Welcome to Gaia! ::

Paper Lantern swallowed hard, his hoof an inch away from knocking on Cirrus's front door. He lowered his hoof and sighed, and for the millionth time, considered just going back to his apartment and watching some television. This hadn't been the first time Paper had been on the stallion's front landing and had turned away, scared of what he'd come to do. There was a very real possibility that when Cirrus understood Paper's full intentions, he'd become angry and never want to see the blue flutter again. The thought of that tore Paper's heart into pieces and had turned him back time and again.

But he couldn't stand around and not try anymore. The pain that Cirrus was in hurt him even worse then the idea of never seeing him again. Paper adjusted his saddle bags, brushed some of his hair out of his eyes, took a deep breath, and knocked.

"Uhm, hi Cirrus! Yes, I mean..no. Uhm..tea yes, reading no. I actually brought you something, a present." Paper settled on one of the cushions on the other side of the table. He was always amazed how calm he felt at Cirrus'. The decorations still mesmerized him and he felt himself getting comfortably drowsy from the smell of tea and warm room. Paper shook his head to snap out of his stupor and took out a flattened lantern, carefully assembling the last parts of it while waiting for the tea.

Paper clipped a simple wire stand to the bottom of the square lantern and stuck a small candle inside it. Turning it, he faced the front of the piece to Cirrus. Painted in water color, It showed a lake on a sunny day. A pegasus was with curled locks, large wings spread wide and body arched towards the sun, floated in the sky. It was a idealistic scene. Kanji decorated the side walls, with curling clouds interspaced among the calligraphy.

The flutter took up his cup of tea and sipped it, glancing at the back of the lantern which held a much different, darker scene. The same curly hair pegasus was reaching into the lake. Reflected in the water, a smaller pegasus with curly blue and yellow hair seemed to reach back. Paper was nervous to what Cirrus's reaction would be when he saw it.

"I hope you like it." he said quietly. "Thank you for the tea." He barely tasted it, tensed.

"Oh it's uh..it's not.." Paper bit his bottom lip. "It's not for hanging..exactly..it's a special lantern that I made for you. It's..uhm.." He didn't know how to broach the topic. "It's for a very special ritual that Mooncake told me about. I thought...I thought maybe you would..like to come with me while I did it for the first time, so I made you a special item for it.." Not exactly a lie, but not close enough to the truth for his liking. It took a lot of brain power to try and entice Cirrus without scaring him off.

"So..so..I mean...would you? Come with me?"

"Oh...oh! Yes, good." Paper tapped his hooves together nervously. The sun was starting to dip and it was getting close the right time. "Well, if you don't mind, we should get going then. We're supposed to start at twilight. I'll show you the way. Just bring your lantern, everything else we need is there." Paper gulped down the tea Cirrus had made for him and stood.