"You can come with me to the mall Jana but you have to stay in the car," Maia said the next morning, hoping it would calm the dog enough that she would stop jumping around whining and barking. It worked. She sat obediently on the floor and looked up at her mistress with a dog smile on her face.

"Shameless beggar," her father said, patting the dark red dog on the head as he walked past the two of them.

"Gee, I wonder how she got that habit?" Maia asked, sticking her tongue out at her father.

"Not a clue," her father replied with an innocent grin. His expression turned serious, "Are you sure you're okay with me leaving for a week?" He had to go to Tokyo for a week to get his work caught up before he was to get settled in at his new office.

"Perfectly fine, Papa. I'll try to keep the parties to a minimum and I'll make sure nothing gets broken. All the evidence of alcohol will be gone by the time you get back, too," she replied with a mischievous look.

"Better be," he replied, kissing her on the top of the head. "Be careful while I'm gone." With that, he hugged her and headed out the door.

"Have a good time, Papa," she called on his way out. When he was gone, she looked down at Jana. "Well dear, what should I wear to go shopping today?"

Jana got up and made her way over to her food dish.

"Thanks for the help," Maia said sarcastically as she made her way back to her room to go through her closet.



Maia grumbled under her breath as she walked back out to her car carrying three bags of school uniforms. I hate uniforms, they're so…blah, she thought to herself. She unlocked the back of the big black jeep her father had bought her before they left Miami and tossed her bags in. Jana jumped out as soon as the back was opened wide enough and danced around her excitedly.

She looked up when Jana stopped jumping around and whuffed softly, looking towards the mall. She groaned inwardly when she saw a group of people about her age walking towards her. I hope to the Goddess that they're not like Kaylie. I don't want to deal with that right now, she thought. She took a deep breath and put on her "hi, nice to meet you" smile as they got closer.

The group walked up to the girl, the young man with the dark blue hair smiling. "Hi," he gently presented his hand, "I'm Rowen Hashiba, and these are my friends Sai Mouri and Humility Black. I'm going to be showing you our school on Monday, and thought it would be nice to smile and say hello."

Maia's smile became more genuine when he introduced himself and his friends. Especially when the one named Sai blushed when he was introduced. "Well, I appreciate your coming to introduce yourself to me. Even though you know who I am, allow me to introduce myself anyways. Maia Rainsong. It's nice to meet all of you," she said, hiding her surprise when Jana walked up to Rowen and sniffed his hand.

Rowen looked down at the gorgeous red dog and scratched her softly behind the ears. "It's nice to meet you Maia," he said, his sapphire eyes meeting her cerulean ones.

Maia found herself blushing slightly. Oh Goddess, I'm blushing like a school girl, she thought. "It's nice to meet you as well. You three are the first people I've met from school that have been even remotely polite to me and I appreciate it," she told him.

"Who else have you met?" Rowen asked, feeling a twinge of protectiveness at the thought of someone being mean to the dark angel before him. She was dressed casually in a pair of faded Levi's, a small black t-shirt with the Playboy logo on it and a pair of black work boots. Her hair was pulled through the back of an old, worn baseball cap and hung straight down, curling attractively at the ends.

"Some girl named Kaylie and her two little lackeys," Maia replied, "Warned me to stay away from her man. Some guy named Sage Date."

Sai laughed, knowing well that Sage had his heart set on another. "Don't worry about Sage hitting on you. Although, usually he'd be all over you, he's so gone on Hugh here that he probably doesn't notice you exist," he and Rowen exchanged knowing glances, both smiling. "And don't worry about Kaylie, Sage hates her anyways. She totally was sprung on Ryo until he brushed her off like lint, then she tried to attach herself upon Sage. He doesn't like those blonde types, much. Only to flirt with."

Maia smiled, "I'll keep that in mind." She noticed Humility hiding herself behind Rowen, trying to watch her without her noticing. Hmm, I wonder where she got the bruises from, she thought, glancing away so that the girl wouldn't realize she had noticed them, That's probably why she's hiding her face in the first place. She sighed inwardly, I hate seeing anyone so unsure of themselves, I wonder if there's anything I can do to help her. "So, have there been a lot of new students coming to Han'a'High lately?" she asked.

Rowen nodded, watching her closely and not even caring that he was staring, "Yeah. In fact, Humility here started just last month."

Maia noticed Humility try to shrink away from her gaze and, despite her dislike of using her magic to manipulate others, sent a subtle feeling of calmness into the girls mind. I'm not going to judge you because of the way you look, you'll never have to worry about that with me, she made the feeling say. "So I'm not the only new person around here," she grinned, "So I wasn't just special getting to get up on stage and be presented to the entire school. Good, I hate being the odd one."

Sai laughed, "You aren't the odd one anyways. That position is filled. Our friend, Kento, is the president of the club. You'll know him Monday, by the way he attacks the lunch line as if he were starving, stealing all the food and begging us for money."

Maia felt more than saw Humility studying her closely. Her magic hadn't worked on the girl and that was a first. Well, if she noticed, she's not bothered by it, she thought. She smiled at Humility when the girl came from behind Rowen. The girl smiled back and stuck her frail hands into the pockets of her black jeans, looking at her feet.

Rowen looked at Maia, a wonderful thought suddenly appearing. "Hey. We all are going out tonight, for Hugh here. Why don't you join us? You'll get to see the town, and undoubtedly hear Hugh's beautiful voice," he laughed as he was punched in the arm, hard. "And we're going to Kento's parent's restaurant afterwards. How about it?"

Maia's eyes widened with surprise, she hadn't expected to be invited to go anywhere. "I'd love to," she replied, then looked at Humility, "You sing? Good, I knew we had something awesome in common. Is there any chance I'd be able to sing as well?"

Humility looked at her, blinking her now softer grey eyes. She shrugged, "They refuse to tell me where we're going..." her voice was soft, angelic like her appearance. "...but we'll probably be able to stop by the Black Rose. That's the new place here. A lot of peeps go there to sing their songs or recite. Pretty cool," she glared playfully at both boys, "Besides the fact they're making me change my whole damn wardrobe."

Maia nodded, "Well, if you really don't mind, I'd love to join you guys." She raised an eyebrow at Humility, "And you mean there's something wrong with your wardrobe?" Although she, herself, preferred brighter colors for the most part, nice basic black was perfectly fine in her opinion.

Humility smirked, "They're prejudiced against black clothing."

Maia laughed, and shook her head sadly, "They just don't understand how versatile it is."

"Don't encourage her! We had enough trouble trying to talk her into grey, let alone any normal colors," Rowen said, happy to see that Humility was a little more at ease than she had been when they first introduced themselves, happier still to see that Maia seemed to be the cause of it. He was overjoyed at the prospect of getting to know the raven-haired girl and couldn't wait until later that night.

Sai looked at his watch, noting the time. "Damn," his English voice was low as he considered everything. "How about we'll pick you up around 8 or 9 tonight?" he looked to Humility, "We still have to stop by your house to grab your things and move it all to Mia's."

Humility paled, if it was possible for someone of her skin tone, but nodded. "Yeah," she looked to the girl. "T'was nice to meet'ya, luv. But we have to go."

Maia didn't think Humility could have gotten any paler than she already was but she nodded as well, "I look forward to seeing you all tonight." She looked down at Jana, who's eyes were closed in bliss as Rowen scratched her behind the ears. "Come on you shameless lady, let's get home." She smiled at her three new friends and gave them her address, "Should I wear something special or will jeans and a nice shirt do?"

Humility raised a brow at the boys, "You two are the ones that know where we're going."

"Something slightly dressy, nothing too fancy but jeans will be too casual," Sai said.

Maia nodded, "Okay, I'll see you guys later then." She climbed into the big black jeep after Jana and waved as she pulled out of the parking lot.



Rowen watched her drive away. Wow, she's actually going to be with us the entire night! he thought excitedly, I can't wait to see her again. He smiled to himself, Geez, I hardly even know her and I'm already all excited about spending time with her.

Sai watched Rowen with amusement, he'd never seen Rowen so worked up about a girl. It was actually really strange, and he was sure the others would agree. Rowen just never took interest in anything but his studies and here he was, getting all giddy over a girl. Granted, she was really pretty but it was Rowen. He just never got that way.

"So what do you guys think of her?" Rowen asked as they walked to their car.

Humility smiled, "She's very full of life. She has a lot of energy and she did something to me, or at least tried to, that tickled." She shook her head at their worried looks, "No, no. Whatever it was, it wasn't bad. She's got a good heart, and her intentions were pure. I like her."

"Do you have any idea what it was that she did?" Sai asked with concern.

"Magic?" Humility shrugged, "I don't know. But she does have good taste in clothing colors."

The two guys groaned at the same time and shook their heads. "You would think so."



Maia could barely contain her excitement as she drove home from the mall. She had been invited to spend the evening with a really nice guy and his friends. Things were beginning to look much better than they were the day before when she met Kaylie. She was looking forward to the opportunity to get out and see what Toyama offered for teens on a Saturday night. I might even get to sing! she thought, I should probably see what songs I have already written. I think I have a couple that don't have any music that I could sing a cappella if nothing else. That sounded like a good idea, she was dying to see if her new songs were any good. I wonder if I can find that duet I wrote a while back. Maybe Humility would be interested. She pulled up at a stop light and dialed up her dad's work number on her cell phone.

"Hello?" her dad answered after several rings.

"Hi Papa, how's work?"

"Oh, hey Maia dear. I have to tell you, Tokyo is one of the busiest cities I've ever seen. Did you get the uniforms?"

"Yep, they're awful. I hate 'em. Anyways, I called to let you know that I'm going out with some new friends tonight."

"Really? Who?"

"Well, I met that guy, Rowen, at the mall. You know, the one that's showing me around school on Monday. He introduced me to a couple of his friends as well and I got invited to go out with them tonight."

"That's great! I'm glad to hear you're making friends. So what are you going to do?"

"Well, for one, we're going to this place called the Black Rose. It's a club where people can come in and perform, kind of like an open mike-type thing. We'll be going somewhere else but I don't know where. I guess the guys are taking their friend, Humility, out for a night of fun but it's all supposed to be a surprise, and since Humility was with them at the mall, they couldn't tell me where they were going," she said as the light turned green and she accelerated.

"Sounds like fun. Are you going to bring some of your music along to perform at the Black Rose?"

"Yeah, I want to see how they like it here in Japan. I don't know if I want to bring my fiddle with or not. I think I'll talk to Humility and see what the interest is in Celtic-style music around here before I play my baby."

"I wish I could come hear you sing, I haven't had a chance to hear you perform in a while."

"I'll have to set up a special concert for you some time. I've got a bit of new music that you haven't heard before."

"I look forward to it. Well dear, I've got to get back to work. Have fun tonight, and be careful."

"I will Papa. Talk to you later." She hung up just as she pulled into the driveway of her house. "Come on Jana, you gotta help me pick something out for tonight."

Jana jumped out of the jeep after her mistress and followed her into the house.