Welcome to Gaia! ::

The vision faded, and Guitian looked at Dilahi, who was standing on the ground next to him. He could feel their presence there, balming and knowledgeable.

But it wasn't the only thing he could sense right now. His heart thrummed in his chest, feeling whole and ready. He opened and closed his mouth, unsure what exactly was going on.

He felt like he should be tired, but he was wide awake. Just like that night, so many weeks ago now. "You're ready," Dilahi murmured. "I know it, too, now." There was a little bit of awe in their voice. "Did you know I've never actually visited the Grandfather Tree?"

"Won't you regret it, if you never go?" Guitian asked, laughing. He swished his tail out near Dilahi, and waited for his new companion to find purchase. That ceremony was something he definitely needed to take home. And...Dilahi. But that was a consideration for some other day. The Barrens sun bore down on them as they traveled, but Guitian - or his body, more likely - remembered exactly how to get to the tree. It was just as fantastically large as he remembered, and pure white.

"It really is big," Dilahi observed. Their tone was barely above a whisper, which was unusual for them, but Guitian could understand the reverence they felt, too. This tree had given him magic - which had inspired their bond in the first place. They both owed a lot to it.

Guitian wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do now, but he crouched carefully at one of the roots. "Come on," he said, feeling less confident than he really should. "You should find somewhere comfortable; we're in for another vision." He laid down himself, pressing his body against the surprisingly cool roots, and he waited.

At some point, Guitian had closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was in the Homewood.

He'd gotten used to it. The green leaves and cool temperature felt comfortingly familiar against his fur - though he knew his true home was elsewhere. He felt that familiar ache rise in his chest, and he turned to look for Dilahi, who he had been turning to whenever he felt homesick of late. The scuttle scale was always curious about what life was like out there.

"I've been looking forward to what you've got to teach, Lux Guitian!" a chirpy little voice squealed. That had Guitian turning to look. He'd never heard that honorific being used with his voice before, but Dilahi had explained, once, when someone had called him noulja. He didn't feel nearly knowledgeable enough to merit the title Lux: he was new to Homewood as a whole, and to using his gift...which he'd heard wasn't very common in Homewood nouls, either. Perhaps that was why he'd been recruited for this.

The speaker was a foal, and they were seated among a gaggle of similarly-aged nouls. They were all watching him quite intently, their bony legs still for once.

But this was the Homewood. What did Guitian have to share that nouls of the Homewood didn't already know? There was a whole society and system out here. There were craftsmen who did all sorts of things that combined magic and craft, and an entire council of lifebringers who literally brought extinct creatures back. The ruins of Erli were immediately nearby, with a host of technologies meant to be deciphered. Guitian probably had more trouble identifying plants than these foals did!

As he opened his mouth, perhaps to pass the baton to someone else, he recalled the phantom presence of a tiny body pressing its claws firmly into his shoulder. Dilahi always wanted to know about life in the Barrens. It was harsh, they explained - but to Guitian, it was all he'd ever known. Of course he knew how to find his way toward water, or how to scavenge for anything that could potentially serve as sustenance. He'd only survived until now because he and his family - and the occasional company they had, out near the mountains - had shared what they'd known among the barrens' denizens. Perhaps he couldn't teach anyone here

"As you may know," he begun, "I didn't grow up here. When I was a colt, I lived far, far to the north - in the depths of the barrens. It's much hotter there, and rain is a rarity. And the only color you can see for miles is the yellow of dry sand...

"In the Barrens, you must eat and preserve what you can. You cannot pick and choose - you don't know when you'll be able to find food again. The most common foliage includes..."

Once he got started, it turned out Guitian had a lot to say. Perhaps it didn't matter that he had trouble identifying poisonous plants here in Homewood - there would always be Dilahi for that. And when they traveled to the Barrens, as he and Dilahi had been planning, they would be well-prepared then, too - because there would be Guitian to fill the gaps in Dilahi's knowledge.