ooc:

Some more time looking about and they fnially found them. Indeed, it couldn't be too difficult a task with Ganymede's hair flashing like a moving trafic light. Zekke on the other hand, even being a quite tall guy, was nowhere at sight. Nadia looked back at Jaren to make sure he was still there and knowing what she was doing, before starting towards Ganymede.

"Hey, Gany!" she called entering the rather large store and immediately searching for the missing boy - Gany also seemed to be looking for him. "Where is Zekke?" she asked as if only to make an announcement of her actions.

"I'm right here!" Zekke called out upon hearing his name being called from where he was crouching in front of the other counter, eyeing the various pastries with something akin to a gleam in his eyes. He hurriedly made his purchase and held the bag up for the others to see.

"Despite this being a sweets shoppe, they have great snack pastries here too and I figured I'd buy a few for us in case we get hungry and can't find something to eat."

He chuckled at Ganymede, eyeing the treats she had bought. "Found everything you want? You can get them shipped to my house if you don't want to carry them all right now or are afraid of them melting or something. I think the bag they give you will shrink everything."

Seeing Nadia and Jaren, he nodded in the direction of the bank and grinned. "got everything taken care of?"

Jaren nodded shortly, commenting at the back of his mind that almost everytime in his life when anything associated with the concept of "French" ended one way or another with the mention of food.

He supposed it was something to do with culture.

"Oh, hi Zekke!" Nadia said somewhat dumbly and waved at the spotted guy. She refused his offer for partries, as tempting as it was, her excitement wouldn't let her eat anything alse but that icecream. As a matter of fact, she couldn't remember was being hungy was about.

With a grin plastered in her face, Nadia faced the group and told, "Whatever we do let's do it! I cannot wait - where will we go first?" she had started counting both in her head and aloud with an enthusiasm you didn't see everyday, "Museum? The Eiffel? The Moulin Rouge - no, wait, that probably has nightshows."


ooc: French = Food? Seriously? And here I thought it was the Italians...

ooc: It's because Zekke has a great love for food and he happens to be French. Sorry!

"To the Louvre, then to Moulin, then to the Eiffel?" Zekke dug into his pocket and pulled out a small rolled up piece of parchment which suddenly became 4 sheets of parchment. On each parchment was displayed a map of Paris with major attractions and whatnot highlighted and there were also lines drawn from here to there, indicating transportation lines.

He handed one sheet to each person.

"The Louvre is here... the Eiffel is here... and the Moulin is there..." He pointed out the places on his map, which conveniently glowed ever so slightly at their mention.

"The Louvre is sort of in the middle of everything and I can show you Paris while we get to the Louvre. The Moulin is better to visit at night, but at the same time, it's more dangerous during the night and I already promised Pere I wouldn't take you guys there late at night. Thus, I'll compromise by taking you to visit the Moulin in the evening to late evening, then we can head to the Eiffel and see it at night. It's a more public place, so we're less likely to run into trouble."

He cocked an eyebrow at Jaren briefly, as if asking... something. He had a sudden nagging sensation in the back of his mind and he wondered if it was his own sense of paranoia or if he were picking it up from someone else.

Then he turned to everyone. "How does that sound? Do you guys like carriage rides?"

Nadia took her corresponding map and gazed at it. She had an expression that said 'Oh, alright.' Seems things aren't that different from home, Nadia thought. "Louvre it is then," she muttered and nodded even more enthusiastically like a house elf at the mentioning of carriages over saying anything. She would look from one to the other when those two had those look-exchange. But not make more of it. "I'm following you, Zekke," she finally said with a shippish smile.

Jaren shrugged indifferently at the proposed sightseeing order, not really caring much either way. He looked up from his map to Zekke's questioning expression, though it took him about a second to figure out why the other boy would be looking that way. He nodded in reply. To the other two it would seem merely as if he was agreeing to the sightseeing plan, though to Zekke it held a silent yeah, it's me, just ignore it answer as well.

Seemly reaching an agreement, Nadia looked around at the area of the park Zekke had before gestured. She narrowed her eyes, then climbed a nearby lightpost to gain some height and got in a position that could very well have been paroding a sailor looking for land. Finally her expression and eyes seemed to bright the same her lips formed a small of triumph. "There!" she pointed to the front where a carriage was coming their way, pulled by a white corcel, crossing a small bridge in the park.

Nadia jumped from the lightpost, giving the thumbs up on Ganymede's French-look, and then edging the people to move, follow her to the spotted carriage.

This carriage was... pinkish. The owner definitely liked pastel; white and light brown, baby blue strings, old pink laces and cap. Mind, it wasn't exactly burd and complimented with the color of the horse, but in contrast to other passing carriages which came from red-black to different tones of brown, this one looked much... "bright-ish". Nadia didn't seem to mind, since she was calling and making the carriage pull to a stop by now, having left the group a little behind in her race. She had already climbed the first step of the carriage and was waving back at the group to edge them to join her.

In her defense, no other carriage seemed to be avaliable right then and there.

ooc: is this pulled by a horse?

:: Ganymede, who was a afraid of horses, squeemishly hopped on after Nadia.

She got comfertable in the carriage. It was a new experience, it was bumpy and squeaky. She waited for the other two and hoped they'd get to the Louvre soon. She never been there and heard it was awesomely huge. She liked the inside, rather comfy and cozy. She wondered if they had more paintings than Hogwarts. She knew they wouldn't talk or move. She started thinking it may get boring. ::

Zekke suppressed a groan as the carriage pulled up. PINK? A PINK carriage?! Oh well. This was going to be something to remember. In all his years taking a carriage from Petit to Paris, he had never encountered a pink carriage - not even once. It was just their luck, he supposed.

There was no other empty carriage at the moment, and he chuckled ruefully and swung himself into the carriage with practiced ease, his booted feet making a light thumping sound as they hit the floor of the carriage.

"And of course, it had to be pink," he couldn't resist commenting. The pink either clashed or blended - or both! - spectacularly with his mostly black affair and he was sure it was quite a sight to see.

ooc: Glad to have you back.

Jaren eyed the pink carriage and mentally shrugged. As long as the ride was short, he wouldn't mind. He patted the horse pulling the carriage lightly on the nose before entering it himself.

Like Zekke, Jaren's clothing clashed horrendously with the pink of the carriage, mainly because he was wearing a combination of dark green, navy blue and grey. Ignoring it for the most part he sat down and looked out the window of the carriage.

Only when she found the contrast of the black and dark colors, with the pink of the carriage, did it occurred to Nadia to consider, and notice, the color of the carriage. On the other hand Jaren was pretty calm Ganymede and Zekke were already in. Well, guess it didn't matter. After all, who was Nadia to know what was and was not ridiculous looking?

Shrugging, she sat in the back seat by the side of Zekke and accross from Ganymede. Likewise, her gaze had immediately turned to the outsides (though the window? I was thinking of an open carriage. Oh well). The carriage started moving to make its usual way though the park, in a rather slow speed to let space for gazing about. Nadia prayed her eyes only momentarily.

"Once we reach the other end, will we be still inside Petit Paris? Or will we have reached the muggle part of the city?" she asked curiously.

ooc: Sorry guys... been sick and not sick and sick again... *headdesk*

"Fifteen minutes or so," Zekke nodded. "There's a special route we take to get to the city from here. It's quite protected and safe from muggles, but it's a bit of a journey for that very reason. The scenery is pretty nice though, and if you look carefully, you'll be able to tell when we cross the barrier. I can show you the route on a map when we get back home."

ooc: Feel free to make conversation or make the carriage ride come to an end. The carriage will stop at Paris at a little mass transportation station area and they can choose to go on another carriage ride or take various other forms of transportation from there.

Nadia nodded, "Mh, just wanted to make sure. If we should be careful about magic while we are in here."

She fell quiet and looked outside, gazing about at the plants, many of which she remembered from Herbology class in previous years. No doubt this was still wizarding part of Paris. The garden of plants were beautiful in every color and tidily arranged about. The sound of horseshoe beating over the park way paved with stones.

"So," Nadia started taking her eyes from the view for a minute. "Well, I don't know - how have you been? And, umh, planning something for when back at Hogwarts?"

One of the subjects she was facing she knew for not making this type of easy chatting, but nevertheless was one conversations that had to pop out. She grinned unable to contain the excitement and edged the others to speak.

Jaren pondered over the questions in his mind. Well, to compare, this particular summer had run more smoothly than any of his previous ones. And was he planning something for the next year at Hogwarts? He was a Prefect, the Ministry left things at loose ends last term, half the current students would live with the new change but the other half was teetering on the brink of an impromtu revolt, and he hadn't even factored in the fresh batch of first-years or external influences yet.

Was he planning something? Did Harry Potter have a scar the shape of a lightning bolt?

But as usual, Jaren declined to say anything and simply watched the outside scenery roll by.

For a small crazy second Nadia thought she would see Jaren, despite all laws of the universe, respond and be part of a seemly friendly conversation of sorts. But no, that was just the fates of said attempt; as soon as it was there it was gone, and he was back at staring outside. And, really, Nadia wondered why so if there was no one in this group who could possibly...

Well, if he had been staying with Zekke over the summer that would be understood as some confidence - or was it them, Gany and her, who he didn't trust? Ah, silly girl, of course, forgot Kymers do not trust anybody.

Rolling her eyes to her own thoughts, which from an outsider's point of view would come out as something a bit peculiar-looking, Nadia leaned back and the ride continued. Of course, all this happened only in seconds as she waited for some reponse to have this conversation and pass time as they arrived to the other side of the park.

Zekke chuckled quietly at Nadia's question and grinned. "I'm not sure if planning is necessary. Things have a knack of happening all on their own without any planning whatsoever."

He was silent for a moment as he fell deep into thought, then pulled himself back out. "We did work on something over the last few weeks, though... a possible communications... thing. So we can all keep in touch or something. I'll show you when we get back home."

With a grin, he leaned back into his seat and regarded Nadia and Ganymede with bright inquisitive green eyes. "How has your summer been?"

Nadia blinked at the answer. Why would something be happening without planning? Ah, she guessed that would be some kind of phylosophical outlook of things. She was never good on those.

Then looked up again, since she had relaxed as well and a bit dissappointed that there was no, err, sharing, when Zekke spoke again. She frowned remembering something of last train ride home. Nadia nodded at the revelation, amazed that he would have achieved something. None of her experimentations have reached great results. Like with the prism or the binocular idea... but anyways. Maybe she was being a little bit too ambitious.

At the question, she dropped her small frown to nod again once more part of teh conversation. "Oh, good enough. I have been... dealing with some problems that I left hanging from an year before." Here her eyes briefly moved sideways to Jaren, since the boy would easily tell how much of that was true. "As you know, I can only stay for two days as most, because of my parents' sudden paranoia. I'm reaching something."

OK, maybe she was being vague and unneccesarily dramatic. "I haven't gotten to do much on studing. Err, my only journey to the Magical Community I usually go went a bit... rather... wrong."

Again, why, why from all the things she could have mentioned it occurred to her to mention that? I mean, there would be a thousand ways to avoid the question or just say 'hey, perfect, peachy! I was going to invite you over too but you know how those things go with sisters fighting over space'. She cleared her throat after the mental rambling. Closed her eyes, and as if she hadn't said anything in the first place said, "Yeah, it was fine."

"Ohh?" Zekke's eyebrow arched at her words and he leaned on an elbow as he regarded her with an expression of mute interest. "Well, it's been... interesting enough over here, I suppose." He glanced over at Jaren, his eyes flickering a bit as he said 'interesting'.

"It's amazing what one can learn from boardgames, you know? Strategics and the like." It seemed there was something else on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't vocalize the thought.

"Like it's physically impossible to load thirty units onto Ireland--it would sink," Jaren replied, straight-faced.

He'd been over at Nadia's place to help sort out the "problems", and it had been a fairly messy affair. However, he was sure whatever would be facing him and everyone else at Hogwarts in September was going to be even worse.

Nadia nodded, "Oh, strategies! Like Wizarding Chess?" she had asked, before Jaren proceedded with his explanation. "Oh," she replied frowning. She didn't suppose it was chess after all. So. "Sounds interesting. Maybe we can play when we come back to your home, Zekke?"

She sat back, as if re-sitting. "Umh, I like strategies as well. Just reading this very interesting book, Witty Stratag--" she paused, how silly. "Ah, nevermind. I brought it with me, so I can show it to you later." Maybe to Ganymede alone, if Jaren had shown his copy to Zekke...

Just then, she noticed something about herself. Frowning to herself, she wondered... why was she speaking of this, of these subjects, like it was some kind of secret? Not surprisingly, she couldn't explain it.

Nadia nodded at Ganymede's explanation but only not to admit she had understood only one third of it. But at least she undertoos the part about her sister coming back. Wonders if she would still be in Hufflepuff.

"Who's like you? You mean, a metamorphagus?" Nadia asked with her eyes a bit too open. Then she frowned and prayed her eyes of Ganymede but her eyes still had a strange glint on them. (She was trying to pay further attention, since she was having so much trouble understanding all of the sudden.) "Wait, and did you say Hebe knew metamorph...maginess," she was sure that word had to be invented, then shook her head and finally narrowed her eyes, "you hadn't told Hebe was a metamorphmagus too."