Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cindy nodded, "We brought blankets, so don't worry about us. Besides, we're still kind of wide awake."

She supposed the only way to deal with it was to stay up and then sleep the next night.

"Good night," Donovan agreed as he took one of the couches to settle for the night.

Though it was quite early in the day since they left so there was not much for him to do. Instead he went over as he laid down in his head, the things that needed to be done while he was here.

It was in those thoughts that he fell asleep.

Dawn came early and bright, but for Ulrich and Ulani it wasn't the sunrise that woke them, as it usually did. Instead, they were woken by an ear-piercing shriek that shattered the silence of the early morning. A tiny blur shot from the living room into Ulani and Ulrich's bedroom and, wailing, tried to crawl into bed with them.

Ulrich was awake immediately, but when he understood what had happened, he reached under the blanket and pulled out the child - a little boy of about four years - and hugged him close.

"Adonai," he murmured, stroking the terrified child's head, "it's all right ..."

Ulani rolled onto her side and wiped the sleep from her eyes. "I think he noticed our guests," she commented blandly, yawning. She sat up and leaned over, planting a kiss on her son's forehead, then slipped out of bed and began to dress.

At the sound of the scream, another child had also woken with a start. Aliya, now nine years old, slipped out of bed and, still dressed in her sleeveless shirt and loose pajama pants, left her room to see what was happening.

Cindy, unfortunately was not as lucky as Donovan was the scream startled her to full alertness, in which she promptly fell off the couch with a thud. She found herself with her head against the floor and her legs against the couch frailing in the air, and her feathers horribily bent out of shape as they were being squished by the sudden body weight.

"What just happened?"

Donovan looked up, and up, and much to his annoyance even further up. She was taller than Daeron's sister, which probably put her nearer to ten maybe? He didn't know, but Donovan stood up anyways putting tucking his coat over his weapons as he left them there as if he hadn't just been violently woken from bed and been cursing.

"Donovan Lau," he replied putting his family name last, which always struck him a bit odd doing that even though he literary spent most of his time in an area where that was a common tradition.

Aliya giggled a bit when Cindy curtsied, and rubbed some of the sleep out of her eyes.

"I'm Aliya Aldrich," she told the two, smiling sleepily. "I live here with Mama and Father and my baby brother, Adonai ... where did you come from?"

Her blue eyes were drawn to Cindy's feathers, and she couldn't help but stare at them curiously.

At that moment, Ulani appeared behind Aliya with the black-haired, hazel-eyed Adonai in her arms. He was curled up with his head tucked into the curve of her neck, one thumb in his mouth, staring at Cindy and Donovan and still whimpering a bit.

"Good morning," Ulani greeted her guests cheerfully, all traces of sleep gone from her face. "I apologize for the rude awakening, it seems you startled my son ..."

Her smile grew wider. "Welcome back," she told Donovan sincerely; then to Cindy she added, "And welcome for the first time. I'm sure you've noticed, things are ... a bit different here now." She laughed. "This is our son, Adonai ..."

Adonai stuck his thumb further into his mouth and looked away from the strangers. Ulani laughed.

"And this," she continued, putting one hand on Aliya's head, "is our daughter, Aliya ... I don't know if Elnara mentioned her to you or not, she was just a baby when Elnara and Lore were here."

Cindy curstied again and nodded at Ulani, "Thank you, it's nice to be here," she admitted.

She then turned to Aliya, she noticed the stares and did not mind. She had been warned ahead of time that children with wings and things were unknown here.

"I came from Gaia."