Welcome to Gaia! ::

Quinn was forced to hop out of the way with a yelp as a strange greenish creature flitted past her followed by a muttering bear-like thing.

Cautiously, she peered at them around the door frame, hoping they weren't going to eat the poor, sweet, bespectacled girl.

Quinn stared at the masked lady wryly. Her fur was beginning to get ruffled and that was never a good sign. Something completely uncharacteristic ussually overtook her then. Tail swishing in irritation, Quinn sauntered out from behind the door frame and put her arm around the smaller girl, careful not to disturb the green creature.

Then, smiling wanely, Quinn reached into her pocket and pulled out a lolly. Tossing towards the disgruntled stranger, she spoke crassly, "Your mother called... she said its past your bed time. I thought you might like a treat before your nap..."

Taking two more lollies from her pocket, she proffered one to the other girl and popped one into her own mouth.

((Paper, do you have a deviant art account?))

Quinn looked at the pale bespectacled girl and thought, At least that explains why she is so pale... and transparent... However, she wasn't really feeling any bad effects from touching her. Confused as to why, Quinn thought about the mile wide chasm in her memory and chalked it up to good karma.

She was frightened, but that part of her wasn't in control currently. That part of her was snuggled safely under the blankies of her mind. The part of her that was in control was the part that often did very very foolish and dangerous things.

Eying the threatening woman and yawning at her display, she leaned against the railing and muttered, "I'm Quinn. Nice to meet you too..."

At the chide about eating, Quinn replied, "I find a soft word and a kind hand gets ya farther. Besides, I've known plenty of creatures that don't need to eat, but cant turn down a fat, shiny lolly. Candy is calming... you should try it."

And finally, "Well, the circus called today, but they said that I couldn't come unless I brought you with me. Seems they were short one fool."

Quinn giggled as the rapier nicked into her flesh and muttered, "...tickles..."

When the rapier came down from her throat, Quinn beamed with her perceived victory and glanced around the balcony, words drifting unbidden from the chasm in her mind. "I don't see your name on the place... " Peering at the "V" where the woman's legs met, she continued, "And that doesn't look familiar to me either. So, unless you pushed me out of your v****a when neither of us was paying attention, I think you better take your mothering somewhere else."

Knees threatening to buckle, Quinn was determined not to let this woman take advantage of her. "And who are you to speak of 'ill-respect and lack of empathy?' Weren't you just the one who brandished a weapon at an unarmed civilian? Weren't you the one so inhospitible as to stomp my offering of good will? Weren't you the one berrating a poor dead girl for answers you were too scared to look to yourself to find?

'If any one is going to end up on the 'kitchen floor' as you so eloquently put it, it will be you. I issue harsh words as a response to an attack, your words begin harsh, if you bother to issue any at all. How many people have you killed with that over-grown paring kinfe? I have no blood on my hands, can you say the same?"

Panting with the exertion her words cost her, she held her ground.

"I pity you. So angry for one so young. I was invited, for I asked how to enter and the bemused child answered. It matters not if the invitation came from you, for you are not the ruler here.

'You flash your sword in some vain attempt to compensate your inadequacies, as if my mind might be hypnotised by the glitter of it all. Had you responded to my question with the respect you find so lacking in this world, I would have been inclined to oblige. Instead, you chose to flaunt your perceived strength to manipulate the situation to your own liking.

'I'm sorry I wasn't fooled. And as I have stated before, being that you are not my mother, you have no right to punish me. All of your sword brandishing and harsh language hasn't accomplished anything. You've scared the girl away, or she left on her own, but either way, she is no longer here. And now, I too will leave you, for my exploration is no where near complete."

With that, Quinn sauntered off the balcony and made her way deeper into the Temple. Once out of sight, she sagged into a dark corner, her weaker self once again taking control.

((Sorry to bail, but I have to go to town. My phone died or something... I'm not really sure. I dont think its the line because its plugged into my modem and the internet still works, but I have no dial tone, so I'm off to buy a new phone in hopes that it will work. I'll be back in a bit.))

Roger sat in silence, watching the fight, frozen by pain that wouldn't end, and the sheer venom and violence that was on a razor's edge before him. Each retort caused him to flinch slightly, though he continued to sit behind the ghost child, and thus, were the intruder had been, cradling his arm to his chest, his knees drawn up close.

Then, that last words by the strange woman named Dune. He almost found it a joke. She insulted, threatened, and abused at every turn. She really didn't know anything about him. At least, so he picked up from her conversations, calling him a denizen of the forest, which he was hardly. Did she understand either of them? Probably not. Did she judge anyways? Yes...

Slowly, the man stood on his feet, still holding his arm close to his chest, as he stepped towards Dune, and around the Ghost child, giving her a wide berth, "Um... Dune? That... what you did... it... it wasn't right..."

Roger looked down at his arm, as Dune talked, his face steadily clouding over as her voice came to him. It seemed so dead. Dead, he thought. It wasn't alive, it wasn't human. She was like a dead man. Or like his arm, he added in.

When she finished, he took a step forward towards her, "No..." he whispered, his voice giving way, revealing just how scared he was at the moment, despite himself, "everyone knows right and wrong. They do... just... people... tell themselves it's alright... that this is okay to bend, and that can be thrown out... and then, they just don't listen to their heart and soul no more..."