Popcorn, Clio and Rides, oh my!

Ranuki scanned the crowd, trying to locate Aven. The two had been separated by the crowd soon after entering the carnival grounds. Since he was supposed to be accompanying her, Ranuki had to find him. It wasn't right to just abandon someone after saying they could come with you.

Indary was busy attempting to track Aven's and Ra's scent, but it was hard with so many clio and their daemons. With a disgusted snort, Indary sat down and glared at the surrounding clio. 'Stupid smelly clio and their stupid smelly daemons.' He muttered sulkily. Ranuki sighed as she stood on tiptoes, striving for the faintest glimpse of Aven.

Aven, to be honest, hadn't even noticed that he had been separated from Ran and Indary. Ra was enjoying himself to well to play Jiminy Cricket to Aven anymore.

In fact, he didn't notice until it was only him and Ra at the top of the ferris wheel with cotton candy. He frowned up there, and looked all around his swaying cart in the sky. 'Ra? Where's Ranuki?'
'What?'
'She's not here anymore...'
'Oh. Oh well, she was a stick in the mud anyways.'
Aven laughed and nodded, looking around again. He found her on the ground almost directly below him.

"Speak of the Devil." He chirped, grinning. "Heeeeeeeeeeeey!" he shrieked down at her, "Ran! Up HERE!" He waved his arms violently yelling for her. The other clio up around him, who were on the ride despite apparent fears of height, yelled for him to stop moving as they clung to the clio next to them. "I'm up here!" He said, putting a bite of cotton candy into his mouth.

Gem was all by herself in the Taffy Carnival, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from having a good time! She bought herself some cotton candy and shared it with Sen, who was sitting on her shoulder in the form of a chipmunk.

'Whattaya wanna do, Sen?' Gem asked, skipping through the crowd. 'We can go on rides, or play games, whatever you want!'

'Let's play some games, I'll win you a teddy bear,' Sen replied sarcastically.

Gem giggled. 'You're so funny Sen! ...Ewww! I think I got cotton candy in my hair!'

She ran her hands through her hair a few times while Sen jumped from her shoulder to the top of her head. All of a sudden, she heard someone screaming above her. She, as well as many other clio, looked up to the ferris wheel. It was some guy yelling to one of his friends. A very cute guy, Gem thought. She kept staring up until she accidentally ran into someone.

"Ah! I'm so sorry!" she gasped to the tall, gray-haired girl.

What a nice day to be at the carnival thought Goruhana. She was on the merry go-round. She loved the merry go-round. She wasn't really one to ride the rides that went fast or high. No, the merry go-round was just right for her. She would probably ride it over and over again.

Tel on the other hand, who was on the horse right next to her, begged her to go on something more exciting.

Please please please he begged. But Goruhana wouldn't budge.

Hearing a familiar voice yelling at her, Ranuki looked up and saw the frantically waving and yelling Aven. 'Ran? It's been ages since anyone called me that..'

"It's actually rather funny to see. I wished he'd waited for me though. I like ferris wheels." Ranuki muttered to the scandalized looking Indary.

'I'm the one who's supposed to draw attention!' He protested indignantly. Any reply from Ranuki was cut off as someone bumped into her back. Ranuki glanced over her shoulder to see who had run into, giving an absent minded wave up at Aven all the while.

Aven watched the gray haired girl run into Ranuki.

"I could have warned you!" He hollered, "Except I was just so surprised that I couldn't say anything at all!" He laughed at himself. "Can you entertain yourselves for sometime? I'll be down in like three minutes."

Gemma's eyes went wide and she took a step back when the tall girl turned towards her. She was a little scary. Then she waved to the cute guy. She was his friend. Maybe his girlfriend, Gemma thought with a slightly sinking feeling.

"Oh, heh heh, sorry about that!" she exclaimed, waving her hands apologetically. "I mean, like, you know how it is, you're talking to your daemon, totally not paying attention and than BAM! You run into someone! You know? Right? Well that's what happened anyway!"

When Gem got nervous she started to talk a lot...actually when she got anything she started to talk a lot, but right now she just happened to be a little nervous.

After a few more rides on the merry go-round Goruhana and Tel got off.

They started toward the exit, when all of a sudden the deafening noise stopped them in their tracks. They stood and stared and it's cause just like the surrounding clio....

The person who had bumped into her was a short pretty girl who seemed to be rather nervous, in Ranuki's opinion. She also started to talk a lot which amused Ranuki. "It's fine. I'm surprised no ones done that earlier, this being such a crowded place."

Slowly the ride came to a stop and Aven lept off, thrilled to be released into the public again. "Hi!" He shrieked, "What'd I miss?" He came to a halt in front of Ranuki and a new young lady. "Heeey! You have, like, the same color hair as Ran!"

Aven was absolutely thrilled. "Where'd she come from?" He touched the new clio's shoulder and tugged on some of her hair. "Huh, Ran?"

Gemma gasped and and blushed when the tall girl's friend approached them. This guy was cute from far away, but close up he was gorgeous! AND he was touching her! She was amazed she didn't swoon and faint right then and there.

After staring at Aven with her mouth hanging open for a split second, she finally found her voice. "I...I didn't come from anywhere! Actually I did, right over there, I got some cotton candy. And I heard you yelling so I looked up, you know, to see who was yelling, cuz that was before I saw it was you. And I accidentally bumped into your friend!"

She turned to the "Ran" girl. "Sorry about that again!"

Then to both of them: "My name's Gemma, by the way! And this cute li'l guy is Seneca!" She pointed to her daemon, who was still on top of her head

As Goruhana stood there listenting to the loud sirens, she just stared at the game of where it was coming. It was a game where you had to climb a horizontally inclined rope ladder without falling over. Someone had just won and the sirens were still sounding. Gosh they were loud. All the surrounding clio were stopped and surrounding the game. There was a huge crowd. Goruhana guessed they were there before watching the winning clio climb, who was now picking out his prize.

Once Goruhana saw the game she knew she had to try it. She started over to the game.

"I'm Ranuki, and this Jackal is my daemon, Indary." Ranuki introduced herself, eying the strangely silent Indary with a raised brow. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Ranuki finished, looking back at Gemma.

Aven smiled from clio to clio, not at all fazed by Gemma's strange, apprehensive flirty weirdness. "I love cotton candy," he said excitedly, taking some from her cone-thing and popping it in his mouth, letting it melt on his tongue. He looked Gemma up and down momentarily and grinned again. "Thanks." He laughed, ignoring Ra's rude comments in his head.

"Oh. Y...you're welcome," Gemma said dazedly, feeling like she were about to melt. Even in a normal state of mind she wouldn't have found this clio's act of taking her cotton candy off-putting, so she didn't have any trouble letting it go. Sen, on the other hand...

'What a rude guy, huh Gem?' he said. Gem didn't respond. '...Gem? Hello? Anyone there?' He knocked on Gemma's head lightly with his little paw.

'What?' Gem blinked. Sen merely sighed. "So, uh, what's your names?" she asked of the guy and his daemon.

Goruhana reached the game, reached into her pocket and pulled out the right amount of money and handed it to the clio in charge of the game. She entered the box of the game and climbed up onto the mat.

You're gonna make a fool of yourself Teleaden mocked her

Shuddup, no im not! Goruhana told him telepathically.

She climbed up onto the rope ladder and it already swayed back and forth a couple of times. Fortunately, Goruhana kept her balance. No this was not going to be easy. She climbed to the fourth rung and then it started to get more difficult. She almost fell trying to get to the fifth one. She spread her feet out more and slowly made it to the sixth one. As she was reaching for the seventh one, which was only two more away from the top, she lost her balance and fell over, landing on her back.

Told ya Tel laughed from the sidelines.

Goruhana glared at him as she got up. She noticed that clio were surrounding the game and watching her. She didn't care. She pulled more money out of her pocket and handed it to the clio in charge and headed back to the rope.

'Hmm. Do I detect some befuddlement? And she certainly is a nervous person...'

'You could say that again.' Indary agreed.