Welcome to Gaia! ::

Earendil blinked at Lin. "What?" he asked her, curious. "I know that look ... you've had some kind of epiphany ... what are you thinking?"

Something about Miyuki, but he had no idea what it might be. He couldn't read her mind, after all.

"You could always suggest it," Earendil agreed. "And I like that idea better than the bow, even. A bow is useless at close range, and there's no guarantee that having a bow will keep your attackers at bay. We could suggest it to Miyuki and see what she thinks. And worse come to worse, at least we know we have an excellent teacher who's going to be traveling with us."

If Alassea could teach Miyuki to be as adept with the staff as she herself was, Earendil would never worry about his daughter being in danger again.

Well, at least not his logical side.

"Sounds like a plan," Earendil murmured.

The packing took only an hour or so, and everyone helped except for Kelirahc who was still asleep under the wagon. It had been a long night for him, after all. But when it came time to leave, Leyenda woke him up and brought him to a space in one of the wagons that she had kept clear for him so that he could continue to sleep while they traveled.

Earendil took Andarien in the sling, and the boy was absolutely delighted to see the world that was passing them by. Everything was new to him, even though he had seen much of the same thing when they had gone to the swamp.

It was indeed a smooth and uneventful trip through light forest and open grassland, and just a little over a week later, they arrived at the village of Tavari.

"Smallest village in the Westland," Halmir said proudly, sounding very much like a Gaian tour guide. "I lived here for a while ... well, once it was rebuilt, anyways."

"What happened to it?" Luk asked curiously as they rode towards the edge of the unwalled village.

"Fire," Halmir replied simply. "Thousands of years ago, the entire village died."

"No, they didn't," Leilani spoke up, her eyes on the distant village. "There were four survivors. My parents, and Ulani's."

Shiro stared at her. "Has anyone else noticed that everything seems to happen to our family?" he asked, tilting his head curiously.

"Yeah, you'd think so," Kaito grinned at his brother.

Leilani was watching Lin, curious about her reaction. "What?" she asked. "Your expression does not match your words."

"Well, I suppose it's not a story that many people talk about," Leilani shrugged. "It happened before our parents were even married. I think I was nearly ten before it finally occurred to me to ask why we lived so far away from anyone else."

"I always thought it was because your parents wanted privacy," Aric spoke up, puzzled.

Leilani smiled at him. "Well ... yes, but they also wanted to be away from people. Sure, they were guaranteed hundreds of visitors every year, but at least they didn't have to worry about other crowds in the meantime."

"Ah," Leilani smiled, "I'm sorry. Allow me to explain. The elves that are born nowadays are different from the elves that were born when I was young. Elves today are born with magic, though it manifests in their late childhood. When I was born, the Light Elves were not born with magic, they needed it to be given to them. My mother and I were some of the very rare few who were actually born with magic - the magic of giving magic."

"Gift-givers," Aric spoke up. "I saw Jewel myself when I was a boy."

"At any rate," Leilani went on, "Aunt Kris was really nervous in the city, so she and her husband and my parents moved out to the valley, where they could be more alone than otherwise. Kris and Mother were best friends - still are, actually. Daeron tells stories about how people like to rub shoulders with royalty, it was the same for Mother because she had such an important gift. At that point, she was indeed the most important person alive to the Light Elves - if anything happened to her, the magic would be gone. When we learned that I had the same gift, I became just as important. They didn't want to deal with that, so they lived out in the middle of nowhere. Yes, every child had to come to see them eventually, but they still had their own space, and they weren't constantly surrounded by people."