Welcome to Gaia! ::

Before she finished her question, Kalec had understood the nature of it. This language thing was becoming a little easier. He realized that there was much more to the art of speaking than knowing HOW to do it, knowing grammar and proper etiquette was pointless theory. It was in the experimenting, in the experience that the true nature of these things took place.

His reverie had been broken however by her sudden movement, and he watched the lemonade spilling onto this lady's fingers. The lady named Niksia, who didn't seem to know much about Raevans despite her being at the party. Spilling...He hadn't encountered this problem before. There was no set solution in his mind. Within his mind, connections were made and he came up with a new solution.

There was a wet rag nearby that was supposed to be for cleaning the counter. Perhaps this would suffice. He quickly snatched it up and bent over close to the glass, and began to very methodically clean the liquid from her hand, not realizing that it was completely unconventional to do.

Once he was done, he gave a big smile, a little more naturally this time. "There, all better." He put the rag away, as another lady approached Gage. He would let Gage deal with this woman, he had his hands a little full already. He had raised his head by this time, and was unnaturally close face-to-face with this Niksia.

Up close and personal, it was easy to see how his eyes moved in a jerky, robotic manner. They had a glow inside them that was inhuman and yet...human all at once. Something in the back of the eyes was dark though, clouded, a purple essence that smelled of absense of un-life, the paradox of the living dead...There was a cold calculation in there that was a little spooky.

Suddenly realizing that he was doing what humans called...staring, Kalec, abruptly moved back from this girl and began to speak again.

"Raevan: A result of Dr. Kyou's experiments in Lab 305, the combination of an ancient essence and a soul to create a new and powerful form of life." he spoke matter-of-factly without much intonation, as if reciting a definition from a book. Listening to his own words, he paused a little in contemplation. He still needed to get that part down, the intonation. He would work on that, he decided.

In the meantime, another person had stepped into the scene, and had offered the woman another replacement lemonade. What an interesting creature this was. With the gills of a fish, but definitely not a fish, since he breathed air. Kalec started to study the features of the not-fish, his attention split between three now.

"...Niksa," Sam finished. He realized he was back at the slave booth of the green and silver raevan. The silver raevan abruptly grabbed Niksa's hand and began to scrub it with a washcloth, cleaning the lemonade spilled on Niksa. "Hah! More proof that they're enslaving the raevans! I'll definitely expose these people for who they are!... Whoever 'these people' are..." Sam thought. As the silver raevan finished scrubbing, its attention turned to Sam. Sam noticed the raevan was staring at him, almost as if mentally dissecting him. Sam stared back, his wide eyes unblinking. He felt pressure build up between the two gazes but didn't blink as he too looked the raevan over. He was a fish. The silver raevan wouldn't win... Sam found himself making a staring contest out of their gazing at each other.

((And.. I need to leave for the night after this. I'll be checking as soon as I get up tomorrow morning, but I'll actually be away for the weekend starting tomorrow. I'll only be able to make short, small visits, so I'm going to make it easy for anyone interacting with me and Roux to move away so they can do other things while I'm not around.))

Roux looked up from beneath his silver hair as Rivener took him by the shoulders and -squeezed-. He frowned, eyes narrowing in annoyance. He lifted his hands to cover Rivener's, pulling at them to remove them.

"Stop." He seemed to be at war with himself, his expression changing from anger and annoyance to embarassment, frustraition, finally resting on something completely unlike himself.

Sadness.

"Go away." Yet more feathers fell loose from his wings, scattering across the ground and leaving the first noticibly bald spot. His head dropped, shoulders sagging as his fists clenched. He clenched his teeth, closing his eyes. What was this, it was hot and horrible, like one of the worms Chloe had told him about wriggling around inside of him.

He turned, a few more feathers falling in the vicious movement and floated as quickly as he could away, not to the lab, but further behind it. This was new, still new to him, he was still learning despite how long he'd been in this world and this emotion was overtaking him.

He headed around a corner and disappered.


Chloe gave a small nod, biting her lower lip in thought. "A-Ahm.. I'm sorry, I forgot." She gave a small, sheepish smile up at him.

She gave a sudden small start as Roux... ran away? Behind the lab no less.. she decided that she'd leave him be for now. The lab.. there was something she had to do, she couldn't quite remember, though. Perhaps she had written it down on a sticky note inside.

She looked up apologetically at Aphismet as she stepped out from her booth. She reached up to give his arm a small squeeze. "I-I'm sorry but.. I need to go do something. I'll be back in a little.. w-why not.. enjoy the other booths?" She gave him another smile that warmed her features before letting go and turning away, heading toward the lab.

Alex quirked a smile. She could tell that he was as distracted by the events as she was. "If you have it, please; if not, lemonade is fine." The woman tilted her head a little, observing the green Raevan. He had a handsome figure, a regal horn the only distinguishing mark over his mask. So many questions she wanted to ask; for once, she was keeping her nature in check. She'd come off just as bizarre to them as they were to her, she'd imagine!

Kalec seemed to be a fountain of information, although the way he talked gave her the impression he wasn't certain about what he was saying. Like it was preprogrammed. Her curiosity continued to burn, alarmingly so. She hoped one of the Doctors would come by soon.

Alex's attention was pulled by the sudden movement of one of the other booths. A red-headed man - a human! - seemed to be having a problem with a client. She chuckled quietly to herself, looking once again to the Raevan who was tending to her. "What is all this for? Most labs I know of wouldn't be so...so open." Although I'm glad this one is, she added quietly.

Kalec in the meanwhile, didn't really think of it as a staring contest at all. Though his eyes were fixed in a single position, he was analyzing the creature in its entirety. Blue and spiney silver fins protruded from it in many areas, and he wondered if this creature did indeed have some sort of relationship to fish.

Not only was it unlike any of the Raevan, in that it didn't float around, it definitely wasn't human in terms of behavior. Kalec cocked his head quizzicly. This creature behaved a different way than normal people, in fact, it seemed to be pointedly staring at him for some reason, its unlidded eyes completely unblinking. He was reminded of a goldfish that he saw in an aquarium, which had responded to his analysis by staring back through the glass, its mouth opening and closing slowly.

Maybe it WAS a fish. In Kalec's fledgling mind, a link between Sam and a goldfish had irreversibly linked. There was some hostility in the gaze that was returning his cool calculating one, his eyes half-lidded and relaxed, while the other's eyes were open wide in a permanent expression that so-reminded him of the goldfish.

He would mull it over later, he thought, turning his attention back to Gage, who had in the meantime started helping another customer. His eyes caught the figure of Julian and his ears picked up some of the conversation. In that conversation, he realized that Julian was in fact, intelligent beyond the scope of many here, but with a personality that Kalec didn't like. He was too...brutal. So crude. Was this really Gage's guardian? Kalec wondered, and hoped, that despite his hope that his guardian was intelligent, he or she would not be as crude and haughty as this Julian character.

Back to Niksia. His hands had indeed felt a bit of roughness to them, his analytic eyes covering the scars on this woman's hands. He had wondered what they were. And, knowing still too little about social convention though he had tried to make himself change, he spoke openly but lightly. He didn't know what scars were. To be honest. There was no word in his vocabulary to describe what he had experienced.

"I noticed...a certain, mark or roughness on your hand, I don't know what they might be called, could you please tell me?" His voice was barely more than a whisper, but there was a compelling there. He looked inquisitively at this woman, locking eyes with her, even though she seemed to be shying away from him when he began to mention them.

Ah. They were sharp, or Kalec was at least. Niksia realised far too late that disposing of one's favourite methods of personal security was asking for moments of feeling rather exposed. She pouted her bottom lip out again as Kalec spoke, dropping the glasses gently to the booth so she could play with the long sleeves of her blouse.

'I guess you're a little new to this... This, being a lot more than I expected...'

Following in his hushed voice, she spoke softly as well, blinking her amber coloured eyes at him.

'Scars. Maybe you'll get some one day, if you're unlucky. Sometimes they're used to remind someone of mistakes they shouldn't repeat. Sometimes they're just silly accidents that people have. The difference becomes easier to understand over time.'

It was more than she was used to saying, and a lot more than she usually said on the topic at hand. She picked up one of the glasses and sipped from it while the words were mulled over.

We`rika stopped dead at the entrance. He didn't want to be here. His dark eyes rolled over the trickling crowd with a childish frown thankfully covered behind a wool scarf.

He really didn't want to be here on this field trip of sorts. His parole officer enforced new policies and this was one of them, saying it would help his "retarded social skills," or whatever ******** big words she used. He needed to become more of a "social butterfly." Yeah, she could go suck it. He regretted not taking a few puffs beforehand. At least he'd be more... relaxed and uninhibited.

Recovering from a bad train of thought, the man reminded himself she was the only thing that kept him free and besides... it wasn't his money he was spending today. He pulled at his hair awkwardly, testing out the new pink color apparently by touch. He decided to get into "the spirit of things" and no one could complain of policy this time around. With a "kill me now" attitude, he willed himself to move into the festivities, pulling a once over before designating a location.