Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kyrie shrugged. "I won't lie to you. It could be a few years. They are on royal commission to map all the lands, and it is a large continent, the largest in our world."

"And we need them to get back home?" Shoneah asked quietly.

Kyrie nodded at her. "Yes. My understanding is that when they are finished with this continent, a ship will come for them from another, and when they return there, they will head back to Gaia. At least, most of them. Without them, I don't believe you would be able to take the ship or use their method of returning to your home."

She paused a moment, then added, "Why don't I take you to see them? Since they're the ones who hired me, they would have to agree for you to come with us before I should offer anything."

Shoneah's legs were protesting, seeing as she had just sat down, but she sighed and pushed herself to her feet again. "Do we have much choice?" she asked tiredly. She looked to Eron.

"Probably not," Kyrie affirmed Eron's supposition with a nod. "Come on, then. They're staying outside the city. It's about a ten-minute walk."

Over her shoulder, she called, "Ahkshi, I'm heading out for a while. I'll see you at home."

The physician called back an acknowledgment, and Kyrie motioned for Eron and Shoneah to follow her outside.

"By the way," she said, holding the door for them, "I'm sure you already know this already, but my name is Kyrie."

"Shoneah Adoeete Silverbirch," Shoneah introduced herself, picking up her bag again and heading towards the door. "And my companion, Eron."

Kyrie smiled warmly at the two of them. "Pleased to meet you."

Kyrie led them through the city to the outskirts, and there they found a rather sizable camp. Five tents were set up in a semicircle around a fire pit, and a number of people of all descriptions were hanging around.

There were three men, elves, with black hair, and two of them looked very much alike - though one of them had scars streaking his cheeks, which set him apart. The one with scars was with a tiny angelic woman - which, had Shoneah not already known that some of these people were from Gaia, would have surprised her greatly - and the man who looked similar to the one with scars was playing with a tiny pale child with white-rooted red hair, while a golden-haired woman sat nearby, sewing and watching the two intermittently. Nearby, the third black-haired man was leaning comfortably against a tree and watching a very pale woman and a multi-tailed kitsune woman who were in deep discussion.

A female elf with short blond curls was cooking over the fire, and next to her a pale, white-haired, angel-winged neko seemed to be pestering her. There was another neko, this one dark-haired and bat-winged, examining the screen of a fairly large tablet very closely.

On the far side of the clearing, a pale-haired elven youth was practicing archery, shooting at a target that had been set up against a tree, with several creatures surrounding him (and distracting him, in the case of a small brown creature).

The types of people were not foreign to Shoneah, who had visited a few cities around her home mountains, but seeing the variety of people together in one group was strange after weeks of seeing only the same kinds of people together, and she couldn't help but stare.

Shoneah glanced at Eron when she heard his comment, and she nodded her head slightly. She was used to everyone being the same, considering that her people did not interact much with those outside them; but seeing a mixed group like this did have a Gaian feel to it, and that was the most homey she'd felt since they'd arrived.

It seemed she wasn't the only one who heard Eron's comment, though. Several of the people - those closest, anyways - looked up to see who had spoken, and though some of them simply looked curious, several of them grinned.

"Kyrie!" called the blond woman who was working over the fire. "Joining us for lunch?"

She spoke in perfect English, which wasn't so much a surprise as a pleasure for Shoneah.

"Who's that with you?" called the white-haired neko, grinning curiously.

At his loud question, everyone else who hadn't already been looking looked. Shoneah felt a bit self-conscious, but she hid it.

Kyrie smiled encouragingly at Shoneah and Eron, then started towards the large group. "Some new traveling companions, if you're willing to have them," she called back.

Rather than tell the story herself, since she really didn't know much beyond the fact that they were from Gaia and that they wanted to go home, Kyrie let the newcomers tell it themselves.

"We are from Gaia," Shoneah began as the others also drew closer. "I am Shoneah Adoeete Silverbirch of the Aquinnashua Elves in the mountain ranges of Europe. My companion, Eron, is from a city called Barton, in America."

"Hey! Barton!" Kaito exclaimed. "He probably knows someone from our family, considering how many of us there are!"

"Well, half of us are from there, anyways," Shiro spoke up, tucking his tablet under his elbow. "Maybe we should start with introductions, and then we can get the rest of the story."

Since he was already speaking, he took it upon himself to begin.

"I'm Shiro Aldrich Winters," he said. "From the Winters clan, in Gaia." He gestured towards Kaito. "My brother, Kaito."

Kaito grinned, and though he was tempted to ask questions of Shoneah and Eron, he wisely kept quiet.

Shoneah just took it all in stride, as she did with much of what they'd already gone through. Her clan was large, sure and true, but there were a lot of relationships and distant relationships in there, too.

"Eron and I met when we arrived in this world rather suddenly," she explained quietly. "We fell through ... Eron, what was the word you used?"

She looked to her companion. He was the one who had learned about magic in his regular life, to her it was something mentioned but not really used or studied.