Welcome to Gaia! ::

The air was too warm inside the shop where she stood, and her black hair would have been frizzing if not for the copious amounts of wax put into her hair to keep it in her elaborate double-bun style. Browsing the aisles, Heung Qing Rayen could not have looked anything more than faintly irritated. Her shoes clicked as she stopped and executed a military-perfect ninety-degree turn to face the section she'd found. Male Dolls. Well, why not? She grabbed a skeleton at random, curling her fingers around the hard plastic box that kept it from harm.

Qing's eyes narrowed as she flipped the box over, reading the advertising spiel on the cardboard insert in the back. The colorful print was clearly meant to belay the creepiness of the box's contents, but she was plenty creepy herself. The neons only made her grimace more pronounced. "Well, I need one," she reasoned, flipping it in her hands quite carelessly as she walked quickly to the walls of essences and their bottles. Her bright blue eyes flicked quickly along the walls, reading and then discarding each essence, moving to the next space on the wall. "What to pick?" she murmured to herself, tapping perfectly manicured nails on her lower lip. Each black nail came away tainted with her blood-colored lipstick. It looked as if she's ripped off someone's face with her nails after a while.

The bell in the shop dinged. She turned to face the new arrival; before this, she'd been the only one in the shop, other than the bored cashier.

K- cradled the tiny "skeleton" of her puppet in her left arm as she pushed open the glass door of the large, widely advertised shop, the bell ringing as she entered. She cowered a moment under the bright, flashing screens that covered the walls, playing commercials and game footage as obnoxious pop songs played in the background. This was certainly much more elaborate than the branch in her sector.

It gave her a headache. K- was tired, and hungry. She had spent all day looking for this, the first and largest Porcelain Reality store, one of many that now littered the streets of T-city. But she had decided that if she really wanted to play this game, she'd at least have to visit the main branch once.

"Why are we here again?" a meek, but curious voice came from her arms. It belonged to Jinhai, her skeletal companion.

The soles of her knee-high boots squeaked on the well polished tiles as K- walked through a row labeled "equipment". "We're looking for an outfit for you." Answered K- curtly, stealing a glance at one of the other customers in the store as she passed. " Plus, this store might have some special items they don't have at our branch."

K- felt kind of stupid talking to the small robotic figurine, but the instruction manual had said to keep it with her. She had brought the starter pack with her, too, and had wrapped the puppet in a small gauze blanket to keep it from getting to dirty on the way over. She wouldn't let the puppet break without even reaching level 3!

After picking an essence- Ocean- Qing wandered over the length of the store to look at the outfits, bright eyes sharp as she stared at the rows of clothing. In what appeared to be complete ignorance of the "male" marking on her puppet's box, she stopped in front of a section that was populated with extremely girly dresses. The miniature hangers and small boxes clicked together as she browsed the dresses, looking for variations on color and style with a designer's eye.

"Okay, let's see then. Something that is strong, so attacks don't do so much damage, and something that doesn't get in the way of fighting. Go down this isle right here, Ma'am." Arkom pointed down an isle with all sorts of male clothes.

Qing looked up as another entered her aisle, then narrowed her eyes at them. Shifting her box so the male marking was plainly seen by the others, she continued to flip through the boxes and racks of dresses. She was looking for something particularly frilly, preferably in a light blue or black. If there was lace, all the better. There were three things she was looking for uberspecifically: leather, lace, and frills.

And it had to, had to be a dress.

Through some miracle of fast walking, a good eye, and a sudden feeling of "get out of there" Qing made it to one of the two cashiers in good time. Placing her purchases on the counter, she sighed and ignored the cashier as he rang things up and tried to send her to the Male Dolls section to pick out boyish clothing. She simply picked up the dresses and put them back down. "That'll be 7,905 gold, ma'am," the poor boy said nervously, watching as she placed the exact amount of gold on the counter. "Uhm- are you sure you don't want to get some male clothes? In case your doll doesn't like dresses?" he suggested, counting the gold. "It wouldn't increase your total by more than one hundred gold..."

"You won't leave me alone until I get some clothes for a male doll, will you," she said flatly. "I told you. This is fine." She picked up her bag and went over to the small community section, starting to dress her skeleton with finality. It was a black dress with white frills, ribbons and bows. Outside of the box, it looked like any other skeleton might, and when she discarded the box she could almost forget she was making a crossdressing doll.

She hummed cheerfully as she fastened the last miniature button. "I simply prefer dresses to pants." Crossing her legs, she gently kissed the skeleton on the forehead with all the love and tenderness of a mother. It was almost creepy, considering the frigid aura she projected and the fact that it was a skeleton. "Besides, Water is such a feminine element, don't you think?"

The dark-haired woman only shook her head. "Perhaps you just haven't tried hard enough, Angel dear. It's a pleasure to meet you, Kudow, Shaku..." She lifted her skeleton, chilly smirk back in full-force. "This will be Ocean, when he's born."