Welcome to Gaia! ::

As she ambled down the North Colonnade, Shee slipped a thin lock of hair through her fingers. Two new recruits had arrived recently; she had yet to meet them. Wraith had warned her to keep her distance from the one with the eyepatch, though. She laughed lightly at the thought. Wraith was always so... careful. And that made him no fun at all.

She wondered where everyone was. The hall was deserted; nothing marred the pristine white stillness of its walls except for her. What is there to do, she thought, with no one else around?

Lost in thoughts of possible activities for the day, Shee found nothing of use in her ideas. She needed... another person, to talk to, to do something with.

It was so quiet in the LOTUS grounds. Shee barely remembered what her life had been like before LOTUS, but she surmised that it must have included a lot of noise and general humanity, as she felt empty with the lack of these things that now surrounded her.

There were, of course, some people at LOTUS. But she'd hardly had the chance to meet any of them. And, there was always Estrelas.

Amused by the thought, Shee didn't notice the man heading towards her until he was mere inches away, the space between them closing rapidly as she let out a little squeak.

Shee blinked. A moment ago, she had been alone, thinking, staring at the white walls of the building, and now she was standing in front of the man with the eyepatch-- Einar, she wordlessly berated herself-- splayed out on the floor in front of her. As he'd fallen-- on account of her, she noted-- she'd known that he'd hurt himself, if only a little. She watched as he rolled over, apparently oblivious to any pain she thought he might be feeling.

His grin disarmed her a little. She thought that maybe Wraith was not completely wrong all of the time... "Oh. I'm fine. I should be asking you if you're OK; you're the one on the floor, after all." She outstretched her arm and held out her hand expectantly in front of him.

Huh. So much for keeping her distance.

Einar took her hand and pulled himself up without her having to do too much-- any, really-- work. As he lifted himself up and straightened, brushing dust off his rear, Shee laughed lightly, stopping almost immediately as she thought that Einar probably would not appreciate any laughter in this particular situation.

"Oh, don't worry about me! I'm pretty sturdy myself. Really! You'd be hard-pressed to really injure me... unless you were trying to on purpose, I suppose. But even then, it wouldn't be that easy. At least not as easy as you probably think it is..." Shee tapered off as Einar didn't seem to be paying her much attention, instead devoting his time to looking at his elbow. She watched him intently, her eyes flicking from his face to the wound on his elbow.

"Even so, do you want me to take a look at it? I'm pretty good with things like this, you know. At the very least, I can make sure you won't even get a..." Shee's eyes rested on the large scar snaking up Einar's arm. Shee blinked and looked up at him. Wraith's voice pressed against the insides of her head again as she wondered what could have happened to Einar to make him with such a large, dark scar. She wondered if Wraith knew; if he had made Einar disclose that information to him, and if Einar had allowed that information to be disclosed.

Why did he keep smiling at her like that? It was unnerving. Shee almost entertained the thought that he was daring her to ask.

"I just thought... I mean, some people prefer not to get scars. For aesthetic purposes? Although," she paused as he turned his arm slightly, revealing scars too numerous to count marking his pale skin, "I guess you're not one of those people."

At once, she felt two things grip her; curiosity arose as she wondered, more than ever, what could have caused Einar to be covered in so many scars, and an insane urge to grab him by the arm and just make him sit down so she could treat what she was sure would be the latest addition to the sordid collection. His next remark snapped her back to the situation at hand.

"Hey! Don't address me so lightly, Mr. Willason; I don't like it." Shee's lips formed a small, annoyed pout before she realized what else he had said. "And I don't have any 'gifts'. I just like helping people feel better. But it seems you like to be in pain."

Shee laughed.

"You do know that you joined an organization called LOTUS, right? You should always have your body in top shape and be prepared for anything, and besides..." Shee broke off as a stab of pain shot through her left temple. Touching a hand to her head lightly, she whispered, "no amount of pain is trivial." Among the murky flashes of memory pricking the insides of her head, she wondered how a boy who claimed to hate pain had obviously been put through so much of it, his scars serving as an irrefutable reminder. Blinking a few times, Shee took a shallow breath and lowered her hand.

"I'm Shee Sian. I'd much prefer Shee to Chickie, Kiddo or Missy, thank you."

He looked like he cared more about his clothes than his own body, Shee noted, judging from their relative states, and the attention Einar was devoting to examining his jacket. "Are you sure you don't at least want me to lead you to a sink where you could clean yourself up? Licking, while creative, doesn't see to me the best way to accomplish your goal."

Shee smirked. "Of course I already know your name. But I'm pleased to actually meet you too, in any case." She wondered if he really didn't have any inkling as to who she was, as he seemed to be acting like that was indeed the case. Oh. That should be fun.

"...Parents? ...Proof that you could recover?" This time ignoring the p***k of pain that always seemed to accompany the nightmarish and utterly useless scraps of undefinable returning memory, she thought about Einar's explanation. Pain. To her, it was not a reminder of recovery. It was an indication of the descent into the recesses of her mind, into places she never wanted to think about again.

As Einar touched his eye patch, Shee's gaze was drawn towards it by the motion of his hand. Oh. Curiosity gripped her again.

She was ready for Einar's smile this time, returning one of her own.

"That's plain to see. I bet you I've had worse even than that."

"Oh really? I'd beg to differ. You know exactly what you're doing when you flash one of those smiles, or draw attention to all those scars on your arm."

Shee was almost angry with Einar now, as he berated her. "I'm not trying to out-do you. Just bring to your attention that you're not the only one with scars here, and most certainly not the one with the worst ones." She paused, a vague collection of features arranging themselves in her mind, leading nowhere but further towards the desperation she always felt when this particular memory came up.

"LOTUS... does not attract the most intact people. But it doesn't matter what a person's been through, or what they were in the past. Most of us can't even remember who we were before LOTUS! Just..." Shee didn't know how she could explain what she was feeling at that particular moment. She simply knew that she was not going to let Einar go like this, not without at least trying to fix her mistake. "it doesn't always help to hide things. I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore. But I am sorry; I didn't mean it like that."

Shee closed her eyes and smiled slightly. Why was she telling Einar to go do something she couldn't do herself?

"Sometimes, you know, it's just something hurts so much that you have to treat it lightly. We don't have anything to smile about, so we have pretend."

Opening one eye and then the other slowly, she hoped she hadn't upset Einar. "How could you think that's all someone would ever want from you?"