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Haradhel laughed at Ulani and Ulrich. Even after living with them for nearly a decade, she still found them quite funny to listen to, to observe. She hadn't had much to look up to while she had been growing up, concerning her parents and how they made marriage look, but these two showed her exactly what she could still look forward to with Elrohir.

"And we don't always talk about you," she grinned at them. "You just have a knack of showing up the once every few weeks that we do."

Kara giggled at that, she could completely understand what Aliya meant if the stories were true about how much his collection took up.

"And how many carvings does he have? Or rather... how much room have they taken up?"

She couldn't help but wonder at times..

Aliya had to stop and think about that for a moment.

"Well ... his shelves were getting overcrowded, so Ada had to put more up," she admitted sheepishly, "and so all four of his walls are covered now ... and he's got a display case in the living room for his favourites, but it's also starting to overflow ... I think he's got a chestful packed away somewhere ... altogether, he's got to have more than two hundred of the things."

She shrugged. "He can probably tell you the exact number, as well as what they're all for - and I can't really tell him not to brag, he did earn them after all. Still."


Ulani smiled widely at Donovan. "Well, Serenity will be happy to hear the news," she beamed. "She's been asking about her lately, wondering if we've heard any news. Maybe she should go for another visit sometime. I know she would like that."




Elros's expression grew reverent, and he folded his hands together and replied solemnly, "Manwe."

Then he added, "Manwe is the greatest of the Valar, the one who called the elves up from the sea. He is like Aragost - he was the first Vala created, the others came after him, and thus he is the oldest and the most powerful. He taught the first elves how to use magic, and continues to watch over us, even from the distance that separates him from us now."

"It would be good if she did," Donovan admitted, "I mean... Celebor grew on his last trip here, but we grabbed Serenity on the way out so she never got to saw him. Serenity is a teen now too, Storm, Starr and Idhril are the same size as Lin. She hasn't met Slivrendir yet and he's teen too, even though you can't tell because he's shorter than Kara..." he counted in his head, "And yea, then there is Kaito which I don't think she has met and Shiro, whom she also hasn't met.... I think that's it. Yea, that's it."

He normally never had to rethink stuff like that, but he was use to when it came to listing off the large numbers of the family.

"Oh...." she murmured thoughtfully, in a way that made sense.

She recalled hearing the name a few times but that was a long time ago, and she couldn't remember much at the moment.

"I really special book then," her eyes sparkled a bit remembering it, "It was fun seeing those things from the book."

Kara coughed at that, she could believe it and was half tempted to ask Ulrich exactly what the man had carved that he had never seen before. That had to be interesting to say the least.

"Well.... perhaps suggesting something bigger for a group of things might do it.... what sort of things have you been carving?"

Ulrich shrugged. "Plants, animals, things, places, people, legends, myths ... basically anything and everything. I try to make the carving match what he learned. Originally I had made them ... well, when he was learning languages, for every new word at first, then every new grammatical structure, then ... and when he was learning to read and write, one for each rune in each set of writing ... that's a lot of carvings, usually an item whose name began with the rune he had learned. Sometimes he would request something - he requested one of Feng and Ryu, a while ago, and of course some of his siblings, and of Aliya and Amdir ..."

Aliya smiled. "Amdir and I loved those ones so much we had Ada create duplicates for us to have in our bedroom as well," she told Kara warmly.



Ulani nodded. "I believe she spends about half of each year there ... the winter months. The rest of the time she travels, visits her sister-in-law, or us. She's not so fond of the winter weather, she was never raised with it, either in the Four Lands or in Feanaro."



"That ... is possible," Elros admitted. "He always did want to preserve history. On the other hand, I don't think that people would forget it, as long as he's around to teach and reteach it ..."

He paused.

"Unless ... he's thinking of leaving ..."

"I... .can't blame her," Donovan admitted, "Though winter back home doesn't get any where near as much snow as it does here though. It's good to know though she's doing well, and how about you and everyone else? Another two years since the last time I was here."


Lin blinked, she couldn't imagine at all Sir Valdemar leaving, though the question was leaving where. She had a feeling it was a lot further than simply going to the Borderlands.

"Leaving where?"