Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hasuko entered her dorm room and sighed, slumping back against the closed door. Well, this was her home now. It was only just beginning to sink in; from this day onward she would be living at Amityville Academy and attending classes there. The thought made her stomach twist in slightly nervous apprehension and excitement.

Ever since she had received her acceptance letter from Amityville, things had been a whirlwind of preparation and packing. Hasuko had barely any time to think in between her mother's reminders not to forget to pack spare underware or her copy of 'Toxicology of Mushrooms and Other Virulent Fungi'; as well as stridently lecturing her on the dangers of boys, staying up late past her bedtime, and falling behind on her studies. It seemed like it would never end; there was always something else Hasuko needed to pack or do or remember before she moved.

Only, it had ended, and she had just bid her parents farewell at the school gates. Hasuko slid down to the floor and hugged her knees. And now that everything had settled, all she could seem to feel was anxious and lonely.

"Pochi?" she called. There was a rustling sound and in amidst the stacks of boxes as her pet ulppa popped his head out to look at her. "Come here, Pochi." Hasuko said, patting the floor next to her.

Pochi licked his eyelid and grunted disinterestedly, moving to continue investigating the dorm room. Hasuko sighed and fished around in her short's pocket, pulling out a dead cricket. "Come on." she wheedled, holding up the insect. "Look, it's your favorite." She smiled wryly as Pochi hurriedly waddled up to her, his skin changing to a rosy pink color to reflect his pleasure at his favorite treat. He munched it noisily as Hasuko petted the soft bulbous spines along his back.

A tear dropped onto the ulppa's back, and then another. Hasuko squeezed her eyes shut and pulled Pochi close, ignoring his wheezing protest. "I'm glad you're here, at least." she said.

Hasuko shrieked and Pochi scrambled out of her arms as the eyePhone rang. For a wild moment, Hasuko thought she was being attacked by a direrat before she realized it was just her phone. Trying to calm her heartbeat, she shakily pulled the eyePhone out from her back pocket.

Her parents had gifted her with the phone just this morning: 'So you can call and let us know you got top grades in your classes.' her mother had said stroking Hasuko's hair with an affectionate smile.

It was a fancy thing, much fancier than Hasuko's old phone. And it was pink, her favorite color. The eyePhone had so many buttons and bells and whistles that Hasuko had to poke at it for several minutes before she managed to find the text she had just received.

Hasuko smiled slightly as she read the text. Then, fumbling awkwardly (silly phones were always hard to use when one had webbed fingers), she typed out a reply.



Hasuko held her breath and hit send on her eyePhone. She had been penpals with Loreto for a long time but they had never met in person. She was a bit nervous, honestly. What if it decided it didn't like her? Talking in text was one thing, but interacting with someone in real life was another thing altogether.

But. It would be nice to have a friend. Maybe then she'd feel less out of place and homesick. Hasuko stared at her phone and waited for a reply.

Hasuko jumped and dropped her eyePhone at the knock. She scrambled to her feet and stared at the closed door. "H-hello? Who is it?" she called cautiously. She picked up her phone and shoved it into her pocket before opening the door a crack.

There was a skeletal figure cloaked in red standing outside. Hasuko blinked, the figure looked vaguely familiar. "Oh, um," she opened the door a tiny bit further, "Loreto?" she guessed.

Mentally, Hasuko quailed slightly. She thought the Plague Doctor would have texted her back first, given her a bit more time to compose herself, yet here it was on her doorstep. Not that Hasuko was upset but it was so very sudden and she was never good at meeting new people.

Frantically, she cast about for something to say. "Wow, you're much taller than I thought you would be." she blurted and then winced. "Er- I mean, nice to meet you in person finally?" She tried to smile though it petered out quickly in her nervous agitation.

This was so very awkward.

"S-sorry that was rude of me." Hasuko said, looking away, embarrassed. "I just... well, you know, a drawn picture from years ago is never the same as real life. I kind of had a different mental image of you --- Oh!"

Hasuko's head quickly snapped back up and she flailed her hands slightly in a placating manner, "I don't mean to say that I'm disappointed or anything though! I..." she sighed and deflated some. "Sorry, this is the first time I've ever been away from home like this and I'm nervous and keep saying all the wrong things like an idiot." She chuckled wryly at herself and sighed, then raised her head to look Malodore in the eyes.

"Thank you. For coming to see me, I mean." she said more confidently. "I don't know anyone else here at Amytyville and I'm trying not to be homesick, but it's hard so... it's nice, to have a friend." She smiled genuinely then.

Hasuko knelt and patted Malodore's dog who was pawing at her foot. "Your dog is cute." she said, scritching the enthusiastic puppy along the underside of its jaw and around near its ears. She giggled at the pup's wriggling antics, so very different from Pochi. "What's her name?"

"Hi Lu-chi." Hasuko said, fumbling slightly at pronouncing the odd foreign name. "Lu..Luche? Luce?" She laughed and tried to twist her head away from the puppy's enthusiastic licking. She wiped her cheek against her shoulder.

"I have a pet ulppa named Pochi. He's nowhere near as cute as you though." she said to the pup. Hasuko rubbed Luce's head one last time and then carefully placed her back down on the ground. Briefly, she considered inviting Loreto and Luce into her dorm so they could meet Pochi, but then she remembered her mother's stern warning never to let boils into her room. Though technically Plague Doctors didn't have gender, did they still count? Hasuko shook her head slightly. Better err on the safe side -- not that she was scared of Loreto, of course, even though he was awfully tall, but her mother had warned her and Hasuko daren't disobey.

"So uh..." she said awkwardly, trying to think of something else to say. It was then that she noticed the leash in Malodore's clawed hands. "Oh, were you out on a walk with Luce?" she asked. A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Would you mind if I joined you?" She quickly flailed her hands. "Er, that is, I mean if it's not any trouble. I haven't finished unpacking yet and my dorm room is still a big mess, you see, and I haven't gotten a chance to really see the school campus aside from the initial orientation tour so...it would be really helpful?" Hasuko smiled hopefully.

Hasuko chuckled. "Pochi? Maybe if I carried him." The ulppa tended to be a lazy blob at the best of times; it was a trait that sometimes exasperated Hasuko even though she was inordinately fond of her pet.

She had found Pochi wandering about the muddy riverbanks by himself several years back after the spring floods. Half-starved, she had fed the ulppa tiny soft shelled crabs and water-beetles in secret until her mother followed her one evening and found them. Oh, that had been a fight and one of the few times Hasuko had ever outright opposed her mother's will. In the end, her father had stepped in and her mother reluctantly allowed Hasuko to keep the creature.

Hasuko blinked and quickly snapped out of her reminiscing. "I can get him though, if you'd like." She opened the door to her room and called over her shoulder to Malodore. "He and Luce can at least meet each other." Hasuko scanned her room, quickly poking through her boxes and scattered belongings.

Pochi had investigated them earlier, probably in search for the box with his food bag. Hasuko mentally thanked her mother for reminding her to move his food into a sturdier container. She spied a pink tail curling out of a box marked as bedding. "Ah-ha, mitsuketa~" Hasuko scooped the ulppa up into her arms. Pochi grunted, skin tinging to a more grey-ish green to reflect his displeasure at having his nap cut short. Hasuko beeped him on his blunt snout. "Come on, lazy thing, we have guests. Maybe some of Luce's cuteness will rub off on you." She smiled at him fondly

Hasuko exited her room with Pochi hanging from her arm. She made sure to carefully close and lock the door behind her, as her mother instructed her to do, and then held Pochi up for Malodore and Luce to see. "This is Pochi." Hasuko dipped the disinterested ulppa into a bow to Luce. "Hajimemashite, Luce-chan." she said in a deeper voice, as if Pochi was the one talking. Hasuko placed the ulppa on the ground near to the dog, looking back and forth between them hopefully.

Pochi yawned hugely and then proceeded to vigorously scratch himself with his hindleg, oblivious to everything else. Hasuko sighed. She hadn't expected him to go bounding cutely off with Luce or anything of that sort but she did so wish he'd give a better first impression. Judging from Loretto's voice, the Plague Doctor seemed utterly nonplussed.

"Not really." Hasuko said evasively. "Pochi... kind of doesn't do well with leashes." she said, picking the ulppa back up. What Hasuko wasn't about to say was the last time she had tried walking Pochi on a leash he had just laid there like a dead fish and she wound up dragging him down the road. "He's like a cat that way, he does his own thing." She stroked the ulppa, who grunted and squirmed out of her grasp to jump back to the ground. "But it's okay, he'll follow us. Probably."

Hasuko wasn't too concerned, back at her home river she'd seen Pochi wrestle and fight with snapping turtles, bears, and even a passing giant eel once. Even though he was smaller than Luce, the ulppa was extremely hardy and surprisingly fierce when riled. He could handle anything that came his way.

"Let's go before Luce gets too impatient with us." Hasuko said, watching the puppy tug on her leash and look expectantly up at both of them. "Um, do you think you could you give me a tour around the school? I haven't really had a chance to go exploring yet and I don't even quite know where the library is."

"Where ever you want to go first is fine." Hasuko said agreeably. She giggled at Luce's smug prancing as they walked along. She would never trade Pochi for the world but she was charmed by the pup's adorable antics. She looked sidelong at Loretto, wondering how the Plague Doctor came to acquire such a vivacious pet. Something more utilitarian, like a sentient book or a carnivorous house plant, seemed like more of its style.

Loretto had never really talked about its home life in its letters they exchanged back when they were penpals. Hasuko hadn't minded though; the plague doctor was interesting to talk to and it was always helpful and insightful in its return letters to her. Hasuko was painfully shy when she was young so even an odd friendship like theirs was something she had treasured. She didn't have many friends.

But then the letters had stopped and they both moved on with their lives. Several years had passed before she had randomly stumbled across it again on Groanspring.

Loretto seemed much the same as it was back then but there were subtle differences too. It was going by a new name for one, and it seemed happier, more open in its speech. Hasuko wondered how much her friend had changed over the years. How much did she really know the the plague doctor that walked next to her now?

She blinked and realized that Loretto had asked her something. "Ack! Sorry! Sorry!" she fought the urge to bow in apology, which would have been disastrous outside of water. "My mind was wandering."

Hasuko quickly racked her brains to remember the question she had been asked. "Er, yes. Kappa do need to eat. We eat all sorts of things: fish, bugs, mollusks, river plants -- oh, and please don't believe all the rumors about shirikodama." Hasuko felt herself blushing but she strove valiantly forward. "They're an extreme medicinal delicacy -- kind of like eating a soul -- some kappa eat them believing that it will prolong their lives or um, improve their v-virility. But we don't all go running about wanting to suck on creature's..." she couldn't say it.

She picked up the pace a little to try and hide her embarrassment. After a moment she said, "Sorry, I said something shocking." She was blushing a hotly beneath her scaly skin. "But I can't stand people thinking all kappa are like that -- not that I think you do!" she added quickly. Hasuko walked even faster but then had to stop as path split off in two directions. She hesitated. "Which way is the Creepateria?" she asked meekly.