Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rowan grimaced as she hurried down the block, violin case in hand. The holidays were always good for making extra cash. Parties, the sort for people who would want a string quartet providing the background music, would often run late into the night, and she found that at least the better of the hosts enjoyed showing their generosity to the help. The downside, however, was shivering her way back to her car in the snow. The ankle length midnight blue dress she’d chosen for this evening did little to hold back the chill, leaving her immensely grateful for her black a-line peacoat and dark blue gloves. She’d checked the forecast beforehand, but as midnight approached the air sparkled with gently drifting snowflakes. She silently chided herself for not bringing more practical shoes for the walk as she pulled her coat more tightly around her body. At least there were no monsters, youma, as Halia had called them, paying her a visit tonight.

The change didn’t immediately strike Rowan as she walked, the slowing flurry registering only as a possible break in the snow. Maybe she didn’t want to see it, overwhelmed as she was by the growing strangeness in her life. Even the toll of a church bell ringing midnight took on a new eeriness in the still darkness. The few weeks since she encountered the youma had done little to soothe her fraying nerves, but tonight was just going to be routine. No monsters, no lingering anxiety tugging at the edges of her mind, just her music and an uneventful trip home. She ran a hand through her hair, absentmindedly working out a small tangle. The sound of a woman’s voice pulled Rowan from her not at all anxiety riddled musings and she smiled slightly, surprised to see Halia here of all places. She raised her hand in response to Halia’s wave, moving to close the remaining distance between them. As she moved more briskly, she could no longer escape the creeping recognition that something was wrong. Unnatural. Hopefully not deadly. She slowed her pace, staring wide eyed at the sparkling crystals hanging unmoving in the air, the raccoon dropping from a tree branch suspended several feet above the ground. She gestured wordlessly at the animal, briefly unable to form a coherent thought as her mind churned.

"…Right.” Rowan pondered briefly, speculating on how many bizarre things she might have passed without noticing before she encountered the youmonster. And the strangeness wasn’t contained to whatever else was going on with them? That was a problem, or at least it seemed like one. Halia didn’t seem terribly fazed by the situation and Rowan couldn’t help but wonder what else she had seen to make an apparent pause in the flow of time seem mundane (or at least non-threatening) by comparison. Though, given a moment’s consideration, she wasn’t entirely certain that she wanted to know. Those were answers for tomorrow Rowan. Or next week Rowan. Still, she couldn’t stop the question from spilling out, “I can’t say that I’ve noticed anything…quite like this before. I take it you have?”

Rowan smiled, the tension in her chest and shoulders easing ever so slightly as Halia spoke, at least nothing about this was life-threatening. That was definitely a nice change of pace as these things went. She spared the frozen raccoon another glance and wondered if it would register the sudden jump in its location.

“That gameboard sounds,” she searched for a less than vulgar word to describe her thoughts on the subject, “like an unpleasant situation, to say the least. I’m glad that you get some beauty to try to balance things out. Or at least make them look nicer for a bit.”

The raccoon lingered in her peripheral vision and for a moment she wished she had a cat.

Rowan couldn’t hide the sense of relief that washed over her as the night’s quiet rhythms resumed in almost imperceptible echoes. Even with her limited exposure to the city’s oddities she already felt a growing frustration with the lack of concrete answers on the subject. Unanswered questions, even of the mundane variety, always needled persistently at the back of her mind. Still, she was grateful for Halia’s patience with her unending stream of somewhat frightened curiosity. “Well, thank you for the company, you made it well, fun. Instead of terrifying.”

The disoriented raccoon shot them both a slightly suspicious and possibly judgmental look before scampering off into the darkness.