Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I am a River," said the slightly rumpled-looking girl with a smudge of dirt on her cheek and a wearing very oddly misshappen and lumpily knitted sweater. In her defense, she did look as if she had wandered into a vat of something and drowned, but she was otherwise very definitely not running nor filled with fish like a proper river would.

It was very odd though, Lethe felt, that none of them spoke much besides Sofi. Clearly this meant she would have to talk more herself, barraging them all with words until they could be inspired to speak with more of their own. "And I don't look like my mother at all, I--" she was about to say, 'I forced her to give me enough of her life essence to allow me to reincarnate and man was this the biggest mistake ever, she won't let me stay up past nine' but she suddenly realized that this was not appropriate to say in front of a moo-ing baby that just wanted to eat grass and probably not be interrupted by the inevitable gasps of shock and dismay and empathy for her too-early bedtime, so she cleared her throat and continued, "--was found on her doorstep. So I ask!"

Finally vaguely grocking that perhaps what she had said was not entirely kosher, she uneasily shifted her weight between her feet. "She is very cute though," Lethe added hastily, "I like the, um..." She tilted her head at an angle, "The pattern on her skin."

Lethe made a very strangled noise (not unlike the creaking of a door hinge in need of oil) as words which were very definitely not her own found themselves in her head like big neon signs. It was not to say that Lethe had never been spoken to telepathically before -- but before she did have prior warning, and besides which, who was talking to her anyway?!

All of her very fine and tiny hairs bristled invisibly, and if she had a tail, it would have puffed out to a thick bottlebrush. um hello, said Lethe inside of her own head, err I mean HI I don't know if you can HAMBURGERS hear me I AM NOT USED TO THIS, SORRY oh man oh man i wish i had headwings too.

Deciding it would be easier to speak outwardly, Lethe shook her head rapidly to try and dispell her own awkward replies (half of them she hadn't even meant to send) and, clearing her throat, located Luna as the most likely suspect. "Oh, okay." The fact that Caroline was born like any other baby meant, of course, meant the stork brought her. "She looks a little like one of my friends, Dusty, only Dusty's all black but she -- he -- she? -- he? -- is furry too, with hair and... a tail."

To Sofi, she hurried to explain before the next wave of weird vegas-words, "I am a Fa'e, and we are all found on doorsteps and in woods and from dreams and things. Well, unless two Fa'e get together and order another one from the stork, like normal parents but the baby still has to go to a guardian -- um, which is a non-Fa'e parent, but if they are not there something bad happens and you die I think." She had not realized until now how hard it was explaining Fa'e in general and not just herself specifically.

Throughout all of this, both the older Fa'e girl and her Guardian stood silently, Tsu more or less looking ready to make her exit whenever the okay was given, and Faye, well, just standing there. Well, it wasn't really as if the rabbit girl was one for conversation, anyways, and besides, if she was needed to explain something, which she doubted, she could speak up then.

So, instead, the youth simply waited around for whatever it was that had seemed familiar to make itself known.

"Uh..." Sofi paused. No. No, she was definitely not much for telling peasants to rejoice, though now she WAS quite jealous of the younger girl for being so cool. And the pink one for being pink and having bunny ears. Those were so cute!

Maaaaaaaaaaaaan. Even the Gaians were awesome, and Gaian Studies said they weren't.

"...No."

"LUNAAAAAAA~" A short grey blur came barrelling into the gathering, headed for Luna. Merlyn saw that the pink-haired woman was holding Caroline in time to halt its attempt at a glomp, however, and skidded to a stop before actually crashing into anyone. Barely. "What're you doing? Hi!"

"Merlyn!" Anen appeared a moment later, frowning. "Where are you going? Do you know these people? Uh, excuse us, please," he said to the group, looking embarrassed. "My brother just ran over here ... " He blinked at Lethe - hadn't she been at the Prom?

Lethe was very happily tending to her hamburger and basking in the spotlight of being a Fa'e in a group of non-Fa'e that clearly recognized their positions, when with one long flying streak of grey fur and incomprehensible (to Lethe's ears) screaming promptly shattered all her delusions of grandeur. Were she not particularly hungry, she would have dropped her plate.

There was just no way she could upstage a talking cat. Hades, why did everything have to happen to her?

"Well, you know," Lethe began in a very small voice to Sofi, who had already been compromised anyway; the River Fa'e realized that no, no, even she did not know. Nobody knew.

So she settled for staring very hard at the person who had brought this plague of no-attention upon her. What had started as a particularly reflective, emotionless stare soon melted into a look of curiosity, and Lethe held her plate in one hand to point at the moth Fa'e with one slightly curled finger. "I know you," she said, "I don't know your name but I've seen you."

She's like me, Luna explained to Merlyn. Human, Neilani, it was all mostly the same, save for a few mental differences.

And Merlyn's reaction to Sofi was nearly inconceivable. "...What, you think I'm weird do you?" Her face formed into a very heavy pout. This she was very unused to indeed.

Meanwhile, Vilden leaned close to June, cupping a hand over his mouth. "What'd you PUT in those hamburgers?"

"There's not lots of humans here, at least ones who're not half a third something else," Merlyn explained, very seriously. "But it's not like bad or anything," he added hurriedly, in case this new person had gotten the wrong impression. "What's your name? I'm Merlyn."

"Nice to meet you, Lethe," Anen nodded. She was familiar in a way he couldn't place; then he recalled - of course. She was old enough to have been that small pale baby. Oh. Awkward subjects, much? He glanced around. He didn't really know anyone else here, and Merlyn had just stuck himself into conversation.