Welcome to Gaia! ::

In a clearing in Gaioh's forest was a special spot, built by Valora, to hone her archery skills. On one end was a rack filled with different bows and a large amount of differing arrows. The opposite end held various targets at various distances in various positions, some even nailed to the branches of far off trees. It was here where Valora practiced her aim with her bow.

Archery... Nova had never been a warlike person, nor much of a fighter, in fact she discouraged violence in all it's forms. Archery however had always seemed oddly peaceful. The smooth tension of the string, the whistle of air as the arrow was loosed and the gentle thud of a well placed shot in a straw bale. She'd never even considered aiming a bow at another person or living thing, it'd always just been an excercise in concentration for her, but now as he stepped up to claim her arrows, that would all change.

Drawing back the long loose sleeves of her dusky olive robes, Nova knocked her first arrow with a little smile for the familiar pleasure of it all. She drew, straining the bow to it's fullest (it was light weight one as she wouldn't have been able to handle the heavier ones) and let fly with a perfect arrow... perfect, it arced just enough to hit the target, there was no wind to skew it and it should have hit the target dead center-

Except it hit something else. There was a high pitched yelp in place of the satisfying thud and the color drained from Nova's face as quickly as the bow dropped. Her small hands clapped to her mouth in horror, and before she was even moving towards the bale, the tears were already welling.

"No... no, no no!"

How was it possible?! She could never hurt an innocent creature! She was a vegetarian for pete's sake! It wasn't fair! Her aim had been perfect hadn't it? So distraught was she at the possibility of harming a poor cute fuzzy creature, that it never occured to think it a prank. Plus she was alone out here right?

The girl ran, stumbling in her long silken robes, to her target, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. She was terrible person! how could she be so careless! Stupid stupid stupid!

The strange little thread would indeed go unnoticed through Nova's layering of fabrics. But how convenient it was... for just as the tether ran out Nova had trod irreversibly on her over-sized hakama, and might have plummeted straight to her face had not the dream thread snapped taunt and tugged her back a pace.

"..." With wide confused eyes the color of smoked amethyst, she titled her head to strain a peek at the offending champion. For that instant the tragically injured creature was momentarily forgotten and Nova's tears halted to simply dry on her cheeks.

"Hello?" She called with a voice unsteady with distress and now thick with a heaping serving of uncertainty. What had started out as a dull peaceful day had certainly taken a turn toward to unusual.

By this point it was becoming less and less astounding to find herself leashed and gazing at Westly. Hadn't she been hearing of his little attempts at self amusment lately? of course she hardly thought this was amusing.

Eyes still red and moist with tears, Nova stared flatly at her Torrmentor as he leapt into what seemed to be an oddly random story telling. Well than again perhaps sense he did have a captive audience, it was the perfect time. To bad Nova was laking the mental clarity at the moment to get much out of it.

A moment passed in silence as the story finished, at which point a bird sang and somewhere in the tall grass another free spirit slithered past. Nova blinked past her confusion, and with a flush of embarressment that was non the less still over shadowed by her own self loathing; scrubbed the tears from her cheeks.

"Than does that make you the rabbit or." Her tone hardened slighty. "the hound?" She asked, suspistion creeping into her tone as she reaccessed her earlier shooting. Really, there was no possible way she could have misplaced that arrow...

The pink of Nova's cheeks brightened considerably and her eyes narrowed as she pivoted to fully face Westly. It might have taken her longer than usual to figure this out than it would have had the illusion concerned another subject but that wasn't why she was upset... nor was she distressed over an imaginary rabbit. Now it was just basic manners.

"You little snipe! What a terrible trick. I'd think some one of your intelliegence would have something better to do with their time!" She scolded, her voice still a bit shaky but gaining strength. "And to think I looked up to you!" She scowled, an expression that seemed entirely misplaced(Perhaps Nekage had lost one of his?)

Now it wasn't easy to make Nova mad, in fact it was a very particular art but Westly had quite succeeded and she was in no mood for a lesson on reality. "You're a horrible Boy!" She spouted at last seeming run out of words and she was simply to rattled to come up with better. In her mind it was quite the rude insult besides.

Nova blinked at Westly's retreating back, fingers slowly relaxing from the clenched fists that had unintentionally become. Loathsome? She might not have gone so far as to use that word... and in the face of departure her temper vanished on the breeze. It just wasn't in her to stay mad for long... seconds was pushing it really. Perhaps she had been harsh, and a bit clouded in her judgement. She just didn't like to think that she'd tainted herself with innocent blood and well Westly had managed to trick that suggestion into her head. Maybe she had been merely embarrassed more than anything and it wasn't fair to punish him for that.

In any case she didn't want to push away anyone, especially the only other social member of her clan...

"Oh don't pout!" Though even now Westly didn't really seem to be the pouting type. She huffed and exasperated sigh and flicked her to over-long sleeves away from her hands in order to gather her hem up off the ground. "Wait for me! I don't really feel like archery any more..."

Nova paused, cocking her head slightly to regard the boy before her. Her expression to was blank, but in comparison it was more like an unwritten slate waiting for a message. Than it cracked and her eyes squeezed closed into little crescents of amusement. All she had to do was switch her way of looking at the situtation. Negative to Positive. That was the true secret to enlightenment and happiness.

"You're not mad are you Horrible boy?" She teased, pulling a complete 180 from her earlier mood. "I guess sense there was no harm I must admit there is no real fowl. I should be more aware anyhow." She snuck a peek at Westly, still smiling contagiously and bobbed a quick bow. "Thank you Westly-san, for the lesson."

There was that familiar arrogance again that Nova had come to associate with Westly. Pleased to be back on comfortable footing, Nova clasped her hands behind her back and wandered to her clan mate's side, starting back towards the village.

"Good cause I need some practice..." She hinted, drawing the topic away from his recent prank to something more productive. "I'm afraid I'm soarly under-experienced as a gaioh shinobi and the chuunin exams are approaching faster than I'd like." a side long glance was turned upon Westly, Nova's eyes still gleaming with their subtle warmth.