Welcome to Gaia! ::

The sensation was vaguely disconcerting, like being thrown down a water slide, but quickly passed with the scenery change. The shady alleyway behind the shop was quickly replaced with an open-air porch. The front yard stretched out on her left. On her right sat the house itself, white vinyl siding with a large window next to the screened front door. The windowshade was down.

This was, if anything, the last place one expected to see a feien. The street was lined with cars and dogwood trees, brick houses as far as the eye could see, and nothing seemed even remotely magical. The only notable feature of the white house was the peculiar green color of the porch floor.

But this was where the portal led, and presumably where one might find any number of magical creatures, if only one took the time to look.

"Who is it?" came a clearly female voice from just behind a set of curtained windows near the door. A small hand (for a human, in any event) pushed the curtains aside and a dark-haired bespectacled girl looked out onto the porch. Amusingly enough, she was upside-down, leaning so far back in her chair it was a miracle she did not tip over.

"Oh, sure!" The girl flipped around in her chair so she was facing Irisa through the glass. "Julius is usually around the house outside somewhere. I should really put up a sign about that, or a bell. A bell would be a good idea. But hang on a sec."

The girl stood from her chair and went to the window, prying it open so she could more easily speak through the screen. She took a deep breath. "JULII--"

"I'm here!" came the dignified exclamatin as Julius faded into view. He was tall, clad in pale blue robes with pale blue hair sweeping down across his back and an impressive arragement of wings on his back. He looked not at irisa but at the human girl. "Please. There is no need to yell. A bell will suffice."

"Then I'll have one put up for you post haste. But you always know when I'm about to call, it's like you're psychic!" There was no answer from the feien. The girl just kept on going. "This is, um, someone come to see you." She had already forgotten the name.

Now Julius turned to Irisa. He had a peculiar way of moving through the air, pivoting without actually making any physical motion with his hands or wings. His hands were steepled in a position of prayer and his eyes covered by a blindfold, which had the effect of making him appear unearthly and wise. He waited for her to speak.

If Julius were in the habit of displaying his emotions he would have smiled. Behind him, Emperial slid the window shut so as to not intrude and returned to her computer. Assured the human was gone, Julius opened up his hands so his palms were facing upwards.

"May I see your hands?" he gently inquired.

Whatever the Ancient was looking for, he looked for it very carefully, examining her with extreme care. He first pressed her hands between his palms, then turned them over and ran his fingers across the tender young skin. He tested her fingers in particular, flexing them back and forth. Her juvenile hands seemed so small compared to his. The attentions did give Irisa ample opportunity to observe Julius's long, slender fingers, with their slightly knobby joints and finely tended nails.

At long last, Julius seemed to reach a conclusion. He released her hands back to her and clasped his own before him. "Have you taken any thought into becoming an Artificer?" he asked.

Julius resumed his earlier position before continuing. "There is more magic than is known to Corvus, and the Schools are proof of this. In fact, when it comes to Artifice, I rather fear Corvus shows greater promise, for his fingers are particularly deft, but he has no interest in the subject, and furthermore I have lost all hope in that one. He's too in love with his Elementalism to bother pursuing any of the other avenues of magic."

There was perhaps the tiniest flicker in the Ancient's stony expression. "Artificers are the craftsmen of the feien world, and with your fingers I think you would make an excellent Artificer indeed. This is not to say that you could not become something else, but Artifice would clearly suit you best, and while you might excel in any other area, you are naturally attenuated to Artifice more than any other School." His voice was calm and melodic, almost hypnotic in its steadiness.

"The knowledge of the School of Artifice has recently become lost," said Julius gravely. "One would have to seek it out and recover it."