Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Ara, you noticed that about the shops,too? Especially the marketplace. O.o; It like... went all around it, but didn't put a dent in the tent.))

Rime herded her children towards the beach, each wearing a brightly colored shirt that would help her keep an eye on them. She had also made sure they were wearing sunglasses to keep the glare from the water from them.

"Okay, kids! Let's get to this. This tower isn't going to clean itself up!"

She picked up the first peice of rubble herself, and looked around for the dumpster in which to put it.

Avery, instead of helping at first, stared about, and then immediately began climbing on one of the larger chunks of rubble for a better look.

"Avery! Come down from there!"

He ignored her.

Sybil carried rather small peices over to the dumpster, and waited for Rime to take them from her and toss them in.

Alida shrugged, and with a small notebook tucked into her back pocket, went about dragging some of the larger pieces along towards the dumpster. She wasn't sure how she was going to get them in there... but she figured she'd find someone to help.

Avery had finished his survey of the area, and saw Colette lugging a chair to the dumpster. He grinned, and moved to the very edge of the piece of rubble he had clambered atop of. It was at least 15 feet to the ground below, with ragged bits of metal sticking out here and there.

"COLETTE! HI! NEED HELP?!" He cupped his hands to shout at her, before gathering himself to jump to the ground.

Avery looked on in confusion as she suddenly looked worried, and when she expressed why, he looked down from where he was, as if realizing it for the first time. He had just wanted to get up high, not thinking about where he was going.

The view was a rather preciptious one, but it didn't bother him. He was busy studying the side for handholds. "It's not that bad, Colette. I got up here, didn't I? I bet I can jump down!" He grinned.

Sybil turned towards the rubble as he said this, and blinked her sleepy looking eyes. She was getting bad vibes.

Alida was over further yet, not paying attention, as she had a particularly heavy chunk of garbage she was dragging along with her towards the dumpster. She had taken the hat off somewhere, as it only got in the way, and her hair, for the first time in perhaps ever, was free to blow in the light breeze that came up on the beach. She liked it. Maybe it's time to... well... I don't know. I love that hat. I'll think about it.

Avery could see he was making her worry, which gave him pause. He sighed. "But it's not really that much higher than the tree I fell out of at preschool..."

He didn't seem to realize this wasn't much of a reassurance.

"What if I climb down a little, and then jump? It's not so bad over here, right?" He pointed to another side, one that seemed to have been part of the outside of the building. There was a bit of a indent a few feet down, and it went for a couple feet before creating a sort of landing. He could climb to that, and then jump, and everything would be fine. He might even impress everyone.

Alida paused at the dumpster, trying to heave the rubble she was carrying up into it, but couldn't get a good handhold. She sighed and looked over at Miss Arafel, who was carrying something huge across the beach. Now, why can't I carry something like that? She doesn't look that much stronger than me...

Sybil had watched silently as Avery talked with Colette. She frowned slightly. The vibes were changing, but they weren't all good yet. She had set down her bit of rubble, and with the change in vibes, she felt she could pick it up again without feeling like she needed to run over there.

Ritsu was down by the water's edge, pulling out a piece of piping from the water, and setting it with a few others he had pulled out. He'd stood looking around helplessly for a few mintues until Rime had directed him to a task she thought he could handle.

Once he had a few of the lengths of pipe out of the water, he pulled the ends together under an arm and tried to drag them towards the dumpster, but progress was very slow. The pipes weighed almost as much as he did, perhaps even a little more. He had to stop several times to catch his breath, feeling like an idiot each time.

Rime herself was also on the beach, but further down, looking out at the sofa floating in the water. She looked at it, and then shrugged, and began to peel off her jacket and shoes. It wouldn't do to leave that sitting out there.

((no, she's not getting undressed. At least not yet. 'Tis why she likes baggy clothes, though.))

Avery watched in some consternation as Colette went about moving out every sharp little piece of rubble down below. When she declared it okay to jump, Avery gave her a thumbs up, and hunkered down to land in the soft sand. He knew how to land... most of the time.

"BONZAI!" He landed in the sand with a spray of sand and dropped forward to his knees, tumbling forwards a little bit. He hopped to his feet, making a grimace. He'd skinned his knees, and his wrist hurt now. But he didn't let Colette know. She'd be worried.

He jogged over to where she was standing and said, "See? I'm fine! No problem!" Convieniently ignoring his sand encrusted knees. Rime had wanted him to wear long pants, but he had insisted not to.

Then he frowned. Her eyes were awfully watery... and though Alida had mild allergies, he didn't think this was the time for them. "Uhm... are you okay? What's wrong?" He looked around, as if there was something he could physically do something about. A bit of red on her hand caught his attention.

He yelped. "Colette! You got a cut!" Avery grabbed her hand, and winced, because he'd used the one with the sore wrist, but pulled her hand towards him to look.


Ritsu had sat down next to the load of pipes again, feeling a bit miserable. Everyone else had made the trip to the dumpster at least once, and he was still struggling with the first bunch of stuff. He probably shouldn't have taken so many... Can't do anything right... He sighed, too pooped out to go to the effort of a full 'spazout' as Avery had taken to calling them. Instead he looked around the beach at all the work left to do, and caught sight of Yuki coming towards him.

He shrunk in on himself. Here he was resting, and the injured rat had to come help him! "Yuki-san... I'm sorry! I won't rest again, I promise! I'll do better!" He leapt to his feet, and clutched his hands in front of him, bowing quickly. He'd lost so much of the meager confidence he'd gained in that confrontation with Akito, he was right back to where he started.

He inquired meekly, "Yuki-san, how... how are your ribs?" quickly adding, with a flustered gesture and a blush, "I mean, if you don't mind me asking... It's not my business." He peeked up through his bangs for an instant to gauge Yuki's mood, which actually looked rather black. He swallowed and returned his gaze to the sandy beach. He felt bad for making Yuki upset with him... he liked the rat, and always seemed to try harder when he was around. Like in school, teaching him martial arts.


Sybil, seeing that the danger had passed with Colette and Avery, stopped in her tracks and returned to her small piece of rubble, picking it up again and heading towards the dumpster. But on the way, she saw Yuki heading towards Ritsu. She frowned. There were weird vibes coming from there, too. What was it with this beach and people? She stopped again and watched this scene as well, ready to jump in and defend her helpless big brother.

But Yuki didn't give vibes like that mean boy. She'd never learned his name... Yuki's vibes were... not mean, but definitly not happy. She felt sorry for him.

She set down her rubble again, and headed towards the two...


Back at the dumpster, Alida watched Arafel in awe. She shook herself and waved back, smiling. Then she looked down at the chunk she had drug with her.

She looked back up with a sheepish grin and nodded. She demonstrated that she couldn't get a good grip, and sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face with a 'whatcha gonna do?' look. She would definitely like some help getting this in there. She could bring them in, but she couldn't lift them... Maybe if there were some sort of ramp to the dumpster...


Rime, meanwhile, had gotten a look of concentration on her face, and her form slowly shifted to the half-draconic form she almost never showed the world. Not that she was ashamed of it, but more because it wasn't really that useful. And the fully draconic form didn't really fit in a normal house.

Her form quickly filled out the baggy clothes, and lost the definition of breasts. She grew a short snout, and she grew hard, flat, armored scales down her front. She felt unfinished, but this was a public place... well, it would only be for a few seconds... She looked around to make sure no one was watching, and quickly stripped of the rest of her clothing, kicking it aside, and transforming to full dragon form, wings sprouting from her shoulders, and growing out spread, and long, whip-like tail stretching out behind her.

She was a white dragon, with a pale blue belly, wing membranes, and frill. She had shiny black eyes, and hard black horns and claws. She was a smallish dragon, only reaching 15 feet from head to tail tip, and she was lithe more than heavily muscled.

Her wings were folded neatly against her back, and she flicked her tail from side to side as she contemplated the sofa in the water. A mist continuously seeped from her mouth, looking a lot like mist that forms when you breathe into cold air.

The two had been working at some far end of the beach, diligently enough to have the young halfbreed completely warn out. The 'mutt headed on over to where the others were, Spiro sitting up on his shoulders, arms folded ontop of the male's head.

Freize took no notice to anyone else for now, as he had spotted a rather large piece of rubble, and much like Avery, he headed right on up it. He took little thought to doing such things, even though a clutz such as himself should probably be much more worried.. But he was introducing Spiro to the feeling of the true love between a child and their parent, something the boy had never experienced. The feeling of trusting someone. Freize was trying to make sure that Spiro never went through his childhood. He had to make up for his own pain in this way.. And Spiro loved being up high.

He moved slowly to a stand, carefully balancing himself- he could do so really well when he put his mind to it.

Spiro gazed out towards the ocean, which they were facing by now, with a curious sort of expression... They were so high... It was amazing. Almost like flying... He could almost touch the sky, couldn't he?.. He moved to sit more upright, completely unaware that there was ground beneath him. His attention was completely on the sky.

Hatori was at home, of course. Someone needed to watch over Cougar (who put up quite a fuss when Freize left) and Umi (although he had a great talent for busying and taking care of himself.)

The 'mutt took this chance now to glance around and mentally acknowledge all of the people along the beach, sudden inu-ears twitching about, tail swaying behind him.. He smiled to himself,
"Nice view, huh?"

He felt the smaller male give a nod.

He liked being here... It was so amazing. He decided immediately he loved the beach. The wind, the smells.. Albeit it was currently littered with rubble, but he happily overlooked that fact. He instead looked upon the bigger picture... Which he liked a lot. His wings spread themselves out, fluttering at his back before stilling once again. They rarely ever moved, unless.. The boy felt inspired. And the beach inspired him. It almost made him smile... He wished he could have brought Alexei, though, but Freize had said if they brought him the little creature would surely be crushed.. He didn't want that! He would be crushed himself if anything happened to the mouse... The first thing he felt truly accepted him.. Although, others probably did as well, but... Not in his mind. No to him..

They still possibly could hate him.

But he forgot all that. It all drifted away... Into the sky... Just like he wanted to do.

Colette blinked, choking down a sniffle. She couldn't cry.. it was just a scratch afterall. Surely others had worse... So she was fine.
She paused, curiously looking to where Avery had suddenlly stopped ot stare, a small gasp excaping her as she completely forgot aobut her hand from the sight. "A dragon!" like in the games they had been playing. But she'd never seen one for real.
Except maybe kyou.. but he seemed more like something you'd see in a nightmare. Or under your bed. Or in the closet. The image still sent shivers down her spine.

Yuki's violet gaze turned to starre at her, a bit curious as to why she was staring at him. The question as to why distrcted him from his thoughts. Just being around other people distracted him from those thoughts.
He decided he liked being around people...

Some people, atleast.

"Aa.. Its nice to meet you, Sybil-san?" he repeated the name, making sure he had it right. He knew she wasn't of the zodiac, like they were. Ofcourse.. he had been around Akito so long he knew who everyone was. Akito had a habit of talking about people randomly, putting them down or whatnot. Kyou was the monster, Haru was an idiot, Hatori was cold, Ritsu and Ayame were useless, Rin was disobedient, Momiji and kagura were fools, and himself, Yuki, was a cowardly selfist rat.
Akito never said much about Shigure, or Kureno.

So he knew them all. And he'd seen them at newyears ofcourse. But you didn't know who was what really.


Arafel streached a bit, letting everything shift back into place. Shame on her.. using her back instead of her knees like that. She noticed something, someone, climbing up onto a bit of rubble. One of the large peices. Oh wait, she knew him.. Freize. Yep.
And spiro? Aw. she got lost in her own little world for a moment, looking at the small shapes of the two with a smile.
Her attention was drawn back to the real world at the sound of clapping, as she spun around on her heels and gave a over-acted bow to her audiance.

Ofcourse, she had her were-wolf strength. That was part of it, the other part was her past. She had needed to do alot more work than her brother. Somehow he seemed to be the girl and she was the guy. Even in looks. Naturally he teased her for it.
"Aa, you've grown so much." Arafel grinned at the girl, giving her a pat on the head before heading down the beach, tail wagging. She really hadn't had much else to say.. so she'd just left.