Welcome to Gaia! ::

Joselyn slowed as they reached the tail end of the horde of students. The first few rounds of students had started to step through the portal. Joselyn jumped up and down to see where her siblings might be, and spotted a few of them just as they made their way through the portal to the other side.

"Alright, looks like my brothers and sisters will meet us on the other side. Or at least some of them. I just saw the tail end of Gale slip through with Frost, so I'm assuming the others have already gone home or are making their way there now."

The litch kept holding Thoth's hand, the waves of Nightmares and Daydreams taking their turns, and eventually, it was there turn.

Joselyn turned to face the boy standing next to her, trying to ignore the stares she was getting and the poorly hidden whispers about her "weird mouth". "We're next." she said, trying to prepare him. "If you've never taken a portal before it might be a little startling. It feels like your body is being tickled on the inside, so I thought I'd give you that fair warning." With another, reassuring squeeze, Joselyn stepped up to the portal. "Ready?" she asked before abruptly pulling them through. She didn't want to give him an opportunity to hesitate or to be nervous.

Within an instant, the two were out on the other side. The crowd one would expect to be on the other side was already dispersed and making their respective ways home. But on the corner of the street at the stop sign across from them were two children waiting with their hands clasped. One was quite a bit younger than the other, with a pale blue face and pale yellow eyes that were quite haunting. His hair was snowy white, and his geist tendrils were soft and barely visible like a subtle fog clinging to the area. The girl holding his hand was much darker in contrast, almost like his opposite. Her hair was black with purple streaks, and her skin grey just like Thoth's. She had a bush imp tail that glowed like stars, though the edges were wispy like geist tendrils. She too, had starry tendrils of her own, though it looked more like black smoke compared to her younger brother.

Joselyn waved at them from afar, then gently nudged Thoth. "Those are two of my siblings. The little one is Frost and the older one is Gale. Let's go say hello, shall we?"

A set of pale yellow eyes peered from across the street. the young boy they belonged to clutching the sleeve of his elder sister as he looked on with curiosity. There was someone with his eldest sister, though whoever it was, Frost had never seen them before. Was it a friend of Joselyn's? Joselyn had never brought home a friend before, and so the little boy was quite interested in meeting this person. If they had broken through to Joselyn, they must be a good-hearted person. Frost was sure of it.

Through their held hands, Gale could feel her brother's confidence. While their elder sister approached with this new stranger, she too, felt herself quite eager to meet this potential friend.

"Come on," Galexis started, giving her brother's hand a little squeeze. "Let's go and say hello and meet them half way, shall we?" She offered a smile, and Frost nodded his head, offering a faint, but warm one of his own as the two started to walk across the street to greet them, despite retracing their steps.

* * *

Joselyn blinked lucidly at Thoth. What was there to dislike about the boy? Yes, she had just met him and so perhaps couldn't exactly pass full judgement on the boy, but from what she had seen of him so far, there was very little to dislike.

"Don't worry about it." She tried to reassure him. "I wouldn't feed you to the wolves. If you had anything to worry about I would have warned you already. My family is fairly mild natured, or some level of awkward ourselves. So, like I said, you should fit right in. Ah! Looks like they're coming to meet us. Come along, then. Off we go."

The litch wasn't entirely sure if the boy still wanted to hold hands with her, and so loosened her grip a little. It just dawned on her that she had been completely dragging him around without really thinking or asking if that's entirely what he wanted. If he was used to being alone, maybe this was all a little much for him in one go? Maybe she should have introduced him to a couple of her siblings before they left the academy grounds instead of forcing him some several cities away. Although, it was a little late now, and the next portal back wouldn't be for a few hours.

"Sorry if I rushed you in to this." She quirked a small smile, but as her siblings closed the distance she turned her attention to them and waved again.

"Hey guys! I have someone I'd like you to meet!"

Frost was the first to approach Thoth, extending his hands delicately towards the boy to take his hands in greeting. "Hello, Thoth." He spoke softly. "It's nice to meet you."

Gale offered a small smile herself, bobbing her head in a small bow, her floppy ears bouncing lightly. "Hello, Thoth." her slit pupils expanded with curiosity, the light purple of her pupils becoming more noticeable against her plum purple eyes.

"You guys better treat Thoth nicely," Joselyn warned. "I know you will, but I'm just throwing that out there now because he's a good kid and he deserves nothing but nice things, so be courteous!"

Frost gave a small, polite nod as if to say 'of course', the same tiny smile fixed in place. "I hope you will enjoy your stay with us, Thoth."

Gale nodded quickly. "Yes, it has been quite some time since any of us brought home friends! We'll have lots to do together!"

The blue skinned-litch glanced down at the shorter boy next to her, blinking her dark lashes at him. Why was he making weird noises? Was he feeling sick? Joselyn put a clawed hand on his shoulder to check on him, but Frost was already squeezing his hands gently.

Looking up at the taller boy with a look of concern Frost asked "Are you alright?" before glancing to his sister Gale for the briefest of moments with a look of fleeting nervousness. Had he done something wrong to upset the boy? He was close enough to see there were tears in his eyes, and that the boy was indeed crying. Was there something, perhaps, about Imp culture that he was missing? Gale was too far removed from Imp society to really understand it, and in truth was much more like a litch or a geist due to her upbringing, but even still the hybrid looked up to his sister for guidance.

Gale was starting to cry too, snuffling a little on her tears. What was this overwhelming feeling she was experiencing? She didn't understand why, but in an instant Gale reached out to hug the unfamiliar boy close to her chest, and rather fiercely as she cried with him.

Frost released Thoth's hands, stepping away to the side, unsure of what was happening or why his sister was crying now too. He looked more concerned than he had before. "Is there ... anything I can do ... ?" Frost asked softly.

Joselyn intervened. "Alright you two. Gale, let go of him and you won't feel so bad. We really should get home ... mom is gonna start worrying soon if we don't." Joselyn glanced down at the two hugging one another and gave a soft sigh. Not one of agitation or frustration, but one of relief. She knew that Gale would find her way on to the same wave length as the boy and would easily find common ground through empathy. And Joselyn also knew Frost was too gentle of a soul to not treat Thoth well. But even so she felt a sense of relief wash over her as the two accepted him as if they were one of their own.

Just then, Joselyn's phone went off, and the litch immediately dumped her bag right where they stood on to the ground and scrambled to find her phone among her mess. "ACK! It's mom's ringtone!"

Joselyn took in a deep breath to steady herself. Her mother wasn't an angry person, or mean by any stretch of the imagination, and was generally a busy person. She understood when the kids ran a little late, because she herself often was running late. Even still, Jose felt a little scared to pick up the phone, just in case Burvia decided to ever feel a bit more 'motherly'.

The litch clicked on the green phone shaped button on their touch screen.

"Hello?"

"Hey, doll. It's your mom. Listen, I'm going to be running a little late."

Joselyn heaved a relieved sigh and let her mother continue talking.

"I was hoping you could get dinner started for me and feed the vespercats when you get in. I'm not going to be too late, but I didn't want you to be alarmed when you got home and I wasn't there and the door is locked."

"Alright, mom." Joselyn nodded, shoving her free hand in to the pocket of her baggy sweater. "I can do that."

"Thanks, doll. Oh! And try and beat your younger siblings home if you can ... I don't want the triplets to worry. Alright, hon! I gotta go!"

Click.

Joselyn winced. June and Augustus were likely already there.

"Aw, s**t." Joselyn muttered under her breath, Gale cocking a brow and Frost blinking curiously.

"We really do gotta go now. Mom's running late, so we gotta try and beat Augustus and June home if we can manage it. Here's hoping it's one of their club days."

Gale pondered to herself quietly but didn't speak up as she tried to remember whether or not they were even involved in any clubs. They weren't to Gale's recollection, but maybe she was remembering things foggily.

"Yes, we should go then." Frost stepped forward and started collecting Joselyn's scattered things from off the ground and helped put them back in to her bag, Joselyn swatting at him as she kneeled down and took most of the items from him and stuffed them in to her bag haphazardly.

"Right. Not much farther then." Joselyn nodded, taking her baby brother by the hand and tugging him along much like she did with Thoth.

Gale giggled a little and toddled off after them. "It's nice to see Jose bringing someone home," she commented quietly to Thoth. "Thank you for being her friend."