Welcome to Gaia! ::

Really close you could see where the white cornea blended in with the white eyeball, it looked less of snow white up close and more of a really really light gray.

But Maximos on the other, had a whole other set of issues. While he looked to be in his mid to late 20's, his contact with the opposite sex was...lacking to say the least. The moment she leaned in his eyes widened and nervous shot across his face like a paint ball explosion. Out of instinct he leaned back, only to find himself caught by the back of this metal chair. He was trapped between his nervousness, and his chivalry, as he would never be able to push the chair back and just stand up unless...

Unless someone was in danger. Of course thats when he realized that he was not concentrating on his arm, something he needed to do at all times. And in the rush of the moment, as his knees were shaking and his left hand was placing a death grip on the book...he hadnt noticed the way his right hand had lifted itself up on its fingers was trying to walk its way closer to the edge of the table so that it could jump right onto the center of Ms. Acacia's chest and begin feeding. A most dangerous, and most painful occurrence to say the least.

Its hunger was represented by "drool", or in this case blood, as thick black liquid began to seep from the scars on that arm, he was thankful for his long sleaves and bandages, though a bit seeped out of the glove and fell onto the table, it looked very much like blood only thicker, and black. As it got just a drop closer, it released its tentacles. Black tendrils each incorporeal, and semi-transparent, seeping from around his arm, slowly and carefully trying to reach their way up to Acacia. They had just barely begun phasing through her shirt, when Maximos realized his mistake.

Maximos' eyes quickly turned to his arm, as he immediately tried to seize control of it...the arm resisted. In the struggle between the two the limb started to twitch and flail, lashing out to make a desperate rush for Acacia's soul. Maximos' left countered, it snatching the limb and pinning it down on the table with a wet smack.

With a half fearful, and half very nervous look across his face, Maximos' looked at Acacia, kicking his chair back. Hoping to Nocturne that he hadnt just scared the woman away.

I'm...I'm so sorry...

He said in an honestly apologetic tone, looking defeated, as his arm flapped around on the table like a fish out of water trying to escape.

I....please excuse me for a moment Ms. Acacia.

He didnt stay for an answer, immediately getting up and making his way into the coffee shop and to the lavoratory. Leaving behind a sort of stain from where the black liquid had soaked through his bandages and his shirt and was pressed against the table.

They has left the arena quite some time ago, but the girl didn't seem to want to actually go anywhere. The large panther just continued walking beside the girl, almost as if to give her comfort, but seemed scared of the staff she carried in the hand opposite of him.

'This is getting old', the staff mindspoke to Tijae who didn't even bother wasting the energy to do the same, and instead spoke aloud.

"If you don't like it, go back home. I'm staying here till I either find 'him' or what I'm looking for." The almost coal black skinned fist curled around the staff, threatening to strangle him, or if he had a neck she would have.

'Come brother, let's leave this 'child' to her own devices, she'll come home when she's had enough of this world and realizes he was nothing important" the girl released him and pulled the hood tighter over her head, so that brillant flash of light wouldn't blind her too much when the two disappeared. If they seriously thought a little loneliness would annoy her...well, they were right, but she'd had plenty of time to get used to it before...

...before what? She couldn't really remember, but it was there. She shoved the hand into the pocket of her cloak and left the spot where the cat and staff had left her. It was time for dinner, and if she was lucky, she'd find a place that wouldn't make her take her cloak off.

After a few moments, some smell prickled her nose and she looked around. Cinnamon. Her favorite smell. Where was it...Oh...she looked right at a place that sold cinnamon rolls. If the tiny, doll like girl hadn't looked so dissappointed, the clerk would have laughed at the astonishment on her face. She'd been off in her own dreamworld until she'd caught smell and sight of the store.

"Free sample!" He called out. Dinnertime was his deadest hour so he was happy to give away samples if it would bring in more business, and even under that thick cloak, he could tell it was a tiny thin girl. She may or may not have money, but in Latent such a business as his was doing well so he could afford to be kind if it came down to it.

Tijae took a step forward, hesitantly. She never did know how to react to kindness.

Tijae would not notice at all, in so many ways, she was a girl lost. She took another step towards the man holding out the bits of cinnamon roll and had to pause, her stomach rumbling her hunger. So long since she'd felt hunger. Pho and Pha had kept her in their realm and there was no hunger there. Perhaps a bite wouldn't hurt.

'Thank you', startling the man as she spoke in dream speak, rather than Gaian. She occasionally forgot herself and had to rephrase it, making sure her lips formed the words as well. "Thank you." It was strange what owing your entire existence to being created by another person did for your personality. She knew she had not been a kind person, but what she had been was still beyond her, although Pho and Pha hinted that they knew.

As she reached out, the utter blackness, almost void that was her right hand could be seen and the man looked down...and then stopped. He seemed frozen as he looked at her hand, and until she pulled it away, seemed unable or unwilling to look away. "My apologies..." She sighed, yet another normal person who was unable to look upon that half of her body without being mesmerized. She hated everything she was, but half of her body she hated even more, because it reminded her of everything she had been.

But it was night, and sometimes at night, even the void could be watched untainted by it's touch. So as she moved away from the cinnamon stand, holding the bits of dough to her nose; not eating, but simply smelling it, her free and normal looking hand pushed the hood of the cloak away from her head, revealing black hair, and on one half of her body a pale and young pretty face. On the other side however was a black void in the shape of a face, the black of her hair blending in with her ebony face that seemed to have only a white space for an eye, almost as if it was nothing physical, but merely the absence of the void that made up that side of her body.

"Things never go the way you intend," She muttered before popping the bit of dough into her mouth and chewing. She needed to find real food soon.

Tijae had been so lost in her own little angstying that she hadn't even paid attention to the disruption of what she considered hers. It was rare indeed that someone could get the drop on her from the shadows. But it was instead, the voice, that brought her out from her musings.

"Hallo.." She spoke, the anxiety of being snuck up on giving away a slight soft drawl to her voice that hadn't been there a moment ago. She turned towards him slowly, there were things in Gaia that acted polite one moment and tried to tear you apart the next, and not all of them were physical.

If not for the void, she would have been considered pretty; shortly curled and cropped hair that hung in her face as if to hide what 'humanity' she had left. Her eyes were darkly kohled and showed none of the nervousness that her body seemed to betray. If he could see beneath the cloak, she seemed less shy in herself there, a stomach cropped tank top that revealed perfectly porcelain skin that seemed almost Alabaster in truth. Simple black jeans and boots. Seemingly even unarmed. Strange enough on Gaia.

She didn't say anything beyond that simple greeting. For all she knew, it could have been directed at someone else. Not that there were many in this part of Latent. It was a 'mostly' residential area. Maybe it was too silly to have checked here for the red haired man she'd seen at the stadium.

If you discarded the fact of the creepy void like shadows that was currently making up about a 1/3 of her body, she didn't look much older than 16. A very elegant 16, but 16 nonetheless, because that was the way this body had been designed. Apparently so it wouldn't be too much temptation to it's creator. Not that Tijae knew this, she only knew this body didn't feel as old as the knowledge she held within it. But she didn't shy away from him, he felt as natural to her, as roughage did to a deer.

"More like I can't find a place I want to eat dinner.", or was willing to be seen as she was without scaring or mesmerizing the normals. Then her stomach gave her away again, rumbling loudly enough to echo in the shadows, and sending several small critters running that hadn't already left. But she showed no real fear at being approached, and merely watched, curious if that was his real hair color or not. "And I think you're missing a shirt."

Perhaps it was simple paranoia, but Pho and Pha had trained that into her; having brought her into the realm of nightmares. For that was what they were. So it was that when he went to bow, her senses went on alert, and she took a step back; wary.

But that would easily be compensated by KB. But as he lunged forward to grab her cloak, Tijae would fall backwards (think comic retreat backpeddle), the cloak slipping over her head easily towards him; it had never been meant to stay on her head no matter how a lot of tall, dark and dangerous liked to wear their cloaks. It was covering, nothing more. Her anger at the attack focused into a small ball in her stomach and then into her right hand.

As she fell to her a**, the cloak fluttered in KB's hand and she looked up, a blade as black as her own skin suddenly in her hand. "Rude much?"

Sight may have been useless to him, but the new additions to her body were unfamiliar enough to Tijae that everything was instinctive, and for that she thought she needed sight. So instead of letting the cloak flutter back upon her prone body, she twisted and rolled off to the right, the 'shadowed' portion of her body having actual depth to it no matter how it looked.

As she moved the blade itself seemed to elongate, becoming approximately 5 feet long by the time she had gotten herself upright and into a crouched position. The form of the blade was odd, taller than her own body by 3 inches, it looked like a nagamaki proportioned for her size. A strange enough weapon on it's own. Her arm pulled back so the blade was touching the ground as she lifted to her feet. She tried not to show her own surprise at the weapon that had formed.

"Any particular reason for attacking me?" Hell, if he was a vamp, there was a million dolls out there who'd kill to be drained, and it was odd that she was attacked so randomly.

She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and couldn't care less as her mind was on her defense. Tijae wasn't undead, and so did have to worry about things like fatigue, but the night was still young, and she felt stronger now than she did during the day. Perhaps Pho was right, she was a creature of darkness.

"Maybe if you'd ask nicely, I would have just given it..." Not likely, but sometimes she surprised even herself. As the first blade fell forward, the nagamaki lifted, to block with the blade, using the staff of the weapon to partially block the second attack, making for an even more shallow attack than expected. She had to brace herself and was shocked as she held her own, even if it was in a defensive stance. She hadn't remembered knowing anything about weapons. But here she was, with a bladed staff across her body, blocking two bladed weapons, but with it being two she knew she would quickly be out manned.