Welcome to Gaia! ::

Breathing heavily, Natsuki drew upon her martial arts training to calm and cool herself down. Her thick lashes lulled shut, as she laced her fingers and rested them on her lap. She pictured cascading waterfalls, rushing rapids, and the crashing waves, anything to get her mind off the boiling heat. Without water, her throat remained parched, but the exhausted auctionee was relieved to feel her pulse slowing down. After a few moments, her stormy gray eyes simply opened, and she rose to her feet slowly. Looking down at her open dress, she pulled the top back on snapping one of the three clasps.

"I'll be back in several minutes," Natsuki said, without looking at Richard, as she picked up her duffle bag. T-shirt and shorts? He had to be kidding. There was no way she'd dress so casually for someone who just dropped that much money to help the Lab. Darting between stalls, she made her second trip to the bathrooms for the day. Years of backstage quick changes, and Natsuki strolled out of the bathroom looking completely refreshed and in a completely different outfit.

A light green, terry cloth dress, accented with ruffles and ribbons in yellow, hung a bit looser on her body, but made up for being a bit shorter in length. Matching espirilles that tied at her knees squeaked softly on the stone walk way. Natsuki pulled her hair into a bun, complementing it with a fragrant, yellow plumeria and spicy, flawless makeup. Shoving her bag into a locker, she returned to the booth with simply a small handbag and a vending maching bottle of water. With one last look in her mirror, she smiled confidently, and turned her attention to the task at hand.

"All right, Richard," Natsuki said, brilliantly smiling with freshly glossed lips. "Where's that cute boy who is taking me out?"

Rivener was smiling at both Bard and Lucado. He didn't like the idea that Lucado wanted to leave so much; wasn't he attracted to Riv? The Raevan could see all the signs... But perhaps the man was too shy, and needed to run away. Ah well, so be it. "It is nice to meet you, Lucado. Have you already gotten everything you need?" He turned the full force of his half-lidded eyes and knowing smile on Lucado, feeling like it would be interesting to tease the man a little, and see if he really WOULD run away.

"As for you, Bard," Riv said, keeping his eyes on Lucado, "You can stay. I enjoy being looked at. If you see a certain silver-haired pale blue Raevan coming this way, however, I suggest you run; he wouldn't like you staring at me." He grinned, thinking of Roux. Strangely, he only now realized that he hadn't seen the Icy Frei in a long time. Where was he? Was he ok? Did Chloe neglect him again? He pouted momentarily, before turning the smile back on.

Namini broke out into an ecstatic grin as she nodded understandingly to Lazarus. Pulling a somewhat crumpled five dollar bill from her wallet she slid it across the counter to him and put her wallet back into her bag before picking up the banana boat with both hands. She avoided Tari's gaze out of nervousness as she nodded.

"Secret. Gotcha." Namini mumbled as she gave them both a quick farewell gesture. Walking among the other stands again, Namini squealed with delight at the taste of the strawberry ice cream. Lazarus had sure done a good job of presenting! That's when she remembered the scene previous. She shivered.

Why does that Raevan eat hair?!

"That cute boy is right here." Junsu grinned, leaning casually against the back of the stage.

He gave a smile to the copper-headed woman before turning to the auctioneer. He politely forked over the money (which Jae had given to him) to the man, and dusting of his jacket and fixing his hair real quick, he finally turned towards Natsuki.

"Name's Junsu, but you can just call me Jun," he said with a wink. He felt a little awkward, going on a date with a woman...not Jae Eun. But, then again, it really wouldn't be that different from having to pretend he was single in front of millions of screaming fangirls, now would it?

He extended a polite hand to Natsuki, giving her his most charming smile. "The pleasure is all mine."

How long had he been waiting? Minutes or hours? Richard really didn't know, his idea on time corrupted as he tried to sort out what he should do next in his head. Miss Natsuki's return was becoming drawled, and it was taking all of Richard's strength not to just turn around and go back on stage. The young man hadn't gotten one word out as the other calmed herself and hurried off to changeto tell her he needed to go back out.

As time, which supposedly was moving onto it's second hour in Richard's mind, drew on. The young man didn't know exactly what to do to distract the young man who was in clear view now. Should he whisk him away to another location? Or perhaps make up some odd tale to get his mind confused and boggled? Yep, the words of a man who was on his very last leg on ideas. When it came down to the boiling point, Richard had been reduced to twiddling his thumbs impatiently awaiting Natsuki's return.

What was taking her so long was beyond him, he was not a woman so their way of thinking wasn't at all like his. Junsu was getting closer though, and Richard's twiddling fingers could only do help him ease his jittery nerves a little bit longer.

Finally, just as Jun leaned onto one of the wooden beams that held up the stage and Richard opened his mouth to explain the wait; their lady-in-waiting arrived in the nick of time. Thank goodness! Richard couldn't have been happier even if he just received an expensive pair of shoes. There were still two auctions that needed to be held; and if he had to wait any longer his pay would have been deducted for sure.

"Good!" The young been exclaimed in a rush for time, "Now, you two go enjoy yourselves. There is plenty to do here, go explore!" Then his hands happily reached and took the dead presidents presented to him afterwards. A brisk 'thank you' and 'have fun' was given before Richard hurried himself back up onto the stage.

Watching the various people and creatures from her position was proving less than informative, and truly, dreadfully boring. More than anything, she wanted to just march up to one of them and start asking questions, her pen flying over her paper... but common sense told her that would probably be the very worst way to get what she wanted, and it would draw undue attention to her.

Eyes narrowed down at the flower that had offended her finger, and abruptly set it back in the container. Silly things, flowers. Useless for anything but to look at, which wasn't much of a purpose at all. She dusted her hands in a brisk manner and set off for the refreshment stall, features smoothing into polite, happy lines. Time to mingle, and she could use something cool to drink. But now... dilema. Who to approach first?

Well, that answer was fairly simple... she'd go for quantity, and lack of other humans. Stepping up to the stall, she lifted a hand with finger raised, a crooked little smile pulling at her lips.

"Shaved Ice, please." She said softly as she swept her eyes down the red and white Raevan, then peeked at the gold and black female from the corner of her eyes. Interesting... she'd have to make a note on the similiarites between the male and female, since there were more things different than the same.

Her eyes had wondered once more to the stage that was holding the auction, but found it to be empty now. She’d stuck around to see if there was anything else, but that seemed to be it, at least for now anyway. Ebony stretched her hands high before slipping those shades down her nose ever so slight as to allow those gray eyes to wonder back over the scene of the festival. Where to next? She’d been pretty much everywhere, yet hadn’t interacted much nor had she really bought anything. Slender fingers tightened its grip upon the water bottle, reminding her that she had made a purchase. ‘Hmph, twenty dollars for this? What was I thinking?’ Fact was she wasn’t really thinking, but still she should feel good about her “donation.” Leave it to Ebony to mourn over the lost of an insignificant bill. Perhaps now was a good time to make her way back over to the petting zoo.

Pushing those shades back up to their normal place on her nose, she sauntered back towards the unusual zoo. But as things would have it, she was distracted yet again with a delightful scent. This time is was the smell of fresh baked goods and other tongue-tantalizing food. And just like with the flowers, Ebony’s legs had carried her to the source without much thought on her part. She read the sign out loud, “Summer cook off?”