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Mamas
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Aurora was acting oddly, at least in Ze'zee's opinion. Normally her little girl was happy to tell her about anything that happened during the day. But today wasn't like every other day. Today, her little girl was quiet, a moping kinda quiet.

"What's the matter, Rory? Didn't Polly like your gift?" Ze decided to ask. Polly was a new girl that seemed to be a bit of an innocent trouble maker. Rory had told her how Polly took Chris' earring, because it was pretty. But then gave it back on realizing just how important it was to him.

Ze glanced at where her girl was sitting at the table, looking at her coloring book, but not really into that job. Rory lifted her head, blinking up at her mom before smiling up at her.

"No! She likes the lots! They shinies, after all!" she said in a slightly happy tone. One that was lacking much of her normal cheerfulness.

"Then what's wrong?"

Rory went quiet a moment, obviously in thought. A small frown was on her round face, her she sea-green eyes looked stormy. There was definitely something up. Ze put down her dinner making things, wiping her hands as she walked to the table and sat down. "What is it?" she asked again.

"Mama?" the little girl started out seriously. "All Mama's love their little girls, right?"

"Well--"

"Because I don't think Polly's mama really likes her. When she comes to pick Polly up, she doesn't look happy, like other mamas, and she didn't look like she was enjoying Polly playing in the park, and--" Obviously the girl just couldn't hold it in, and continued to explain the things that just didn't look right to her.

Ze gave a little sigh, having seen this coming. It was good that Aurora at least wanted to talk about it, however. "I know, Rora, I know," she said softly.

The tone she used was enough to quiet her girl. Rory looked up at her hopefully. "Polly isn't happy," she added then. "Can we... can we take her??"

Ze gave her s surprised look. "Take her? Rory, was just can't go up to Polly's mom and do something like that."

"Why not?"

"Because doing it that way just isn't done. But I'll tell you what we will do," Ze said, seeing Rory's face fall with hopelessness. Those words, however, made her pirk up. "We'll keep an eye on her, and if anything really bad does happen, then we'll seriously find out what more we can do for her," she said seriously. Though Ze didn't like the idea of taking a child away, she really didn't like how Gwen treated the other girl.

Rory nodded about that remark, not fully happy but not as sad any more. Her mama would make things right, some how.

"While we wait, why not draw things for Polly? So the next time you see her, you can give them too her," Ze suggested. "We'll get her more shinies too, if you want."

"Okay!" Rory said, liking that idea. Now she felt better enough to eat!

Snow Play
Players: Trinityblue, Ice Queen
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Ze'zee had taken Aurora to the park to play. It was good to get away from the house, get out and get some real fresh air. Currently Ze was sitting on a bench while Aurora was off in the play ground, playing in the snow.

Rory was going to make a snow man. It was something she had seen others do and she wanted to try it! But, well, she didn't know how it started, so she was piling snow up, like one would sand. Occasionally she'd stop to rub her hands together and rewarm them through the gloves.

"Is coooollllldddd," Christian complained as Missy led him through the snow and into the park. "Don't like cold!"

"But it'll be fun, Chris!" Missy said. "You get to see Rory!"

"See Rory somewhere warm!" Chris protested. "Tired of cold, want warm!"

"I know, I know," Missy said, laughing at him. "You're such a baby, Chris."

"Dun' like cold," Chris repeated irritably.

Across the street Polly was sitting patiently on a bench as her mother finished her meal. She had already finished her own. At the sight of Chris, though, she stood, yelling happily. "Christian!!"

"Hi Chris!" Rory said, abandoning her snow man to join her friend the moment she saw him.

"Can't say I don't agree with him. I don't like the cold myself," Ze'zee said, grinning.

The voice carried well in the park, making Rory look around for whom it belonged too. Then she saw the fire colored girl and grinned. "Look! It's Polly!" she called, waving to the other girl, even if she wasn't called for. Heck, Chris was so easy to see.

"I go over there," Polly told her mom.

"Look both ways before crossing the street!" Gwen said. She was so stressed out after the past few weeks of being a mother that she didn't even think about her daughter playing with freaky children. Any moment of peace was one that she was desperate to grab.

Polly headed for the street, looking one way, then the other before dashing across. Chris grabbed her before she could trip over the curb, picking her up and setting her down again so she was stable.

"Hiii Rory!" Polly said. She had gotten used to Chris doing that after a while at school.

"Hii!" Rory grinned, coming up and throwing her arms around the other girl in a hug. She was at a stage where she would hug people she liked and wasn't shy with.

"Wanna play? I trying to make a snow man!" she asked them both.

"It involve snow?" Chris asked skeptically.

"Ok! We play!!" Polly said cheerfully as she hugged Rory back. "We make snow man!" Then she paused. "What snowman?"

"Mmm, I saw it in the yard next door! It was tall and kinda lumpy lookin and it has sticks for arms and a carrot nose!" Rory told her happilly, patting Chris on the shoulder.

"You got carrot?" Chris asked, being extremely logical since, let's face it, he didn't WANT to mess with the snow more than he had to! "You got sticks?"

"I find sticks!" Polly said, heading into the park to look for fallen sticks that they could use.

"But is too cold to find carrot!" Chris said, intent on pointing that out. "Carrots hide during winter."

"Christian," Missy said, torn between scolding and laughing at him. His fear of cold always struck her as funny, since he was so bold about everything else.

"After this, I say we find a place that sells hot chocolate," Ze'zee said, rubbing her hands together. She did find it amusing as well, even if she was cold and not liking it!

Rory stuck her tongue out at Chris in a playful tease. "We can find something else for the nose!" she told him brightly. "You can look for something to use or you can put together the snow!"

"I look, I look," Christian said before lumbering off to see if he could find something that looked vaguely nose-like. He took his sweet time about searching, too, because he didn't want to start on the snow part of the snow man.

"I found sticks!!" Polly called, holding up two. She had a larger one at her feet. "I even find one for tail!!" Because obviously, three kids with tails would make a snowman with a tail!

"A tail?" Rory asked, blinking at the bigger stick. "The other one didn't have tail.. But ours can!" she said, because it only made since to her. Chris, Polly and her mama and her all had tails, after all!

But poor Chris! He didn't like snow, but she wasn't going to make him touch it! If it could be helped. She then went back to piling the snow. She didn't know that you had to roll it around to get it into the right shape for a snow man.

Chris was picking up rocks in a nearby garden, looking at them for a moment, and tossing them over his shoulder to discard them. None of them looked like noses to him!

"What else we need?" Polly asked excitedly. "I help get snow, too?" she asked.

"Uh huh! You can help! Chris wont want too, he hates snow," Rory answered, packing snow onto the snow man. "We gotta get the body built, then we can put on the arms and tail and nose! ... Shoulda told Chris to get some rocks for eyes."

"Uh huh!" Polly said, getting on her knees and starting to drag the snow into a pile. There was one little problem with that, though. The snow she grabbed melted into water as soon as she touched it. "Ummm... it no like me," she said, holding up her dripping fingers.

"Awwww..." Rory pouted. It looked like she was the only one putting the snow together. Then she got an idea. "Okay then! You can look for eyes!" she said. "It's an important task! The snow man needs to see!"

"Okay! I go find eyes!" Polly said before racing off to the rocky area where Chris was still sitting.

The boy had a stone held delicately between his thumb and his forefinger and he was looking at it closely. "It allllmossttt look like nose," he said. "Just got no nose holes. I keep looking!"

Rory heard him and snickered. "Chris!! It doesn't have to have nose holes! It'll work!" Heck, she wasn't picky, really, so anything would work. Her tail gave an amused wag.

"Okay, okay," he said, picking the stone up and heading over to hand it to her. "Now what I do?" he asked as he sat down. Thankfully his snow pants were nice and waterproof.

Rory grinned at him. "You can help build!" she told him. "Polly can't, cuz it melts," Why, she wasn't even going to question. Just that it did was enough for her. "So, that leaves you!"

Now it was her turn to tease him about something. He kept calling her little!

Chris pouted, then started dragging the snow into a pile. "What snowman look like?" he asked. "Is big pile of snow?"

"I found eyes!" Polly called, holding up a handful of rocks. None of them matched. "Lots of eyes!!"

"Good! We can use two for eyes, and use the others for a dotted smile!" Rory said happily to Polly. Then she looked at her odd shapped snow man. "Well... it had a round head, and kinda round middle, and big bottom!"

"Lemme guess," Chris said with childish dryness. "Bottom was round too?"

"Do I got big butt?" Polly asked, turning to look at her bottom. Her tail flicked behind her, blocking her view. "Hey you!" she complained, grabbing for her tail. "You in way!"

Chris sighed. "You is too little to have big butt," he told her seriously. "You wait till bigger to ask that."

"Yes, it was kinda, and squished looking," Rory answered Chris, she didn't see it being made, after all. Then snickered again at Polly, but looked over her own shoulder. "I to little to ask if I have big butt too?" she asked, looking at her own butt. Her tail was much smaller, so it didn't block her view.

"Uh huh," Chris said, thinking about the problem. "We roll snow!" he decided. "Will get bigger that way. Like... um... tape ball!" When he had played with a tape ball, they'd probably never find out.

"Okay!" Polly said. Then she pouted. "It no like me."

"Mmm, you can cheer us on!" Rory told Polly, so that she wouldn't be left out in the snow play so much so. "And Chris and I roll snow!" She had never thought of that, really! She rolled dough, so knew how to do that. Rolling snow couldn't be much different.

With that idea in mind, she got a snow ball in her hand, she started to roll it up and around.

"Was three balls?" Chris asked as he reluctantly started rolling a snowball. "All same size?"

"Good job rolling! Yay! yay!" Polly said happily. She clapped her hands and stomped her feet to add to the cheering.

"One big, at the bottom, one not so big and one small," Rory said, now that her mental image had the shape as balls. This was so much easier! She then grinned at Polly for all the cheering.

"Okay, okay," Chris said, starting to roll his ball so it got bigger. He looked at Polly. "Why you no do snow part?" he asked curiously. "Why it no like you?"

"It turn water," Polly said.

"It melts?" Chris supplied.

"Yeah! It melts!" she repeated. "And I get wet."

"Which I told you about, Chris," Rory called, stopping as she had a good sized ball of snow. It wasn't as big as Chris' was getting, however. Then she started on a smaller one.

"But didn't tell me why it melt," Chris said, looking curiously at Polly. "You is got power or something?"

"I dunno," Polly said as she started lining up her stones on the ground. "Bath water get steamy, too."

"Huh," Chris said. "Polly might be different, too."

"Oh...." Rory said, suddenly sounding a little sad. Wisp had something special she could do, and Chris was really really strong. And now Polly could heat things up. All she was, was small.

But she decided not to let this show, because Polly might get upset and there was no point in upsetting Polly! "So you heat up things up?" she asked Polly.

"Guess so," Polly said. It didn't seem that interesting to her. "He need hat!" she decided before turning to look for something that vaguely looked like a hat.

"I done," Chris said, standing over a huge ball of snow.

"I done too!" Rory said, and tried to lift the medium sized ball of snow. She then fell on her butt.

Chris sighed. "I get it," he said as he walked over, picking up the ball and placing it on his. "You do third?"

"I get--" Polly stopped, mere seconds away from touching the ball of snow. "I no get it."

"It's okay!" Rory said, as she was able to lift the small ball. "You can put on the arms and tail and things!"

"Okay!" Polly said, running over to the limb that would make the tail. She dragged it behind her as she came back, leaving wet footsteps and a trail in the snow from the limb. "He get nice tail!" she said proudly. "Will cover up big butt."

Chris let Rory put the head on, wondering if they could go somewhere warm. The whole snowman thing was utterly lost on him.

"Okay!" Rory said as she took the extra rocks and made a mouth into a happy face. "You can put on the two eyes and the nose, Polly!" the other girl wasn't able to do much.

"Okay!" Polly said, standing on tiptoe to put the stones in place. The nose went on upside down, but Chris was so cold that he didn't even care.

"We go get cocoa now?" he asked the mothers, hopefully.

Polly looked around for her own mother, noticing her still sitting across the street with a book in her hand. "I should--I should go. Bye, bye!" she said before heading to where her mother was.

Rory frowned slightly, looking to where they were going. Then she waved to Polly. "Bye bye!" she called, though she wanted to keep playing. Then she looked at Chris. "See? If you had hugged her, you woulda been warm! If snow melts, then she'd gotta be warm!"

Ze'zee was watching where Polly ran to, even as she spoke. "Well, I could really go some something and someplace warm right now. I'm not used to the cold at all."

"Yes, that sounds very good," Missy said, watching the little redhead as well. There was a frown on her face. The woman that Polly was heading for barely looked up as the little girl crossed the street.

Missy didn't like that one bit. She almost jumped as Chris slipped his hand into hers, watching the redhead as well. "Polly," he said quietly, and not very happily. "Her mommy not nice."

"I.... I don't like her, very much. She not nice with Polly," Rory muttered, holding on to Ze'zee's hand. Then she looked up. "Mama! You go and adobt Polly away from her! You're a good mama!"

Ze started at that, horrified that a little girl would even think that. "Aurora!"

Missy took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Why don't we all go get hot chocolate now? It'll warm us all up."

Chris looked at her, smiling crookedly. It was as if he knew exactly what she was doing. "Okay, I need warm."

Ze'zee clamed with that statment, giving a smile to Missy. "I agree completely," she said, patting the hood on Rory's head.

Rory looked confused. Why was Chris smiling like that? Maybe he was just happy to be getting warm.

Bouncing Off the Walls
Players: Trinityblue, Ice Queen
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For a long moment Shade hesitated, looking over the class and examining the younger children. Rory hadn't been a kid for long, he noted. In fact, he was pretty sure this was her first, maybe second, gym class. She was standing so close to Chris he was afraid she'd trip over the poor boy.

"Today we're going to work in pairs," he told the class. "Come up with three different games you want to play, I'm talking skipping rope, racing each other, or something else, just as long as you have to move, and we'll go from there."

Okay, so he wasn't that creative of a teacher some times. It wasn't going to hurt them to think as well as play, after all!

There were LOTS of new people here, and not many of them that she knew well enought to just relax around. Thus the little girl had reverted into her shy state. But at least her best friend was here, even if Wisp, Orli and some others weren't.

"You don't mind being my partner?" she asked, looking up at Chris hopefully. School and gym were something still new to her, and were more complicated than just going to day care.

"Nope," he said. "It's fine. Uncle--I mean, Mister Shade's a real good teacher." He looked at Shade. "We're gonna pair up," he said.

Shade grinned, not about to mention that he had seen that coming months ago. "Sure, kid. Just come up with three different things to do and tell me," he added before going to talk with the other groups about their choices.

Rory had her hands in front of her, rubbing them nervously. Oddly, she was very nervous about this, and didn't know why. After all, there was no real reason to -be- nervous. They just needed to come up with some games.

And there weren't swings or monkey bars, were there? "Wellll, we could race!" she suggested. "But I don't think there's a jump rope made for you, though," she added in a small tease.

"We could do tag," Chris agreed. He wasn't built for jumping rope. "Or we could climb the rope!" Which he did, often, and it was tough enough to support his weight. Then he paused, remembering something. "I went to find Polly the other day."

She was just about to comment on the rope climbing - something she had never really done before - when Chris mentioned Polly. Her eyes went big. Polly had been missing, and he had been hoping to see her in school.

"Is she okay? What happened? Where'd she go?" Rory asked, forgetting that they were to be planning games to play.

"She's okay, she's okay," he said. "She got adopted. But she's not on Gaia anymore. The lady said she'd send a message when she was settled, though, so we know she's alright."

"Oh," she replied, but didn't look very settled about that information. "Is she... is she on a different planet? Like my grandparents are on a different planet?" she asked, as if Chris would know.

"Uh huh," he said. "And we'll figure out how to get there," he added so seriously that it meant he had been thinking on it for a while. "And see for ourselves she's happy, and if she's not..."

God help the person that made his friend unhappy, was the unspoken words after that. "This time I'm not gonna let it be like last time," he added, instead.

She beamed up at him, as if he were some hero and he just done something impossible. "Good! And I wanna go too when you find out where! I save some things to give her. Polly woulda liked the egg hunt," she said. If he knew where Polly was, there was no doubt that Rory would go there, right now.

"And if she's not, Polly can come home with us! She could stay with me, and we could share a room!" Apparently having Polly live with her too was something she had thought about.

He nodded, not going to argue about who got Polly as their little sister. What was more important was finding out where she was, and if she was happy there.

"So, decided yet?" Shade asked as he approached the two.

"We're going to race, play tag, and climb the rope," Chris said, looking around. "Nobody's taken the rope yet, so can we start there?"

Rory looked up Shade sweetly, no longer shy of nervous. She was too full of joy to have those other emotions in her. "I want to try to climb the rope," she told him, knowing full well that Chris was an excellent climber, and she wasn't much of a good one. But, that didn't mean she didn't want to try. "So, can we start with that?"

"It sounds like a great idea to me," Shade said cheerfully. "Everybody else is avoiding that option. So you guys play on the rope and in fifteen minutes I'm going to tell everyone to change games, alright?"

"Sure, that sounds good," Chris said, grinning. "Um, Un--Mister Shade, have you heard anything about Polly?"

"Good, thank you!" Rory added. Everyone seemed to hesitate when it came to questions about Polly. But she was happy that Polly was out of that other home, and that was something she couldn't stop grinning about.

Besides, the idea of seeing her friend again just made her grin. Then she went for the rope.

Chris followed her, telling her how to climb. "Wrap your legs around the rope and pull up, okay?"

"And that's it?" she asked him, looking uncertainly about the rope. It was hiiiggghh up. But she gripped the rope bravely. "Like this?" she asked, starting to pull herself up. She had seen Chris do something like this before. Though, the pulling up was more difficult than the holding on with her feet.

"You're doin' good!" he said, discreetly moving so he could catch her if she fell. "Just one hand over the other until you reach the top!" Honestly he was surprised she had gotten as high as she had without freaking out about the height.

It was because she had decided not to look down. Last time she looked down, she had freaked out. But she was a bigger girl now! Heights shouldn't bother her!

At least, that's what she told herself. Of course, about half way up, she had to stop. Her feet supported most of her weight, and her arms kept her up right. "This is hard work!" she informed Chris.

And didn't look down. In fact, she didn't even look around. Her attention was either on the ceiling or on the rope.

"But you're doing great!" he encouraged her. "Can you go any higher?"

"Um.... maybe..." she answered, not really certain. Don't look down, Don't look down.... One hand over the other, pull up, grip the rope with your feet....

She got other two paces before she realized something important: "How do I get down now?" she asked. Part of her wanted to let go, and have Chris catch her. Something just said that would be fun!

"You either climb down the same way you climbed up, or you loosen your hold and slide down," he told her, still staying right where he could catch her in case she just decided to drop down. Something told him that it wasn't that far off of a decision.

"Um, Okay," she said, and started to lower her self in reverse. But she didn't like this so much, and the idea of sliding sounded painful. So, several handaspaces down, she stopped again, very tempted in asking him to catch her.

But no, she had to do this! Chris wouldn't always be around, right? It was best to do this yourself! She started to go down again, looking very determined to do this herself. Even if she was scared. Going down meant looking down.

"You're doing great!" Chris called up to her, somewhat astonished she hadn't asked for help when she looked down. She really had grown up when she became a child! "Keep coming, you've only got a few feet left to go!"

Once she reached that few feet marker, she let go and fell to the ground. "I did it!" she cheered with a huge grin. "I went all the way up -and- down!" she beamed at him in pride, even though her arms and hands hurt.

"Good job," he said.

"Five minutes!" Shade called out.

"I'll go next," Chris said, climbing up the rope easily and staying up there with a grin on his face. "I like it up here!"

She stuck her tongue out at him as he was up there. "It's too high!" she protested. Never mind she already climbed up there. Though seeing him up there, she felt more proud. She actually did it!

"Do you wanna race, or play tag next?" she asked him, still admiring the fact he wasn't worried about heights. Even if he was tall.

"Let's race!" he said, climbing halfway down before jumping off and landing in front of her with a grin. "You've got longer legs now, so who knows how fast you'll be?"

She grinned at him. "We'll find out!" she said happily. Frankly, she was very curious herself. There really wasn't enough room to really, really run at home.

She waited for Chris to take here wherever they would race.

"We can run around the outside part," Chris said as Shade called for them to change games. "We usually start over here," he added, leading her to the edge of the gym.

"Okay! Do you often race?" she asked, skipping along with him and going to the edge of the building.

"Once in a while," he admitted. "But I have to go slow, so they don't get mad at me."

"You're fast then?" she asked, really curious. Of course, she already had to walk faster just to keep up with him.

"Sorta," he admitted a bit sheepishly. "It's cuz I've got four legs instead of two."

"Then you are fast!" she said, stopping once they were on where he has said they should be. She looked around, and at the path that they should run. "Sooo, first to the wall?" she asked, meaning the wall opposite them.

"That works," he said, taking his running stance. He'd let her win, he decided. To make her feel more confident. "On your set," he said... "Get ready... GO!"

On go, she took off with a grin. Her pace was like any other child's for all of five paces, then something odd happened. It was an odd thing that happened when ever she did this: everything sped up much to fast.

Rory gave a yelp as she realized this, and her balance was lost. The girl tumbled over, and rolled a bit on the ground. Then she just laid there a moment. "Ow."

"Whoa," Chris said, a good fifty feet behind her. "Rory? You okay?" he asked, bounding over to her and looking down at her curiously. "You break anything?"

"Like the speed limit?" Shade asked from behind him.

She gave a goofy, sheepish grin and pushed herself up. She wasn't hurt, but 'OW' just felt an right thing to say when you fell on the ground. "Yeaaaah, I'm okay. It happens and I usually run into walls," she admitted sheepishly.

Well, run into walls or fall to the ground.

"Interesting," Shade said. He looked at Chris for a moment. "You told me that earring of yours makes you weaker, right?"

"Uh huh."

"Give it to her," he said. "Just for a little bit."

"But... I'm not super strong," she said, giving him a confused look. Why did she need the earring if she wasn't super strong....?

"My guess is that super speed is a physical ability, just like super strength," Shade said, taking the earring from a hesitant Chris. "Just try it on and try to run. If it works, we'll get someone to make you one, as well."

"But, um...." she started, letting Shade put the earring on her. She was willing for a test. "Shouldn't I get used to running fast? I trip every time, though, but I don't really get hurt," she explained. And she really did want to learn how to run fast, actually. Everyone she met had something very cool about themselves and she had always been just plan.

Now, she could run! And she wanted to run more.

"This won't take it away completely, just tone it down, right, Chris?" Shade asked. The earring had interested him, and he WAS the kid's unofficial uncle, so he had found out a lot about it over time. "Once you're in control of a portion of your speed you'll be better able to control all of it."

Rory smiled up at Shade now, finding that explanation a very good one. She really did want to learn how to control it. "Okay! So, can I run now?" she asked them both.

The earring also felt odd on her ear. She wasn't used to something there and one hand went up to touch it. Would she have to get something like this too? She kinda hoped not....

"Go for it," Shade said, motioning for her to run. Chris didn't move, he looked worried, as well.

Rory nodded, taking a breath before she went back to the starting point. Once ready, she ran again, making sure not to aim for anyone incase she ran into them.

This time, after the five paces, the running was better. It was fast, but not super fast. The run was also at a good speed for her not to be startled, so she had more control over it. She grinned at this fact.

"See? She's fine," Shade told Chris.

"But what about me?" Chris asked, irritated.

"Just don't touch anything."

After several moments, Rory returned to them, grinning in a very pleased manner. She wasn't even out of breath. "That was fun!" she said, then reached up for the earring, "But I can't keep this, it's Chris' and he needs it so he doesn't break things."

"We'll see if we can get you one of your own," Shade said before blowing his whistle. "Next game start!"

Chris shook his head. "You're a lot faster than I am."

She blinked at Chris, then gave a sheepish smile. Other than drawing, she hadn't been good at many things that him. She wasn't about to tell him that she couldn't sing, either.

"I'll jog for the tag game?" she suggested. "It doesn't happen when I jog!"

"Alright!" Chris said, already running away. "But you're it!"

The Voice of a..... Goose?
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"Blue jean ba--by, L.A. la--dy--" a voice sang out in the night. It wasn't pretty voice. It sounded horribly off key and choky as if the one who was singing it had a bad soar throat. The effect of which was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

"Seamstress--" The singing voice abruptly (thankfully) and turned into a wail. "I can't siiiiing!" a little girl cried, then sniffled.

Aurora pulled her legs up to her chest and sniffled. One hand was against her throat, rubbing it mournfully as moonlight from her window spilled in around her. It was sometime at night and Rory hadn't been able to sleep. She was bothered again. Bothered by the fact that she still couldn't sing.

When she was a baby, she tried to sing like Chris could. But it didn't work. It didn't work at all then. Now it sounded much worse! And it was much more upsetting to the girl.

She could hum, she could hum and not be soooo much off key or sound so horrible... but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't sing! It never come out right, nor sounded like the singing voices of others. Even her mama could do little songs better!

"It's not fair.." she sighed, laying back on her bed. The window was in the right position that she could look out at the night sky when she couldn't sleep, like tonight. The stars twinkled down at her from their place in the heavens. She stared at them for a while, taking solace in their presence.

"Why can't I sing?" she asked them softly. The stars didn’t answer her, of course. She never expected an answer.

Was it because she could run now? No. She couldn't sing as a baby either, nor could she run. She wanted to be able to sing. If she could, she could sing with the other kids! Then she could join Chris when he sang!

She stopped on that thought as another, slightly uncomfortable one hit her. If she sang with Chris that would almost be like ruining the songs he sang. Some of them she new as others’ works while other tunes were ones he simply made up. Trying to join him in song almost felt like stepping into a place where she didn’t belong. The idea made her hesitate.

Maybe it was better she couldn't sing? No... Not being able to sing meant she wasn't going to sing during class, or anywhere else where people asked you too. Someone was bound to see her lip singing... Then they might ask her to sing it alone, in front of the whole class. That idea sent chills down her back. She rolled over in her bed and curled up. She didn’t like standing up in front of others.

No, she’d have to sing. Then she could be like everyone else who could. She just wanted to be able to sing a little bit. Nothing more than a little…

Aurora fell asleep then, having worried herself into exhaustion.

The Wisp is Back
Players: Trinityblue, Ice Queen, Rosemilk
*not spell checked
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Wisp Darnell had, in fact, pretty much wanted to go and speed over to the Deakon house the night she had returned: but there had been a ban on leaving the apartment for reasons she only found out later, and once she woke up attempted to get dressed, brush her teeth, shower and eat breakfast all at once. This worked as well as it usually did (ie, not terribly), but eventually she had pulled on her ripped-up overalls and her favourite and slightly equally ripped-up tie-dyed t-shirt, struggling to put on her hi-tops as she raced out the door. She very nearly caused a couple of traffic accidents as she put her curly blonde hair up in a ponytail as she rode, hands-free and not thinking about it, Jace's monstrous old bike eventually squealing to a halt outside of the Deakons'.

Knapsack tugged off, she was nearly horizontal in her race for the door, pushing the doorbell twice for luck and hopping from foot to foot in her agony. (This time, at least, she checked the front yard to see if Christian was there. No Chris.)

"Coming!!" a duel set of voices called. They were deeper than they had been, and they went on to say, "We're not buying anything, in case you're wondering!" before the door opened and Chris looked out at the rainbow colored girl blankly.

"You still look like a rainbow exploded," he told her, so shocked at the sight that his words escaped his lips before making it through his mind.

"CHRIS!"

Not at all offended (he knew personally that looking like a rainbow had exploded was the look that Wisp was going for), the blonde girl flung herself forward at him. Obviously, the fact that he had grown up meant one very important thing: he had graduated to become her jungle gym once more. "Chris! Chris! You grew! You're humungous! I missed you so much! This is the coolest thing ever! You're like a tank!"

Rory had been hanging out over at Chris', then when he answered the door, she head a very familiur voice at the door and went to inspect it. At the door was a very brightly colored girl who did, indeed, looked like a rainbow exploded. She gasped.

"WISP!" she cried, then tried to get around Chris to see the other girl. Rory was much bigger than what she had been, too.

Chris patiently let Rory climb over him, used to it by now. "Where you been?" he demanded. "Get in here!" he added a bit belatedly. "Ma!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Wisp is back!!"

"Wisp?!" Missy almost screamed, storming down the stairs. "Wisp! Come in here!!"

Wisp was laughing out loud at this point in sheer delight: she had springboarded off of Chris to fling herself at Aurora, safe in the knowledge that Rory would not conveniently sidestep and let Wisp splat into the wall. "Rory too?!" She was laughing even as she spoke, and as rarely happened, was immediately putting on a prismatic lightshow of rainbow twinkles around her head. It looked like a psychotic suncatcher. "Rory! Rory, you're beautiful! I want to draw a bazillion pictures of you, and, and -- Missy!"

And, of course, there was beloved Missy, who the girl threw herself at much more gently than she had belted at Rory and Chris. She hugged her around the middle and looked around at everyone, blue eyes dancing. "I grew, didn't I?" she said. "I grew whole centimetres!" (This was not impressive in light of the fact that Rory and Chris had put on nearly whole metres.)

Rory laughed, having given an 'ooph' when she got spring boarded into by Wisp. Not that she cared so much about being used as a landing pad. "Where have you been? I missed you!" she told the other girl.

"And ---" she stopped, blinking a moment. "I can't tell! I grew too, and you were already big and--" And she couldn't tell if Wisp was bigger than before or not!"

"You're both still little," Chris said as his mother cooed over Wisp happily along with Rory.

"So tell us where all you've been!" Missy said, pulling them all towards the kitchen. "I made cake! Actually I made two cakes."

"It was chocolate," Chris said evilly, licking his lips.

"Chris!" Missy said, only to sigh and shake her head.

"Two cakes." Wisp looked as though she had died and gone to Cake Heaven. "I'm never leaving ever again."

She swarmed into the kitchen with the rest, apparently more than happy that her two friends now towered over her: she dropped her knapsack on the counter. "I got you all souvenirs," she said, "only Jace helped me pick out Tyler's, only I told her that he totally didn't shoot anyone any more, but it's a really pretty throwing knife if you look at it art-tis-tically." Wisp liked things artistic: she had used her star sprinkles in order to paint a huge, colourful tree down one of her arms, its roots curling around her elbow, which was actually fairly cool for a kid and made lots of people stop and stare aghast that a tiny blonde child had such a huge tattoo. "She would've come over, I guess, but Mom is taking her to the cemetary, or something. I don't know. Chris, did you eat the chocolate cake?! You have grown up with jerk genes! Rory, he's grown up with jerk genes!"

Rather than recriminatory, Wisp just sounded impressed.

"He did!" Rory agreed earnestly. "And he keeps calling me short! I'm not," she said and added a tongue-stick-out aimed at Chris. "And you better not have eaten the -other- cake!" she added, giving him a poke in the arm. Not that it would hurt him, course.

Then she looked back at Wisp. "Oh!! I can do something special now too! Like you can color and Chris is strong? I can run fast!" And land on her face, usually.

"It's the stopping she has trouble with," Chris said dryly. "And I only ate one of the cakes, I promise. It was just begging to be tested, you know?" He pulled a chair out at the table and sat down. Obviously he planned on having MORE cake.

"You only get one slice," Missy told him as she headed to get the cake for everyone. "Tyler's gone shopping, I'm afraid, but he'll want to see you as soon as he gets back."

"That's so perfect." Everything was perfect, obviously: Wisp hopped up on the chair next to Christian and hugged into his arm, one finger absently tracing a red lightning bolt down his arm and a pinky adding in the shadow. Then the lightning bolt got given an angry face. "Rory, I knew you'd develop your super power. Now we can get to our plan of being a super hero team."

"Super hero team?" Rory asked, just a little puzzledly. She had been distracted watching Wisp paint on Chris' arm. The puzzledness went away as she grinned. "Well, I got a power now!"

"Oh! What all did you bring??" Cake and gifts! It was like a birthday party or something!

Chris watched the tattoo curiously, remembering how hard it was to take off Wisp marks without her help. Or, impossible, actually. "Shouldn't Rory be the lightening one?" he asked curiously. And he, of course, would wind up being the tacky "thunder."

He already knew how this trend went.

Missy passed out plates of cake. "How's your mother, Wisp? And your sister? We've missed them, too!"

"Oh, they're fine!" Wisp switched arms to the pretty light-skinned girl next to her: instead of a lightning bolt, she started in on drawing a cheetah with green spots. She also tried to eat the cake with her left hand as she did this, squinting in concentration. "Jace got, like, mega brown in Africa! I lolled! And me and Mommy learnt French all the time. I can sort of speak French now but she says my accent is really, really bad. Bien!"

Distracted again and the cheetah done (it wasn't that bad, even if it did have green spots) she dug in her knapsack once more. She took out a tissue-paper parcel, and unwrapped it a little before pushing it over the counter at Missy. Missy was also gifted with a melting smile: Wisp adored Missy. "I got you some earrings and a necklace," she said, as the tissue paper was pulled apart more. A pair of beaded earrings -- blue and white -- sat nestled in the paper, along with a fringe collar. "I thought they were pretty."

More things got dumped out of the knapsack as she went through it -- an apple, a sketchbook, some gum -- as she pulled out two more lumpy presents. Another beaded length of fringe -- green and red and yellow -- sat in Rory's parcel: it had actually come to life as a necklace, but would be better off as a bracelet. There was also a rolled-up sheaf of paper, the same as the rolled-up sheaf of paper in Christian's parcel, which also contained an enormous fang and a bottle of sand. "That's a crocodile tooth," Wisp pointed out artlessly, "and the sand is mysterious good-luck sand from the Kalahari. And the paper is because I missed you both so much, that wherever I went, I decided I'd draw the landscape but I'd also draw you in it. So you came along on the vacation with me in Spirit."

Another tissue-paper parcel was dumped on the table: it contained a wickedly sharp, oddly-shaped throwing knife with a number of points, squarish in shape with an ivory end. "And that's Mr. Tyler's," Wisp said. "Jace picked it out. She would have come along, I guess, but she's in a weird mood."

"It's lovely!" Missy said, promptly putting it all on. She really did like them! Of course, seeing as it was Missy, she would have loved anything. She adored Wisp just as much as she did Rory.

Chris grinned at the sight of the tooth, picking it up and looking at it. He was about to comment when she mentioned Jace again. He hesitated instead, frowning as he remembered that Jace had gone to the grave. "Well... um..." he said slowly, wondering how to explain it.

"Oh wow!" Rory said, taking her things and looking them other. The necklace was turned into a bracelet as she paused in her eating of cake, and examing on cheetah tattoo. She grinned a chocolate grinned to her best friend, then hugged her since she was in hugging distance.

Then she went about examining the pictures to see where all they went. "You had a good time though? Even if we missed you and you missed us!" she was now super happy, and energetic because of it. But then at Chris' tone, she calmed down and gve them curious looks.

"It was awesome once I got well," confirmed Wisp, who also had a matching chocolate grin. She glowed: the little rainbow prisms would still pop up every so often, out of everyone's peripheral vision. "We went on a safari and I saw this huge pride of lions and warthogs, and gazelles. And we stayed in this little cottage and there were heaps of poisonous snakes! I bet you would've liked the gazelles, Rory. They can really zoom."

Obviously this was what Wisp found exciting. "Even Mom had fun," she said, "she took us around and showed us everything, and she seriously loosened up at times. Mom really needs to chillax." Another bite of cake. "And Jace had fun, too, she's really cool when she's not trying to be, like, hardcore. I wish she'd come over today," she added meditatively. "I don't know why she's being bizarre, because Harper's in heaven and that's a happy thing, right?"

It was probably entirely Christian's fault that Wisp wanted to be a burgeoning Catholic. Father Higgins had his work cut out for him.

"So you know he's dead?" Chris asked. "We had a memorial service and everything. But a lot of people miss him now." He looked down at his empty plate, wondering when he had eaten it.

Missy sighed. They were far too young to deal with death! But it seemed they were growing up fast in more ways than one.

Rory, who didn't know Harper and there for was detatched from the whole death thing, played with the frosting bits on her plate. Wisp and Chris both knew Harper, so this was more their conversation.

But Wisp took it better than Chris!

"Mommy told me this morning," said the blonde girl. "I didn't know him as well as Jace; she told Jace last night. But it's weird, you know? She didn't cry or anything; she just got real quiet."

She took a fingerful of frosting, possibly to make herself feel better. "We didn't get the message that he was dead until we were back," she said, "but that's not a surprise, 'cause we didn't have a lot of phones in Botswana."

Chris nodded.

"It was a tragedy," Missy said quietly. "Which is why I want all of you to promise to not forget that this sort of thing can happen very easily. All it takes is one little candle to burn down an entire house."

Chris had a betraying thought, one that told him he'd probably survive even if the house burnt down. Without a mark on him.

"Yes ma'am," Rory said obedantly. It was more to just say something again than not. Then she looked around at Chris and Wisp. The mood needed to be changed.

She spotted Chris' earring. That was a good enough topic change. "Chris' got an earring that makes him weaker! So he doesn't accedently smush things!" she told Wisp informitivly.

More than happy to change the subject, Wisp immediately investigated Christian's ears. "That looks wicked," she said enviously. Of course, her ears had been pierced for a while: little paper Japanese good-luck stars dangled from them, affixed to little lengths of chain. "I hope you can still smush things, though, Chris. You're going to be my sidekick, you know?"

"How come I'm the sidekick?" he asked her curiously. "What all can you do? Other than drawing on people?" It was a rude question, but being a sidekick was a slam to his ego!

"Ok, then you can be -my- sidekick!" Rory told him happily. "If you can keep up!" she added with a wicked little grin. The girls were now teaming up on him, something Rory didn't used to do but she was discovering it was fun!

"I'm the oldest," Wisp informed him airily. "And I have the most ideas, and I know all about justice, and I know about freedom. And I can start to do this. Just watch."

She moved back on her chair and eyed her plate; she spun her pointer finger around in the air, more to assist in her concentration than anything, and with the other hand grasped the Rainbow Belt insignia that she had currently pinned as a belt buckle. Suddenly, a little transparent flicker of rainbow whirled around her finger, and she snapped it down with a crack. It hit the plate, made it wobble a little, and fizzled out immediately.

"Okay, that kind of sucks," she admitted, "but I'm getting better at it. I'm going to be training from now on. In-between flute and French and soccer. We should all train together, you know? We'll get Rory running so fast she'll beat the Flash. Kickin' rad!"

"You can... kick a plate's butt," Chris drawled.

"Christian!" Missy scolded. "I'm sure it will be very impressive when you've gotten more practice, Wisp," she said happily. "I can't wait to go clothing shopping for it!" Because with Chris there neither of the girls would get hurt, after all. It sounded like a lot of fun to her!

"Yeah!" Rory agreed happily, grinning impishly at Chris, because he was being a party pooper, and she was up to no good. That and the thought of Chris in spandex was just funny to her.

"And Wisp and I will get better and train and everything! I've been working on the running, too! And you'll get better at rainbow whip thing!" Which, in her opinion was really cool.

Rory was immediately high-fived. Wisp loved Rory. Having another girl superhero on the team? That was just great. "Of course I will," she said, "we're going to be the best superhero team ever, especially if Missy helps us with outfits, and we're going to show the Man that he can't keep us down!"

Who the Man was, it wasn't readily apparent.