Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sometime around noon you hear a knock on the door. Going to answer it you find a Delivery Person holding a brightly colored package. They hand you a clip-board asking for your signature before handing it over.



A sticker on the present box reads in bright, bold red letters Do Not Open Until Christmas!. Attached is a tag with Cordelia's name on it, on the other side you see a small message.

Smoky orbs narrowed in disdain as Cordelia eyed the heart-shaped box of sweets Ebony had bought her. To be perfectly honest, she’d thought the candy was interesting in texture and flavor, but wasn’t all that impressive. It had this rich, sweet grittiness that tended to linger in her mouth even long after the chocolate had disappeared from her tongue. In fact she’d only had the one piece at the store and now hours later, the basilisk could still taste it. Though not entirely bad, Delia much preferred the smooth, lightweight taste of the smoke she’d been so accustomed to. So now there was only one problem to deal with. How to get rid of them without hurting Ebby’s feelings?

A long sigh escaped her dark lips before scaled lids lifted up to scan her surroundings, perhaps it could provide her with some sort of solution. All she saw though from her laying position on the living room floor was that red heart-shaped box and the fireplace containing a small, smoldering fire in its gullet. Sitting up, Cordelia craned her neck to look beyond the furniture and sneak a peek into the further adjoining rooms.

What she found was her guardian moving back and forth through the dining room oddly. Ebony would stand in front of the sliding glass doors and just stare straight out to the gently snow covered backyard, a finger twisted harshly upon a single strand of violet as she gradually gnawed on her bottom lip. Then she would flip open that little box she used to speak to others who were far away, what was it called again? Oh right, a cell phone. So Ebony would open the cell only to snap it sharply shut once more. After doing this a few more times, her woman would slowly pace across the white carpet before opening the phone again and actually dialing a number, yet she would close it immediately before anyone could feasibly answer.

Cordelia raised a brow at this very peculiar behavior. The snake had never seen this level of doubt and hesitation from her guardian before. Normally Ebby would debate a good few minutes before making a solid decision and following through no matter what the outcome. What was it that could be bothering her woman so much that a simple phone call couldn’t be made? Who was she trying to call anyway?

Her eyes shifted slowly back towards the box of chocolates and this time gave them a good glare, like it was their fault for her guardian’s discomfort now. Of course they had to be at fault! Ebby was perfectly fine until they’d come home from the grocery store with those diabolical desserts. Or was it because they ate them? Oh no! Maybe that’s why Ebony was acting so weird! Delia had only the one, but Ebony, she’d had quite a few in the time span between the store and now. And she wasn’t acting any different than before…was she? The Frei carefully patted herself down as if there would be any physical signs of her acting strange. There weren’t of course, but maybe this was something akin to her illness last year, in which only her race had been affected. Maybe these chocolates were tainted and it only caused humans to act odd.

That’s all the convincing Cordelia needed before quickly tossing her box into the fireplace. The flames graciously accepted the offering and wrapped around it fast, consuming the red heart and candy inside, a sickeningly sweet plume of smoke rising up. The basilisk hissed and coward away, clasping her hands over her mouth and nose. She knew those things were vile! Look how it had ruined her delicious smoke!

At the sounds of hissing and whimpering, Ebony’s eyes shot up automatically from her cell phone. Where was Cordelia?! Was she okay?! “Cordelia?!” she asked, her voice carrying a large amount of alarm at the pathetic sounds coming from her ward. There were other sounds as well; a large popping and something sizzling like bacon. What was that?

Moving towards the suspicious noises, Ebony stopped abruptly when Cordelia slithered out from the couch and clung to her with tiny tears in her serpentine eyes. Immediately, the Brit began to sooth the girl with a gentle patting and hushing. “Hey hey now. What’s wrong? What happened?”

Cordelia gave a few sniffles before watery grey eyes looked up to their concerned counterparts. Finally a slender finger pointed towards the fireplace where the flaming heart was melting into a gooey puddle of burnt paper, cardboard and bubbling chocolate. Ebony gasped at the sight. “Cordelia! Why did you throw your chocolates into the fire? If you didn’t like them, you could have just told me.”

Delia frowned at the scolding tone her woman’s voice held now. Why was she being reprimanded for destroying the evil confections? She should be praised! Pulling away and crossing her arms over her chest, Cordelia muttered quite clearly, “Those chocolates were bad.”

Like a fish gasping for breathe, Ebony’s mouth open and closed without any sound emitting from it. Ironically, she couldn’t find the means to communicate due to the basilisk Raevan’s own sudden ability to speak. This was obviously lost on the half formed youth as Cordelia frowned worriedly at her guardian. “Ebby?” she asked, tentatively patting her cheek. Was she okay? Those chocolates weren’t doing more bad things to her woman were they?

Momentarily stunned, the purple haired Brit finally snapped out of it and pressed the girl’s hand tight against her cheek. She laughed and smiled brightly. “Cordelia! You spoke! When did this happen?!”

At Ebony’s roll of laughter, Delia almost thought her woman gone mad, but was put at ease when the human smiled broadly. Her smoky eyes blinked slow as she tried to register what her guardian had said. She’d spoken? Well yes of course she’d spoken. Cordelia could speak; it was just that no one could ever understand her since it was all hisses. But if Ebby had been happy she’d spoken just now, then that had to mean she’d understood her. Had she just spoken in English? Delia wasn’t aware she’d picked up the language, but apparently she had.

She took a moment to think of the words she wanted to say and then tried shaping her mouth to the sound of them in her head. Finally the girl gave a try at consciously saying something in English. “I don’t know.” Cordelia had listened carefully to each word she’d spouted and smiled; pleased to hear none of the familiar hissing that normally came from her speech. Her voice was smooth and soft like velvet, but held a huskiness to it that could have been mistaken for a sore throat, but was most likely an influence of her smoke essence. “Ebby, are you all right? You were acting odd just now in the other room.”

Ebony’s smile faltered into a more embarrassed version of itself when Cordelia asked about her earlier behavior. So the girl had seen that huh? Cheeks blushing a deep crimson, “Uh, well…yes I’m fine. I was just trying to call David. You remember him right? Prajna’s guardian?”

That was the wrong thing as the snake’s happiness deflated at the star Raevan’s name. She’d gotten off on the wrong ribbon with so many of their kind during her illness, but Prajna had to have been one of the worst. Looking away and head cast down slight, “I remember. If you wanted to call him, then why don’t you?”

“Because it’s complicated.”

“I don’t understand.”

Sighing and pulling her fingers through her long lavender strands, “It’s complicated because I…” It was so hard for her to tell anyone this, but maybe if she talked with someone it would help. Besides, it was so nice to be able to actually hold a conversation with her Raevan finally! She wanted to continue it, no matter the current subject matter. “I like him, but…I don’t know if he likes me in the same way.”

“Oh.” Cordelia didn’t really understand that because from what she could tell from her limited time near the male, David looked to like Ebony a lot. If he didn’t, why would he invite them to go do something fun? She sure wouldn’t want to have someone she didn’t like go and do fun things with her. It didn’t make sense. “So it wasn’t the chocolate then?”

“The chocolate?” The Brit frowned. What did she mean by that? Slate colored orbs slid back to the chaos her young ward had created in the fireplace. It looked just as bad now as it had a few minutes before, but by now the fire had pretty much obliterated everything it could of the candy box. All that remained was the actual chocolate part which had simmered down in its bubbling. That’s when it hit her. “Oh! Is that why you threw them in there? You thought it had something to do with me acting strange?”

Cordelia nodded sheepishly and Ebony laughed uncontrollably. It was one of the cutest things the Frei had done to date. Wrapping the dark girl into a loving embrace, “I’m touched you’d sacrifice your sweets for me dear. But now I think it’ll be easier if you just ask before assuming.” She chuckled and mussed the girl’s hair a bit before going back to debating over her calling David once more.

She chuckled too, finding the same humor Ebony had in her half-baked assumption. Delia supposed it was pretty silly, but she’d rather have been wrong than for it to have been true and hadn’t done anything to help her human. And although she still didn’t really understand the sudden need for her woman to call or at the very least try to call David, at least something good had come of all this. Cordelia now knew she could communicate with others effectively, if she so chose. That prospect was very promising and she looked forward to what it could bring.

“I wonder if the Lab would be against me injecting a permanent GPS tracker in my Raevan…” grumbled the violet haired woman as she circled about the same block for the fourth time. Honestly, how far could a half formed torso get? It wasn’t like Delia could fly with those web-less wings of hers. Not that it ever deterred her from sneaking off though. The Brit was starting to wish for her earlier days with the smoky Frei, back when Cordelia refused to go three steps from the warmth of their home. How long ago that seemed now, even though it had only been a few months in reality.

Abruptly stopping to catch her breathe, Ebony accompanied it with a rather nasty growl of frustration. Yelling to the sun scattered sky as if it were the reason for her missing ward (which it partially was), “CORDELIA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!” It was something she immediately regretted as more than half a dozen pedestrians around her gave an even wider berth now as to avoid her. Probably thought she was fresh out the loony bin. With a defeated sigh and a slightly embarrassed blush to her tanned cheeks, Ebony began her search again.

She hadn’t gone far when the growing sound of sirens filled the air. Shrill and critical sounding, two fire trucks cut sharply around a street corner in their haste and headed further into the distance where a large mountain of smoke could be seen blackening the skies above the wooded area. The people around her began to start their out loud ponderings or even dared to strike up a conversation with the complete stranger closest to them. Who would start a fire out in the middle of nowhere like that? Was there even anything out there to burn besides trees? Was it an accident or maybe someone had done it on purpose? Were they bearing witness to the humble beginnings of a serial arsonist perhaps?

Luckily for Ebony, none of them were trying to talk to her and she was left alone to her own. There was just something about the smoke that kept bugging her and she couldn’t quite place what it was exactly. She stood there for a few moments, brows tightly knitted in concentration as she bit her bottom lip. “Cordelia!” Finally something had clicked in her brain and she sprinted after the emergency vehicles like her life depended on it.

The scene was utter chaos as firefighters ran around yelling orders to one another and trying to get the hoses hooked up to douse the rising flames. They never saw her slip past into the shadows of the smoke filled forest. Once Ebony was sure she was well hidden within the depths of the trees, the Brit began a full out mad dash towards the source of the emergency. Probably not the smartest of decisions, but she had to be sure Cordelia wasn’t in there.

She had to use her jacket as a makeshift mask as she ran around the area practically blind, the smoke was so thick near the fiery ruins that it stung her eyes and made them tear up. Taking as much air in as the all-consuming fire around her would allow, Ebony called out for her Raevan through fits of hacking and coughing. “Cor…Cor-d-delia! Are…are you here! Cor…delia!”

Ebony stopped to bend over and try to catch her breathe, which was becoming increasingly difficult the longer she stayed among the oxygen-deprived area. Sweat ran in streams along the sides of her tanned face as spots began to swim in her vision. The reasonable part of her mind told her it wasn’t safe for her to continue the futile search for the smoke serpent, but another, more emotional part of her kept screaming that she had to find Cordelia no matter what. Unable to rise again, Ebony choked out the girl’s name once more. “C-cor…d-delia…”

“Ebby…” The voice was so soft that the Brit had almost missed it, thinking it merely a figment of her imagination. But then the voice came again, stronger as a plume of smoke with a mind of its own came circling around the human. “Ebby….help…me…” Try as hard as she could, Delia couldn’t pull herself back together again. The best she could do was to create a vague outline of herself that kept rolling in and out of existence as the wind shifted.

“Cordelia!” she cried and tried to grasp at something, anything that was solid of the girl. Unlike with one particular time during the virus, this time the Frei had turned completely vaporous and there was nothing to grab onto or vice versa. Ebony could feel the fear and anxiety well up in her chest just like it had the first time the basilisk had disappeared in a puff of smoke. Yet, she tried to calm down and remind herself that they’d gotten through it the first time and they would get through it again. But there wasn’t time to think of how to get Cordelia back to solid form now, Ebony needed to get them out of this dangerous area. “Follow me!”

Back tracking as fast as possible, a human sized mass of black smoke billowing after her like a ghost ready to possess, Ebony crashed chaotically through the trees and back to Gaian civilization as they knew it. If it wasn’t so disgusting and very unsanitary, the violaceous female could have kissed the pavement. Instead she took to laying down on it instead, her lungs gasping in large amounts of air as a smile of appreciation crossed her face. Never again would she take oxygen and breathing for granted.

While she’d chased after her guardian, Cordelia could feel another strange sensation overcoming her once more. As they moved further away from the flames, she could almost feel the vibrations slowing down little by little in her vaporous body. Even now as she watched her guardian try to steady her breathing, the basilisk felt the energy draining from her and causing things to become sluggish again. It was a feeling she was all too familiar with, having been afflicted with it for most of the winter.

Slowly, so very slowly, Delia could feel the molecules of her body realigning. Like tiny rubber bands, they snapped back into place and gave way to her regaining her physical form again. Though she was relieved to be solid again as it had been rather disorienting being suddenly without a body, the serpent couldn’t refrain from breaking down and crying in her guardian’s lap.

The sudden outburst and flopping of one half-formed Frei into her midst startled Ebony quite a bit. But once she’d realized who it was and what was happening, she immediately wrapped her arms around the girl, grateful to be able to do so again. Through soothing sounds and rocking, Ebony tried to calm the emotional Raevan. “Hey now, it’s okay. Everything’s okay. I’m here now and you’re back to your old self, see? So there’s nothing to cry about now.” The Brit flashed her charge a comforting smile, but Cordelia couldn’t reciprocate.

Clinging to her guardian even harder now, the dark girl sobbed uncontrollably. “You’re wrong Ebby! Everything’s not okay! Lu-“ The name hitched in her throat as she recalled what had just occurred several moments before Ebony’s arrival. The way Lucia looked at her, a predator with a severely deranged grin. How the cat girl had relished in seeing her friend in pain. How the other had tried to burn her face off. Cordelia shuddered just thinking of what could have happened if she’d not turned to smoke at that moment.

Ebony frowned not understanding the youth’s hysterical cries. “Lou? Who’s Lou?” The thought of a man harassing her poor girl made the Brit’s blood boil. Anger flaring in her grey eyes, “Cordelia, did someone try to hurt you?”

“Yes!” the Frei wailed.

“WHO?! WHO HURT YOU?!” Ebony couldn’t control the volume of her voice as her emotions got the better of her once again.

“Lu-Lucia! Lucia tried to burn me!”

As quick as the anger had risen, just as fast was it to melt away with the utterance of that name. Lucia? Yuurei’s Lucia? The cat had tried to hurt her Delia? The same one who’d just spent New Year’s with them and even ended up having an impromptu sleep over with the snake? Ebony just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. They hadn’t seen her since that time and from what she could tell, the girl had been cured of the virus, as had all the others. So then why would the girl attack Cordelia? “Lucia? Are you sure Cordelia? Did you two have a fight or something?”

Burying her scaled faced deeper into her mother’s stomach, Delia’s smoky voice muffled out a reply. “No. She found me feeding from the fire and…and…” New tears sprang to her silver eyes as the betrayal came back to cut fresh wounds in her heart once more. “And then she just attacked me! I don’t know why she did it, I didn’t do anything to her.”

Cordelia never lied before that Ebony knew of, so it was hard to think that the snake was lying now. It was possible what she thought to be an attack was just a misunderstanding of some sort as it was equally hard to picture the feline Frei ever doing anything to purposely harm those she cared about. Yet…the way the girl spoke now, with no doubt, only conviction in her words made it hard for the Brit to roll with that logical conclusion as well.

“Why? Why Ebby? Why did she attack me? I-I don’t understand…” Delia sniffled trying to be strong and not cry, but it obviously wasn’t working as the tears continued to roll down her olive-toned cheeks.

It broke Ebony’s heart seeing her Raevan so distraught over the presumed betrayal of a friend. Most especially since the girl had very few friends to begin with. What exactly had transpired between the basilisk and the cat? What had Lucia been doing all the way out here and alone for that matter? Perhaps she’d call Yuurei later and find out. For now, Ebony needed to be concerned with taking care of Cordelia.

Smoothing back her blackened bangs, “Let’s go home, okay?" The violet haired female said with a small, tight smile. It wasn’t very comforting, but it was the best she could do to help lift the girl’s despair, her worry for what could be ailing Lucia still weighing heavily upon her mind.

Hesitantly, Delia looked up at her guardian. She blinked slow, the action a bit uncomfortable as it had been unnecessary as it usually was for her, before giving a few more sniffles and nodding. Home had never sounded better.