Ever since Fausto had told her that he and Slate would next be heading to Romania, the little illusionist had been researching everything she could about the country. The library set of encyclopedias provided a little background information on the history of the country all the way from its medieval castles and traditional vampire folklore all the way through its more recent involvements with the world wars, the short reign of communism, and the more recent democracy.

News articles filled her in on more recent events that were happening there, from the assassination of a key leader to rumors of anti-mutant legislation in the works. The most alarming of those was a bill to register mutants and create detention facilities designed specifically to house known mutant criminals. It all sounded suspiciously familiar to the young illusionist and she wondered how they could have ignored the lessons of what happened in the United States.

She didn't find anything useful on American television news stations. They seemed much more likely to report all the details of Michael Jackson's autopsy results night after night than they were to have any useful information on world news. National Public Radio was much better at providing a global view, especially the late night shows that were actually broadcast from British radio networks.

The most up to date information, though, came from people who were actually in Romania sharing their stories via blogs and Twitter.

October 31st found Katrina frowning at her computer screen. She had helped earlier in the evening with the Halloween party for the younger mansion students, running games like bobbing for apples and pin the grin on the jack-o-lantern. The party was over now, but she hadn't bothered to change out of her costume. Now the sleeves of her blue robe were rolled up to allow her to type, and her big pointed yellow hat was askew, partially blocking her computer screen lest anyone try to look over her shoulder. Not that she would really care if they did.

It was 11:42 pm in New York City. In Bucharest it was already 6:42 in the morning of November first. At least, she thought it was. It was also a daylight savings time switchover tonight in the US, which threw all the time calculations off. Whatever the exact time, things were starting to happen in Romania. Nothing had reached the news yet, but Twitter was on fire with rapidly posted messages about what was supposed to happen today. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies were voting early this morning on whether or not to pass Romania's version of the Mutant Registration Act. According to Romanian tweeters, police were already lining the streets in preparation for the announcement of the vote outcome. Other groups were already preparing protests and acts of revenge and/or revolution, depending on one's perspective.

The part that made her frown was that everyone just seemed to be waiting for a riot. If everyone expected violence and came prepared for violence, it seemed pretty likely that violence would be the outcome. Someone needed to be a voice for peace, so Katrina decided to leave a few messages of her own. They weren't entirely original, just famous quotations of things other leaders had said, but she felt that they were again relevant to this issue and so posted them with her own little signature attached.

"Nonviolence does not mean that we remain indifferent to a problem." Dalai Lama. =^.^= #romanianreg

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." MLKJr. =^.^= #romanianreg

"I object to violence because when it appears to good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." Ghandi. =^.^= #romanianreg

The little black mage glanced at the clock again. It was tomorrow already. If Twitter was any indication, things would begin happening quite soon. She'd need to be packing her bag so she could stow her way over to Romania where she could make a real difference, but first, she needed to sleep.

By the time she had woken up again, the whole world had already been thrown into a frenzy of activity. The television new stations had finally started to pay attention to Romania when the protesters and the police started clashing in Bucharest. Cameras and reporters from other countries couldn't really get an up close view of what was happening at the street level, though. The most up to date eyewitness account, however verifiable their information might be, came again from tweeters.

After grabbing a pair of toast slices and smearing them unceremoniously with strawberry jam, Katrina hurried back to the library, pausing only briefly in the living room to look over the shoulders of the group of students who were staring at the newscast.

Messages were being posted even faster than before in the land of Twitter. A moment after she loaded the page there were already over a hundred new messages. They short, poorly spelled and punctuated sentences offered hundreds of little views into the Romanian world, and somehow it all added up to one picture. The picture was not an especially pretty one, but it certainly seemed familiar. People's homes were being raided. Mutants were being rounded up and collared. The old Concentration Camps from WWII were being used as mutant prisons- maybe. Someone named Red Liberty was coming. Already violence had erupted. Too much violence for such a short time period. Didn't they realize?

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." MLKJr. =^.^= #romanianreg

"Hate the sin, love the sinner." Ghandi. Violence is not the answer. =^.^= #romanianreg

"Let us not become the evil that we deplore." Barbara Lee =^.^= #romanianreg

But she didn't have much time to spend leaving hopeful messages. She had bags to pack.