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In a back alley, little more than a throughfare for the garbage trucks, and waiting place for the refuse and rubbish of the long line of shops as a strange, large pile. Now it wasn't all that strange to see some garbage, in shiny black bags piled up near a dumpster. Sometimes they just had a lot to throw away.

What was strange about this one, was that it was moving. Rising and falling slowly, shifting every hour or so.

Kids walked pass the pile, poking it with sticks, waiting to see what terrifying spirit could have possessed the pile. What trash elemental would leap out. Even as they feared some wild dog would bite them arm off.

It was a small, brown haired kid, that finally saw the monster. No one would believe him afterwards.

A stick poke penetrated the garbage, and there was a growl from within, as something fleshy stopped the small prod. The growl grew louder, becoming a roar. The poor kid remained rooted tot he spot, as a large hamfist popped out of the pile, greenish skin reaching out towards hiim, resting the stick from his nerveless grasp.

A moment later, the pile exploded outwards, standing in the epicenter was the large, cruel, ugly half ogre. Now his smell more than a little reinforced.

There was no sniffle, no sneeze. His sickness was gone, and there was a divine fire in his eyes. Heavy feet stomped off, leaving a quivering, frozen child standing in his wake. His massive hands scooping up several small creatures as he walked.

There was a gagging sound as he left, from the small fireball on his shoulder, the small moomba jumping down to walk along on her own, upwind from the offending odor, head bowed against the gale. Soon the toad followed, though the poor tonberry, too slow, remained tight in the druid's grip, looking passed out by the noxious fumes.

Junkan smiled. The sickness was gone. He had communed. He had a dream. All was right.

Other than the smell that would tip off his prey. He walked back into the main streets, most giving him a wide berth, not for his visage, size, or race, but now for the powerful smell. Fine by him, as he didn't care to have to wade through the smaller humans.

Leaning into the winds, his shoulder down, eyes squinting shut against rain and gusts. He moved slowly, steadily, and standing almost 40 degrees into the wind.

The ogre's heavy eyes locked onto the woman. His nose picking at the air, sniffing for her scent, but unable to peirce the viel of his own odor.

A stranger, for all he knew. Or at least someone he could not identify. While he wrestled with the problem, she continued on, pulling out sheafs of paper, holding them out to him.

What was going on here? He looked ahead to Lilith and Glop, measuring their opinions behind their small eyes. They refused to come closer, though the small rouge flame made a small toss of the head towards the woman. Glop just turned and continued on.

"Whut happen to Vin-Sent?" the druid asked evenly. His hand reached out slowly, carefully for the papers, afraid of tearing or wrinkling beyond use. His fingers closed carefully and tightly, waiting for her to let go.

As Dune left, Junkan became well aware of the sound of the wind whistling through and around the buildings. A nice, dull roar, shutting out most sounds, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

He glanced down, looking at the papers. Flipping through them carefully. Illiterate, he was looking for pictures, or some other symbol that might have shown them to be what the strange woman said. Rather than perhaps, a cursed scroll.

He moved on slowly, careful to keep both hands on the papers, less they fly away in the wind. And with both hands occupied, the small tonberry jumped ship for a place with fresh air.

Thus they proceeded, north through the city. Lilith and Glop leading, fighting and pushing for the right of being the undesputed leader. The ogre, death clutching onto these papers, and lagging behind, the slow tonberry.

Trust. Who could he trust? Candy woman, perhaps. If he saw her again. But where would the Candy woman be?

Shade let out a small sigh of contentment as he regarded the looming bad weather--this was far more appropriate for a Dark Lord of his measure.
Looking around, he realized that he was quite early--the Conclave event probably wouldn't stat for another few hours or so...After noting the location of the Durem Quad, he hefted his bag of stolen food and wandered off to seeif he could find himself another shoe.

"Ahhh~ it's wonderful!" Odilen did a little twirl as she walked, her scarf slung easily over her arms, draping around her skirts. All around here was the hustle and bustle of the festival.

Last year, she hadn't been able to enter, having sprained her ankle a few weeks prior, but this year... oh, this year. The Ieldi grinned. She'd been practicing for the dancing competition for weeks.

"Ah-bfffffft," Amalthea said into her guardian's ear, the little blue baby leaning over to blow messily at Odilen's feathers from her place in the back-mounted sling.

"Hey, knock it off," Odilen replied, absently, her mind wholly on the competition. "I only brought you because Pantalai assured me you were an angel."

"Pfft." Amalthea leaned this way and that, reaching out tiny hands to try and grab at things.

"Right... sure." Odilen glanced over at her companions. "Everyone okay over there?"

"Yes, kupo!" Artemecion waved at her from his perch atop Kez, the large chocobo letting out a long, wuffly sigh. A large flat basket had been lashed to his back for use as a platform, in place of the saddle he usually wore, and the riotous bunch of famliars rode within. Currently, they were peering every which way with great curiosity.

"Of course, my life was simpler a year ago," Odilen muttered, shaking her head.

"Aaaaah."

"OW! That was my HAIR!"

"Ghee!" Amalthea clapped her hands in glee, one long clump of Odilen's hair oozing out of her mouth, now coated in baby-drool.

"Wonderful."

"Is this the place?" Koni was dressed as he always did; a white shirt with form fitting black leather pants and black boots. His gloves adorned his hands but for once, he was without his usual cloak. There were quite a few people there and his nature was screaming to run as far away from it as possible. But the companion he had on his shoulder was the reason why he was there.

"Aye... looks like it..." Dressed in a dark blue kimono with silver and gold leaf work stitched carefully onto it, Reika looked around the area with an air of curiousity, but she looked rather sad still. Instead of her normal head dress, her hair had been styled into mini braids which were then styles into a bit of a crown, but still allowed some to hang down her back. Gold and jade chopsticks were also carefully balanced into her hair. She had wanted to try a different look and do something new. And since she did admrie Hayaharu's style a lot, she had begged to try something similar. Koni hadn't exactly liked it, but when he had seen her smile for a second after the transformation was complete, he just shut the hell up and dealt with it.

And so the two of them were wandering around carefully, each looking around for things of interest. Koni couldn't really care less, but Reika had seen some pretty looking things and wanted to look at them. And her way of asking was to tug lightly on his ear and point in the direction she wanted to go. And he was fine with doing that.. until she yanked a bit too hard on her ear and pointed backwards. Why did that seem so frantic for?

Hayaharu's voice was easy to recognize and he paused a bit, looking around til he saw her and her companion. Oho, so that's why Reika suddenly wished to turn around. She saw Aversham. but this was very different than how she usually reacted to him. Normally, she was squeeing at him to go over, not to get away from him. So he had definately done something to upset her... and she always said that Aversham would never hurt her. Riiiiight. "So what do ye wanna look at now?" There were so many other things to look at, after all.

"Anything's fine.." As long as it was nowhere near Aversham. Looking away from him quickly, she pointed towards a stall that seemed to have belly dancing costumes. Though all of them were way too big for her, she often had him buy ones that she thought were pretty so that Sah, Akiya's mate, could make her a mini copy while he kept the bigger one. "Can we look at those?"

"Ye need another outfit?" Ignoring her mock gnawing on his ears in irritation, he sighed and went over there. Oh yeah, he forgot. She could never have enough dancing outfits. Making his way over, he looked at her face carefully, bothered by the deep sadness in her eyes. "Reika? Are ye gonna tell me what happened one day?"

"Maybe... right now... I just.. don't want to think about it." She tried to hide her face but since most of her hair was up, her braids couldn't hide her face well enough.

"Aye... well.. ye mentioned a dance contest, aye? After ye find an outfit, let's go see if we can find it, aye?" Seeing her give a tiny smile at the thought of it, he smield in return. "And we'll find a cotton candy stand... I'm sure they have some sweets somewhere..."

Though he hadn't been paying attention, his ear flicked as words kept penetrating his thought processes. Reika had been placed down on the stall they were before so she could look at things she might want. Weird how whatever they were talking about seemed to catch his attention. Maybe it's because they were speaking of Shoichi, he had no idea. But he didn't let on that he could hear them. And that was more for Reika's sake because she needed him with her now. Though even she knew that they had to go to Shoichi and the Range. but now part of her was rather hesitant about going. "Finding anything, my dear?"

Reika had to be careful to not step on anything important as she looekd at everything curiously. They were all nice looking but definately not what she wanted. Shaking her head a bit, she bowed and thanked the vendor for allowing her to look before she turned to be picked up again. "Nay.. nothing calls to me..." As Aversham and Hayaharu passed, she happened to notice and she sighed heavily and quickly looked away. Even though this place was big, she had the bad feeling she would keep running into them.. even if neither noticed the other truly. "Can we look for the dancing place now please, Koni-papa?"

As he shifted her to his shoulder, he took note of where Hayaharu and Aversham were heading off to. Hmm well he didn't know where anything was but they could wander. He just hoped that it wouldn't close to where those two were. Reika was so apparently upset at seeing Aversham that she wouldn't be able to even attempt dancing. "Are ye sure ye should be competing for anything?" his eyes were worried as he watched her fiddle with her hair a bit. "Ye haven't danced in front of other people for quite some time... and ye aren't in the best of spirits..."

"Then mayhap I shouldn't.. but I still wanna watch at least. There aren't many other dancers at home..." Though she might get herself to dance, it all depended on how she felt when she got there. If the vibe felt good, then she would dance. But til then, she clung to Koni's ear as they wandered around. It took a bit to find the place where other dancers seemed to be and she tilted her head slightly. The vibe felt nice.. and the music was pretty....