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Thali liked Charlie. He reminded her of herself, sociable. "There will be more adult activities as the party progresses," she promised, glancing at the impling. "There should be more people arriving, if you'd like to mingle before the main events take place," she added, with a half shrug. Not all of their expected guests had arrived. Most strange.

Half tempted to tease Lance, or at least mess with the teenager a bit, she restrained the urge with some difficulty. She was rather talented when it came to, well, teasing those of the male gender. Of course she was, she had three teenage boys of her own. She was distracted by Cain, the adorable shadow was making his way to the others.

"Oli?" Oliver responded, giving Cain a smile while still holding his rose possessively. It was his, and his alone! He wasn't about to share it. Besides, it was a pretty color... The rose was changing, from the light green of contentment to a darker green. Selfishness. Jealousy. Though to say Oliver was not at all interested in the winged shadow would have been an incorrect observation, as he quickly proved. "Ooooh..." said the shadow, reaching with his empty hand to touch one of Cain's wings. What were they? They were pretty! He wanted some! ...Why didn't he have wings? "Oli? Lilililili!"

"To teach her magic, really. I'm not sure how much magical ability she has yet, I usually stick with teaching boys," Howl said, rather sheepishly. "I'm a wizard. The greatest wizard in all Ingary and anywhere else, you know," he added. He really didn't have enough time to tell her his entire history, wife, son, Ingary and all, but he felt she should know how impressive he really was. Puff leaned his head into Jillian's stroking and made a noise that sounded quite like purring.

"Pu! Uff!" He liked this lady! She was nice, and she petted him, and--he wanted to keep her! He released his hold on her, but seemed rather reluctant to take his eyes off her. He couldn't keep her like he could other things, stuff he could hide in his stomach until a later time. She was much too big. Maybe he could keep her somewhere else? He frowned as she addressed his host again. Didn't she know she was his?

"Oh, most of them are family and friends right now," Howl said with a smile. "Aunt Thali has a thing for parties. She invites most everyone. You must have flared her interest," he added, with another one of his signature sunny smiles. "You've certainly gotten mine." He glanced about the room. "I've never seen them before," he mused, glancing at Lance and Charlie. "Aunt Thali's going to have a baby though, so she's a bit off," he said, looking rather nervous. He held an expression one would have expected to see on a father's face, not a child's. "She thought the party would cheer Niko up," he gestured vaguely to a back corner. "He's a friend."

Niko looked up, his smile fading into a straight line as he set deep blue eyes on Kalia. He held Demyx securely in his arms. "Hello," he said in a flat tone. He had told Thali he wanted to be left alone. Why was he here? Why had he allowed her to convince him to come? And why was this strange looking elf talking to him all of a sudden? Thali had probably put her up to this.

"Hi!" The infant held in the elf's arms was much more friendly than his father. "Hi! I Demy. Dis Daddy," he added as an afterthought, seeing as Niko hadn't yet introduced himself.

"Niko," the elf said simply. No last name, no title, just Niko. It would do.

Loki smiled as he took the rose, and watched with fascination as it quickly changed to a blue color. Awesome! "Thank you," he said, looking at Lilium. "Eve, huh?" He glanced over to the toddler. "She's busy now, I'll ask her some questions in a bit."

Kalia frowned, but her eyes left their nervous look as she became determined to make his smile come back. Niko' eyes startled her as she only knew of Louie and Anya's dark blue eyes.

The tanned elf smiled at the infant, glad that at least one of them was friendly enough. She didn't know what happened to make Niko so antisocial.

"Hi, Demy. It's lovely to meet you and your father. I am Kalia," her words held her accent, something that she knew she would never really grow out of. "I understand that you don't want to be bothered, but mind if I pull up a chair and sit with you. I won't talk or bother you, just sit there." Her voice was small and showed her shyness as she knew Ivy would try to help her with Niko and the assassin was not a people person at all.

Eve smiled slightly, "That's good to hear. I'd love to help with the pumpkin pie when the pumpkins are ready, that is if you would be willing to let me at least watch how it is made." The toddler hadn't had pumpkin pie before and Damin didn't even know how to make it.

Lilium nodded at Loki, "Li, li, ium. Lilium." She offered a hand to him, trying to appear friendly as she remembered something Eve told her about making friends. Act friendly and nice and they might want to be your friend.

"Yaay! A party! Oh, look, Luka! Fake wands!!" Katia was a ball of energy as Kali pushed the door open in front of them, zipping to the basket and grabbing three wands. She handed one to Kali, the other to Luka, and kept the last for herself. Kali grinned down at hers, waving it and bopping Katia on the head. The tiny blonde girl giggled.
Luka just ate his.

Katia saw and rolled her eyes, before looking around the room.
"Wow. There are a lot of kids here...maybe I can make some friends."
"You think so?" Kali grinned at Katia. "Well, go nuts. Just take Luka with you, alright? I think he's a bit nervous. He keeps eating wands."
The jittery shadow was indeed compulsively swallowing the wands, sometimes snapping them in half if he so decided they were too long. Kali reached over and pulled him from the basket, at which point he latched onto her fingers, sucking them into his 'mouth'.

Frowning pointedly at Katia, Kali pointed at Luka with her free hand. Katia giggled, grabbed Luka, and pulled him off.
"Come. Luka. Friends will do you good." She said, towing him away into the crowd.

Which left Kali rather...alone. She frowned, and grabbed herself a bag of fake magic tricks. She could do her own magic, she knew, and far more impressive than this, but these provided childish entertainment that she really couldn't get enough of.

Aimlessly, she wandered to the snack table and leaned against it, reading the small instruction manual and grabbing for something sweet.

[HATE ON GLITCH GRRR]

Luka looked around the room, head swivelling as Katia dragged him through the small crowd. WHen he spotted Cain, he blinked; the other shadow had wings, just like him. In fact, they looked almost...similar.
Slipping his hand from Katia's, he pointed at Cain.
"Lu! Lu, ja!" He seemed excited, and, without waiting for her, zipped off toward them. Blinking, Katia followed.
"Luka! You can't just take off like- Oh, nevermind." She scowled, knowing she could do nothing to stop him,and followed.

"Hm?" Kali looked up from the manual and the scarves she was currently trying to 'vanish', and spotted a black haired, green eyed boy with lots of piercings. And...he was talking to her. It took her a moment to process what he'd said, but when she figured it out, she laughed, grinning.
"Oh, far from. I was just involving myself." She waved the manual so he could see the words 'MAGIC' on it in big bold letters.
"Why?" She couldn't help but tease. "Too badass for childrens' parties?"

Kalia smiled faintly, "I'm told that my mother named me that. Beloved, sounds nice." She sat down with an edge of ladylike lessons from years with her aunts and uncles.

She smiled fully at Demyx, finding the child to be the more friendly out of the two. "Well, I hope he smiles after some time."

Her smile faded at Niko's muttered words, her ears having picked it up a little. It was clear that he didn't want her around or anyone around him at least. Still, sitting near him kept Ivy from making her try to interact with others she didn't know and was slightly afraid of meeting.

Lilium grinned when Loki shook her hand, this boy seemed to want to be her friend in return. She was glad and planned on thanking Eve for her advice.

Eve herself excused herself from Alome, wanting to visit with her at another time. The girl did seem better than she was before, at least she was talking and showing some emotion.

The ragdoll walked over to Lilium to give her some more roses to use to make friends with. She could tell the shadow was still too shy to really strike up a conversion easily. "Here you go, Lili."

The shadow accepted eight roses and held them close while being careful to not destroy the roses.

"Quite the contrary." She laughed, setting the manual down. "I like to see how you normies preform your 'magic'." She made air quotes, casually moving closer to Lance. "Sometimes it can help me with my own."
She looked out, making sure that Katia was okay. "I'm really only here because of my cousin. She has this shadow thing, and they wanted to come." She shrugged. "I don't usually spend a lot of time at kids' parties, though." She laughed.
"Clubs are a lot better for...socializing."

"Lu~!" Luka beamed at Cain. This little shadow was cool! He had wings!
Scootching closer to him, Luka chirruped. He had decided; they were, as of right now, best friends.

"Lu! Ja, ja!" He darted away to grab Katia's hand and drag her, albiet slowly, to Cain. Katia had to meet his new best friend!
When the human girl finally came close enough to meet Cain, Luka scurried up her small form to sit on her head like a turban, wings flapping happily. This was his host. And Cain should know it; after all, best friends told each other everything.

Katia blinked, then smiled down at the other winged shadow. "Hello there!"