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"Well," Progolo said in response to Taal's unusual bravery. "You're getting touchy."

Taal hissed again. Progolo, slightly amused, reached over and pulled the jacket off of Taal's head.

"There, better?"

The griffin looked frantically around the lodge, his eyes comically large. Progolo laughed. "C'mon, you doof. You can go outside now."

He followed the other Keepers outside, Taal following warily. While the aerandir floundered in the ash, the others discussed the changed landscape. Progolo peered into the distance, trying to see if any of the huts were damaged.

Abbey sidled into the building nervously, peeking around the main door. She paused at the entrance, politely asking the pointedly silent room, "Is anyone in?"

False rambled in with much less reserve, whispering past Abbey into the room. With a sigh, the girl closed the door behind her. She was hoping someone would be in - it had, after all been awhile since she had last been in Ar'Idil, and she was hoping to be filled in on recent events. Indeed, the island seemed drastically changed from what she remembered it as. She should've probably visited one of her neighbours directly, but she had to send mail anyway. Again, there was an imminent nervousness towards the reactions to her disappearance, but the concern is quickly put aside.

Her Aerandir impatiently nipped at her leg, croaking indignantly, and Abbey smiled down at him and nudged him with her leg, "Go on, love."

He snapped his beak, and sprung off to gambol around the room and make general mischief. Abbey watched him attempt to clamber onto a table, then sighed and made her way over to a chair.

Both False and his keeper twitched at the sound of the turning doorknob. Abbey didn't recognise who came in the moment after, but from the look of the (glowing) jar, it was another Aerandir owner. She smiled reassuringly, thankful for the company, "No, not at all. You're not disturbing anything."

Her Aerandir was less welcoming, momentarily torn between an avid curiousity of the dog, and doubt of the safety of the strangers. He settled for scrambling across the table and tumbling into his keepers lap. Abbey picked him up, cuddling him to her chest, and returned her attention to the stranger, "Come in, come in. You're an Aerandir keeper, right?"

Abbey waited patiently for Emi to finish, trying to keep up with the fastpace monologue.

When she spoke, her voice was calm and measured, "It's not an unnatural part of the Aerandir's lifecycle. False's - that is, my Aerandir," she glanced down at the creature in her arms rather fondly, "his jar began glowing a day or two before it exploded. Then False emerged, no problem."

After she finished talking, the girl let False venture out of her grasp, as he dropped off her lap and approached Toby. Head tilted, he pawed the dog cautiously.

Abbey watched Emi's reaction with vague dismay at having embarrassed the other, "No no, not at all. I was so stressed when False's jar started glowing, as well. Well, my friends' jars started glowing around the same time, so I figured it wasn't uncommon."

False, assured of the safety of the two strange ones finally begun to relax, and he nipped playfully at Toby's paw and bounded around the dog.

"Isn't he?" Abbey replied to Emi's comment, watching her charge, "And your dog is lovely too. I love animals... Ah, I don't think I got your name?" Her gaze returned to Emi, "I'm Abbey. Absinthium Jeminea, but usually just Abbey."

As if on cue the jar, inert up until that moment, jerked a little. The contents had swollen it seemed, as the two young women talked and a shining mass was eager to be released from the confines of the jar. It pressed, pulsing and small, hairline cracks began to appear in the glass.

Almost immediately the thing inside seemed to respond and pushed harder, the jars fractures becoming a strange crystalline network of lines. The glass shattered. Small pieces tinkled all around it, under Emiko's protective hands. Luckily for her, the recent glass bottles, newly made, had been used to house the most recent generation of Aerandir. Safety glass. Hexagonal pieces safely deflected off of her tawny fur as the gryphon began to form.

Unsteadily the little thing tried its best to balance on Emiko's lap. A fluffy white head swivelled up, bright yellow eyes searching.



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The guardian barely noticed the first hairline cracks, nor the pulsating as the shining mass within pushed against the sides of its confinements. Blanche wanted out, and she wanted out now apparently. It was only when the outsides of her jar pushed hard against Emi's furry fingers that the woman glanced down towards her. Boy was she surprised.

"Blanche?" The woman managed to stutter. The jar shattered a moment later, the glass shards deflecting off the edge of her fingers. Now you'd think anyone's natural instinct would be just to let go, but Emi's furry fingers only slid back from the pulsating mass of glass and Blanche.

The last few pieces of glass fell around the woman's lap, and from the midst a gryphon sat. Unsteady on all four paws, Blanche did her best to get her balance. White tail flickered briefly, as her rather fluffy head swiveled up, large yellow eyes flickering from one side of the room to the other as if looking for something.

Awestruck was one word for it. Coughing, Emi wrapped her arms around the small gryphon to steady her. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but for the time being Emi was wordless. Watching Blanche's every move, Emi's large tail found itself flicking too and fro in a light wag. It was one thing imaging her, another to have the gryphon sitting on her lap. She was alive, Blanche was here.

Finally, the yellow orbs found it's way onto her guardians. A silent un-said moment passed between Aerandir and Guardian, the gryphon lapsing back against the woman's furry arms.

"It's alright...." Whispering encouragingly to the gryphon, Emi just beamed up towards Abbey. A proud beam that only parents could keep, holding her little one steady for the time being. She truly was beautiful.
"Thank you, Blanche really is," Emi murmured, feeling rather guilty for not having the courage or words at the moment to speak about anyone but herself.

Toby had other ideas. He'd paused throughout the whole transformation, and now his head cocked to one side at the sight of a white furry paw sliding off Emi's lap. Wagging his tail, he followed False, sitting down on the floor to inspect the young Aerandir more closely.

Sin sighed deeply as she inhaled the warm air of the lodge. It was good to be back here, not so soon after such a frightening event as an earthquake. At least the lodge was still in one piece.

She'd come looking for some books on the history of the islands, intent on teaching Gael some of the more interesting points of the island history, along with the history of the Aerandir in general.

She wasn't sure if there would be anything, though. But she was content to drag Gael along as she looked.

Gael padded silently along beside Sin, casting sidelong glances at her every once and a while. Sin had mentioned something about 'history' a completely alien word in Gael's book, and 'learning to read,' which Gael assumed meant to being able to take the bundles of paper and make some sense out of the strange glyphs that surrounded them.

Sin had said that they were going to the 'lodge,' and Gael was deeply curious to see what this old building had to do with anything. She knew that the sandy-colored man often frequented there, but in all honestly, she was unsure if she wanted to see him again - as last time she had found herself in a completely alien body.

She resigned herself to follow Sin into the lodge and head over to the large stack of bundled paper in the corner, where Sin was leafing though one of the many novels.