Welcome to Gaia! ::

”Of course I’m sure you can’t get another piercing! I didn’t want you to get the ones you got before!” Yuurei closed her eyes and sighed exasperatedly. Taking Lucia out to get something new was always a chore. If it wasn’t a piercing, it was a new toy (like the laptop that cost her $2500). If it wasn’t a toy, it was some sort of thing that wouldn’t even help Lucia -- but would only go to help the dead people Yuurei couldn’t even see! The high-heeled blonde opened her eyes and looked at where they were in downtown Durem. There was a clothing shop . . . Maybe they could get Lucia something to wear. ”If not a new piercing, would you like to get some clothing?” She looked over at the dark haired raevan and smiled brightly, her eyes examining her hair clip, the bell collar, gloves, bra top and. . . Her eyes stopped as she realized that Lucia was only a raevan, and not a shopping partner with whom she could try on clothes, compliment (and get compliments from), giggle, and gossip.

The kitten’s purple eyes brightened at the suggestion. Clothes! The dark frei glanced around at the nearby stores and flew towards the most posh looking one. “I can get some cool accessories! Or maybe even a shirt or a coat!” Lucia began to look around at the various pieces of clothing by the front door that were designed to fit the upper body. The frei’s eyes darted from nice item to nice item (ignoring anything unsightly). She paused at a mannequin sporting a pair of ripped black jeans with fishnets underneath and a slashed up t-shirt. The sales people put bracelets around the wrists and necklaces around the neck of the mannequin and Lucia’s eyes suddenly stopped darting all over the place. The shiny black beads and silver chains of the necklace caught her eye immediately. The whole outfit had a certain look to it that Lucia adored, but the necklace was beautiful.

Yuurei smiled as Lucia stopped in front of the display, staring at the outfit that seemed to fit her style. ”It’s definitely you. But I don’t know how you’d wear the pants, let alone the fishnets,” she laughed softly at the joke as the raevan rolled her eyes and reached up to finger the necklace. Amber eyes looked around the room, looking for any clothing she liked, while people-watching at the same time. As the belt buckle on Lucia’s ribbon tinked against the floor, Yuurei saw a girl floating between racks and tables of clothing. The crimson-haired girl had a long dark ribbon for a lower half, just like Lucia. ”Is that another raevan?” she asked herself out loud.

Lucia away from the coveted necklace and examined everyone visible. The midday lunch crowds were beginning to show up and the cat frei couldn’t be sure whom the blonde had been referring to. ”Where’d she go?” Following the general direction that Yuurei walked in, Lucia tried to both lead and follow (unsuccessfully) and, trying to look around the legged bodies of strangers, wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. ”Ooof!” she moaned softly, looking over to glare at the thing that disrupted her search. Glancing up, she stared right into the eyes of an old guy in a suit and, ignoring him, at the raevan he seemed to be with. ”Sorry -- I guess --” she said dismissively to Ethan as Yuurei raised her eyebrows and looked at the commotion. She called out to Vyn, ”And hey, are you a raevan too?”

Yuurei looked over at the man with the red and black raevan she had seen before. ”Sorry, she kind of enjoys meeting new raevans. I’m Yuurei. Are you . . . Okay?” She smiled at the assumed guardian and brushed her blonde hair back over her shoulder. The man looked kind of stuffy. Maybe he didn’t get out much.

Lucia smiled as she took in the rose raevan’s appearance. The lace, the arm warmers, the jagged long ribbon, similar wings. ”Vyn. . . I’m Lucia!” She flapped her pierced wings and her eyes sparkled in the harsh light of the store. ”Isn’t this store awesome? I’ve never been here before.” She shook her head softly and looked at the rack of clothes next to them. Amid the bright colors and denim she saw something that she could actually wear and like. Pulling out the black half-vest that was cut off at the bottom of a human’s ribcage with a low cut round neckline, Lucia held the vest up to herself. The vest had various rips in it with lace sewn behind them. The front, instead of closing with buttons, was laced up like a shoe. The vest itself was solid black, but it had some dark red screen prints on it. Small angel wings were printed on the back with a heart right in the middle. She looked down at how it looked on her and smiled. ”This would look wicked on you!”

Vyn’s sidelong glances at her guardian made Lucia smirk inwardly a little. Maybe the lab looked for incompetent guardians, and it wasn’t just her who was stuck with one. ”Maybe he brought you to make you happy. I love this store, but it’s definitely the hidden treasures that make it best.” For some reason, the kitten found it very easy to get along with the red and black raevan. She glanced over at her own guardian, and realized that Yuurei had grabbed the beautiful necklace from before. Lucia pulled on it gently and her guardian let it slip from her fingers. Maybe Yuurei was good for some things. ”I don’t know if you saw this, but I absolutely love it,” said Lucia, holding up the necklace. She smiled. ”Why don’t you try looking for something and if you want I’ll help you. We can look together.” Her eyes sparkled and she tossed her hair over her shoulder. Without waiting for an answer, Lucia held Vyn’s hand in her own and floated towards the next rack.

Yuurei gave the guardian a once over. He, like her, seemed to have money. He was dressed in an expensive suit and had a classy air to him. However, he was . . . Old. Like her father’s age old. No interest there. . . Unless he had a LOT of money. The blonde smiled flirtatiously. ”You can call me Yuurei. It’s very nice to meet you. I’m taking care of that one”, she pointed coyly at Lucia and winked at Ethan. ”Her name is Lucia. I assume you take care of -- I think she said her name was Vyn.”

Yuurei giggled and smiled at Ethan. ”Well, Mr. Blake, that’s why some women have girl’s days. As long as they are having fun, I don’t see why they can’t have more girl’s days and maybe you and I can get to know each other a little better.” She looked at the clothing in his hand, ”And I wouldn’t recommend that one to Vyn if I were you.”

’Maybe if we get it we can share it. You keep the necklace for a month and then we make plans to see each other to exchange the necklace. Then I’ll take the necklace for the month and a month later we’ll do it again” . She smiled at Vyn. ”It’ll give us an excuse to hang out a bunch if you want.” Hopefully this other raevan would want to be friends with her.

Lucia cocked her head to the side, trying to think. ”Umm. . . “ What did she need to look for. ”Wow, that shirt is hot!” Lucia said appreciatively as Vyn picked up the top. The cat was bad a** and their wings could go over the short because it wasn’t supposed to rest on shoulders. ”Hold onto it and I’ll totally try that on,” she smiled and continued looking around the store. ”Oh my god. That is so sexy.” Lucia floated towards a display against the wall that showcased a beautiful leather jacket, also displayed on an image above the display. The model was wearing the tight-fitted zip-up leather jacket with no shirt underneath. The low jeans on the girl showed off a bit of abs, but the tight jacket caused lots of cleavage and a decent amount of bare skin. Lucia didn’t bother pulling the jacket off the hanger when she saw the security lock that, if pulled hard enough, would trip the alarms. ”We would look soooo good in those. And I bet I could modify the back to have some cool buckle thing so we could have room for wings.” She grinned at Vyn, hoping she liked the jacket too.

Lucia had to think for a minute. Mobile phone? Ohhh…a cell phone! ”Yeah, I have one! But I forget it all the time” she grinned rather sheepishly. ”I’ll give you the number and you can just call it and I’ll have yours,” she said before telling the rose her phone number. ”We can totally talk whenever. I’ll try to remember to have it on me more often.”

The cat smiled at the idea of having matching jackets. ”That would be awesome! We can make a date to mod them at my house if you want.” She smiled and grabbed her size, not realizing the jacket was plugged into the rack to keep it from being stolen. ”Let’s go try everything on!” Pulling the jacket towards her, the store theft prevention alarm began going off and a determined and fierce looking security guard stalked over to the pair of raevans. Lucia’s ears leaned back, a shrill scream escaped her lips, she dropped the jacket and fairly hid behind Vyn.

Lucia's ears flattened against her head at the noise as she instinctually hid behind Vyn. Looking over the rose's shoulder, she hissed quietly, "I didn't do anything! I wanted to try it on!" Her large eyes went round when she spotted the security guard and she quickly turned away. While Vyn pretended to look at other clothing, Lucia turned around, her back to the jacket on the floor, and began examining her nails on one hand, slipping her other into the crook of Vyn's elbow. She should ask Yuurei if she would take her to the nail salon again. Purple nails with black flowers on them would be really pretty, she thought, getting sidetracked and almost forgetting about the security guard until the man was looming over them.

The large and muscular security guard had a deep voice that reached her own cat ears, but not far beyond. As the man resecured the jacket into it's proper place, the alarm stopped and Lucia's ears perked up. It wasn't the man that really intimidated her, but more the wailing sound of the alarm. She could deal with this man. He was only a human. She didn't like loud noises.

After the alarm was off, the security guard turned back to the two girls who had obviously, in his mind, been foolish enough to attempt to steal from his store. Lucia, her hand still tucked in Vyn's elbow turned towards the man. "What can I do for you, sir? We didn't mean to set off the alarm. I wanted to try on the jacket. Why aren't there any signs?" She gently squeezed Vyn's arm, noticing that she had been unable to respond to the glorified, but very large mall cop.

Lucia raised her own eyebrows at the gall of this security guard. While she would have been perfectly fine leaving the store and not giving them her and Vyn's business, the guard seemed to pig headed to let everything be. "I'm not going anywhere with you. And I'm not turning anything around and whether your small mind can comprehend the possibility of someone younger and prettier than you not being a bully like in high school -- I know you became a mall cop because you thought that would make you better than them -- not everyone is a jerk like yourself." While the cat knew how to defend herself verbally, she really didn't know when to shut up. Sometimes pointing out logic and deficiencies in others did not elicit a positive response. The guard looked incredulous at the bratty girl with play-cat ears. Who did she and the Jesus-wanna be gothy...thing think they were?

Lucia's eyes locked on the guard's hand wrapped around Vyn's wrist. "And take your hand off of her before I call her guardian over here and he gets you fired and sues both you and this store for assault and inappropriate behavior with a minor." Would that line work? It had worked in tv shows and books she read. Lucia glared at the guard, trying not to show any apprehension. She would not go anywhere with this a*****e.

True to her word, Lucia called out, "Yuurei and....Vyn's Guardian!!! She didn't know his name...oops. Was her defensive measure blown?