Welcome to Gaia! ::

Casca did not sit up out of his position of deep funk when Carlisle returned, but he did grin lopsidedly. He pillowed his hands back so that his head was resting on them, and said: "Bienvenue. Welcome back to... the land of the dull."

At least now Ophelia and Lisle were there. Pretty difficult to feign coolness. He feigned coolness most hours of the day. He waved one hand in the boy's general direction: "Nothing's happening. We're bored. Did you get anything good?"

"Duller than dull," commiserated Ophelia. "The dull-drums. You get here by not thinking."

This was a Phantom Tollbooth reference, a book she had picked up in the school library a few weeks previously and rather enjoyed. She paused to see if her friends understood the reference.

"What's this holiday even about?" she asked.

It didn't take long after Kaimi had left them for Maddy to spot her Secret Santa.

"Sorry Nefl, gotta go again. Good luck finding your Santa, right?" She threw a grin his way before going over to the silver twins.

"Hey Kash! Nice hat - could I talk to you for a minute?" Still holding Pirate and with eyes sparkling from happiness, the butterfly girl made quite a friendly image.

Before Ophelia could get any responses about the Three Wise Men and the birth of Little Baby Jesus, or even The Tale Of Winter Solstice! which was one of Lindy's favourites, Wisp once more bounded up to their bleachers; she had inserted her arm into Ophelia's and was giving her huge blue puppydog eyes. "Okay all done," she said, "please please please come hang out with me for a little while by the buffet table, plea~se, we can eat cookies and catch up -- sorry, Carlisle! Sorry, uh -- forgot your name -- sorry!"

With another tug, Ophelia was kidnapped away from the two boys by the older blonde girl: this left Carlisle and Casca depressingly alone, though Casca twinkled a little wry wave off at Phelly before she left.

"Poor chickadee," he said under his breath, and then he turned to Carlisle. "DVDs, huh? Any good ones?" He leant over the other boy a little to squint at the bundle, reading a few titles out -- "Titanic. How The West Was Won -- hey, not bad, mon ami." In fact, DVDs were a pretty cool gift: he'd probably end up with a pet rock or something. "I haven't seen those. Except for Titanic. My mum keeps laughing at the ending."

Apparently 'Never let go, Jack!' was some kind of family joke.

"So, uh, what're you doing over Christmas?"

Elizabeth looked up. It wasn't quite her name, but it was something a great deal like it, so she looked around for the person calling her- finding a blond girl about her height yelling it, she put the box for Bishop aside (it clicked quite loudly) and stood on top of her row of the bleachers to get a better look at this strange creature.

"Bye, Ophelia," said Carlisle, as was only proper. Then he returned his attention to the other boy. "I know, right?" He grinned. "I don't get to watch a lot of movies, I guess I'll have to grab a computer at school sometime. I got told the ship sinks in Titanic, which sounds kind of sad, but if your mom thinks it's funny..." (Mothers were generally Carlisle's measuring stick of whether a movie was sad or not.) Did his house even have a TV? He knew it didn't have a computer.

His smile faltered a little at the Christmas question. "Parties," he said gloomily. "Lots of them. It's the Twelve Days now but it would not make sense to have twelve parties, right? M'family's hosting, like, thirteen." Actually, it was sixteen, but no one really expected him to get the numbers right. "If I survive the break it will be a miracle. What are you gonna be doing, Casca?"

The entire time he kept up a sweep of the crowd. Could he even spot the kid in such a group? It would kind of suck if he couldn't... Reminding himself it was rude to get distracted, he returned his full attention to Casca.

Neflheim bid his farewell to both Kaimi and Maddy. He had to look for his secret santa soon and the sea of faces only served to hamper his efforts. Fishing out a photograph of his secret santa, Neflheim began to scan his surroundings in search of his target.

He was looking for a blond-haired girl named Ginger. Almost out of pure luck, he managed to spot Ginger a little distance away and began to make his way through the crowd while holding the big box.

Finally reaching Ginger, Neflheim said happily "Hello there! You are Ginger aren't you?", pausing to put the immaculately wrapped present on the floor. Continuing, Neflheim said "My name is Neflheim, nice to meet you, I'm your Secret Santa!"

Clutching her mother's hand tightly in one hand and an awkwardly-wrapped gift in the other, Orli stepped triumphantly into the gym. She was dressed up in a dark blue velour dress with a large satin bow tied around her waist, and someone had painstakingly and foolishly tried to brush her hair into some semblance of a ponytail.

Once at the party, she broke free of her mother's grasp and tore off into the swarming mass of children. What did Lucien look like? And where were her friends?

Ginger was about to call out for Elizabeth again, thinking she saw the girl up in the bleachers, but was interrupted just as she took a breath. She smiled, nodding. "I Ginger." she said, giggling as she listened to him. "Nice to meet you, Santa Nef-le-hem." She tried her best on the name, but if it was over two syllables, she struggled. "You look prettyful!" she said, grinning; she'd never seen anyone that looked like that!