Playing Catch Up (Kallisti)

[Anna]

Anna smiled at Juls. "He really is a doll," she giggled. "And as much as I say I'm not, Elyse is right.  I'm kinda smitten - like a high school crush." she put her head in her hands and sighed, before shaking her head and looking up. "Kinda feel a little embarrassed by it, but it's really been a long time since I've actually thought of dating anyone - and being a stripper didn't really attract guys like Cade...so I don't...I guess we'll just see where it goes."

Anna looked over and saw Elyse was checking on Marta again.  Anna took a look too and she seemed to be getting introduced to all the kids there.  Anna had remembered being uncomfortable with all the kids around when she first started, but that quickly went away.  All the Kallisti dancers just adjusted to it, making sure to change in correct locker rooms and use correct bathrooms - things they really didn't care about when the kids were not here.

Elyse turned after a moment, and faced Juls. "He's really pretty harmless from what I can see.  Says he's Nox's brother. Don't know if that's true or not.  Sent everything to them and we'll let them decide what to do with it.  Passed a background check from Sage too," Elyse said.

Anna frowned. "Elyse, he really told us that in confidence - we probably shouldn't tell everyone,"

Elyse nodded at that. "Anna is right - Juls - we're trusting you to not tell everyone, please. I probably shouldn't have said that.  It's just his story of searching for his family touched me quite deeply."

Anna grabbed Elyse's hand.  She knew Kallisti meant more to her than anything now.  Elyse wiped a tear from her eye.  She wasn't losing her cool, but Anna knew it had been a hard few days for her, and it didn't take much for her mind to wander back to her current troubles with her father.

"You okay?" Anna asked.

Elyse nodded. "I'll be fine.  This just happens sometimes."

[Sterling]

Sterling smiled and patted Marta on the hand. "They live with my cousin. He saved them from a bad place with monsters and now they live with him."

Liv chuckled. "We stay at his house, he's only been there one night. but he was with us for a few days at our old place. He didn't much like our parents."

Sterling chuckled that was an understatement. "Nox can be scary but he's a softy, and he loves kids. And Marta, you don't need to apologize for asking questions. No one will judge you here. We all come here for safety. We got work to do and then we can do the fun things. If you like drawing I can get you my cousin's laptop. He's got this 3d drawing program."

[Legione Sumus]

Juliana Nazarova (Moon Pyre)

Juls shook her head. "I'm not going to say anything, but if he's looking for Nox, just talking to him could be dangerous. Elyse, you know the danger he attracts. What would you say if you wanted to find someone? To get close to him. I mean Jacob came here looking to kill Nox and he's like an uncle to him. The Atharim can be anyone, and he isn't exactly flying under the radar." Juls looked towards Sterling, the original source of the viral videos that now floated around the internet bring in all sorts of people looking for Nox. "I'm glad you didn't give him anything, but you really should be careful. Even Sage can be wrong." Though she hadn't seen him be wrong yet. And Nox trusted him implicitly which scared Juls.

[Marta]

Marta smiled at the light touch of Sterling's hand and the kind words. She needed the reassurance that sometimes she hadn't done anything wrong. She didn't know why she still felt this way sometimes. She just sometimes got nervous that everyone was mad at her.

"Nox..." Marta said, thinking. The name sounded familiar to her. Where had she heard it before. She shrugged. "Well if we have to work before we play, then we should finish our work. Then play time - and I'd love to try the drawing program! I can show you some of my sketches too. But work first!"

Marta smiled at Sterling and then unexpectedly wrapped her in a hug. Marta rested her head on the other girl's shoulder and overcome with emotion she began to cry. "I'm...I'm...sorry. I'm feeling happy and I'm crying...this is weird. I guess I'm just very happy you're here."

[Elyse]

Some of the old thoughts began to creep in.  Maybe she had screwed up.  Maybe she hadn't been careful enough with Cade.  Maybe...

"Elyse," It was Anna's voice that brought her out.  Anna had seen something, or understood where Elyse's thoughts had been going. "It's not your fault. None of it."

Elyse took some deep breaths to calm down. "Thanks, Anna," Elyse said. She turned to Juls. "We'll be more careful."

Elyse's hand went reflexively to her arm with the tattoo.  Everyone knew it was there. Sometimes, Elyse felt like it burned.  She knew of course this was nothing, but she wanted to be rid of it.  She had to be rid of it. That was a former life.  A life she could no longer live. She looked towards Marta again.  Marta was hugging Sterling and she caught tears in the girl's eyes, but her smile was broad. Marta was beginning to find some peace.  If she could start over - so could Elyse.

"I met with a tattoo artist yesterday. I'm getting it covered - turned into something new.  Something more fitting for me...I'm not Atharim anymore."

"What are you getting?" Anna asked.

"Wait and find out," Elyse said with a smirk. "So back to work - the kids are making us look bad.  I'm doing the lone wolf looking for her pack - what is Jasmin up to tonight?"

Anna smiled at the use of her stage name. "Flower girl tonight! And what is our Moon Pyre gonna be tonight - illusion and flame again?" Elyse watched as Anna channeled a flame boa out of thin air, and wrapped it around Juls. Elyse knew she hadn't been able to do that before.  It looked like the lesson had been productive.

[Sterling]

Sterling pulled Nox's laptop out of her bag. While he was gone she'd taken to carrying it around. No one else needed it and it was safer with her than lying around for just anyone to take. Not that anyone would do that. This was an old one anyway, Sage had given Nox a new one when he gave him the new house. It must be nice to have a rich friend. Not that Sterling knew what Sage did to earn it. Probably a lot of illegal things. But she never asked.

Sterling set the laptop down at her table and showed Marta how to use it. The program projected the screen out from the table so it was visable to everyone, but she could turn it into the regular computer screen if she wanted. Sterling made sure she knew how all the tools worked before she set back down to work. It wouldn't take her long, but it would be a few hours to get through all her classes. The others would come and go as necessary. Liam being the only one who would still be working as everyone else did the fun things.

[Legione Sumus]

Juliana Nazarova (Moon Pyre)

Juls was glad Elyse wasn't stuck like Nox was. "I'm glad you feel you are more than that. Raised the way you two were it makes me glad to know that you have self worth beyond them." She didn't want to talk too much about the Atharim and she knew very little about it -- more than most people but Nox didn't talk too much about it. But he talked a lot about how he had been raised. And there was a lot of extraploation on her part. Elyse didn't seem to have such a harsh upbringing. "And this all can't be easy on you. So we shouldn't talk too much about it. But I'm glad to see you are moving on and I can't wait to see what you come up with. Maybe we should all go with you. I'm sure we'd all like some new art."

Juls only smirked at their comment on her act. "Yes. The same old same old. It's what the boys like, and I'm sure there will be some regulars."

[Marta]

Marta had homework, and she probably should have worked on it, but she didn't feel like it.  She knew it was against the rules of this place, but she couldn't wrap her mind around math, science, and language right now.  Her brain had to do something else, and Sterling gave her the perfect distraction.

Marta kept herself busy with the drawing app, practicing a few easy shapes to figure out how all the tools worked.  Sterling went to do her work,  and Marta kept herself entertained.  She began to drawing, looking occasionally at Sterling as she worked.  Marta smirked, hoping the girl wouldn't notice the way Marta would sneak glances at her and then turn back to draw what she had seen.

Marta didn't draw people realistically.  That was too difficult for her, but her love of comic books had let her to manga and anime, and that's the style she drew Sterling in now. She started with a stick figure and then a head.  She added guidelines - lines to show where her eyes should go as well as the nose, ears and mouth.  She then formed the body.  Seeing it from all sides, was an interesting new thing for her to do, but she caught on quickly.  She then added clothing and with another glance to Sterling, noted the way the girl's hair fell over her face, and added it.  Thinking about what she knew of Sterling already, she erased one of the arms and redrew it so that it reached forward, palm up.  Marta drew an orb above the hand added shines to make it look like a glowing ball of light.  She soon had a black and white drawing of an anime Sterling.

Marta switched to color, and began to color in the sketch. She looked more often at Sterling now, coloring exactly what she saw.  This Sterling would be wearing exactly what the girl was wearing now. The program seemed to autosave at intervals, but Marta had never trusted autosave.  She saved the work herself at periodic intervals, not wanting to lose what she had made. Marta smiled as she finished and then added a stylized MG at the bottom - her own monogram.

[Elyse]

Elyse nodded - if the crowd loved it - nor reason to change it, and the crowd loved what she did too. The golden eyes drew them in. Elyse remembered Seven and how he had been drawn in by them. She still wasn't sure if he actually knew that they were real or not. He probably thought they were some sort of advanced contact lenses. And thinking about Seven made her miss him. She had wished he would have become a regular.

Anna was able to draw people in through sheer sexuality. Elyse wasn't sure if it just came from her stripping days or if there was more to it than that, but the crowd responded to her, despite her routine just being "vanilla" at this point. Elyse was excited to see what would happen when she started using more of her magic.

Elyse was drawn once again to Marta - she seemed to be doing alright, and Elyse's check ins were becoming less frequent. Marta was using Nox's 3D drawing program. "Guys, look at that," she said to both Anna and Juls.

Marta had been drawing enough for the picture to come together. "Is she drawing Sterling?" Anna asked.

Elyse nodded. "She's a very talented young lady."

Marta wasn't just doing well, she was thriving here. Her wallet buzzed and she saw it was a message from Ricky, checking to see how things are doing. Elyse responded.

She's doing really well. Can't tell she had a panic attack not too long ago. We need to talk about her Ricky - nothing bad, but I think she could do well here. The kids here during the day - they go to an online school. I've never seen her like this before."

He sent back a response. Really? You're at Kallisti and they have that there? Send me the school information, and I'll check it out - we'll talk about it when I come get her.

Elyse smiled. Ricky would be convinced when he saw Marta - Elyse had never seen her like this.

[Sterling]

Sterling wasn't the first one done with her work. Emma didn't much like doing her work and got in trouble with Liv most often, but she was sitting behind Marta watching her. "That's pretty good. You should make a book." Emma said with a smile. "Liam writes. If he'll let you read it. It's pretty good." Emma laughed. "Could write a story about all our tragedies. It'd be a horror show and therapeutic."

Sterling interrupted. "I don't think anyone is ready for that yet. Specially you and definitely not Liam." She turned around and stole a glance at Liam. He was cute, but he was a lot of work -- too much like Nox. And that wasn't something she wanted to deal with. Liam Marquis, though he was cute too and he wasn't quite as much work -- a trouble maker in another vein.

She closed her laptop and turned to see what Marta was doing. "Is that me? That's so awesome!"