Welcome to Gaia! ::

Amalthea slipped into the window of the shop, her wings and arms trembling with exhaustion, but she felt exhilirated. She had made it!

Sure, she'd waited until twilight to set out, and had had to stop and bury herself in snow to rejuvinate herself and calm down half a dozen times, but she'd done it. Here she was. Her and Rakuen.

"We're almost there," she told the gemstone in her arms. "Almost there..."

She looked around the empty shop, biting her lip. Okay, she was here! Where was the Feien she was looking for. Julius or something, Shalafi had said. Where was he? SHE was here, and it had been SO hard for her... surely Julius should at least be present as well. Hadn't her effort earned that much?

Apparently not. Amalthea felt like crying, but she flew in small circles around the empty shop, looking for information, until she found the signboard.

"Portal... ring a bell?" Amalthea wilted. MORE travelling? Well, at least it was full night now. No terrible sun. She could do this. "We can do it," she said aloud. Somehow it sounded more certain if she said it out loud.

After a few minutes hunting, she found the portal and slipped through it, shuddering at the odd feeling it gave her deep down.

A human house. Porch. Bell.

Steeling herself for anything, Amalthea put Rakuen down on the porch and beat on the bell with all her strength.

Amalthea shrank back and moved behind Rakuen, crouching down slightly to lay one hand on the gem. That light was bright... but it wasn't hot like sunlight was. Still, she hadn't even THOUGHT that the Feien she had been told to look for could be a warm element.

That realization, that even in all her planning she had missed somethign that could have been vital, was suddenly very unsettling.

"Um. Um... I'm Amalthea," she said, in a quiet, shaky voice. "Are you, um, Julius?" She was very clearly intimidated by the other Feien.

Now that the glow had dimmed, Amalthea squinted to actually LOOK at the other Feien - and her eyes quickly snapped open fully, even bugging out a little bit. She'd NEVER seen any Feien like this before. Or many Feien ever, to be honest, but none of them had been like this!

"Um..." She bent down and quickly picked up the gemstone, holding it up partly so Julius could see it, and partly as a shield between herself and the other fairy. "Shalafi told me that, um, if you had a gemstone... you could become one thing. The Feien and the gemstone, I mean. Could become one. Um." Her wings shuddered against each other, making a faint but constant rustling noise. "C-can you do that? For me and Rakuen?"

Amalthea reluctantly held the gemstone out towards Julius, balancing it carefully across both hands. The muscles in her already-tired arms twitched with the effort.

"My bond gave it to me," Amalthea said quietly. She would have taken a step back from Julius, but he had Rakuen. "She said that Rakuen had belonged to one of her friends, but he died... and so I got the gem. I don't know how he died. I didn't know him before."

It was strange, talking about Rakuen as if he were dead. Well, he was. But not DEAD dead, right? You didn't whisper things if you were dead.

"L-lose my wings?" Amalthea stared slack-jawed at Julius, taking the gemstone back mechanically as sudden thoughts whirled through her head. Rakuen had promised...

But they'd be together, right? That wasn't bad, right?

And she'd worked hard. She'd promised Rakuen to do this... and if she came back now, without doing what she'd said, Kree would never let her forget it. She had to do just this one thing RIGHT.

"I... I do," she managed, clutching Rakuen as though he were a safety blanket.

"Um, okay." Amalthea's wings buzzed nervously as she followed him.

Amalthea carefully touched down on the indicated rock, although she hovered above it a few seconds more than was really needed - so she could remember what it felt like to fly.

Just in case.

"Painful?" She frowned at that; Rakuen hadn't said it would HURT. But she couldn't turn back now.

Amalthea took a deep breath. "I'm ready."