Welcome to Gaia! ::

This is not part of the Boarding House, but is a building separate of it. It's a small brick house placed between the laboratory and the Boarding House, one storey tall, with a metal roof and a chimney. The door is painted navy blue and is enscribed with the words 'Master Moreau' in gold-colored text. The front door is usually kept locked, and the windows are often covered with curtains, preventing outsiders from getting a peek within. Behind the house is a vegetable garden and a wire-cage rabbit hutch, protected by a tall wooden fence.

For those invited into Moreau's abode, the interior is quite clean and well-kept and has a low ceiling. The living room is small, with a few overstuffed leather chairs arranged nearby a large coffee table and two tall bookshelves, as well as a piano against the wall near a large window. Next to the piano is a squat, gilded table with a gramophone sitting on top of it, as well as a small shelf of phonograph cylinders right next to the player.

The bookshelves are filled end-to-end and top-to-bottom with books covering subjects such as anatomy, physiology, medical history, and ancient history, as well as a number of hand-written journals and personal logbooks that the doctor has kept over the years. The floors are hardwood, and the walls are adorned with framed medical diagrams. A short hallway to the right leads to a bedroom and bathroom.

The kitchen is about half the size of the living room, near the back of the house, with a fireplace and a pot belly stove tucked along the far wall, opposite of the counter. There's a door here that leads to the backyard.

Reserved: Alphonse's Background

Reserved: I don't know what for.

Reserved: For when you're good to mama.

Reserved: For the cell block tango.

The progression through the path has dried off Alva's clothing considerably, but not enough to make her not uncomfortably damp. By the time they reach the fence, she's frustratedly pulling at her sleeve every few seconds with the hand that's not holding her cello case and cropwhip. She silently damns the weather, this man, and the entire island to the deepest recesses of a hell that she doesn't believe in.

The painted name on the door raises both an eyebrow and the corners of her mouth in amusement... how much of a megalomaniac is this man? "Thank you for the hospitality, Master Moreau," she says, setting the cello case by the door (though keeping the cropwhip with her) and heading to sit at the table he had indicated.

...So the man likes being addressed as a superior. Well, that's a big surprise.

Really.

"Don't worry, I am not an entirely impatient woman," Alva responds. "If nothing else, I'll have plenty to think about..." She puts an index finger to her chin, pondering something. "But I guess it wouldn't hurt to practice the cello a tiny bit; I need to get it back in tune anyway." Nodding slowly in self-confirmation, she goes back to retrieve the cello case.

It is an instrument that's clearly been through the mill- the wood is chipped in some places (though not in areas that would change the quality of the sound), and there are visible dents at the top of the fingerboard from constant use. A quick lookover erases her worst fear; the bridge of the instrument it actually intact. She sighs in relief and tightens the bow, ready to begin the task of tuning.

Sitting in one of those overstuffed chairs with a cello proves to be rather awkward, but it's better than nothing and at least she gets to play the instument after too long without it. There's a good few minutes of plucking, drawing the bow across the strings, and the straining noise that happens when the strings are tightened and loosened as she tunes the cello by ear. The longest time is spent adjusting a particularly troublesome A string.

At last Alva plays a genuine note- a rich, coffee-like middle C- and ponders what direction she should go from there. She smirks to herself and decides to improvise something, starting with an F major in common time but soon switching to a D-sharp major key in 6/8.

"...Dammit."

The A string is really getting on Alva's nerves. It keeps going flat, and she has to keep stopping to readjust it. Something must have been jarred out of place on the ship... hopefully someone will show up on the island who can fix it.

Because it's getting really tedious, she decides to not use the A string and instead use higher positions on the D string. It's a bit of a pain, but after a few seconds she is able to execute it nearly flawlessly and with very little difference from the actual A string.

As she plays, she lets herself ponder whether the man is as good at cooking as he says he is, and what rabbit might taste like- hopefully it would be at least decent. No matter; it would probably be delicious compared to what she had to shovel down her throat on the way here.