Welcome to Gaia! ::

After three solid days of flying, everyone was ready to land. Aurin was sure to land them outside the desert, where they wouldn't raise any alarms - but that meant that after they had rested a short while, they had to make their way to the city on foot.

Aurin told Skyel to fly free, and with a few flaps of her magnificent wings she was off: and then the group of travelers headed towards the city.

It was well past dark when they arrived - long past.

"Do you think we should go straight to the castle?" Earendil asked in general as they made their way through the city. "Or should we stop at the inn for the night?"

Rhea clapped her hands together excitedly. "The inn!" she exclaimed. "We can't come all the way here and not stay at least one night with my aunt and uncle!"

And so Rhea led them to the inn, all the while grinning very widely (though most of the others were yawning).

Her aunt and uncle were both in bed, but a kind young woman was manning the front desk when they got in, and she quickly got six rooms ready for them: one for Aurin and Rhea, one for Kelirahc, Leyenda and Amalirahc, one for Earendil, one for Lin, Haldia and Miyuki, one for Aerin, and one for Caranthir. They all headed off to their separate rooms for the night.

"It is nice to be in a bed again," Haldia murmured as she tucked herself in for the night. She smiled at Lin. "I think I have been spoiled here ... the ground no longer pleases me as it once did for sleeping."

Haldia giggled softly. "That is very true," she murmured. "Though it is not that our beds back home are not comfortable ... it is just that the beds here are more so."

She snuggled in and closed her eyes. "Sometimes I wonder if I should leave this place," she murmured. "I do not know if I have much waiting for me when I return ... but when I am here, I also feel as if I do not have much. I have friends, yes ... but nothing here is mine, I have no place of my own, no belongings of my own ..."

She yawned.

Haldia opened her eyes a crack and smiled at Lin. "Yes," she murmured. "You and Earendil and the others. And you should know - you should be able to see - that there is a place for you in any of these lands, a permanent place, if only you would reach out and grasp it."

She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. "Besides," she added, "when I left my home, I left many friends behind. As many as I have found out here."

Haldia nodded without hesitating. "It's interesting traveling around like this," she murmured, "but I just feel limited. I have so much trouble speaking a language that anyone can understand ... and so few of you know my language ..."

That more than anything made her feel alone. After all, with Earendil and Lin spending so much time together, and Rhea was with Aurin, and Leyenda and Kelirahc spent all their time together now ... there was no one else but Aragost who knew her language, and she had left him behind now. But even she she had been at the ranch, she had not visited him as much after Miyu had arrived, because she had felt as if she had been intruding.

Haldia looked at Lin through half-lidded eyes.

"Lin," she said flatly, "I have been with all of you for how long now ... five and a half years? Everyone has learned my language, but I still cannot form even once sentence in any of your languages. I understand that it takes time, but how much time must it take? I try very hard, but I cannot do it."

"But look at Kelirahc, how quickly he learned," Haldia murmured sadly. "And Earendil and Leyenda learned our language just as fast. Arwen, Roydon ... even Celeb."

She looked over at Lin again. "Besides, you will be returning to your own world, and Earendil will return to the palace, or perhaps travel again, and Leyenda and Kelirahc will find a place to settle down. What would I do? Everyone has their own thing to do, really no one would much mind if I went back home."