Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ellandra squeezed his hand back and sighed. "M-maybe not, but you do have family there - if - if a bit unusual," she said quietly. "Even if - if you did leave it some day, you could a-always come back, b-because of that. . ." Though she tried not to show it, a hint of desperate loneliness seeped into her voice. Why was it that she had only recently become so aware of her own loneliness?

Had she just been so numbed to it before meeting Misha that she didt even notice it?

Would she have been better off never realizing how lonely she was?

Probably not, but that didn't help her figure out just what she was supposed to do about this feeling.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she lifted her head again and smiled at Faolan - though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Th-that's not what we were talking about though, was it? You - you wanted to see what this place i - is l-like, right?"

Ellandra smiled softly and hugged him back. "Thank you, Faolan. . ." She tilted her head a little. "I suppose.... we should g-go, then? If we want to get lunch out. . ." A blush had risen to her face again, but she was doing her best to ignore her shyness for the moment.

Ellandra watched him go, the blsh on her face increasing as he walked away. Really. . . why couldn't she stop blushing like this? It was just - just - she didn't know. But she knew it was annoying to have that blush flare up all of the time. She scrubbed furiously at her cheeks with one hand, trying to wipe away the red tint that had stained them. It didn't work, of course, but it made her feel better to at least try.

She knew he had meant his offer to let her stay with him, but she wasn' ready for tht yet. Sooner than she'd first believed, perhaps, but - not yet. Not yet. She'd need to see what it was like - really see, before she truly considered the idea.

Besides, what could she do at a carnival? Writing was her only real skill, so she wouldn't be of much use there.

Ellandra nodded and stood up, taking his hand. Her own movements were more sedated, but anyone who knew the reclusive young woman could recognize that something had changed in her - overnight, rather literally in truth. "Will y-you kidnap me if I'm not?" She asked, smiling at him, her eyes sparkling. "I think I'd like t-to be kidnapped, if you were the kidnapper," she added - oddly enough, she was completely serious, meaning every single word.

"That d-doesn't sound bad," Ellandra said, still smiling. "B-but we probably should get going. Do you know w-where you'd like to go first?" She asked thoughtfully, half-wondering if he'd want to go back and get some more cheesecake - there were lots of varieties he hadn't tried yet, and he might be curious. . . or he might ask her to choose, which would be harder because she couldn't think of a single place in the area that wuld really interest him - everything was so ordinary and dull. . . but then, he seemed to like ordinary and dull, after all he'd - he'd said he loved her!

Her heart beat faster just at that thought, even though she still didn't understand how he could - not any more than she could understand why he thought she was so beautiful. But his reason were his own, and did it really matter why? Just the fact that he did was more than enough for her.

Ellandra hesitated as she went to the exit and bit her lip. "W-well, I don't really have very many.... the coffeeshop we went to was o-one...." She paused just outside the door, kneeling and catching a reggedy-looking grey cat in her hands before it could dart inside. She picked it up and held it nose to nose. "None of that, Rags - y-you know I'm not allowed pets, little one. The cat mewled pathetically at her, pawing at the air - the poor thing had been a housepet at some time and was declawed. Ellandra hugged it to her and stroked it for a moment, promising it some cream when she returned later on.

She set the cat back on the ground a bit reluctantly, rising to her full, not-so-tall height, and turned to Faolan. "W-would you like to go back there later on - to the coffeeshop? Your dad might l-like to know what the food you want him to sell is, if he doesn't know r-right now," she suggested - though really she just wanted more cheesecake, to see if his face would light up again when he tried a different variety.

"It's cheesecake, F-Faolan, not cake of cheese," Ellandra corrected him gently - though she laughed as she did so. "W-well...." she paused, before her eyes lit up."W-would you like to see the house I grew up in? It's just a few b-blocks from here. I know it's not - not something tied to m-my life now, but. . . well, w-would you like to?"

Ellandra smiled brightly and started leading Faolan out and away from her apartment. "I'm a-afraid you'll find it's not as fancy as you might be thinking," she said quietly as they walked. "Papa inherited it; that was the only reason w-why I didn't grow up in the lower districts; I was . . . very ill when I was small, and he spent nearly all of th-the money we had on treatments to keep me alive, so I didn't grow up very extravagantly or - or anything." She clung to Faolan's hand as they walked further away from her apartment, and then away from the complex itself.

"I don't know w-what it was I came down with," she continued thoughtfully, gazing up at Faolan through bright grey eyes, "B-but it must have been bad, because I don't remember a-anything of my very early childhood, and it did take so very much money to treat. . . I suppose that's why Papa was always so careful w-with me," she added, not bothered in the least by what others might have considered a rather odd little tale.

She smiled at Faolan again, and added with a small laugh, "I d-didn't have to worry about baboons or clowns though."