Welcome to Gaia! ::

The early morning rush had slowly turned into a slow mid-day lull at Between the Lines bookstore. Mary would have never guessed that people enjoyed shopping so early in the morning, but who was she to complain? Business was business, and all business was good, even when it was at an un-godly hour of the morning. (Meaning about 10 am). She slumped down at her stool behind the counter and took a quick survey of her small shop. She had been lucky to get the location that she did. Between the Lines was right on a street that had a decent amount of foot travel, and there wasn’t another bookstore for quite a few blocks. Very lucky indeed she would think to herself.

Mary’s bookstore had a wide range of books lining her shelves. She had books about the study of witchcraft, and other areas of the paranormal, she had historical books that documented the strangest of historical events, and she even had a fairly decent comic book and manga collection in one corner. Of course she had the staple bestsellers, but she also wanted to have a wide selection of the strange and off beat.

The walls of her shop were a warm brick and the carpet was a dark, earthy green. All the walls were covered with shelves were books were haphazardly placed. In the corner opposite to the comics was a small café-like area equipped with a few comfy chairs, tables, a couple coffee containers and a small collection of various healthy snacks. Sitting at one of these tables was Mary’s newly acquired girl. Once Mary’s eyes landed on the small girl coloring a picture, she couldn’t help but let out an exasperated sigh. She had a kid for god’s sake, all because of one fateful day at the theatre. She was 25! Nowhere near ready to be a mother, and she had only just started this business, it was all a little overwhelming.

“Peter,” She called her only employee, “Can you watch the register now?”

A smallish man, even younger than Mary, came out of the labyrinth of tall bookshelves, “Why? You leavin’? ‘Cause I totally understand, I mean dude, you have a kid now, so yeah, whatever you want boss lady!” Peter’s nervous rambling stopped with a quick glare from Mary.

“No, I’m just going to check up on Lucy, maybe take a break for a while, it’s been a long couple days.” And with that, she ran a hand through her short purple locks and headed towards Lucy.

As she approached she heard Lucy humming a nonsensical tune under her breath.

“Hey, whatcha coloring?”

A high pitched yelp filled the bookstore as Lucy jumped in her seat, “Muma! Don’t do that! You could be a monster! And then I would be eated! I dun wanna be eated Muma!” Lucy started crying a bit, and Mary started to shush her.

“Honey, no monster is going to eat you, I just wanted to color with you, is that okay?”

Lucy’s entire face lit up at the prospect, “Yay!” She exclamined, “I’m coloring a pony, I think ponies must be nice, cause they have big brown eyes. I like brown eyes.” As Lucy continued to talk, Mary picked up a crayon and started to color the crude looking pony Lucy had drawn.

Peter was a very diligent worker, and tried his hardest to make sure all the customers were able to find what they needed. He took a very personal interest in all of them. Mary called it somewhat stalkerish, but Peter called it being a people person, so when he saw one of his precious customers with a large stack of books, he leaped into action. He approached the lady, that he was sure was carting around a kid with a weird mask earlier, but who was he to judge and mustered up every polite bone in his body.

“Hello miss, may I be of service to you? Maybe keep some of the books at the counter?” He smiled using every ounce of charm he had. Customers he was nice to sometimes left tips for him, and tips were nice, very nice for a poor struggling musician as himself.

Meanwhile, Mary was just about getting sick of coloring ponies. She had bought Lucy a huge box of crayons, and yet she insisted on only using brown and black, and would only let Mary use those colors as well. (“Muma, they’re not monsters! Why would you color a pony blue unless it was a monster!”) She made a mental note not to show Lucy The Wizard of Oz until she was a bit older.

Mary took a break from the monotonous coloring to look around, it was busier than it was early, it might be a good idea to get back to work so that Peter didn’t accidently burn something. She still wondered how he managed to start a small fire by simply plugging in a small lamp, but it was an experience she would rather not repeat.

“Hey, Lucy, I’ve got to get back to work, do you need anymore paper, or crayons, something? Oh shi—shoot, have I fed you yet? Are you hungry?” Mary said while getting up out of her seat. She looked to the food section and she saw a few fruit pilafs left in the fridge.

Lucy looked thoughtful for a second before saying, “Food? I’m hungry, Muma, can I…” And that’s when another ear-splitting scream echoed against the brick walls. “Muma!” She cried while throwing herself in her mother’s arms, “Muma, a monster!” She whispered fiercely while pointing at the boy with a mask on sitting in a chair that had been blocked from sight by Mary’s body before she moved. Here we go again was Mary’s thoughts as she racked her brain for a proper explanation of people’s fashion choices.

A litany of curses ran through Mary’s mind as she saw the mother of the kid Lucy believed was a monster in her poor paranoid mind. She instantly thought of all the ways she could apologize, free books maybe? Coffee and snacks for life? Her head was starting to pound with all the jumbled up thoughts. It wasn’t like Lucy hadn’t freaked out before; this was just the first time at somebody else’s kid in her shop.

”Lucy, Lucy, shhh, calm down, Lucy, hey listen to me,” She tried to calm her daughter as frightened sobs wracked her small frame.
”But it’s scary, he looks scary, I’m scared! I dun like it! I dun, I dun, I dun!” Her words were muffled by Mary’s shoulder, which was becoming unpleasantly damp by Lucy’s tears.

Mary ran a soothing hand though Lucy’s blond hair as she rocked her body a bit, “Hey, remember yesterday? How we talked about people being different? How I’m different then you, but I’m not scary, am I? I’m not a monster.” Lucy took her head off of Mary’s shoulder for a moment to looks confusedly at her mother.

“But you Muma, course you’re not a monster.” Her face was furrowed in a quite adorable way. Kid’s logic would never cease to amuse her.

“Right, but that other boy is just wearing a mask, like how you sometimes where you’re bonnet, that’s different, but not scary, is it?”Mary tried to reason with her.

Lucy looked conflicted for a moment, trying to figure out why Mary made sense, and yet trying to maintain her fear of the boy she had yet to properly meet. “Listen, I’m going to put you down, and I’m going to go talk to them, alright? And you’ll see there’re not scary, and then I want you to come over and apologize to the boy, okay?” She whipped out her stern voice and gave Lucy a pointed look. After a moment, Lucy hesitantly nodded, glancing one more at the boy.

She quickly set her daughter down and hastily made her way to the mother a child in question. She was only a few steps away when she started apologizing to Japi.

“I am so sorry! My daughter, well, she’s still getting used to things here, and she gets frightened very easily, it’s really nothing your son did! I am so sorry once again, his mask…it’s that things that are different startle her and when she gets frightened, she screams and cries.” Mary then turned her rambling to Erik, “Sweetie, I’m so sorry, I think your mask is rather charming! Please she doesn’t mean anything by it, she just doesn’t know any better! I’m sure if you two were to talk, she would realize that you’re not scary at all!”

She turned her head to look at Lucy and beckon her forwards, a d Lucy shook her head, clutching the back of the chair she was behind. Mary just sighed and let it go for now, and turned her focus once more to Japi.
“I’m sorry again, look, I own this store, so anything you want, is discounted today, I feel terrible!” And Mary gave one last apologetic look to both of them.

”My name’s Mary, by the way, in case you want to report me to some better business bureau or something of the sort. I won’t blame you. Not in the least. Eventually my daughter will come over and properly apologize, I’m sorry, once again!”

Mary felt relieved that Japi didn’t hold her accountable for Lucy’s actions, but hat didn’t stop her from feeling guilty. Especially with Erik’s outburst of low self-esteem. So the mask was hiding a facial deformity, no one was perfect, even with his surly looking expression Mary thought he had the potential of growing into a handsome young man. And she decided that this was an opinion that needed to be voiced, just loud enough that Erik may here.

“Well, I think he was quite the handsome face, aside from the mask, but that just adds an air of originality! And Lucy doesn’t mean that he’s ugly, it’s just the mask itself that startled her. For god’s sake, she’s frightened of the tomato’s on the cans of crushed tomato’s in the grocery store!”

Lucy chose that moment to peek out from behind her chair to voice a complaint against her mother’s slanderous lies, “Muma! They were going to crush me! And make me all tomato-y! I don’t wanna be a tomato! I wanna be me!”

“Of course sweetie, what was I thinking.” Mary turned her attention away once again form her child to talk to Japi. Making a deal out of the fact that Lucy had come out of hiding would only make her shrink back into it. “I’m sure Erik is a really nice boy. And I really want to make Lucy apologize for her reaction, she seems better now.” Mary took a moment to glance back, and saw that Lucy, in the short minutes that Mary had turned away, had gone back to coloring ponies.

“Lucy, can you come here?”

The young girl looked up from her drawing and nodded at her mother. She then proceeded to walk over. She brought her picture with her.

“Muma, look! I named him Francis!” She held up a picture of a brown horse-like figure, her face glowing with pride.
Mary obligingly took the picture from her outstretched hands.

“Lucy, this is Ms Japi, can you say hi?”

Lucy looked down at her feet and played with her skirt before mumbling out a “Nice to meet you,” She didn’t really like meeting new people, they could be monsters!

Mary patted her head encouragingly before speaking to Japi once more. “Do you think Erik would be up to a proper introduction? I wouldn’t want to force them to meet if you thought it was a bad idea. Lucy will be good, won’t you sweetie.”

Lucy vigorously nodded her head, still not looking up from her feet. She decided that she liked her shoes, they were pretty.

While Japi was fetching Erik, Mary quickly knelt down to Lucy’s level, “Now, hon, you need to apologize to Erik okay? Tell him you’re sorry and please, please don’t scream. For me, okay?” Mary said sternly.

“Okay, Muma” came Lucy’s quiet reply. She continued to fiddle with her skirt and refused to make eye contact.

“Okay then,” and with one final look, Mary got up off the floor as Japi came back with Erik.

Lucy was struck once again with her fear, but she didn’t want to upset her mother again, so she hid behind her mother’s legs, shyly peering out from behind them. Her hands continued to fidget nervously and her eyes darted around on the floor.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” she mumbled out softly, not looking up. Mary let out a sigh, but at least Lucy wasn’t screaming in terror, so she took it as improvement.

There was an awkward pause before she suddenly blurted out, “You aren’t gonna eat me, are you? I dun wanna get eated! The tomatoes wanted to eat me too, and I dun like tomatoes.” Her eyes were wide and fear-filled as she stared up and Erik’s face.

Panic filled Lucy’s entire face as Erik’s words sunk in. This boy ate[/ate] people! All the blood left her face, leaving her paler than she already was and her body started to tremble. “No, no, no,” she whispered, afraid to even move, “I’m very nice! I promise! I’m sorry mister, I did not mean to hurt your feelings! Please don’t eat me!” Her panic whisperings grew in intensity as she spoke faster and faster. Lucy, once again at the point of shear terror, didn’t hear Japi’s reassuring promise.

Mary, on the other hand, was torn between laughing and giving Lucy a hug. She was just too easy of a child to tease. So she just shook off Japi’s mouthed apology, silently chuckling. Only her Lucy could be like this.

So she bent down once again to gently hug Lucy from behind, “Sweetie, I’m sure he won’t eat you, will you dear?” She said addressing Erik. Lucy looked on hopefully. She really just didn’t want to get eaten, and that’s what monsters do, they eat people!

“See, he’s not going to eat you!” Mary said brightly, but even then, Lucy wasn’t sure. There was still a level of mistrust in her head. He had lied once, he could lie again, or he wasn’t lying before and he’s lying now. Either way could end up with him being a monster. Better be safe than sorry was her motto.

Lucy looked at the offered hand for a moment, weighing the decision to grab it or not. If she didn’t take it, Mary would be upset, and she didn’t like making Mary upset, but if she took it and Erik ended up being a monster he could take her to his lair, or something. Lucy took one last look at Mary, who gave her an encouraging nod and she gently clasped Erik’s hand and walked towards the table where her crayons were.

“I’m drawing ponies cause ponies are pretty. Do you like ponies?” She asked once she got there. If she was going to get eaten, she was at least going to be happy and thinking of ponies when it happened.

Mary had watched them walk back to the table before letting out an affectionate sigh. “Wow, kids, I never thought of myself as a mother, but I guess you can’t really do anything about it once you’ve got one! There’ll like, the one gift you can never return!” Mary looked thoughtful for a second before turning to Japi and asking, “So, may I help you find any book in particular? Or are you just browsing?” using the businesswoman voice that she was working on.

Lucy sat down in the offered chair, still watching Erik warily. She gingerly reached out for a chestnut brown crayon and looked at it before offering it to Erik. He seemed to be polite, so she didn’t want to appear rude, just because he was scary.

“Na-ah, big horsies could step on you! And then you would be all squish-ed! And that won’t be much fun, being squish-ed.” Lucy said earnestly. And with that she grabbed a grey crayon and started drawing the outline of the next pony to join her herd. “Ponies are better, they have soft eyes and they won’t squish you.”

“Hmm,” Mary vocalized, thinking about wanting children. “I didn’t really ask for Lucy, I think I’m a bit young for a kid anyways, but what can you do right?” She shrugged. She had gotten used to Lucy’s presence and was learning to enjoy her company. When she wasn’t being frightened out of her mind, she was a rather sweet girl.

“I try my hardest to maintain a variety of books that are hard to find in mainstream bookstores. I figured it would be like, my niche or something. But don’t worry about Peter, it’s his job to carry books!” Mary smiled at Japi.