Welcome to Gaia! ::

Despite the fact it was cold outside, a fact that had made the baku really quite gloomy, she felt her mood elevate with every new and old friend that she found herself conversing with. When Terra suddenly dropped by, Xiu smiled and wrapped her arms around the reaper ghoul to return the hug. "Terra, hi! It's good to see you!" She beamed up at her friend, giving a little nod at the question. "I'm well, yes! How are you?"

It wasn't long after when yet another familiar face showed up. The baku let out a bright laugh--and a little squeak--at Alex's hug, returned the favour with just as much strength (or at least, as much as she could muster). When he let her go and moved on to greet the others, she turned to look at Riley again, momentarily interrupting the conversation she was having with her group to give the mindflayer a hug and wave at Lizzy.

She then turned back and suddenly perked up, her gaze sliding between the zomboil and Sophie at their exchange. Wait a minute.

"I--wait. Alex, what's...your last name again?" Was that why Sophie's introduction had been so familiar?

It was the word pay that had caught the reaper's eye. He had spent most of his silver seeds and well going home empty handed without a gift for his sister didn't bode well in his mind. He could have given her another minipet he had collected, though Merel squeaked no at the thought of it. Most of them were rather a handful and well leaving them alone with his sister would have resulted in a death of a minipet especially if it managed to chew or destroy one of her dolls. Looking around he tucked his hands into his pockets and made his way into the office.

Snow was not new to TK, but he certainly hadn’t been expecting it when he arrived to Amity. He rather liked the chill, actually. It was far more preferable than a sudden bout of heat; fires could sprout from the sudden heat wave, after all. What he did not expect, however, was the peculiar feeling of happiness that somehow overcame him. Sure, the undead could be pleasantly happy, but this happiness was more bubbly and infected him far longer than he would have expected. A part of him managed to take notice of this odd change, and yet the other part of TK chose to ignore it. It was a comfortable happiness, one that he didn’t mind. It wasn’t a hindrance to him, so why worry?

The undead student walked through the halls with his head rocking back and forth to the tune of an invisible song that only he could hear. Perhaps it wouldn’t be long until he began to hum an actual holiday song. He stopped when he noticed a new flyer pasted on the office door. The colorful green and red demanded his attention, so he craned forward to read the contents. Part time job? TK hadn’t been intending to find one, but earning a few seeds certainly couldn’t hurt. The flyer appeared innocent enough. What could go wrong? Well, the undead would find out soon enough.

As he walked into the office, he idly cracked his wrists and seemed impressed by the number of students already milling about. Interesting.

--

Snow! Ugh! No! If there was one thing Alecto loathed the most, it was snow. Perhaps some hellhounds of different clans could stand the white abomination, but she did not hail from such families. She was a hellhound who could manipulate fire at will, whose eyes burned a fiery glow. She was basically a giant fire dog, for Jack’s sake. A creature like herself should avoid the cold as much as possible and leave her dorm only when mandatory. In fact, Alecto fully intended to hole herself up in her room and knit sweaters because why not. Although the giant claws would prove to make her task difficult.

The hellhound was murmuring to herself while she stalked through the halls, a pair of knitting needles clumsily held in her hands. Her ears twitched when she passed by a flyer on the office door. Curiously, the ghoul paused to read it and hummed. She had no need for money, but the murmuring on the other side indicated there were other people. Alecto perked up considerably and stepped through. She shuddered suddenly. Cold. She was cold. She needed warmth. Maybe you should wear sleeves. Megaera hissed as the canine walked around, searching for someone warm.

Someone bumped into him and TK attempted to sidestep to allow the other person through, maybe even turn his body toward the other so he could apologize politely, but instead of a new face, he found one he had seen for many years. Normally, the sight would have vexed the gashadokuro slightly before he reinforced the polite smile and struck up curt conversation, but instead the smile that adorned his skeleton face was more genuine, pleasantly happy. “I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped calling me chewtoy,” he remarked softly.

He flinched, but sighed and stood in place when the inugami buried his face into his collarbone. “How many times have you done this?” TK wondered, half-musing and half-perplexed. There must have been something pleasant about his collarbone that Makoto liked so much, but what? “Well, did you?”

--

“Warmthwarmthwarmth I need warmth…” she repeated under her breath while her ears flicked occasionally and her tail slide across the ground in serpentine waves. Alecto hugged herself while both Megaera and Tisiphone hounded her about her lack of sleeves. She grumbled and retaliated by creating tiny motes of flame that floated around her. The different wasn’t substantial, but noticeable enough for the dog to relax a bit while she continued her search for another heat source to cuddle up to.

There were already tiny groups of students loitering about, but currently the disgruntled dog was unsure if she was up for social interaction at the moment. The glow in her eyes flared up momentarily when she spotted a lump of dark fur hanging off of someone. In fact, weren’t those ears and tails familiar to her? No matter, since the hellhound had already stalked over and buried her face into the fur. “Waaaarm…” She barely took notice of the undead student.

This was not the reality she wanted. Mostly because it involved manual labor of some mysterious sort. And Christmas.
But, well, money was money and while the witch could surely have sweet talked her parents into giving her the seeds she needed for presents and supplies for presents for the coming holiday, Belladonna was getting on in years. Now it was time to earn her own way! At least a little... Even at the risk of more Christmas joy and cheer. Already the witch had begun to try her hand at this whole knitting thing in attempt to keep her favorite people as warm as possible in this blasted snow. Mostly it ended up with the yarn braided in pretty plaits, but hey! That was a really good start for someone who exclusively used the knitting needles as hair sticks instead of for their intended purpose.
By the time she reached the office, after dilly-dallying and fussing and generally trying to run late on purpose, the witch slipped into find the room to find it already pretty full up. In this case, tardy to the party was not really a good thing, so instead of jumping about and butting into conversations, the witch was content to lean against a far wall.
Christmas and the potential prospect of actually working really did have her down, because Belladonna was usually the most sociable of creatures.

Ulmuka wasn't exactly sneaky, with his sheer bulk and unnerving expression, but with most of the students gathered socializing he was able to enter the office with little interruption. The strix had been feeling pressure lately to earn his own money. While the idea of labor was not exactly his forte, the appeal of money was universal.

Seeing a familiar unruly mop of orange hair, his taloned fingers reached out to give Joachim a tickling squeeze on the sides.

Terra was now sharing her Frost hug--well, she'd been about to pull away and comment on how nice it was to see siblings that did not spend their time going "You're touching me" and "I'm not touching you," and poking and falling asleep in class (her view of sibling-hood was purely from the new state of being Roch's "little sister" the poor ghoul,) but she looked at Chaya--

And grinned. "Hola! You are a good friend of senor Frost's, no? I am Terra!" And then, whether it was from the JOY that was infecting her, or simply because it was that sort of moment--she hugged Frost AND Chaya. "We can be friends!"

Yes, Terra, for EVERYONE wants to be your friend.