Welcome to Gaia! ::

Alex's flat is quite large, especially for New York. It has a sectioned off kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and a dining area. The flat is nearly immaculate (mostly due to non use), and is decorated quite fasionably, nearly everything is black and white, with slashes and sharp lines. The kitchen is fully stocked, but obviously not often used. The dining area, has a large oak table, lacquered black, with white oak chairs. The living room revolves around a long faux leather couch, facing a fifty-two inch plasma television, hooked into an eight speaker surround sound system. To the far right of the couch are four large bean bag chairs on a royal blue rug. In the right corner is a brick fireplace, red brick oddly out of place in the mostly two tone apartment. To the left of the fireplace is a huge picture window, looking out over the city. In the bedrooms are two King sized waterbeds, and two art deco dressers. In the master, is Alex's workspace. His computer and computer desk, and four rows of filing cabinets. The hallway leading from the apartment door to the living room past the kitchen is lined with bookshelves, filled with various books.

:::Cora walks out a step from where they arrive. Her eyes widen as she walks out into another kind of late 20th to early 21st century home. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen. But the vision of the ancient New York City lie before her,. She recognized the style of the buildings right away from her ancient mechanics and architecture learnings...

She was truly in a great ancient city. A world power of the past who's legacy echoed something fierce:::

:::her breathe caught in her throat as she observed the view, the things in the actual place they were in had hardly registered. Finally she was able to speak again:::

Alex... you live in New York C-

:::She'd turned around to look at him, and it took a split second but she let out a gasp that elevated to a small shriek... funny. Cora never thought she'd be so disturbed to see that someone DIDN'T have a tail and fuzzy ears:::

Wh... wh...

:::She couldn't seem to figure out what to say.. So instead she walked over, her hand outstretched to feel where his ears had been. She didn't put her hand all the way there though, a little afraid...:::

How...

M...magic...

:::She said, finally putting her hand to his ears:::

Like Meliandra...she uses it to disguise herself in her world... You too...? The ability to manipulate things through extraordinary, extra human means... But, you are not human then?

:::All of this with a rather wide-eyed expression for someone who was contemplating so hard. She kept touching his human-like ears, so strange on him now that she was used to them another way. After a moment, she couldn't help herself. She leaned over to try to get a peek at where his tail would be, but Cora's 'art of deception' is so obvious that it hardly comes across as anything but amusing:::

A...alright.

:::She'd stood up straight to look at his face again. Cora still wasn't over the shock of it, but decided that if he was taking it lightly then perhaps she should make a big deal of it either:::

:::She waited for him to move, and wondered what she'd do to occupy herself... she did spot some books out of the corner of her eye...and just watching the Ney York skyline would be enough for hours of observation:::

TV!

:::She indeed saw a television set like the ones pictures in museums:::

Wow! A television... :::She gaped at the historical medium before her... it looked rather large to her, but then again technology was always large while it was crude, she thought. She recalled that eventually humans programmed remote controls for most devices, televisions being among the first, and she looked around for one. She did find the TV remote control, but she wouldn't have known that. It was among about 10 or so others that she couldn't distinguish between one another. She decided for manual operation instead:::

:::Cora walked up to it and began to study its features...there appeared to be no mechanisms on it's face for control, but she ran her fingers along some seems, and noticed a deep recess. She pushed it, a it popped open, revealing the controls. It wasn't long before she figured out which one was the power button. And not much longer before they were both listening to deafening static snow:::

WOW!!! :::She shouted over the terrible noise:::

:::Cora, hearing this, commenced with making the volume go all the way up, then all the way down, then all the way up, then all the way down...:::

:::Cora did as instructed... even though she had no idea what "have a blast" meant. She continued to play with the volume settings for a while, inspecting the speakers until completely satisfied. Then she went to the channels. The first thing she flipped to was Channel 2, NBC news. A talking head came on the screen, and she froze, he face going plain and still. She stared at it really closely, and had stopped blinking. She started nodding to the things the person was saying, and reacting outloud to their comments, and was surprised when suddenly the view was of a different person. She kept doing this for a while. It was a broadcast about an event in central park:::