Welcome to Gaia! ::

His dark eyes swept across the floor, looking for a hint of grey, but there was none. With the crowd moving like it did, in rippling waves of people rocking back and forth, he could only imagine where Estra was...or where she'd been taken to. Biting his lip, he tentatively stuck his head into a circle of dance, finding no pigeon, and withdrew it before an arm caught him about the ear. He was unsure whether the conversation and the - promise? - from the masked Book Child had raised or dampened his spirits; no one knew her, even the slightest sliver of her dress or her hair, like he did - and that familiarity was so crucial in this pulsating swath of population.

Perhaps he was experiencing an anxiety he hadn't felt, but would have, had he left her behind in the Forest.

Vlad violently shook his head. Ridiculous! He snapped at himself, stamping on his shadow. The crow, however, did recognise his limited ability, and wondered whether to question someone else...someone who might have seen his Estra.

A spin, a sprint and Vlad again, tripped over an unwieldy object on the floor - more unwieldy than a dropped sweet, for sure. He glanced down and saw a flash of blue and gold...

When he rose, he seized it by the spine and cried - or cawed -
"OH THE IRONY!"

He scanned its cover; unmistakable, it was a book, it was blue and gold, and it was certainly lost. It was also strange and bizarre that no one had found it and that fate decreed he was to find something he was completely not looking for. What grevious cruelty had been visited upon him, what wilful play of destiny - his grip around it tightened in his rage, and he set off in quick steps to the podium.

"Here." he hissed, thrusting it between the black and white to the little Book Child. "I presume it is yours." (though it was really the City Person's next to her, but she was easier to spot) "Don't lose it again." Once he'd managed those words, squeezed through tightly clenched teeth, he stormed off on his search anew.

Verin might have protested to say she wasn't afraid of heights, she was afraid of falling from said heights. But what was the point of that? And jump and twirl? Really? "I'd rather not," was all she said in response to that. Verin would take the chance in that case. Jump, really. Next she'd ask her to perform a ballet. Kids these days...

When she started up the ladder Lore had pushed down Verin was quite glad for the borrowed gloves. Even if she hadn't left her saffron colored ones at home they would've been horribly dirtied by her ascent up the ladder and they had been with her since she'd first arrived. They were real leather and she'd held onto them through all the years, had them repaired with bits of like-colored cloth where they'd torn and dutifully stitched the places where they ripped. They were precious, not meant for excursions like these. But the metal was quite nasty and climbing without gloves would've been highly unpleasant.

She was a little more than halfway up the ladder when she heard Lore remark about Vlad. "There?" Verin muttered and leaned back to see, wondering for a moment if maybe he'd had the idea to use the podium to talk about his lost items as well. She saw though a flash of blue and gold and chuckled. "Not what you wanted to find," she remarked absently in spite of the fact that there was no way for him to hear her.

The glimpse of the blond boy made her competitive spirit boil. “We should probably hurry!” Lore placed a hand on the window sill and jumped through. The inside was as she remembered, the floor’s many windows letting the moonlight through and lighting majority of the room. The old floor boards creaked beneath her feet.

Suddenly, two red lights flash on the far pitch black corner. Am I imagining things again? Lore blinked twice but the lights remained. Then a head appeared under the moonlight. It was definitely a head...its rusty iron frame was in the shape of a dog maybe wolf. Metallic teeth ground against each other as a black substance dripped down the side of its jaw forming small puddles on the floor. From the darkness came a paw, then another paw and the rest of its rusty metal body. Red eyes met the girl’s white ones. This is one heck of a dream…she thought but didn’t dare blink. She reached into her bag and grabbed her rope then metal baton, expending it to full. With her eyes still fixed on the creature, she tied the rope tightly to the baton’s center.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was running towards her! It's not a dream! “HOLY SSHH…!!!” Lore jumped back out the window and threw the rope through the railing and grabbed the other end. She yanked it once to make sure it wouldn't move with the metal baton lodged against the opposite side. “THE OTHER WAY! GO THE OTHER WAY!” Her silent shout came out as a massive block of white text. Without another moment’s hesitation, she jumped and started to run as soon as she felt her foot contact the side wall on the other building. Then she pushed off and let the rope pull her full weight as she swung back towards the ladder like a pendulum. The night air wash over her and wiped away her panic. She could barely see the two as she Tarzan towards them. “Take my hand!” She felt a weight on the other end of her arm and hoped it was the Book Child’s, then another weight latched on to her back...!

As the rope reached its highest point, it snapped…

His brow creased - Vlad was not impressed that the City Person could not recall whether he'd seen someone as distinctive as Estra (not that his description was particularly scintillating - he'd thought it was sufficient), and he muttered as a reminder under his breath "grey..."

"She was grey..." he said again, rather unhelpfully seeing as there were obviously too many sketches for any reasonable person to remember a girl in grey. The crow continued to flip the pages, scanning them rapidly and moving on until he reached the mess of lines with what looked a little like him? That, after the utter lack of Estra, annoyed him to the point of snatching the pencil and quite horrifyingly scrawling all over the page.

"Like this," he worked the implement viciously across the (thankfully blank, apart from the stray line) parchment, and defaced the book with a terrible likeness of his dove.



"So?" He demanded.

"Thank-" was about as far as the Book Child girl had gotten before Vlad stormed off. He vanished into the crowds, so the girl and her friend were left to blink helplessly at one another and then laugh away their confusion. It was one Book found, anyway. They were glad of that.

"One will be enough for now," said the City Person with a resigned and gentle smile. He stretched out his hand and took the book back. Somehow, thought the Book Child girl, he seems weary. Perhaps worrying about his books made him tired. "You remember which fire I'm at, yes?"

"I remember," she said. "I'll stay here and come find you when I have them all."

"Very good," nodded the City Person. "I'll come back once I've finished with the first story if the other books haven't been found by then. I hope it won't come to that."

She shrugged cheerfully in response and sent him on his way.


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There's 3 weeks left in July and I'd like to use that time for the flatsale, so I am going to just give everyone who rolled in this thread a token. So, no more rolling~ Congratulations to you all, lol. xDD ICly, the books will be found by NPCs.

Akihiko smiled an oddly at the sight of the festival. He'd been told that they had been held before, but it was his first time attending one due to his defeat to curiosity. Before, he never had much interest in participating in social events because the chatter was too much a pandemonium for him to handle. To his surprise, the night was filled with chatter--but not as he imagined. The inky ribbons that emitted from the City People seemed more beautiful than they usually appeared, dancing in the air. The Book Children were aplenty today themselves, and this delighted the samurai. His smile disappeared, replaced with a thin line.

He must be late, for he noticed that the ceremonial fires had already been lit. Sighing, he flicked off an invisible fleck of dust on his katana's hilt and stepped into the crowd. Once inside, the festival seemed to be livelier than he expected; Akihiko laughed as the younger of the City People formed a circle to briefly dance around him before departing in a diaspora. He watched them go, his eyes glancing at fifty directions at once--there was so much to see! Everyone seemed to be occupied with their own tasks, wandering off in various direction. Some were searching for books, others were spinning tales. He struggled to enter conversation.

"Ah, my punishment for tardiness," Akihiko murmured silently, rubbing an eye absently. "I really must learn to be punctual to social events. But, I must forgive myself, for this is my first time. One can easily forgive and learn to forget."

Excuses for his own foolishness.

When his vision returned to focus, he noticed a troubled looking City Person beside a regally dressed gentleman--a Book Child, certainly.

With soundless strides, the samurai crept up behind the duo and examined what exactly was going on.

A drawing. What of it, though? A girl? A spectre?

He cleared his throat before carrying on politely, "If you two gentlemen could pardon me kindly, I'm awfully sorry for my intrusion--but--what is that exactly? You see, I am a scholar myself and I've never seen something like that before."

He noticed he must have sounded quite rude despite his apologies, ergo, corrected himself.

"Oh, I don't mean to be rude of course. It's just that you two seem genuinely vexed yourselves on some part, and having nothing to do--I wouldn't mind lending my help."

Akihiko didn't sound so convincing to himself, but he dismissed his errors. He wondered what they thought of him, a man taller than both of them--wielding a weapon whatnot. He must have appeared to be dangerous if not, intimidating. He hoped his voice was soft enough to prove his character otherwise.