Welcome to Gaia! ::

It took a moment before Ceci realized that was someone knocking on her door, not somewhere down the hall. She unfolded herself from her bed and set the book aside she had been immersed in. The dancer's footsteps were light as she padded across the room to the door. Cecilia opened the door just enough to see that there wasn't one but three people outside her door and from the sounds of it someone was planning an ambush.

And ambush? On who? On her? Hopefully none of the people standing outside her door were her new roommate, because Ceci shut the door rather forcefully and locked it.

To those who were standing in the hallway they had a brief glimpse of strawberry-blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a lumpy sweater that made more than that hard to distinguish.

Cecilia moved back across the room, this time locking the door to the bathroom from her side and then settling onto the fortress of safety that was her bed.

Toni's handshake was firm without trying to be overpowering. As Sona and Toni shook hands, Torin watched as the neighbor they were going to try to talk to peeked out then shut the door almost immediately. Torin seemed to contemplate this for a moment before returning her attention to Sona.

"It often does." Toni said dryly in response to Sona's observation.

Torin made eye contact with Sona when the other woman looked at her curiously. "Suboptimal?" the quieter twin echoed before exchanging a glance with Toni.

The twins watched Sona with the same measured level of interest as they had watched everything else. A faint smile tugged at Torin's lips at Sona's sing-song message and a moment later Toni was grinning. They could have been amused by the message itself, but from the glances that they were giving eachother it was fairly clear that it was some sort of inside joke.

"Sona, I dun think yer method's particularly well suited to me." Toni rasped. "Last time I tried sing-song, Torin threw a beer bottle at me."

"You were very drunk and you sang poorly before you wrecked your throat." Torin noted softly. "But thank you, Sona. Unfortunately, that was not exactly what we had in mind."

As Torin thanked Sona, Toni turned and thudded her fist against Ceci's door three times. "Hey! We jes' wanna talk! Yeh gunna open up?"

((I'm guessing that you switched up the twins a bit, but I think I know what you meant. ^_^))


“Hmmm,” Sona said, thoughtfully, pulling on her lower lip. From her posture and expression, it looked for all the world as if she were contemplating a deep philosophical problem. But in the end, all she said was, “I suppose the method would have to be adapted to your individual style. Perhaps a little less sing-song, and a little more violent pounding on things. Yes. Something like that might work better.”

Then she turned to Torin and bowed her head in acknowledgement, “You are welcome, Torin. I wish I could have been more help, but I have to admit that modern science has yet to come up with a better general strategy than the classic projectile beer bottle. It solves so much, it truly is a modern miracle.” And again, she spoke with the same, flat tone that she might have used to give a presentation on mathematics, with not even the slightest hint that she might be joking. As Toni started pounding on the door, she added, “I’ll leave you to your work.”

Just then a newcomer approached, and Sona responded to her awkward greeting by turning to face her and tilting her head slightly.

“No,” she said casually, before either Toni or Torin could respond, “We are simply trying to solve a problem in communication efficiency. I’m actually in this room,” Sona nodded toward her own room, with her bag still sitting in front of the door, “And I should go in and unpack. If any of you need me,” she turned as she spoke, to address all three of Torin, Toni and Lisa, “Feel free to knock. But don’t be surprised if I ask you to properly identify yourself before I open the door.”

Then she turned to address Lisa directly, speaking in a lower, conspiratorial voice, but still quite loudly and clearly enough for Torin and Toni to hear as well, “It turns out there are some strange people roaming the hallways, banging on doors and wishing to say hello. What an interesting world we live in, hm?” Once again, Sona neither smiled nor changed the pitch or cadence of her voice to indicate that she was joking; for all the emotion she put into her voice and body language, she might as well have been reading a list of random numbers.

Because Toni was occupied with assaulting the door, Sona spoke to Torin again, “If I come up with any breakthroughs to help you in your quest, I’ll let you know. Ta-ta!”

And with a wave over her shoulder as she turned, Sona hefted her duffel bag again, and entered her room.

(( asdkfj...I'm used to calling them by their nicknames, not the ones that they like putting down on official paperwork. Thus, they get confused in my head sometimes. Along with other things. Like words that I have the English and the Chinese/Japanese for. ))

"I missed. On purpose." The quieter of the twins said in a similarly flat tone as Sona's observation about the beer bottle.

As Lisa approached, Torin abruptly turned her head to watch the girl's approach, absently nodding to acknowledge Sona's goodbye. For a brief moment the quieter of the twins reached behind her back as if searching for something that usually was tucked away in the small of her back before her hand reappeared empty. Something flashed across her face before Torin's expression returned to its usual polite neutrality.

Almost at exactly the same time, Toni half-turned from the door too so that Sona was in her peripheral vision and she could see Lisa. Once Sona was gone, she turned so that more of the doorway was in her peripheral vision. Unlike Torin, Toni was smirking slightly.

"We ain't a welcomin' committee. We came by 'cause we're sharin' a bathroom an' thought we should fin' out when the two of yeh like to take yer showers." Toni said with a snort of derision. "Fr'm tha way yer roommate looked out at us 'n slammed tha door shut, I'd say she thinks we're one 'a tha worst kinds of welcomin' committees out there. I'm Toni, that's Torin. We're the Kerr twins."

As Lisa opened her door, the twins turned and took a half step to either side of the door so she could step between them and they could keep their eyes on her.

For a brief time, Ceci considered checking the door again after a brief (but less aggressive) message was send in by way of the computer. How baffling that this many people wanted something from her this early in the semester. Immediately afterward Toni started to bang on the door and gave Cecilia cause to remain in her fortress.

When the door opened Ceci had to resist the urge to bury her head in a pillow and just wait for whatever ambush was going to happen to be over. Blue eyes followed Lisa's movement into the room, wondering if she had made the sing-song announcement or if there was yet a third person involved here. What was going on?

Cecilia was sitting in the top corner of her bed (furthest from the door) with one knee pulled up to her chest and the other resting flat on the mattress. She wore plain jeans and a t shirt with a lightning bolt on it, a book forgotten on the bed spread.

When Jane started to unpack, Cecilia visibly relaxed. Right up until she invited the crazy people from outside into the room.

"Ah. Hi? I'm Cecilia..."

Lisa looked to Cecilia and smiled. "Well that's a nice name." She watched the two twins move and speak in turn trying her hardest to keep her expression calm and not perplexed, though their mannerisms were causing her quite a bit of confusion. Oh man, there's no way I will be able to tell these two apart. The glimpse of...Toni's? scars made her brow furrow in concern, her attempt not to plainly show her emotions through her expressions failing. She simply swung her legs from the bed and looked between the three girls, not wanting to ask about something the girl clearly wanted to cover up.

Toni's smirk turned predatory. "If'n we'd been wantin' ta ambush some'n they ain't gunna know 'till we're already done."

"What my twin means is we do not try, we only do." Torin said with a roll of her eyes before the twins exchanged glances again.

The both of them had noticed Lisa's expression when Toni had taken off her sunglasses. For a moment it looked like the more loquacious of the twins was going to tease Lisa about it, but at a look from her twin, Toni opted for a different and more standard topic. Scaring and completely weirding out both of the girls in the room next door probably wasn't the best of ideas. Besides, if Lisa wanted to know more Toni's scars were a well known gossip topic amongst the students.

"Yeh." Toni grunted, her smirk gone for the moment, now replaced with a friendly smile. " So the two of yeh. Yer not froshies, are yeh? Yeh dun have 'nough o' tha wide-eyed FNG look 'bout 'cha. An' yeh ain't Photo students nor sculpture nor costume otherwise we woulda seen ya in our classes."