Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sidhe once more had to put up with an epic speech by Jill and did little more than stare at the girl wth an emotion close to comeplete and utter disbelief. The brown-haired girl was a little intimidating, although when Sidhe thought about it, she was thankful that the other seemed completely unabashed and without any prenotions. Her attempt at friendship, however awkward, left the blonde more relaxed, and she didn't mind so much the inundation of words coming at her.

When asked if she required assistance, Sidhe gave a thoughtful "hm..." and relocated the list, pulling it from her jeans pocket and offering it to Jill. Most of the few items on it were fairly standard school supplies, although there were a few kinds of tea listed (which were common back were Sidhe was from, but perhaps less popular here), along with silver polish.

Sidhe had just remembered that she had yet to give her named when she was approached suddenly from behind. With the previous encounter of beind struck by surprise still rather fresh in the young woman's mind (and lower back), she moved forwards just as he was about to touch her, turned, and grabbed him by the wrist with surprsing speed. She quickly let go, partly relieved but mostly embarassed, and looked at him and his companion with guarded curiousity.

"Oh, it's you," she commented, backing up to a more comfortable distance. She glanced back at Jill briefly as if seeking reassurance. "S-sorry, I didn't mean..."

When the other man exclaimed and then commented, Sidhe cringed inwardly. The words brought to mind a bad mental image. She didn't like to be tall or blonde; she was uncomfortable with her physique and would much rather be less intimidating than she was.

She accepted his apology through a slight nod, taking his hand hesitantly. Her grip was fairly light, and she turned aside her eyes when she briefly met his. "Sidhe Eamonn," she said by way of self-introduction. She released his hand, still averting her eyes.

((Gah, short. Oh well.))

After taking the list but being interrupted once more by the black-haired man, Jill watched on with uncharacteristic silence, taking note of Sidhe's name as she spoke it. For the short time that she hadn't been 'prattling on', the girl was fidgeting; rocking back and forth on her heels, looking around absentmindedly, toying with the papers in her notebooks by flipping through them... haha, that's a cool noise...

As obviously important as talking was to Jill, when she heard of the boy's inability to do so she was immediately struck with an almost uncontainable pity and her hazel eyes, previously attatched to the list, shot up to Blair's. But before she was able to adequately express this concern, she was "asked" of her name.

"Me?" she asked superfluously, pointing to herself as she spoke with an equal amount of futility. "My name? Oh! I'm Jill Walker, a junior! It's totally great to meet you!"

However, as genuine as her smile was, she was still slightly annoyed at being interrupted.

Elajio was very seasick. He had never been on a boat before, so he had no idea how he would react, but travelling alone had considerably tightened his wallet and boat travel was the cheapest means of getting to Archaia, or getting close, anyway. Trains didn't run through and buses couldn't come close due to the nature of the place.

"Why couldn't they just use industrial air scrubbers?" Elajio thought, as he gazed over the side of the ferry, the vast, clear blue sea reflecting unusually clearly in his silvery violet eyes. A beautiful view, to be certain, and one with which Elajio had become highly familiar. The pristine quality of it had come to starkly contrast the bags under his eyes and the heavy purple stubble on his face, as well as the wrinkled blue shirt and tan pants he was wearing.

"Modified properly, they can work on a large scale outdoors." Would his internal monologue have continued, had he not been more purposefully occupied with dry heaving over the edge of the boat. It was not the most pleasant trip, a problem compounded by the fact that this was not the most pleasant boat. It was large, and well decorated, but the interior was terrible and uncomfortable and the onboard duty free store didn't sell any motion sickness medication. In addition, for such a large ship--originally designed to carry 50 cars and their passengers--it seemed as though it swayed a to a considerable degree.

Actually, it barely moved at all, but what movement it made, Elajio felt. Right now, he felt it picking up speed, which was weird, because they were nearing the docks. As Elajio turned to a passing crewman to ask what was going on, a tugboat just below him sounded its horn, and the boat smashed right into the first dock, barreling through it as the once study planks were torn asunder and scattered in all directions. Elajio fell shortly after the first explosion from below deck and scrambled to his feet after regaining his bearings after another explosion. Judging from the sound, it was coming from the port side of the ship, that which he had been on, so he ran to starboard, jumped towards a lifeboat, missed it entirely, and fell deep into the salty water.

Blair didn't even flinch or blink when he heard the explosions coming from the dock, and furthermore, he didn't even turn his head, unlike his companions Chuck and Hank.

"The hell?" Hank swore, hopping into the cab of the truck. "C'mon, boys, people might need help." Hank said, hopping to it. Chuck got into his seat in the cab as well. "What, wanna play hero or something?" Chuck said sarcastically. "'Course I do. It's a good way to get into the papers."

Blair simply hopped up onto the tiny platform on the back of the truck and held on with one hand, staring blankly at the pavement that rolled out from underneath them as they headed towards the docks, which was nearby, since it made sense to lessen delivery times (and fees) by having a marketplace right next to the docks.

When they arrived, the damage was apparent and quite great. One of the docks had been completely destroyed, apparently by the boat that was currently imbedded in the concrete section of the docks, which was crumbling around the point of impact and steadily falling into the sea. Luckily it seemed like the damage was minimal to the ship, save for the bow, which was completely destroyed by the impact, crumpled and everything. While Hank and Chuck beheld the destruction in horror, Blair approached it with a blank and empty stare, expressionless and vacant.

All three were silent, none of them so much as moving.

(Figured I'd do the destruction and such, as best as I could interpret from Lykus' post.)

Sidhe, surprised, made a halfhearted grab at Jill just before she ran off. The unsuccessful attempt left her with her hand suspended, frozen mid-motion, watching the girl depart with some measure of disbelief.

Common sense dictated that she go away from the explosions rather than towards them, but the look on Jill's face seemed dire and Sidhe, while reserved, was compelled to follow suit. Torn, the girl remained stationary until the garbage truck flew by not too far away, the noise snapping her into a decision.

Sidhe broke into a full run. Not only was she athletically gifted as a blonde, but her speed was impressive even among those sharing her hair colour. Her long strides carried her quickly to Jill despite the other's signifigant head start and she slowed to keep pace until the docks were in clear view.

She wasn't sure what to make of the pandemonium that lay before her. To discern what had happened was fairly easy, but figuring out what course of action (or non-action) to take was a somewhat more difficult task...

Having been thoroughly unperturbed by any of the other player characters, Elajio's writer decided that such a time was one suited for a breaking of the fourth wall, both as a means of generating comedy, and as a formerly subtle, but now quite explicit means of complaining about the nature of his fellow posters' posts. However, I digress. The resulting events played out such that what would be described by many as "much mayhem and chaos" actually resulted only in minor injuries to one person and a broken limb to another. This is what happened:

The exhausted teenager was had been lying on his back, half out of a lack of energy, half out of the refreshing feeling of the warm, glowing sun, when his throbbing headache began to subside. Not questioning the pleasantness of this, he continued to lie in place until the voice in his head strongly suggested that he move. The voice in his head proceeded to introduce itself and to explain that the resulting events would likely bode ill for his future if not handled properly.

Specifically, what it said was this: "Elajio Marduk? You may want to move at this time."

To which, Elajio himself replied "What? Why?"

It is important here to make note of the fact that Elajio did not appear to bystanders to have spontaneously inquired as to the "what" and "why" of his situation. Despite the fact that most of the onlookers themselves had responded to the disaster by thinking "What is going on?" and after seeing the wreckage, also thinking "Why did this happen?" they would likely have found anyone actually saying those two words to be unusual. Elajio had actually posited several theories as to human sociological oddities such as these, most being backed with the argument that "People are generally very stupid" but the expected behavior of large groups was not currently his concern.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself." continued the voice. It had an unusual quality to it that was silky smooth, but reassuring, comforting, and assertive all at once. It was a voice well suited for a psychiatrist or therapist, or on the outside, even an admissions counselor. "I am the admissions counselor for the Academy here in Archaia, although I serve a secondary role as a therapist backed by a doctorate in psychiatry. My name is Dr. Canezo." added the voice. Elajio opened his eyes at the oddity of the coincidence of his thoughts and Canezo's introduction. This was immediately followed by him rapidly closing his eyes to protect them from the sun, which he had unknowingly been directly facing.

"Uh... Hello?" replied Elajio again. This second response, like the first, was not verbal, but mental. Elajio had never exhibited telepathy, telekinesis, or any of his gifts to any appreciable degree before, but these attempts appeared to be working on at least a rudimentary level.

"As I was saying. I would suggest moving from the dock as soon as possible. It would also help if you shouted 'get down!' while doing so such that the harrier jets sent by your father does minimal harm to the many citizens of our fair city before you."

Elajio trusted the admissions counselor. At the time, he wasn't sure why, but he guessed that he might as well trust a man with purple hair who had a doctorate in psychiatry, because if he didn't then the guy could certainly find a way to make him. "GET DOWN!" he yelled, partly out of concern for others, partly because he was running very fast down the dock and had difficulty controlling his breathing while running in an already exhausted state. A few policemen pointed their guns at the scraggly, unshaven, and very wet crazy person on the docks before they, and any others who hadn't ducked were blown down by the force of four suddenly decelerating harriers, hovering a few mere meters over the surface of the water. The force of this ripped apart the dock upon which Elajio had been lying, shredding it with such ferocity that the other dock which currently had a boat lodged in it looked all the better for wear. Elajio himself was blasted forward by the suddenness of this and scraped his left forearm slightly on the pavement. A trashman who had climbed halfway into his truck had managed to grab hold of the steering wheel, but his coworker had nothing against which to brace himself and fell back into him, causing the former trashman to lose his grip and break his arm against the driver's seat of the truck.

Elajio was, unsurprisingly, the first to stand after all this. He had received the most ample warning of course. The defiant teen turned towards the particular jet that had all but annihilated the one dock and made rude gestures with his hands before running to the trash truck, turning the key in the ignition, and starting up towards the school, all before any others could get their bearings and stand to look at what had just happened.