Welcome to Gaia! ::

Idhril had no answer to Ulani's question. After all, she hadn't seen the inn at all yet - only this room, and the outside of the house. She blinked and looked to Elnara for an answer.

"Mama?" she said in a questioning tone. "Where do I live?"

Elnara thought carefully as to how best to answer that question. Seconds were intelligent from birth, it was true - but even so, how much would Idhril understand about different worlds?

"We live in an inn," she replied finally. "In a place far far away from here." She tapped the end of Idhril's dusky nose and grinned. "You'll see it soon enough."

Idhril giggled and turned back to Ulani. "We live in an inn!" she reported dutifully. "In a place far far away from here!"

"You don't want to eat that," Lore murmured quietly as he balanced her in the crook of his one arm as he used his other hand to pulling his hair away from her mouth.

He flipped his hair back over his shoulder before using both hands to hold her again. Lore doubted that hair was very tasty anyhow.

Aliya giggled up at Idhril and arched her back, trying to reach for her.

Ulani was flabberghasted. "Here? Only that short a time ago?" she exclaimed. "You can't be serious ... she's ... I mean yeah she's tiny but ... she's ..."

She trailed off, too shocked to continue.

Idhril blinked and looked around the room at all of the things there were that she could put into her mouth. She frowned.

"It seems an awful silly way to learn about things," she commented. "Why do babies learn that way? Isn't it easier just to ask?"

Elnara couldn't help but laugh at Ulani's reaction. "Well, I had a suspicion that she was going to be born soon, so I brought her vase with us," she explained with a grin. "She just happened to be born sooner than I expected ..." She laughed again.

"But," she went on, a little more seriously now, "all of my children were like this when they were born ... for the most part." She paused thoughtfully. "Actually ... I guess they were all different. Celebor went swimming with his aunt and uncle, Serenity and Skye met one of their aunts - Serenity had a bit of a speech impediment when she was first born, Skye could barely talk at all, I assume because of her deafness ... the twins ..."

She paused and looked over at them, and just shrugged. "They're odd. They were since they were born. I think it has something to do with the threads they see - but also, they're closer than most siblings are. Like my father and his brother, I think."

"Because they can't talk yet," Lore explained, "Babies have to learn speech, she doesn't know how to talk yet, or how to express herself. So, she does what she can to learn about the world around her, by herself."

He chuckled, he forgot now that the Seconds took speech and understanding for granted. He had heard there was a baby at Elnara's foster family, but since Idhril had not even met that baby yet, it wasn't a surprise she didn't know.

Ulani glanced at Idhril, Lore and Aliya. She caught the child's comment and looked between the two. Sure enough, the two-month old (that is to say, the equivalent of about four and a half Gaian months) was much taller than Idhril. Than Skye had been. Interesting.

Idhril blinked at Lore, her golden eyes shining with curiosity. "Does that mean I'm Mama's baby and your baby, because I'm smaller than she is?" she asked, a little bit puzzled. "Because you're my parents and I'm so small?"

But that just brought up other questions. "What about Starr and Storm, they're smaller than me - does that mean they're your babies but I'm not? Or are all three of us your babies?"

"Okay," Idhril smiled. She liked that answer. For a long moment, she appeared deep in thought, staring down at the baby; then she looked back up at Lore again and asked, "If she's a baby and we're babies, why can't she talk if we can? Why does she have to put things in her mouth to learn and we don't?"