Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lucia checked her looks in the mirror once more before yelling at her guardian. “I’m going to Rivener’s to meet that raevan that Josh told me about,” she called out, her voice echoing through the large entryway. Lucia ran her fingers through her hair. She stole a glance in the mirror at her outfit to make sure it looked perfect. Glancing at the paper in her hand, the directions Rivener gave her seemed sketchy, but she had a fair sense of direction and was confident she'd find the house.

Yuurei walked up to her home’s entryway from the kitchen. The smell of fart or egg salad seemed attached to her. Lucia looked beautiful, as always. Her black hair was reflecting the artificial lights and her eyes shone when that same light reflected on them at the right angle. Yuurei paused, thinking about what parents were supposed to ask their children. “Is Rivener’s guardian going to be there?” That was probably an appropriate question.

”I don’t know. Sure. Don’t worry I’m fine. I know how to take care of myself.” Lucia sighed and curled a lock around one finger.

Yuu’s eyes narrowed and she sighed. She wasn’t good at this whole parenting thing. Omen was a lot easier to care for than this girl. She would go out by herself without any notice, come back when she felt like it, and there was the constant attitude. Maybe, she thought, I should take remove all the mirrors from this house. Then she’d talk to me about something. “Maybe I should come with you. Do you know how to get there?"

”You're not coming! And I’m fine.” She had no tolerance for her guardian trying to be parental. She was a guardian: meant to only take care of her housing and general needs. She never even told her how she was made. . . Lucia glared at Yuurei and turned towards the door. Opening it she said, “I’ll be back later,” and slammed it behind her.

Lucia’s ears twitched slightly as she finally floated close enough that she could see the looming house. She had managed on the bus by herself somehow. She did notice that when people weren’t staring at her ears or missing lower half, their eyes, particularly with the guys, were glued to her chest. She had looked down over and over again to see if she had something on her shirt, but hadn’t found anything. The cat-raevan shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest.

Lucia looked around and saw it. Rivener's house was as he described on the phone. She bit her lip gently, Rivener’s large house towered above her as the female raevan floated up to the white fence’s swinging gate and let herself onto the property. Running her fingers through her hair one final time, Lucia let her eyes drift across the front of the property as she went towards the front door.

Lucia smirked slightly as the door swung open quickly, right after she knocked. As she raise her eyes from where her hand had rapped softly on the wood door, the red and black raevan in front of her came into focus. He looked a little different with the artificial light as a backdrop, rather than the sunset or firelight, but she was glad to see him. She ran her fingers through her hair slowly as she took in his face and smiled up at him.

“Rivener!” she said softly. “Hello!” As she was invited in and she stepped over the threshold and into the house enough that the door could be closed, Lucia’s eyes scanned her surroundings. Placing a single fingernail in between her teeth she looked around and then looked up at her host with a slight shine in her eyes. “I’m so glad I could see you again! Your home is nice!”

As the kitty-raevan heard the call from the kitchen, her ears twitched. She cocked her head to the side and asked, “Is that your guardian? I don’t know if I ever met him. We should say ‘hi!’” Luica grabbed Rivener’s fingers and pulled him towards the sound of the voice.

Seeing Aphismet, however, she stopped short and looked jerkily around the room for a gun that he might use at any moment to attack and sting her. SHe looked for the black barrel, the pink/peach wrist bands, the spinning ball aimed directly at her. Her eyes flitted from his hands to the table to the counter top, but the room looked like a pretty normal kitchen. Her wings flapped and her ears were pushed back defensively. She glanced left and right, ready to run from the painful projectiles and hide under the table, in the other room, or even just run out the door. “You’re not painting now, are you?” she asked bluntly and cautiously, forgetting to introduce herself or even say hi.

Lucia listened to the white-haired chef’s reasoning, but still reached out and grabbed Rivener’s arm to hold it defensively in front of her. If anyone could help, he could. He should be able to control his guardian like she could control Yuurei. As Aphismet laughed at her fear, she was startled: her ears twitched and she floated slightly lower to the ground still afraid.

Dearie. . . That was always a good word. Lucia tried to take in what Aphismet was saying. They don’t paint like that. ”Lucia,” she introduced briefly before continuing, “How do you paint here?” The black-haired raevan’s fingers loosened from the scorpion’s arm slightly, brushing lightly against his skin, the touch alone enough to comfort her as she became more confident.

Maybe that’s why the spirits she helped appreciated it so much. She was the last thing to actually be able to touch them. She didn’t know, but maybe Rivener’s Eiry would. Lucia forced a smile and a nod at Aphismet’s welcome, but looked up at the scorpion with a coy smile. ”At the summer event. Before you gave me the towel. And before the pictures. He shot me while painting. The event?” Still not understanding the concept of a paintball war, Lucia related the idea choppily. Her visual memory was fantastic up to the point of photographic memory, but she wouldn’t be able to explain the emotions she felt or the sting of the ball as it hit her.

The cat-raevan’s wings flapped slowly as she tried to understand the situation. Running her fingers through her hair to reflatten the fullness it had achieved during what she believed was a brief stint with death. ”Me and Rivener met at the summer event,” she told the chef.

The cat raevan didn’t notice her great defender was uncomfortable, nor did she realize that he was frowning at her touch and not at the possibility of her being blasted by pink projectiles of pain. Lucia looked at Aphismet and nodded at the chef’s explanation. ”That’s what I thought the war was. Painting. I’ve seen pretty paintings in books before, but I never painted. I didn’t like that painting.”

The dark haired raevan looked up at Rivener, her eyes round, wanting to see nice painting. If it came out anything like the pictures she saw in the books with the bright and dark colors, the visual emotion and delicate strokes, she would like it.

Lucia nodded solemnly as Rivener’s proverbial lightbulb went on and he understood what she was talking about. Thinking back to the day, she mimicked the pout that the scorpion frei had shown her. Her eyes lighting up with soft laughter and tease. ”I got shot a lot. . . But you helped me after.” Lucia smiled as she recalled how her new raevan friend had helped her wash off. ”If you had been there, you could have rescued me.”

The purple-eyed girl looked at Aphismet and cocked her head to the side. Her brow wrinkled and she stared at him like he wasn’t speaking English. Softly and high-pitched, as if speaking to a child or someone slow, Lucia said, ”Umm...I’m only a Frei. I don’t have feet --” As the red-eyed raevan pulled the kitten away from the kitchen, she smiled at him, feeling sorry for the poor frei who obviously had a guardian who needed a lot of help. ”You have a whole room for painting?!” she asked excitedly, not wanting to really bring up the whole mental health thing. She hoped that the pictures were pretty as she had seen in the books.

Lucia paused before following Rivener into the painting room, her brow furrowing again as she was confused. ”Aphismet does know that I don’t have feet. Right?” she asked. “And the only time I fell at the summer party was when I hit the limbo bar with my boobs.”

Lucia didn’t get it. She didn’t have feet and she didn’t fall except the once. As Rivener began to explain the expression, whether he cut off or Lucia stopped listening wasn’t clear to her, but as soon as she saw the large window-filled room Lucia entered it her eyes wide. It reminded her of her library sans the books. With more windows than her library, because there was no need for bookshelves, the kitten-raevan was shocked that you could see everything. The view, however was entirely different. Rather than blue water fading to shore where the dark sand faded into woods that slowly got denser as it went away from the water, the bushes and trees of Rivener’s view were fuller and darker, but pretty, possibly prettier than her view at home. Lucia got lost looking out the window, her eyes roaming for the smallest detail. A bird landing softly on a branch. A snake slithering from bush to bush.

The center of the room was also different. While, when Lucia was up in her library, there were usually tons of books spread all over a large center table in the circular room. Here the room had paintings that were still in progress. Lucia’s eye was captured by the first painting she saw. The view she had just seen seemed reflected in the painting. With small details, she was impressed by both the accuracy and the technical ability (or what she knew from reading about it). She looked through this "window" for the bird and the snake, or any life and movement. Rivener said that they weren’t done. Maybe the movement of the wind in the leaves and the small bugs in the air would be reflected when it was finished.

Lucia looked at the next and saw the beginnings of color. Shapes, general ideas sketched in pencil, but nothing really done. Then running her fingers through her hair, Lucia moved on to the last one. Her head cocked to the side as she looked into it. The paint may have been layered too thick, maybe it wasn’t as realistic as the first one she saw, but she liked it. There was a snake, or twig or missed placed stroke maybe slithering under one of the bushes.

Looking up Lucia realized she had been silent and ignoring her host. ”Oh sorry! The view here is beautiful!” She smiled, floating over to Rivener as he held out the paintings he had pulled out of the closet.

Looking at Aphi’s after Rivener introduced them, Lucia wrinkled her nose at the one with the kids, not because of the style or ability, but because of the subject. Kids were gross and annoying and yuck. Looking at the next one presented, she decided she liked the sunset. The pinks and oranges faded to expansive blue illuminating the mountain. ”That one’s really nice,” she said, smiling at the scorpion raevan. She always liked sunsets better than sunrises.

The dark-haired raevan looked at the next painting Rivener presented and she smiled slightly. This, out of the three paintings in the middle, was painted by the same person who had the snake-twig-misplaced stroke that Lucia liked. Though in some places the hand painting was heavy and in some it was light, Lucia appreciated Rivener’s painting style as being real. Rather than capturing an image of the surroundings and maybe not adding life and emotion that she related to, some more amateur painting had emotion that was hidden by technical ability until the ability became second nature. What made the masters’ work so amazing to her wasn’t the technical ability, which was always perfect, but it was the emotion derived. She examined the painting he held before her while slowly nodding to herself. While she didn’t like to eat, she noted that she had seen images like this before in her books. Fruit bowls on black wrinkled table clothes. Lucia looked at the vase next to the bowl and her eyes focused on the brightly colored flowers. ”What are those?” she asked pointing with her fingernail almost too close to the painting. She paused reflectively and smiled.

”You’re working on that one too?” she asked, pointing at the painting in the middle she saw before. ”I really like this one!” she smiled floating directly to the one Rivener was working on. She twirled a strand of hair around one finger as she looked at it again.

"Those are tulips? I've seen pictures of those, but never seen any real ones. You'll have to take me to see them sometime" she said slowly, admiring the colors.

"Yeah. I'm not as much of a fan of realism as some people. I like artwork that displays emotion. Or at least something that I can interpret as emotion." Lucia smiled shyly, her cheeks' natural bush deepened almost as if admitting a secret. Aesthetic was personal to her and, though she was closed off from most people she met, she could share herself with this raevan for some reason.

She looked up at him, her cheeks still red, and her eyes lit up. "That'd be really nice!" she replied to his offer to give it to her, already thinking of the empty spot by her desk where it could go. Her wings beat softly as she looked at the painting again. Not paying attention to her location, she floated closer to Rivener. Lucia nodded slowly, agreeing with his question, but not saying which one. "Is this your favorite room? I want to see your favorite room, if this isn't it. But . . . umm . . . what else did you have in mind?" Lucia's hair fluttered slightly, just with the slight wind her wings were generating keeping her aloft. She looked up at the scorpion and though she was surprised at their closeness her eyes shone. She brushed a stray hair off of her face.