Welcome to Gaia! ::

Wyv sat in the loft, sorting her belongings into two piles: stuff that goes here and stuff that does not go here. Apparently labeling boxes when moving was a good idea and not just the hot-air of self-important home-gurus. Oh well, now she knew for next time, should there ever be a next time.

Her mental tirade came to an abrupt hault as her fingers closed on the item she was searching for. Well, one of the items anyways- like her toothbrush or the "home video" she'd made with her signifigant other. Those two would be awkward to replace she thought, a lecherous grin flicking across her face. The latter more so than the former.

Carefully, she pulled her find from the box, fingers running over the engraved cover. With a flourish, she opened the journal and flipped the pages with a thumb. Aaah. There was something about the smell of a well made book. It had... hope. Promise. She gave a sudden sneeze. Oh, and this one had dust. Lots of dust.

"Gaah," she complained, rubbing at her nose furiously. Snorting a few times to make sure there was no lurking nose-juice in her nasal packages, she stood, and with much groaning and bone-popping, one really shouldn't sit hunched over for so long, she made her way to the mass of blankets and pillows she was currently using as a bed. Fumbling in the night stand, she produced a pencil. Really, she should go back to attempting to bring her new home up to what she deigned livable, but keeping a journal was part of the Aerandir experience and she was damn well determined to do it right and right now, before she forgot. Again.

Making her self comfortable in her nest, she began to write.



Satissfied, she flipped a few pages and began to scrawl again, noting the date in the top corner.



Figuring that the truncated entry was good enough, the green-haired woman carefully placed the pencil and the journal in the drawer of the nightstand. Leaning over, she eyed the two jars sitting on top of the stand, her expression thoughtful. "Here's to enjoyment, neh?" she told her ward with a little salute.

Wyv grinned. Feeling much envigorated, she stomped loudly as she exited the loft. Sure, there were boxes to unpack, but she decided that she had a date with a hammock and a sunset.

The phone rang in the middle of the night.

Normally, this would not have bothered Wyv. She had a good relationship with sleep; they got along. This culminated into the almost uncanny ability that she had to fall asleep at any time, at any place, in just about any position. She was greatful for this, and napped frequently, keeping her energy reserves rather high for those times when the bug to work bit her and she'd pull all nighters working on whatever had caught her fancy at the time. So no, the phone ringing was not the problem. Wake up, answer, go back to sleep. Peace of cake.

The problem was that Wyv didn't own a phone. Given the remote location of Ar'Idil and the rudementary technology available, she hadn't bothered with bringing one. Cellular was also not an option. Besides the hassels of waiting for a satellite to be in range, Wyv was fond of the term "electronic leash." She didn't like 'em. People could use 'em, fine, that's your thing, you go do it. They weren't for her. She valued her privacy too much.

She groused, sounding weary and exhausted from something more than fatigue. 'Always takes calling literally,' she thought, eyes closed in frustration. '********.' He wasn't supposed to do this. She owed him, yeah, but it hadn't been anywhere close to a year since the last time. That was the deal: At minimum, a year between favors.

No longer the least bit rested, she shuffled up from her mat (he would have to pick the one night it'd been to humid to sleep on her hammock, the b*****d) and manuevered carefully around her sleeping family. Of course it wouldn't wake them up, the call wasn't for them. Great, she hadn't even spoken to him and she was already bitter. By the time Wyv descended the ladder, she was a knot of worry: mind agitated and muscles tight. The beginings of a migrane were pounding in her skull. It was the norm when this happened, but she never got used to it. Just thinking about him reminded her of it and-

No. Not going there. Not tonight. Not any night. As much as she tried to tell herself she was over it, it was far, far from the truth.

She hated him. Wyv rarely hated anything. He made her angry, he made her crazy and vile and petulant and all the things she didn't want to be. And deep down inside, a tiny flicker of what it once was, he still made her heart squirm.

Her hand was on the phone (a black retro looking thing, straight out of 1950's America, rotator dial and all), the hand clutched in a white-knuckle grip, body shaking as the past overwhelmed her for just one moment.

(He had been inside her mind, reading her like a book to better use and manipulate, to dance her about like a fish on a line, not realizing it had swallowed a barbed hook and not sustenance. And then confessed- everything had been for that one moment. "It was for the best." Who's best? His? Hers? Would it have been better to be used and not know it? And then "You owe me." He'd ran a hand through her hair then, as she knelt, numb to it all on the floor. "I'll collect it. Later." The at least a year agreement would come much further down the road.)

Then she was inhaling, slowly and deeply, the tension shedding.

"Hey babe," came that confident voice over the line. "Miss me?"

"Spero," she said in a flat tone long perfected from use. The one that said, Cut the crap and get on with it and was reserved especially for use in talking to him. It was her typical greeting for him.

It was here that things deviated from the norm.

There was a pause. No smug retort, no sly innuendo, nothing. For one, suprisingly heart quaking moment, Wyvern wondered if they'd been disconnected. An impossibility, but...

"We don't talk, anymore." It was a soft sigh, accompanying this calm, surprisingly regretful statement, that snapped her from her mute state of shock.

That carefully plotted out script that they had always followed didn't include this.

Wyv inhaled sharply. "We... don't... talk...?" She ennunciated every word clearly and delicately, as if they were knives in her arsenal. " I.. y-you! We d-don't... " Here Wyv's composure completely deserted her. She sputtered, actually going so far as to make a noises that was closer to a hiss than any actual phrase.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." That seemed to be all he had to say about that. Spero sighed, again, this one full of regrets. "You know and I know and-" he paused. "Just- yeah. On to business."

"We have no business." The woman's tone was back to flat and apathetic. "Not for another five or so months."

She could almost hear him nod over the phonelines. "Yeah. I'm aware of that. I can't break the... agreement between us. However, this is important. And even more important, is that this is a separate matter. It would be an equal trade. You do this for me and I will do something for you. Yes," he said, cutting her off before she could start, "I am talking about removing a negotiable amount from the... debt... between us."

Wyv... was silent. Partially from the shock of his offer and the fact that he still knew her, oh so well.

"It requires your particular talents. Transportation will be at the docks in two hours." There was a pause. "Just be safe, okay?"

Then the line went dead. She resisted the urge to slam the phone down and grab the damn thing by the cord and smash it repeatedly into the counter, an effigy of Spero for her to vent on. She knew if she started, she wouldn't stop with the just the phone. The counter, the chairs, the ladder upstairs, and maybe even something worse.

Instead, the phone clicked with the sound of finality as she hung it up with steady deliberation, like a key in a lock or the flick of a switch.

She exhaled and the mask she had so carefully welded in place crumbled to ash and dust. As did she.

The next morning, the jars were waiting on Chao's porch, a hastily scrawled note attached.

Wyvern was nowhere to be seen.

RP - Wyv and Chao and Sanar too.
In which there is the return of Wyv's jars, a first meeting with Sanar, and plottings of a filmfest, which Wyv completely forgets about.

Over here.

"Letter for you," A cheerful voice chirpped at her, the only warning Wyv recieved before the object in question was dropped with much aplomb in front of her. She started at it, not-quite slack-jawed.

Right in front of her. In her cereal. Speared directly into a hunk of banana. Witty comments were beyond her at this point. So she fished it out of the milky depths and glowered at it instead.

A flurry of wing beats circled her head in a purple blurr. "Better read it 'fore it gets soggy~! It's from Tonio!" Well, someone was in a good mood today, she observed, sparing an ounce of glower for the orbiting kurimundi.

With one hand she plucked the letter from it's fruity stand and used the other to stuff the spoonful into her mouth. "AM-fomey!" She gurgled around chews, punctuated with a noisy swallow. "Anthony," she repeated, not liking the nickname the Ar Idil administrator had been given by her housemates. With a cluck of her tongue, she shoed with flapping plant-animal hybrid away.

Spoon replaced in her mouth, Wyv opened the only slightly soggy letter and read.



"Mff," she exclaimed around the spoon. "Male, huh? Mmm." She sank into silence, pondering. She tromped off after a bit, cereal momentarily forgotten. When she returned, it was with a hastily scribbled letter. She thrust the envelope at the purple blob occupying her countertop.

"Spike, do me a favor and go drop off this reply, kay? I've got mango..." She wheeled, knowing the winged beast was a sucker for fresh fruit. Faster than she could react, Spiked Punch snapped up the letter and bolted, sing-songing to himself as he left, "Tonio, Tonio~!"

The Gaian frowned. "Not 'Tonio!'" she called after, knowing it would do no good. She sighed and plopped back down in her seat to finish her evening breakfast-

And frowned. Her bowl was empty, save for a few tell-tale bits of purple fur floating the puddle of milk that remained. She shrugged and chewed on her spoon as she cleaned up the mess. Mango were a better meal than cereal, anyday.

The nights were warm, and frequently so. Such was the price paid to live on a tropical island. As far as Wyvern was concerned, it wasn't much of a price at all. Given the irrational waves of irritablility that flooded her otherwise placid personality in the prescence of cold weather, she was quite content to relax in the shade, skin prickled into goosebumps by the ghost of a late-night breeze.

She sighed, willing herself to ooze into and become one with the hammock upon which she lay. He leg twtiched faintly, just enough effort to keep the slow and gentle side-to-side motion going. The ease of the action and the familiarity of her surroundings made it easy for her mind to wander.

"Sky's so nice at night..." she said to the jar resting on her lap. "Like diamonds, strewn across a blue blanket." She laughed a bit at that, slow and languidly, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside like an oil well. The laughter eased its' way into a throaty hum, as the alchemist tried to remember how the rest of the lyrics to that song went.

"I'm counting UFOs, I signal them with my ligher... " she paused, face scrunched up in disgruntled frustration. "Wait, that's the wrong verse. Ah, well," Wyv commented to the jars containing Makai. "Wacha gonna do?" She gave Makai an affectionate pat, the motion shifting the jars just so, and giving her a glimpse of something else.

Again, her laughter filled the night, this time a much sharper and brighter sound. "Ha-HA!" she gushed, enthused by the sight. Carefully, she shifted to sit upright, legs dangling over the hammock's side and she craddled Makai, hefting the jar to the sky for a better look.

The jar was glowing, feather and fluff radiating a steady, if faint, gleam. One more step on the path of existance for her Aerandir-ward.

"Good job," Wyv told him, voice filled with pride. "Looks like we'll be signaling UFOs tonight afterall."

It was this note that occupied most of Wyvern's attention. The rest was focused on a happily splishing and splashing Makai. the gryphon in question was bounding along the shoreline, playing tag with the waves as they advanced and retreated in the never-ending dance of the tides. Occasionally, he would stop and paw some interesting bit of shell or rock from the wet sand and depositing it in a pile, then returning with much haste to his watery game.

She had planned on teaching her young charge how to build a sandcastle. But Yule had popped out to drop off the letter from Anthony.

This was an important decision. Wyv knew it. Not just for Makai, but for her too. As his guardian, it would fall on her to be a bulwark of support for his career training. but the only thing she really knew about was fishing. And from the information she'd accquired, bait and pole were not the typical tools of choice for Aerandir. She knew of some net fishing and clamming, but nothing of the spear or trapping.

The same was true of musicianship and being a courier. The machinist could keep a beat and get things places, but not with any special insight or technique. And so, she was stuck.

"Whachu think, Bloo?" she asked. It was good to talk to him. She wasn't quite certain how much he understood, being practically fresh from the jar. Or, from the way he seemed to be interested in everything else, maybe he had ADD.

Makai turned at her voice, abandoning a shell and scampering over, dark eyes glittering eagerly as he whistled at her. She made such pretty noises, his green one and he tried his best to make them too.

She laughed, not at all dismayed at the sea-scented otter-gryph as he pecked at her and then arranged himself to duplicate her as she sat upright. He couldn't quite get his legs crossed, but he got close.

With an affectionate scritch, she spoke to him once more. "You've got a high percentage in everything, so you'll be magnificent no matter what you do. Maybe you should be a composer. But you're a torpedo in the water and you can turn on a dime. So you'd be an excellent fisher or messanger." She mused this over a bit, muttering to herself. "So, rock paper scissors for it? No?"

He whistled, it was his favorite noise because sometimes, the green one would whistle back. And when she spoke, he'd chitter back. He tried to do so now, he could tell, well, she wasn't upset, but she wasn't like she was before. Makai snapped his beak at the paper. Maybe that was the cause.

"Heeey~!" She wheeled, trying to tug the paper from Makai. But he wouldn't release his grip and she didn't want the paper to rip, so she relinquished her grip and watched the Aerandir trot off to stow the letter in his pile. "I'm guessing that's a 'no' on being a messenger?" she called out.

Proud of himself, Makai returned to his caretaker and creeled at her softly, his sign that he wished to be picked up. As she complied with his demands, he nibbled at her hair and began to croon, thinking of the times when she wasn't... unsettle and disturbed, like the nights spent sleeping in the hammock on the front porch. His sense of satisifaction grew as she bared her teeth. The two-leggers liked to do that when they were happy. And that made him happy.

"Guess you under stood that part afterall," She grinned fondly at her charge, craddling him as she stalked over and retrieved the note from the pile and carried him home.

Upon arriving, she flipped the note over and scrawled on the back.

RP - w/Ary
In which Wyv remembers about the movie-fest and meets her neighbor... without realizing it.

Somewhere around here.

Yule was seeing red.

Actually, he was seeing green. Lots and lots of green. And that was the real reason he was seeing red.

"Limes," he mannaged t mutter around clenched teeth.

Glancing up from a pile of papers, Wyvern regarded him with only half her attention. "Limes," she echoed back to him, mind already refocused on the sheets of musical theory spread out before her.

Yule stomped his foot, in an ineffective attempt to vent his frustration. He didn't quite snarl- frustatration was not an emotion he was used to. "Yesss," he hissed. "Limes."

"So?" she shot back, now disgruntled herself. Makai had decided the papers were put to a better use than as study materials: tug of war for a start. Whistling what sounded like a remixed version of the William Tell Overture, he grabbed pawfuls of papers and began to pull as Wyv attempted to pry them back, without ripping them. "How is that not a goodness? The first time I ordered lemons. Which as you reminded me are not ingredients in key lime pie." Unwilling to rip her notes, she gave in allowing Makai to scuttle under a table with his prize.

The yuniko huffed. "That's not the point!" As silence was his only reply, he peered from the kitchen. "Are you even listening to me?" He asked, just in time to glimpse Wyv with her rear hoisted up in the air as she attempted to crawl after Makai as he slid from the table to behind the couch.

He blinked, anger dissapating somewhat at the absurdity of the situation. Yule continued to watch, reminded very much of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons as Wyv chased after her ward, headless of what got knocked aside in the pursuit.

Legs gathered up under her, wyv made a pounce and missed, skidding along the smooth floor to stop as she collided with a large and citrusy scented crate.

Makai paused in his flight at the noise, cocking his head curiously, before leaping up to the couch and arranging his stolen booty into a nest.

Wyv groaned as she righted herself, using the crate to steady herself. She peered at it curiously. "Hey," she blinked. "Thass a lot of limes." She blinked again, then looked at Yule somewhat ashamed. "What? They would only ship out to the island in bulk."

At that momet, jostled by it's impact with Wyv, the crate shattered, bleeding limes that bounced and rolled across the floor in all directions.

As the parade of citrus ceased, Makai threaded his way among the slightly battered fruit, poking and prodding indiscriminantly. Finally, he selected a lime seemingly at random and returned to his nest. He fussed with the fruit and the papers and finally settled himself, curling around the lime as if it were an egg. He regarded his two observers calmly.

Wyv grinned and laughed sheepishly.

Yule... did not.