Welcome to Gaia! ::

Faced with the incoming page, Teide froze up. Of course she remembered Hyperborea - how could she forget Hyperborea? Very few people were as short or as naive or, frankly, as annoying. She did not want to be hugged. She wanted to explore the neighborhood in peace and then go home and curl up under her quilt and go to bed - if she'd done it right, maybe she'd be tired enough not to have nightmares.

Her crystal ball tumbled from her hands and rolled off somewhere under an air conditioning unit. "Please let go of me," she said, in a very small voice.

Faced with the option, she kind of wanted to pretend that she'd forgotten Hyperborea - but if she did that, she would undoubtedly be found out sooner or later and cause problems for herself down the line. They were members of the same order, like calling like with harmonic resonance. "Yes," she said, stepping away from the page and smoothing out her skirt. "My name is Teide."

She walked over to the air conditioning unit, got down on her knees, and looked for her crystal ball. It wasn't so far out of reach as to require magic to get it back, and Teide reached her arm into the dim space and grabbed it. "Do you live around here?" she asked, standing back up.

It didn't seem natural for someone to be so happy all the time, but then Hyperborea was young and stupid. Teide had been young and stupid once, she thought, glancing towards the roof's edge and thinking of Bischofite. Her innocence had been snatched away from her - someday soon, she bet, that would happen to Hyperborea, too.

It would be a relief.

At least she wasn't speaking French yet. Teide didn't think she could stand another word of that.

Teide frowned slightly - not even a sorry for knocking her crystal ball out of her hands? There was no way that Hyperborea had missed her crawling all over the ground after it. She wanted nothing more than to finish this conversation and go home - but the page didn't seem keen on letting her do that.

And honestly, her tone struck Teide as a little bit patronizing. "Yes," she replied zealously. "There's a rose garden and I found my ring." She'd only been a knight for a few weeks, but she was certain she was better at it than Hyperborea. The learning curve wasn't that steep, even though she'd been taking things slow. The last thing she needed was for some twelve-year-old kid (or whatever???) to think she knew more and had things she could teach her.

Teide had plenty of teachers. She had Hvergelmir and Kairatos and Colchis and Avalon and Babylon and she didn't need anyone else - right?

"I've been staying near here," she said, biting her tongue and debating mentioning Hvergelmir. She could brag that Hver liked her better, of course, assuming Hyperborea even knew her? But knowing her luck, that would backfire somehow. Probably with Hyperboea wanting to talk even more. "Since I purified last month. My friends take care of me."

Teide still wanted that apology, but if Hyperborea was going to leave her alone, then she wasn't going to follow. The conversation had ended abruptly, and she fought back the temptation to feel good for having struck a nerve. You're not like that anymore, she thought. You're good now, and you hurt her feelings.

But Teide had been knocked over first, and her feelings had been hurt, too, so wasn't it fair or something?

"Good night, Hyperborea," she said, pleasant but tight-lipped. She rubbed her crystal ball against her skirt, trying to clean the dirt off.

Tonight was just one big frowny-face, she decided, turning away.