him!

"Could I?" Soho asked.

"Bye Sunil!!" Soho called, waving happily. "I''ll see you soon!"

"You can''t honestly let her read that, can you?" Aleric asked Silva quietly.

"Who says she''ll get the chance?" Silva drawled. "But it''s not fair for Ruya''s old memories to be forced on her when she wants to forget, now is it?" He turned, heading for where Soho was munching on her watermelon, looking for all the world as if he couldn''t care less what she had been up to.

Aleric sighed and fingered his skull necklace. They were getting into shady territory with this one... he only hoped they didn''t ruin their own lives as well as Ruya''s.

Silva and Aleric glanced up at the same time. Aleric smiled in greeting, Silva snorted. And then, finally, Soho looked up from where she was trying to eat a grape. She reached up, wiping at her mouth and looking from Aleric to Silva, curiously.

How had they known someone was here? She shrugged it off, smiling widely. "Hi!! How are you? My name's Ruby Soho!" She called, waving at the newcomer.

"Did you catch that?" Aleric asked Silva softly.

"Not a bit." He replied. "Somebody needs to lay off the sugar sticks."

"Really? You made it all by yourself?" Ruby asked, clasping her hands. "That's awesome! And your wings look really good!" She said. "But you're right, you should leave before they stop shining." She finished with a nod.

"It's a miracle." Aleric said calmly.

"She speaks gibberish. Quite a talent." Silva said equally quietly.

Silva and Aleric looked at each other, shrugged, and pulled the staffs hanging over their backs off to start a spar. Soho was filtering the repetitious things the other feien said, all the while keeping her smile.

"You've got a bloom? That's great! I was a bloom just a little while ago. It's a little crowded inside." She finished with a nod. Then she preened, rustling her wings. "I'm pretty fond of my wings, but you're the first feien I've met with feathers, too! Mister Silva Demon has scales and Aleric has these funny claw things on his." She turned, looking at her wings with a happy little smile. "I've got a scale of Mister Silva Demon's!" She said, holding her necklace out to show it off.

The two latest newcomers probably would have been there earlier had the younger of the two not fussed about exactly what they were wearing: thankfully for the purposes of the costume party, their bondmate had a large collection of fondly-kept Barbie clothes. Burgundia thought these adorable. Cascati thought them not.

In the end, he'd been forced into a small pair of what were apparently supposed to be bluejeans - Christ, clothes itched - his hair tied back and a little cowboy hat perched on his momentarily tamed riot of bluewhite curls and spikes: obviously the world's tiniest and - as he had eyed his mirror - utterly gayest cowboy: all he needed was assless chaps. Maybe Gallium could pierce his nipples.

Burgundia, on the other hand, wasn't really dressed up as anything: she'd taken a little demure pink print dress that was appropriately calf-length and scoop-necked to show off the necklace that she apparently wasn't ever going to take off. M's diamond. She'd brushed her hair over and over and tied it back again with a pink ribbon. Rose had thought she looked adorable and had cut little wee mouse slits for Dee's wings. Casca helpfully told her that she was dressed as a Stepford wife, something Dee didn't really understand.

"Do I look fine," she was saying.

"You look so fine, Dee-dear."

"Do I look immodest? I can't make a bad impression on her, I just can't. I do think you should've worn a shirt."

"I'm allergic to shirts, ma cherie."

"You can see my ankles, is it really surely appropriate? This is gonna make an impression on her 'till she dies - "

"Darling, if you don't get in there any time soon, I'm going to quite possibly go off and leave you here."

Burgundia gave her brother a mean, squinty-eyed look which he had come to know intimately: with one last pat of her hair and one last faintly worried look at her pale bare arms, she set off fizzing with nervousness into the backyard. Casca, much less so, thought comfortably about the cigarettes in his back pocket.

Casca had to count to ten and hold his breath so that he didn't laugh at a number of things: Burgundia's expression, Silva previously cradling Soho in his arms, or the general Soho-ness of the new juvenile. Silva was in for a rough ride. Karma was beautiful. And, hey, he wasn't complaining at her outfit.

Burgundia, however, varied wildly between diving on the juvenile so that nobody could see the sheer amount of skin she was displaying and her innocence thus kept, or being good-mannered. In the end, she was too excited to decide, and did a mixture of both: she took Soho's hands in her own and beamed at the other juvenile.

"Hideecuteshoeshow'syo'daddy," she said breathlessly, and then after she'd gulped in air: "My name's Burgundia but call me Dee and I'm yo' sist-ah and you are surely be-yoo-ti-ful."