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Yuck.

Yuck yuck yuck ew yuck.

The old diaper was dropped into the appropriate receptacle with all of the disgust Bronnie could muster. The new diaper was set aside while Bronnie grabbed one-handed for wipes, then--finally, the clean diaper.

"I think I might like you better when you're toilet-trained," Bronnie confided to Airyn as she swept her across the room and into the crib to be tucked in.

Bronnie gave a little sigh of relief as she left the nursery. That had been... well, an "experience," as her mother would put it.

She cleaned up the kitchen, washed her hands thoroughly for a minute or two, and flopped down in the living room with a book.

"She was... um. Pretty good." Explaining the dinner difficulties seemed unnecessary.

Ghlyssa poked around in a drawer for a bit of money, and used to this to pay Bronnie. "There. Um. I hope that's enough."

"It's fine, Glee." Bronnie grinned brightly. "You're, well, practically my sister, remember?"

"Are you okay to get home?"

Bronnie peered out the open door. "I think I'll be okay."

"Thank you, Bronnie." Ghlyssa smiled as Bronnie attacked her with a hug.

"No problem." Then, after a bit of thought, she added, "Any time. See you, Glee!" And she headed out the door for home.

A New Friend Arrives?!
July 31st, 2005: Sosiqui's House

"Upsy-daisy, there we go..." Sosiqui grinned at Airyn as she settled her grandchild into the highchair she'd bought for Riven long ago but never used - it had been too easy for the legless baby to slither out. It was good to see it finally coming to good use. "You'll eat for me, right, sweetie?"

"Ahbah," Airyn agreed, banging on the tray with her plastic spoon.

"She's noisy," Five complained from his place at the table. The strange bottle Sosiqui had given him to care for was cradled carefully in his lap as he waited for her to dish out the dinner.

"Well, the thing in your lap might become noisy, too, so you should get used to it," Sosiqui said, reasonably. "Watch Airyn while I go into the kitchen, will you? I'll be right back."

"'kay," the black mage said, and Sosiqui left only to return a few minutes later with a steaming pot of spaghetti and meatballs in her hands, and a few baby food jars tucked under one arm. Five started helping himself as soon as the pot hit the table.

"What about the egg?" Five mumbled through noodles.

Sosiqui glanced at the basket that was currently occupying Riven's chair at the table. In it was nestled a large speckled egg the size of a big watermelon. "That might be noisy too. Aren't you glad you have your own room out there?" She waved vaguely in the direction of the backyard as she fumbled with the lid of a baby-food jar.

"How come people keep giving you stuff to take care of?" Fiven pressed, a faint slurping noise coming from where, presumably, his mouth was.

Sosiqui sighed. "I suppose I just have a kind face... but the ash-bottle is YOURS, you can't foist that on me." She shook the baby spoon at Five before dipping it into the strained carrots. "And... I asked Karma for the egg." She looked at it fondly. Karma, Arkanti's Guardian, was one of her friends, and she'd discovered... well, some hole in a rift thing, but basically a world of anthropomorphic animals and... yeah, it was weird, even for Gaia.

But she'd missed having something young in the house. Airyn's visits had become the highlight of her week, and she missed Riven terribly. Five was, of course, there to keep her company, but... he wasn't hers. He was very self-sufficient, even though he had his moments of vulnerability... he needed to be taken care of, but not as much. And she had to respect that. He'd earned it.

Hence, the egg now sitting warmly in the basket. Karma had said it would hatch into a child...

"AHHHBAH," Airyn said demandingly, reaching out and swatting the filled spoon with one hand. Carrots glopped onto the floor.

"Airyn..." Sosiqui sighed and bent down to mop it up, when she heard a faint tapping sound. "Five, knock it off, it's noisy enough in here."

"It's not me," Five said, eyes round and bright. Sosiqui looked up in confusion. "Then what..."

A fine line of cracks had broken out on the egg, and there was something inside tapping at it.

The spoon crashed to the floor, much to Airyn's distress, who began banging her fists on the highchair tray and kicking her feet. "AaaaaahFWAH."

"Not now, baby, not now," Sosiqui said, hurrying over to the egg. Small bits were flaking off of it now, stickily. She risked darting to the kitchen for a roll of paper towels, and when she came back a beak - a BEAK! - could be clearly seen through the cracking shell.

Slowly, slowly, with Five watching in astonishment and Airyn burbling her displeasure at not recieving FOOD NOW, Sosiqui helped peel the eggshell and resulting goop away from the struggling form within.

"It's a... a duck... a.. wait, that's fur, no... it's a... platypus?!"



"AAAAAAAAAAAH," Airyn screamed, finally, sick of this.

A More Serious Matter

Ghlyssa was definitely dawdling.

She poked around through Airyn's toys, picking three or four to bring with her, dismissing them, replacing them with others, discarding those to replace them with some of the first. She filled up a bottle of juice as slowly as she could, made up a second just in case, and a third which would almost certainly go to waste, and started on a fourth before she stopped herself.

How many diapers could she get away with bringing? How many blankets? How many storybooks?

Ghlyssa really did not want to go.

Airyn had been watching her mother pace through the room for some time now, giggling and babbling every time Glee was near, falling silent when she was poking through things on the other side of the room.

"Da-mamama."

"I know." Ghlyssa really didn't know if Airyn meant anything at all, let alone what she meant, but she said it anyway. Blue blanket or yellow blanket? The yellow was warmer, but the blue was in better shape. She stuffed them both into the bag.

"Gababaa! Laa-NAAN-ada!"

"Really." Distractedly, she stuffed a few more diapers into the bag , discovered that two blankets was really too bulky, and removed the blue. She peered at it in her hand, then stuffed it back inside and hung the yellow over the side of Airyn's crib.

"Kakakakada! SHHH."

"Mmm." Ghlyssa stopped. She was being ridiculous. She couldn't hang around forever packing up baby things just because she was afraid.

"Shh!" Airyn liked this sound, and made it again. "Shh!"

Glee removed a few of the excessive diapers, and scooped Airyn up. "Come on. We might as well go."

She did not want to go the HQ, but sometimes, that was what you had to do.

Airyn screeched and accidentally bopped her mother in the nose.

Riven stood in the doorway of the Glade, peering out with interest at the forest outside. The seasons were changing again, which was always interesting - but the trees seemed to be going about somewhat oddly. At the edge of the forest, the leaves were changing colors and even beginning to drop, but the trees that made up the house itself seemed to be clinging on to summer.

"Fwah! Mama fwah!" came a squeal from behind him, as Airyn made an energetic attempt to crawl out the door. "Whoa," Riven laughed, scooping her up before she could get too far. She blinked in surprise at being interrupted, then frowned at him.

Ghlyssa, close on Airyn's heels, came to an abrupt stop just behind Riven. "You caught the runaway!" she laughed. "I don't know where she thinks she's going to go, but she's in an awful hurry to get there." Still giggling, she ruffled Airyn's hair fondly. "What are you doing out here, Riven?"

Airyn began to attempt to squirm her way out of Riven's arms. "DA! Buuu." She was a busy little girl and had all sorts of places to be right now other than the doorway.

Riven quickly tightened his grip on his squirming daughter. "Ow-SY," she said insistently, flailing one arm in the direction of the yard.

"No, not outside. Not by yourself," he said, firmly, grinning sheepishly at Ghlyssa. "And I was... watching, I guess. Fall moves so fast. It seems like half the leaves fell when I wasn't paying attention. Maybe that's the problem with living somewhere where things change - sometimes it changes right out from under you and you don't notice."

"Things are supposed to change, here." Ghlyssa laid a hand on Riven's shoulder, and squeezed gently. "That's the way it is. It's not much like the spirit realm, I guess... It's not always good, but... that's what happens. Fall is here, and winter will be, eventually. And then all the trees go sleepy and the little plants die... and..." She grimaced. "I guess I don't really like it. But it's the way it has to be. Riven, are there really not any seasons in the spirit realm? Not at all?"

"Nope. Nothing." Riven shook his head. "Any changing there is usually bad. Spirits dying to strengthen the Barrier. Chaos breaking it. It goes in a cycle, like that. Everything else is just kind of.... there." He did look at Glee with some concern, though. "Will you be okay? When the trees, er, get sleepy?"

Airyn wriggled some more, but when nothing much came of it, she pouted and calmed down a bit.

"I was okay last year," Ghlyssa said after a minute. "But I think it will be easier now. It has to happen. Riven... It's harder for me to..." She frowned. "When it's cold out, it's harder for me to call up vines, like... like I did at prom. I think that worries me mostly. If Chaos attacks again, and it's cold, well. I might not be able to do anything effective." She leaned her head on Riven's shoulder, and smoothed Airyn's hair down. "That scares me, a little."

Airyn stuck out her lower lip and giggled.

Riven frowned. "Let's hope you won't need to... that I'll be here if something happens. If you're really worried, maybe you shoudl talk to Sunny... or my mom. There have to be other ways of protecting yourself you could use, even if it's a weapon or something. If you're really worried, maybe it would help." He shifted Airyn a bit. "Let's go in, I'm getting tired of holding this wiggly thing here. She's getting heavy." He grinned at Glee, and ruffled Airyn's hair again - something they'd both taken to doing once she'd actually grown some.

Glee nodded, slightly. "I suppose so. I feel funny with a weapon, though. Maybe... maybe a staff or something. I could do that, maybe. That wouldn't be so bad." Her mouth twisted a little. "But yes... Airyn's gotten big lately. Let's go in."

Riven carefully turned around and went inside, holding Airyn in one hand and pulling the door closed with the other. She immediately began squirming again the instant the door was shut, and he let her down with a grin. "All right, all right, go on then. What's so important?"

Airyn immediately crawled over to her toy basket and upended it, pulling herself into a sitting position. "Buhn." She grabbed a stuffed rabbit and shook it at both her parents.

"Yes, that's a bunny," Riven said, pleased, before turning back to Glee. "I'm sure you can do that," he told her, reassuringly. "You won't have to be scared. Careful, maybe, but not scared that you can't keep yourself safe." He shook his head. "There has to be a way to find, track, and get rid of Chaos' allies here. It's not as though the Barrier broke - what's here isn't Chaos himself, not really. Just his creatures."

"I suppose." Glee chewed on her knuckle. "Though I'm not sure that's any less of a threat. Er. I guess I'll have to think of something. Really, I'm more concerned about you and Airyn, though I know I have to watch out for myself, too. Bad stuff would happen." She leaned against the wall, distracted by her own thoughts, and watching Airyn play. "I just don't much like the idea of weapons. At least one for me, anyway."

"Well, going after things actively isn't your job. That's mine," Riven said, firmly. "I just want you to be safe. There are other things besides Chaos to be worried about, too," he added. That lesson he'd definitely learned from Tiers Anwis - Chaos hadn't had any part in that madness. "You know, we should... learn more about this place. This world. Beyond the part of it that belongs to us, or to the Fa'e, or our Guardians."

"What do you mean?" Ghlyssa tilted her head. "I don't quite follow you, Riven."

"You know. Out there." Riven gestured towards the nearest window. "There's so much more to even this world than what we know about. Even some of the other Fa'e have things they know that we don't. Like Yanisin, he knows about a whole other kind of spirit that I can't even see. There's cities and places we don't even know about, because... I don't know, I guess I was satisfied with here, and HQ, and what there is around home... but I remembered up in teh Spirit Realm, how I'd watch everything. All over the place. Maybe I knew more about the world then, which is kind of scary... like before I knew a lot of things, but I never got to be part of them. Now I'm a part, but only of a few things. Does that make sense?" He gave Ghlyssa a worried look, as though afraid he was expressing something that was complete nonsense.

She nodded, slowly. "I think it does make sense. I understand... the Earthkeeper is, well, sort of everywhere, but a lot of it I don't pay attention to. I can't pay attention to it, because there's just too much of it. It does what it needs to do without me interfering directly, most of the time. Do you mean, then, that you think we should go on... on... a vacation or something? And explore and see?"

Riven laughed. "Well, I don't know if right now is a good time for a trip... but we should do that sometime, for sure." He grinned and sat down on the couch, watching Airyn as she moved the bunny around with one hand, and stalked blocks with the other.

"I think we should just... try and learn more, maybe. Well, I should. You can do whatever you think is good for you," he added, gently. "Talk to the other Fa'e more. I never want to be... I guess... so used to something that I make myself a comfortable cage I never leave. Again. Not that home is bad," he said, quickly. "Just... I don't know. That I should remember that I'm protecting more than just here."

"It's easy to forget," Ghlyssa agreed. She looked thoughtful. "Before I was reborn, I never left my realm. I couldn't leave. It was everything for me. I like being mobile, having all this... You do what you need to, Riven. I think I'll try to do that, too. I should probably pay attention to more things other than plants and you and Airyn, anyway."

"But there will always be lots of attention for you," Riven said with a smile, patting the couch next to him. "Always. And Airyn," he added, as she knocked over the block tower with a gleeful shriek.

Ghlyssa smiled and snuggled down on the couch next to Riven. "I'm very glad to have all this. I just don't always know what I'm doing. And I am so glad you're back. I miss you when you're gone."

"I don't know what I'm doing either... except to keep doing what I've always done. But I think, maybe, there's something more that might be possible now," he added, hopefully. "Surely I wasn't reborn just so I could have a little freedom but otherwise, everything's just the same... and the way Airi talks about it..." He shook his head. "There has to be some reason, I just can't see it yet." He fluffed one insubstantial wing around Ghlyssa's shoulders.

"I... I was reborn to learn," Glee said suddenly. "That's why the Earthkeeper... me... I wanted to be reborn as Fa'e. So I could learn. That's what she said. And I've been learning. But... maybe that's not the reason I was allowed to be reborn?" Sobered by this thought, she leaned against Riven. "I don't know. There is an awful lot of world out there, and only two of us. Three, with Airyn," she added with a laugh.

"More. Um. Lots more, if you count the rest of the Fa'e. There are some I don't even know. So many of us now.... for some reason. Some weird reason." Riven looked thoughtful. "But thinking about it won't help. Not me thinking, anyway. Maybe Morion-thinking would help, or someone else who is really good at that. But every time we get older... we learn more. Maybe we'll know everything later."

"I don't think we could ever know everything. Maybe lots, though." She smiled brightly. "Maybe all of us together could know everything."

"Maybe. There's a whole lot of maybe... that's another thing the Spirit Realm doesn't have. No 'maybe'. There's either yes or no, and nothing in between, but here we are, just drowning in a whole lot of maybe."

"No maybe." Ghlyssa's mouth pursed. "That's very strange, for me. Plants are all about 'maybe.' Maybe seeds will sprout, maybe they'll be eaten before growing tall, maybe a storm will damage a tree beyond healing, maybe they'll grow straight or maybe they'll grow crooked. Plants have to wait and see. They don't know, not ever."

"Soooow!" Airyn wriggled gleefully in Riven's arms, flailing her arms at the white stuff. While Ghlyssa's presence had kept the trees from hibernating for longer than usual, the winter sleep was a part of the natural cycle - so, at last, the trees had gracefully dropped their leaves and fallen dormant.

Snow covered their front yard now, smothering the gardens - the brook nearby was only a trickle, the banks coated with interesting ice formations. Airyn's breath was visible, much to her surprise.

"Okay..." Riven quickly checked over Airyn's little snow-outfit. Knit hat, mittens, wee boots, snowsuit - check. Of course, she'd probably manage to get all wet anyway, but they'd made an attempt at stalling the inevitable if nothing else. "Ready to meet the snow?"

"Sah-now!" Airyn giggled, and squirmed a bit more. Riven grinned and put her down. The toddler swayed back and forth on her feet for a moment, then took a few tentative steps forward before deciding crawling would be more fun on this odd footing. She squealed as she toppled forward into the snow, grabbing up giant handfuls of it and stuffing it into her mouth.

"No, don't eat the snow," Riven sighed, then sat down next to her, tucking his cloak carefully under him so he wouldn't have to sit directly on the icy ground. "Look, we can play with it, see?"

"Play sow?"

"Yes, see? It sticks together like your play-dough does." Riven demonstrated by rolling a small snowball as Airyn watched wide-eyed. "And you can stack it up and do all sorts of things with it."

"Roll." Airyn carefully scooted so she was sitting down too, then clumsily scooped a bunch of snow into her mittens. "Sticky!"

"Sort of, yeah... no, pack it together like that," he added, as she made another attempt to eat the snow she'd collected. "Pat it with your hands - yeah, there you go!"

Soon there was a lopsided and somewhat squished snowball in front of Airyn. "And then we can make a few more and make a snowman, okay?" Riven said with a grin.

"Man," Airyn agreed, though she was distracted. "What dat?" She pointed up at an icicle formation clinging to a tree limb.

"Icicles. They're like the ice in the freezer, except prettier. Kind of."

"Ice-kul. Want it. Pwease!" She reached up and opened and closed her hands at the distant treasure.

"Since you said please... okay," Riven got up and managed to break off one of the icicles, which he held out to Airyn. "What do you say now?"

"Give it," Airyn whined.

"Nooo..." Riven wiggled it back and forth.

"Tank you," she mumbled.

"That's right." He opened his hand so she could take the icicle. Airyn let out a happy shriek and grabbed it.

"Posikul!" she giggled, then popped it into her mouth... but made a face after a few seconds and removed it. "Taste bad!"

"Well, that's because it's not a popsicle," Riven laughed. "They don't grow on trees, you know."

"Not... posikul. Icykul." Airyn pondered this, then shook her head and stabbed the snowball with the icicle. "Poke! Poke poke poke! Poke dada!" she added, leaning to poke Riven with the icicle too.

"Hey now, that's not fair," Riven protested, and retaliated by flicking a pinch of snow at her.

"EEEEEEEEEEEE," Airyn shrieked, kicking her feet in glee.

A Family Christmas