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Fletcher chuckled. "You bet they were. Wait ..."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Mostly. There was a time when Ulrich was quite serious, or so I'm told. But it didn't last long, not more than a decade I think."

Earendil smiled. "Well, it's good to know that even though they've had a somewhat rough life, from what I understand, they're still so cheerful."

"Oops," Earendil smiled as Miyuki shuffled off his lap. "Looks like someone has woken up."

He looked up suddenly as Amara entered the room again from the hallway where she and Haldia had disappeared before Fletcher's story, but this time she was alone. He blinked at her.

"Where's Haldia?" he asked, a little worriedly.

Amara smiled and stood next to her husband. "Sleeping," she replied softly. "She was quite exhausted. I'm afraid she was ... is ... rather homesick."

Amara pursed her lips, then exhaled deeply and shrugged apologetically.

"I don't know her well enough to say," she admitted. "From what I can understand, she feels ... well ... you might say she feels like a fifth wheel. Unimportant. Left out. So whether or not that changes really is up to others, not just her."

Earendil looked troubled at that. He felt bad ... he knew that he spent the majority of his time with Lin, it was something he was well aware of: but what else could he do? He tried to spend time with Haldia as well, speak her own language to help her feel more at ease ...

"You shouldn't blame yourselves," Amara said softly, noting the looks on Earendil's and Lin's faces. "It can't be helped. She knew when she first accompanied all of you that it would be this way. That she would not have someone special to her to spend all of her time with, as everyone else does. That there would be language barriers."

"Still," Earendil murmured, "even when it's just a few of us together, we never speak in her language anymore. Something so simple ... even that could help."

Haldia had been making comments lately about being left out of conversations, about never hearing her own language anymore. Why hadn't he picked up on it?

"Don't take it personally," Amara said quickly. "She feels closer to the two of you than anyone else. But it is true, there are a lot of people here to interact with."

And she knew how much others liked visitors.

"Well, only she can help you find out how to do that," Amora murmured, setting one hand on her husband's head. "But she's asleep now, and the weather is getting worse, I think, so I suggest that you stay for the night and simply wait to see what happens in the morning." She smiled warmly at her guests. "How does that sound?"

"Sounds good to me," Earendil nodded, looking to Lin to see what she thought.

Amara smiled. "Good. Then why don't we start with some lunch, and I can begin working on the doll this afternoon? It may even be finished before you have to leave again, and save you another trip to pick it up."

"Perhaps you would be interested in a game while we're waiting for lunch?" Fletcher smiled, leaning forward. "We've got a few."

Earendil reached out and tickled Miyuki in the side. "What kinds of games?"

Fletcher got up and shooed his wife to the kitchen, and headed off towards a closet in the same wall as the kitchen door. "Chess, checkers, labyrinth, the memory game ... Ulrich made them all for us."