Welcome to Gaia! ::

The girl appeared outside the Firebrand easily. But for some reason, she couldn't quite make herself go in. She pulled some of the inky darkness around her, forming it into a deep black cloak, that hid all her form as well as all of her essence. Maybe with this, it wouldn't be so bad, she wanted to see what Sunstrike was up to anyways.

She wound through the place, taking care to avoid the main group and sat upon the stool at the bar, requesting a simple cola to drink.

Sunstrike's grin suddenly became a little feral as Owle started to explain. He spoke very low, moving to stand by Siat.

"She makes some pretty hefty deals with all the wrong people...but I guess it makes visiting friends easier."

Sun couldn't really pass judgements on Owle though, by all rights he was one of those 'wrong people'.



He blinked at the greenhaired man and then smiled in greeting. "I think I've missed you the few times that I've come in, I'm called Sunstrike." He noted that the person he was speaking to was only half there, could some of the process affect the people Owle merged around as well? Or did it have to do with the person that had high tailed it out?





The vampire was right.

Inside, Sun's stomach dropped at the timing. Running from KB was almost becoming a full time vententure for the red-head. He grinned when Owle made her announcement, however.

"Thought so! Tell you what, gather what you need and get ready, I'll be upstairs in a second to help." No strain, just general cheerfulness at the beginnings of an adventure. "I'm just going to talk to a friend for a moment."

Then, Sunstrike braced himself, turned around, and practically stalked towards KB. A pale hand reached out, grabbed the tie, and yanked the vampire through the front door and out into the porch. It all happened so fast, it was hard to keep up.

Once Sun had him there, of course he had absolutely no idea what to do with KB, he just hoped the doorway would be ready in time. Nothing would be gained by being angry about a feeling of fear that wasn't even concrete, though. He looked a little abashed at those amused eyes and brushed a hand through his own hair.

"Heya KB, s-sorry, about that, I'm a little stressed, is everything okay?"

Sunny default mode equals cheerful inaneness.

Owle blinked at Sun. "Um...now?" She had been about to suggest they all talk about it a little more, maybe eat dinner first, no sense in going to the god realms on an empty stomach and all that. But of course Sun would be worried about Tijae...

Owle sighed, and motioned for Kalis to join her as she headed up the stairs. "I guess I just better go lay down, then...I, um, would feel better if someone was watching me to make sure I don't poof before Sun gets here...so, meet me in my room?" she suggested.

Siat just sat there, absorbing information that was flying past him, not volunteering any of his own (though he did want to let everyone know he could lift anything in the room.) Although when Sunstrike changed his body language even a little, his grip on his glass reflexively changed slightly.

However, when he grabbed the guy by the tie, he nearly ran over to floor the guy, but that key word was acting as his conscience. 'Friend' stopped the vampire having a hotheaded guy in armour attempt to clothe his back with a stool. Still, friends didn't necessarily drag their friends out of places, did they? Siat considered this for a second, it had been a while since he had actually been actively social, his main preoccupation being training and working.

After a few seconds internal debate, he decided that whilst Sunstrike seemed to be fine, or at least safe, it couldn't hurt for him to be a little closer to the door on the offchance something did kick off. On the flipside, he knew Sunstrike probably wouldn't appreciate being barged in on during what was probably a personal conversation. With this in mind, he scanned the room, spotting what he thought must've been some sort of God-send, a woman.

Of course, women weren't anything special to him, considering they made up something like 50% of the population of the world, but what was important about this woman was that she was seated near enough to the door for him to sit without arousing any major attention, he hoped. Unfortunately, the woman was less than savoury looking, possibly of orcish descent, he thought to himself. With a groan (whether from the stool, or from him) he grabbed his backpack and walked over.

"D'you mind if I sit here?"

Siat didn't know if it was his natural charisma, or the fact the girl was just naturally starved of attention, but she obliged, smiling politely whilst he struck up an irrelevant conversation.

A few months earlier

"What the fu..." Siat folded the corner of the book he was reading, Summoning and it's history, and examined his apparent spawn. It was barely two inches long, it's tail at least half of that, and a sort of orange, like terracotta except more red. Siat was stunned, to say the least; he had been trying to summon a dragon, and this wasn't too far off. He counted it's toes, four feet and sixteen toes, at least it was symmetrical.

He extended a finger and touched it gently, quickly recoiling as it suddenly burned bright red, changing colours entirely, matching his hair and eyes to the shade. He stared at his finger accusatively, then touched what he deemed to be a lizard again. His hand snapped back immediately.

"Woah..."

It felt like he had just poked himself, somehow, as if he had prodded a part of himself.

Hungry

He couldn't have eaten more than an hour ago, how could he be hungry again?

Hungry

He did feel hungry, though, that he couldn't deny. He took the lamp shade off of the lamp he was using and placed it over the lizard, not wanting it to run off out of his sight. His chair wheels rolled backwards silently as he spun the seat and climbed off, his head deep in thought as he made himself something to eat.

Struggling to balance himself as well as open the door, he hustled over to the table, careful not to disrupt the lampshade as he put his plate and bowl down and stared at them for a few seconds, there was no way he could eat this. Still, some part of him felt hungry, so he tore off some of the bread and dunked it in the soup, careful not to let any drip on his desk as he put it in his mouth.

It tasted fine, but he chewed unpassionately, really not feeling like eating. With a frustrated nasal exhalation, he swallowed and pushed the food aside, lifting the lampshade off of the lizard. He stared at it again, his red eyes staring into the bulbous black orbs of the lizards. He couldn't help but get the feeling he was being sized up for a fight. With seeming disdain, the lizard scampered across the desk, hooking a crumb into it's mouth with it's tongue.

Siat was fascinated, and suddenly felt a little less hungry. He hadn't done too much reading into the theory of summoning, so he presumed now that this must've been normal summon-summoner behaviour, for one to feel the others needs and emotions. Maybe he had been watching too many cartoons, but it made sense at the moment, at least. He tore off a small piece of the bread and held it out; the lizard wasted no time in snatching the food from him.

He felt a strange sense of contentness, and the sudden desire to touch the lizard again. He managed to ignore this desire as he shook the mouse, his computer monitor coming out of screensaver mode. He grabbed his webcam and took a few pictures of the lizard, then posted them in a lizard-fangroup he found through Google, enquiring as to what it was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander was his next entry...

Present day

It turned out the girl was actually extremely interesting to talk to, but he wasn't really participating in the conversation, the woman being more than happy to talk for him, having seemingly been saving up her conversations for a while. He laughed when she did, and occasionally lobbied non-committal phrases into her word stream.

"Yeah, I heard that, too..."

The salamander crawled out of his shirt back, springing to the ground silently as it skittered out. Siat had apparently been training it's small amount of magic capability as it blended perfectly into the floor. He had taught it one of the more simple spells his books offered, Chameleon, his reasoning for doing so because it seemed appropriate.

You should be doing this. Just don't get stepped on, Tiny. Very funny.

The invisible salamander either forced itself through the gap in the door, or scarpered through the door when someone else opened it, then dashed to the sand and immediately buried itself, still within earshot of the vampire and Sunstrike.

Yanked by the tail, er, the tie. KB really didn't fret as he was dragged out onto the porch, much less so when a familiar feminine voice entered the fray. He continued to look amused even as Sunny let him go, though he took a moment to straighten his tie and compose himself. If KB could've lost his cool to anything, it seemed it'd be more then a skittish kid feeling him up, especially roughly.

"Hmm? We hadn't a chance to finish our previous conversation." KB replied teasingly, stretching his left arm past Sun to plant his hand on the nearby wall. There was really no need to explain further, undead had long memories, and Sun had left KB rather suddenly. The charmer didn't like being blown off.

"Now now, there's no need to be spooked. If I was going to hurt you I'd have done it by now. It's simply bad form to leave a conversation unfinished, that's all. You living people have a tendency to always be in a rush, loose ends to stumble on laying about everywhere." KB patronized Sun lightly, his interest in his counterpart only vague. As it stood there was no reason to harm the boy, much less expose the girl. KB's sexual nature of before seemed to have cooled down, and now he took an almost practical, objective approach to their meeting.

Removing his arm, KB gestured to the wide expanse stretching away from the building. They had anywhere to go, and as such, anywhere to take the boy. "Why don't we take a short walk to ease those rattled nerves. Nowhere far, I assure you. No need to worry about being 'jumped' either, you know I can protect you." KB offered, with a small look of appraisel. His gaze was all too knowing, though he offered only good intentions and mischievious smiles.

The game of cat and mouse continued, if not mercilessly.

"Yeah, definitely," Owle agreed to the sharp and pointy things. She giggled a little when he mentioned a shirt. "You wouldn't stick out around there if you walked around naked, but, yeah, shirt might be useful..."

She paused near the top of the stairs, turning to face him. "I guess I'll just...go lay down, then. Come to my room once you've gathered your things?"