Welcome to Gaia! ::

Asher was still reeling from the night before. The art gallery had been bustling, full to the brim of the cream of the crop individuals who had decided that Asher's pottery was the new "IT" item. Not that Asher was complaining, as he was richer than he had ever been before by selling only a handful of his very worst pieces. Asher had decided NOT to talk about what made these pieces so special and let all of the guests decide that the pieces were special because Asher was young and hot and seemingly single. Asher was not about to reveal his largest secret, that all of these pieces had been made for one person and that he still hadn't created the perfect piece for the one he loved.

It was the next day though, and Asher thought that having a herd of elephants run through his brain and trample his glasses would be better than Irelia's awful screeching right now. In a moment of weakness, Asher has bought Irelia the latest Karaoke machine, and as it kept her amused for a long period of time left Asher free to pursue, well, whatever he wanted. But now that Asher was overtired and very hungover, the noise was giving him a pounding headache. Groaning, Asher sat up in bed and threw a pillow at the door. He tried to open his eyes but the light hurt too much, and Asher did not want to try walking. If this is the rockstar lifestyle, I'll take a pass. Far too much reeling and retching and far too little fawning. Besides, HE wasn't there last night, thank god. I made a right fool of myself. Asher was not prone to drinking anything, but being around so many people, a lot of them resembling people he detested from his own world, made him very nervous. And when Asher was nervous, he was prone to shred random pieces of paper, fiddle with his hair and glasses and drink. A LOT.

The pillow hardly made a thunk at all, and Asher laid back, groaning. Throwing an arm over his eyes, he tried to grasp something harder this time with the other arm. He found something and threw it at the door. It was the lamp. It exploded with a loud CRACK that reverberated through the room and Asher groaned again. Not the best plan. But Irelia had ceased her catterwauling, and had opened Asher's door, her eyes wide.

"Daddy, what happened? Did you blow a fuse?" Irelia giggled at her lamp joke. She had somehow acquired a taste for rotten puns, which drove Asher batty. Thats probably WHY she acquired that taste.

Asher just groaned.

Irelia shut the door quietly, and ran over to the front door of Taki's apartment. Since Calder had fixed her "problem", Calder had become the cure-all for everything, from aches and pains, to getting rid of monsters under her bed (she asked Calder to scrub her room with Holy Water. He said no. She insisted. Her room now smelled faintly of lavender and mold.)

Banging on the door, Irelia yelled to Calder hoping he was home.

"CALDER. Daddy is throwing lamps and groaning. I think he's either turned in to a zombie or having a temper tantrum. Can you come over?"

Irelia grinned at Taki and waved. Smiling, Irelia grabbed Calder's hand and pulled him over to Asher's room.

"He's in there and won't come out. And then he threw a lamp at the door. Which made me stop singing. And he hasn't thrown anything else so he might be dead. Because i sing BE-A-YOU-TI-FULLY."

Irelia pushed Calder through the door.

"Stay in there as long as you like! Taki and I can play. Quietly," Irelia thought for a second and grinned evilly, "or not so quietly."

Asher must have heard her because there was another crash in his room.

Irelia turned to Taki.

"Wanna play Karaoke?"

Calder didn't argue or try to get further explanation out of Irelia, and nodded at Taki's questioning glance of whether or not he could play.

"Yeah!" The cat boy paused, but didn't stop grinning. "What's karaoke?"

Calder strode across the apartment, and cracked open the door, blinking at how dark it was in there. "Irelia said you might be dead, or turned into a zombie, so I thought I should investigate." He stepped gingerly around the wreckage near the door, and shut it behind him, leaning back against the wall. "How did your big premiere go, last night?" He paused, then, "Sorry I didn't come."

They found the apartment they wanted quick, thanks to Soloman's sharp mind... which only really worked when it was totally unimportant.

"Awake enough to stand dude?" Solo asked, as he knocked loudly on the door.

"Mrrh?" Harper responded, staring at the ground hatefully with half coherent, half opened eyes. "Aliens.. abduction.."

"WAKE UP." Ashley yelled at her kid, which promptly achieved what was intended. Harper's eyes snapped fully open and Soloman set him on his feet while still knocking quite incessantly.

Ashley nodded with approval. He sure wasn't going to sleep when she couldn't sleep either.

Asher clawed his way out of bed, staggered in to Calder to hold him up, and leaned on the doorknob. His hair was in a crazy dissaray, his clothes were rumbled and his eyes were bloodshot. He was the picture of a hungover man. A still surprisingly goodlooking hungover man.

Asher opened the door with a snap, not entirely sure of his own strength. Alcohal did not agree with him at the best of times. And today certainly was not the best of times.

Peering at the three people on his doorstep, Asher howled miserably.

"WE DONT WANT TO JOIN YOUR CLUB OR CULT OR VACCUUM MEMBERSHIP OK?"

Asher slammed the door in their faces, and promptly set some coffee to boil. He did not seem phased at all that he just screamed in to moderate strangers faces.

Irelia stared at her dad, but went back to where Taki was singing.

"No no nononono! You're doing it wrong! Its like this!" Irelia warbled out a line, even worse that Taki and tried to take away the microphone.

"I'll show you. Give it to me!"

((Ack, fat cat in my lap >_<))

Calder followed Asher out, but at a slower walk, and blinked over Asher's shoulder at the people on his doorstep, and once Asher had strode off and the pounding on the door had commenced, he opened the door, and glanced at the three on the step. "Uh. Can I help you?" he asked, rather more civilly than Asher in his hungover state.

Taki scowled over at Irelia, and didn't let go of the microphone. "I can do it! Lemme finish my song!" he said, and pushed at Irelia, holding the microphone out of her reach.

It had happened quite comically, to salvage whatever chances Soloman had of stalking Asher in a dark corner and stealing his pottery (and or 'magic' pottery hands, whichever), he had begun pulling Ashley away as soon as possible.

She clung to the door frame like some disheveled cat, and as the door opened again from Calder, soon Asher and Irelia, Harper had been busy trying to pry each of his mothers fingers away one at a time.

"Yo, mom, they are back." Harper said quickly, letting her fingers go and giving a slight wave at the others.

Soloman let Ashley go, quickly putting himself in front of the door again. "Hi! I'm Soloman! I heard you like. Did pottery, dude!" He beamed ear to ear, obviously wanting something.

Ashley, meanwhile, took a deep breath as normal color began filling her face again. "Harper..." She growled, doing her best not to scream, she observed Irelia then Calder and Asher, "you are not allowed to communicate with their spawn." She said in her most authoritative parental voice, nodding at Irelia.

So of course Harper immediately tried to push his way past the people in the door to get into the apartment and further communicate.

Irelia glared at the "loose" woman, her best word for the type of person this boys mother was in her mind. Irelia took an instant dislike to the woman, and inferred that the woman had taken the same to her. With no female presense in the house, save for Asher who was negotiable, Irelia really had no manners to speak of, Irelia chose to learn them there and then.

Isn't learning fun?

"I am not spawn. Spawn are from fish. And frogs. And a really cool comic book character," Irelia huffed and grabbed the boy's hand. He was neat looking and looked the part of a crazy band man.

"I'm Irelia! This is Taki and we're singing," Irelia sighed, "At least we were trying to."

Asher's ears perked up at the sound of pottery.

"Yes, uh, "dude". I do indeed partake in the humble art of forming clay for the happiness of others, and all that crap i fed all of those high and mighty last night," Asher noticed that he still held the coffee pot, "Oh, uh, coffee?"