Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Pleasure to meet you." Anya raised her own empty glass and smiled in welcome to the newest face. She then reached for the vodka bottle, but stopped short when she saw the time on the microwave. "Oh F-UUhh," the Sven held her tongue and her single eye widened. Rann was going to give her so much s**t if she was late...

She set down the shot glass on the counter and gave a sheepish, worried, smile to the other drinkers. "III'm afraid I must be going now," she began and was already moving towards the door, "gotta get to work before the s**t hits the fan~" A mock/exaggerated happy smile spread over her face and she paused in the doorway. "Nice to meet you all, Calder, Katrina; see you all soon."

She gave another mock smile and then disappeared into the gaggle of bodies outside the kitchen, a beeline made directly for the Sphinx-child she had spotted on the carpet.

Keres opened her mouth to yell back at Melchy after waving goodbye to Chris, though she then noticed Taki and decided to call to him... however only a choked gag got out before she was being dragged across the room by her arm, heading towards the front door. Gold eyes looked up at the perpetrator and then narrowed when she saw it was Anya. "What are you doing!?" She screamed, but got no answer and no sign of being let go... or at least having the drag speed being decreased.

"ANYA!"

"We're going! Wave as you go by."

"NOOOOooo!" the child started to thrash and try to grab hold of the carpet with her claws, but she was ultimately unmatched and was soon pulled into the mob of people near the door. She spotted Melchy and Taki amongst the older unknown faces and tried to grab one of their tails, but when she failed at that she grudgingly yelled "BYETAKIANDMEL," whipped her tail lightly on Taki's leg and Mel's body, and was then dragged out the door.

"Hard." Asher replied to Sunny, and made his way over to the woman and "Sir Calder". Bah.
Asher was a wreck. Already, several thousand thoughts had ran through his mind, all of them concluding that the woman would steal Calder away from him. Thus he decided that drinking would be a grand idea.

Irelia stuck her tongue out at Harper.

"You're just jealous that your clothes don't sparkle the way mine do," Irelia stuck out her lower lip, " 'cides, I had to miss Hallowe'en. I was still grounded."

Irelia still burned from missing one of the grandest holidays in her opinion, but knew now that whatever she did to enact revenge would end up making her miss more fun holidays.

Like Christmas.

Irelia suddenly got a clear view of Riley, and gasped.

"Um, what happened to Riley? She's HUGE."

((XDD;; yay for awkwardness! Also, I totally want to draw Taki all cute and dressed up haha.))

Calder smiled awkwardly in response to Katrina's compliments. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. But... Just Calder, please, I'm no 'sir' by any means," he insisted, glancing around to see who all was there. When Asher stepped into the circle he reached out almost unconsciously, patting the taller man's shoulder for a moment, and then glanced up at the offer of alcohol. "Er... I'll have a few drinks, thank you." He didn't want to get drunk, because a hangover plus Taki would be hell, even with his inhuman metabolism for alcohol. He smiled brightly over at Asher. "Hey. How has everything been?"

Taki growled playfully in the back of his throat right back at Melchy, but grinned around at all his friends. "Merry Christmas!" he cried loudly, and then when he saw Irelia, let out another joyous sound, bouncing over towards her. "Your dress is so shiney! I like it..." He beamed up at his friend, and then glanced over towards the others. It seemed like Manny was in a bad mood since the last time he'd seen her, so he didn't say much more than a simple hello, and he offered a brief wave towards Harper. "Papa made me dress up but I don't like this tie thing that he made me wear..." he grumbled, tugging at the child-size red tie that encircled his collar. He was entirely decked out, complete with shiny black shoes.

Anya's leaving earned a cheery goodbye from Katrina, who then shrugged and inclined her head in greeting to the other man who appeared. Lifting her glass in something like a toast to him, as well, she declined saying anything and instead just observed. Something about Asher's bearing interested her, and she watched his interaction with Calder with more interest than was probably necessary. Then again, her interest in anything concerning Calder might well have been unnecessary, but she put those thoughts out of her head.

"Um, no thank you," she said gently to Sunny, smiling. "I can't feed the cat in company, or he won't leave." She paused for a moment, then decided to initiate some conversation between herself and Calder. Or Asher? Or someone. "I know your child, but who belongs to this?" she asked, toying with the empty glass in her hands and keeping the pleasurable smile glued to her face.

Melchy, suddenly realizing that Keres had left and that Taki had other friends who were roughly the same size as him, put his ears back and followed meekly behind Taki, tailing the one person who didn't seem too occupied (and besides, Taki was nice and played with him). When he greeted someone he had never seen before, he put his ears even farther back and then gently (politely) tugged at the hem of Taki's shirt.

"Who this?" he asked, swiveling his ears in the direction of Irelia. Then he turned his entire head to the girl and smiled brightly. "Mery Chrissmiss?" he offered.

Shiori laughed,
"So it would seem!"

Kisala laughed and fell down with the little boy, then helped him back up and spun him around again,
"Oh this is fun! Much more fun than I thought!"

She didn't get much of a chance to play-- Shiori didn't know any children other than the ones at the Temple, and wasn't exactly the sort to try and find ways for Kisala to hang out with other children. Well, there was Iggy, but she hadn't seen him in a while anyhow. This was fun!

Calder sipped at his drink, and glanced up at Katrina's question, and as he seemed to be a little more blessed with the gift of gab tonight, he answered for Asher. "Hmm? To Asher? That would be Irelia, in the ah... glittery dress," he gestured vaguely towards the group of children. "Asher, this is Katrina, Katrina, Asher. Just in case you haven't met... She has the other little cat boy, Melchizedek, who has seemed to have latched onto Taki over there..." He glanced over again, seeing if Melchy or Taki were instigating any sort of destruction or mayhem like they'd managed at the museum.

But Taki was just looking over towards Irelia, a bright grin widening his features at the chance to introduce Melchy to her. "This is Irelia! She's my best, best friend! We live right across from each other cause her papa and my papa are best friends too!" He beamed, and then reached out to pat Irelia on the arm in an attempt to get her attention. "Irelia, look! This is Melchy, he's just like me!"

Irelia muttered darkly as Harper tore his attention away from her. She hadn't seen him in months, and he DARED to talk to someone else? Seething, Irelia turned to Taki, and schooled her expression in to something more befitting best-friend status.

Rage generally wasn't something you associate with best friends.

"Hi Taki," Irelia said, and smiled. She really was happy to see Taki, since her grounding had been akin to a grounding for Taki, since her not seeing him meant him not seeing her as well.

Ignoring Harper and the tall girl (they hadn't formerly met, but she was starting to dislike her coy attitude), Irelia leaned down and patted Melchy, like a cat.


"Really? How weird!" Irelia crouched down to Melchy's level and stared at him for a couple of seconds.

"... you seem FUN!!!!"

Although it had been only a couple of months since her book had been sealed from her, Irelia had found that if she concentrated hard enough, she could still read what people wanted to hide. Since Melchy was only a kid, his mind was ridiculously easy to read. And since he seemed the sort to go on wild adventures with Taki and herself, she was more than happy to play big sister to the kid.

Not that she was going to tell anyone about that.

Besides, she could actually make MONEY from looking after little kids. Which is an easy thing to do when A) little kids were still fun and B) when you can read minds, calming down a cranky baby was pretty simple.


Irelia stood up in time to see the spin. And the curtsy. Irelia hadn't been around a lot of girls lately, and had come to the conclusion that she didn't particularly like Manny. She wasn't aware of what she was doing, but she grabbed Taki's hand with her own.

"Come on. Lets boogie,"

--------

Asher groaned. Situations like this were maddening, mostly because he was used to court functions, and they never were a seething crowd of rowdy adults like they seemed to be here. Although one does become quite adept at reading body language when honey covered words were coming out of a mouth, but their actions could betray their true meaning.

Katrina's proximity to Calder, and with the way she was eying the tw of them made Asher particularily uneasy. Especially when she seemed to be regarding the two of them like a tasty morsel.

"Excuse me, Katrina."

Walking up to Calder, the two men practically stood nose to nose before Asher stopped moving.

"I missed you," Asher had had a lot to drink in a seemingly short period of time, and his inhibitions were completely gone.

He moved in for the kill.

((HAHAHA DRAKO I MISSED OUR PRON))

((Dul, Irelia and Manny SO NEED TO RP TOGETHER. Because seriously, I keep making Irelia hate manny more and I have no idea if she would actually hate her if she knew Manny. She's making judgments pretty quickly, hahaha))

(( *is going to be very evil MWAMAH. lol.* ))

Harper grinned at her, shoving the wreath over his wrist like a festive bracelet, or 'fantastic holiday arm gauntlet.' "That." He said happily, then moving to grab her hands, "Ya ain't gonna try and kiss me again, are you?" He asked, an eyebrow arched, just about to start a wild embark-ment of swaying and swooshing and nearly killing girls by twirling them into dangerous objects when he saw the display Calder and Asher were putting on.

He stopped, turned his head thoughtfully, free'd one hand, openly pointed, cleared his throat and;

"HEY ELIOT! Are guys SUPPOSED to kiss like that?!"

Eliot, hiding somewhere in a corner of the room, looked up and gave a slow sigh.

"No, Harper, no they're not. I need a drink." He said, with another sigh, as he headed past the other adults into the kitchen and grabbed the vodka bottle Sunny had been holding.

"Oh, you are so crude and unaccepting and- ugh." Sunny said, flushing red, "SORRY! CARRY ON! .. err.. I mean. ... give me the bottle back Eliot."