Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been a while since he lost sight of Crystal. He had taken the times to greet others. However, it felt as if something was missing. Without Crystal's prescence he felt...almost awkward. He had not felt anything like this before, this attachment to another female. He shruddered at the idea, and decided that it wasn't worth it to waste the entire night thinking and trying to find her, who was not even part of the elite society. But then again, a lot of the guests here, despite their gorgeous masks and fascinating dresses/tuxes, had an air of the lower class. Irene was sensitive to that, although he made sure that little prejudice was shown on his part. He did not want to offend anyone, but it was, at the same time, hard for him to converse with them. For now, however, that was the only thing he could do in order to block his thoughts of Crystal away. So he wandered around, nodding and smiling to everyone despite their reactions. He danced with a few ladies, and tried to avoid that fox-man who had punched him earlier. Time passed slowly, and Irene almost wished that Crystal would appear again...thus drawing his mind back to the girl.

The room smelled funny. Irene's nose twitched and his body shivered. A flash of his darkest memory of being locked up fleeted across his mind.

Well, that punishment seemed inevitable. Might as well have fun in the ball while he could.

The woman gasped softly when she saw the patterns in the smoke, edging closer to stare into the gray haze lifting from the flame. The dancing light reflected in her glasses, hiding her eyes as she watched.

The smell reminded her of cotton candy and sideshows, of strong men and bearded ladies; everything that made a child believe in fanciful delights and mysical misdirections. It brought a smile to the mummy's face, and Abigale removed the bandages from her face to better smell it. Unfortunately, the bandage brushed the flame as Abby stared at the smoke, and didn't notice when it caught fire....

"You knew I was a boy even though I'm wearin' a purty frilly skirt?" He questioned in amazement, "Wow Mister. You must be like....Psychic!" He chirped, tiwrling his white locks. "I could~ But I wanna dance with you." He muttered, a dissapointed face creeping upon his features.

He looked around for a moment, and smiled. "You wait right here!!! I'm gonna find someone else to dance the Circle Dance with us!" He giggled, running off and grabbing the hand of a young woman. This young woman was Crystal.

Sati gritted her teeth and stared at the smoke, willing it to stop leisurely twirling and spiraling as if it were alive. Okay, she was mostly trying to convince herself that it wasn't forming little pictures. That's right. Random smoke on the draft. There you go, Sati, it's not that sinister at all.

Sati Kuchhal didn't quite believe herself, but her poise was returning. The smoke was a little strange, but not ominous on its own. Smoke was smoke. It had no will and no malice. Okay. Right. Let's find out what's going on. She waved her bodyguard back into the crowd and started making her way towards the origin of the smoke.

Sati scanned the crowd, singling out those who looked uneasy and those who looked as if they might know which way the wind blew. (Figuritively, of course; Sati had a keen enough sense of direction to know that the breeze drafting through the masquerade was bearing north-east. But regardless.) Ever the consumate businesswoman, she took aside a somber young man and pressed a tiny blown-glass bell and a business card into his hands, saying "Excuse me where is that smoke coming from and good gods why is it so eerie?" The man stared at her blankly, so she moved on, leaving a trail of gems and cards in the hands of the asked, and cries of "AGGGH WHAT PRECISELY IS GOING ON?" in her wake.

Finally she rounded on the tiny scent stall, the smoke mushrooming out of a tiny oil burner. Ah. A scented oil. Sati was vaguely educated on essential oils, as her business partner was raving about adding myrhh and jasmine to their list of goods, but this wasn't a scent she recognized.

And there was a bandaged woman on fire.

Wait, what? This was all getting far, far too strange for Sati, fast. "Madam, you are on fire," she hissed, whipping out a heavy kerchief and trying futilely to smother the flames.

She whipped her head around, her adornments jingling. "A little help!" Sati yelled sternly, glaring into the crowd.

It didn't take long for her to turn from Terrified to Terrifying.

Skie listened to the child, glancing up at the display as it named the scent. Dark Carnival? That sounded rather ominous. Looking back, she paused, trying to decide whether or not this pretty child was a boy or girl. She didn't think it polite to ask but before she could decide the child ran away and she shrugged. To each his own, she supposed.


The smell of smoke tickled her nose and the motions of another made her spin around and her eyes went wide. That woman was on fire! Gasping, she stepped forward, hoping to help. Then she noticed that it was the merchant woman who had helped the woman with the bandages. She wondered if she was everywhere at once. It certainly seemed like it.

"You can dance with me and this Mister over there, Pretty Ma'am." He giggled, twirling his skirt around abit. "We need three people to do the Circle Dance, so we can't just do it with two." He explained, giving her puppy dog eyes. "Please come dance with us?"