Welcome to Gaia! ::

Green, just as she expected it to be. Wasa smiled as she passed under the archway at the entrance of the maze. Her fingers trailed over the soft new growth on the surface of the hedges she inhaled the earthy scent of the dense greenery. So this was what a well kempt garden could be… she’d have to keep that in mind next time she looked over the courtyard in favor of other projects. She set her little shade against her shoulder and made her first turn. It was a left. Left had always been a good default choice for the artist. In a world full of choices, debates, risks and sacrifices, it was quite useful to have a set plan for the more routine decisions in her life. Sure, it resulted in driving in circles from time to time, but for a maze it was a legitimate a strategy as any

Unfortunately, your left turn had led you to a dead end. An old toad croaked in the lonely corner in front of the wall, as if mocking the poor soul who took the wrong turn in the previous corner. Time to take the right route perhaps?

Well. That was amusing. Wasa stared up at yet another tall wall and pursed her lips. This path lead her on a few more twists and turns than the last, but after approximately 67 steps and one stumble over a uneven stone tile she had reached another dead end. She closed her eyes and turned, curious to see how accurate her mental map was. After 28 steps and a turn, Wasa strode confidently into a tight bunch of boxwood leaves. Opening her eyes she turned her head and saw the path just half a step to the side. Well… she was close anyways.

Before the image could fade completely, Wasa retraced her path back to one of the previous dead ends with a bit more hustle to her step. If it was there, then it was the maze that didn’t make sense. If it wasn’t, then she was the one with the faulty reasoning. She wasn’t exactly sure which she preferred at this point. Strange things happened to her now and then. Sometimes it could be called the norm, but she really wasn’t expecting it in the middle of a pleasant summer afternoon at a floaty-people garden party.

At the next dead end, she swept the other side of her skirt into her hand and bowed to the greenery. “Well met.” She spun on her heel, layers of yellow and orange organza swirling about her as she followed her set path. Her mental map still lingered in her mind like the glow of a lamp burned in the back of her eyelids. In her mind, she knew that her steps were leading her right back to another dead end, but she tried to push that image thought from her mind. Instead, she imagined a left turn. She pictured it so clear and crisp that she opened her eyes with a start, not quite realizing they had been closed for several steps now.

The artist approached the figure, couching down to be eyelevel with her weeping face. “A maze is a very hard place to play hide and seek.” She reached out her hand towards the girl then curled her fingers back as she thought better of touching her ghostly form. With a smile she offered the handle of her umbrella, her own hand wrapped higher on the leaf’s gently curved stem. “Let’s take a look.”

A few thoughts went through her head as she guided the specter around the garden, peeking around the corkscrew cypresses and under the tiered bushes with timid ‘hello?’s . Either the ghost was a real girl who perished in the maze during an innocent game, which would make the doctor a kinda-sorta psychopath for sending his creations into a haunted and ever-shifting maze, or the girl was an illusion to be enjoyed as much as everything else within these walls. At the moment, she much preferred to assume the latter; A game within a game. Wasa slowed her steps, p***y-footing up to a particularly large, spiraled evergreen. “Your brother suuuuuure is a good hider.” She marveled in a tone reserved only for the delight of children. “Is he…. HERE?” She sprang around to the other side with a dramatic flourish of her skirts, hoping to make the girl smile if anything.

Wasa gathered her sash over one arm and leaned closer to the boy, blinking at him owlishly from behind her mask. “Only one cat, if the mice are glued together. Two cats if you glue them together in groups of fifty!” She quirked her lips into a smile. “You… probably aren’t looking for a creative answer, are you?”

Straightening back up, Wasa let her sash trail back into the grass and tugged it along as though trying to attract said cats. “Well, assuming a lack of diminishing returns and that cats care about math, I would say…” She poked her finger through the air, counting out little hunters and their quarry. “Well, at least 5... but if you had more they could finish early and then take a nap. Cats like naps.”