Welcome to Gaia! ::

From within the house, out stepped a young lad. Though, it wasn't a fluid bow and a fancy flourish, it was more like an awkward stumble of someone trying to carry a bucket of cleaning supplies in one arm, a crutch in the other, and shoulder open the door in a way that might make Alex feel like she'd WANT to live there at the Delaran home. In short, he looked kind of dumb. He had a big smile planted on his face, but at one glance, anyone could easily tell that it had been just recently pulled there. His hair was up in all places, a tell tale sign that he had just finished running his hands through it, and his clothes had dust and windex stains all over them, particularly his knees. Not the most elegant of welcoming services, but it was endearing. Isi greeted the approaching adults, trying to fix his hair into place with his crutch arm as he leaned for support against the door and kept it open for their passage.

"Alex!" he beamed happily (and a little out of breath), "You're finally here!" he shot a glance to Aphi, "Thanks for calling me and telling me that you guys were already on your way here. I would've hurried up with the cleaning if I had known that I had less than an hour! Eiry's no help at all..." but he caught himself before he steamrolled into a mountain of complaints. He gave an apologetic smile, a hint of red tinging his cheeks as he realized that there was more than just immediate family in the doorway. "Sorry, come in, come in! Welcome home, Alex!" He pressed himself up against the door so that they may get by, his freckled cheeks pulled into a grin.

"Don't hug me yet," Isi said warningly, giving a meaningful lilt of his brows at Alex and then towards the many cleaning liquids and dirty rags in his arms, "If you do now, then we'll both be cleaner than the floors and wall trimmings."

Behind Isi, in the hallway and trailing into the living room were paper decorations along with various Christmas fandangle and frippery. Along wall, in cut-out letters were the words: Welcome Home Alex and Zul. Isi gestured with his head for them all to enter, "Come on, then, i can't hold this door open all day. I need to sit down!"

Upstairs, in what was his bedroom, was Eiry, packing the last of his papers and knick-knacks into a cardboard box. He had spent most of the day packing up the contents of his bedroom and moving it all, one box at a time, upstairs into the attic. He didn't want to be next to Rivener anymore, not with Zul in the house. The room next to Rivener's was going to be Zul's now. That's where Zul belonged. Next to Rivener.

Eiry wiped at his nose, sniffing.

"Dim, doltish...Half-baked....Shortsighted, witless, insensate...Dumb person," Eiry muttered bitterly, going through a mental thesaurus. After expelling most of the words he could immediately think up, Eiry felt no relief. Instead, he felt like the dumb one. Maybe he was. He took another deep breath. Isi talked with him very sternly this morning about manners and treating their guests, not only as esteemed and prized individuals, but as family. Isi was very adamant about repeating that word to Eiry, hammering it in his skull.

"No matter," he said to himself, "Ample walls for my books...Eerie like Eiry. Utopian place for me, the attic." Sour grapes and sweet lemons. Packing the last of his things into his box, Eiry dug his arms underneath it. It was then that he heard Rivener's voice behind him, coming from the open door to the landing. Eiry stiffened, and had half the mind to run away into the attic and just avoid everyone for that day, in fact, he was quite ready to do it and made the motions, but he heard Isi in his mind.

"They're your FAMILY, now, Eiry. Treat them like you would me or Rivener, on your good days, mind you."

With a heavy and long sigh, Eiry turned around and floated towards the balcony, giving reluctant beats of his wings. As soon as he saw them, floating up towards the railings, Eiry's words of welcome choked up. They were holding hands.

The minty sigel steeled himself and took a deep breath. "All well come to your new home, Zul." he said, trying to make himself smile. "What was once mine is yours. This room beside Rivener's you can use to your pleasure for whatever you will. No longer is it mine, it is yours. Well come, Zul. I hope you like it here." Then Eiry started to float backwards, intending to escape into the sanctuary of the attic.

The Frei eagerly followed the Scorpion onto the balcony, and he, too, didn't notice the minty Sigel until he spoke. Zul turned his blue eyes towards the elder Raevan, but unlike Rivener, his reaction was not warm or even very receptive. What was once mine is yours. The words washed over him in a very bad manner, dashing a bit of his grin into a civil smile. He was quiet while the brothers hugged and Rivener dashed off again, looking to Eiry once more with a reserved expression. He didn't know if the other remembered their last encounter, or if that was also being held against him.

"I don't want to take anything from you, Airy," the demon finally spoke at length, idly adjusting the fishbowl against his arm. "Families don't take. But thank you." His marbled wings beat a moment to turn himself towards Rivener and enter the Scorpion's room, not comfortable with the Wisp. Part of him still harbored an annoyance of the other and what had happened during their first meeting, and he was certain Eiry felt the same; he couldn't fathom another reason that the younger Sigel would be so eager to get away from him and Rivener.

He brushed the thoughts aside in time to hear the Scorpion talking about deleting things, smiling a little more earnestly. Despite the fact Rivener was giving him the grand tour of his room, Zul couldn't tear his eyes away from the black and red Raevan. The way he was smiling, the excitement that he exuded, the genuine warmth in his tone...the Frei was taken aback from the different part of the Sigel, but he was just as much attracted to him. If anything, he coveted this rare side of his Rivener. "Never been," he admitted at the mention of the poster, floating a bit more into the room and putting his fish on the desk with the computer, though not near the machine.

Managing to move his gaze away to make sure the fish were secure, he looked towards the photo albums. Rivener had mentioned he liked to take photographs, but he had no idea there were albums! Breathing in deeply, the demon allowed his smile to soften as his eyes were inexorably drawn back to the Sigel. The room smelled like Rivener, felt like him too; Zul was very happy with staying there, if he was allowed.

The woman nearly jumped at Isi's greeting, spinning around to face him with a slightly guilty expression. The sight of him quickly wiped it off her face, instead falling into laughter at his warning and leaning in to kiss his cheek instead. "Okay, okay, you win this round Is...Isi..." Only when Alex turned to the younger Delaran did she notice the greeting spelled out against the wall, her jaw slackening and her lips slightly parting. The Italian failed at keeping her emotions off her face, and this was no exception. "Isi!" she crowed, and pine sol be damned, her arms extended to wrap around the teen's shoulders in an affectionate hug all the same. She gave herself kudo points for trying to avoid the rags, though she didn't rightly care at that point if she did get them on herself.

The elder sibling was silent as the white-haired man talked of his profession, simply giving a nod of acknowledgement. A dark brow did lift, however, at the mention of explaining what had 'caused' the mishap. As far as he knew, his sister had just been her normal charming self, thus breaking half of everything she came in contact with. Brad turned his eyes inquisitively to his younger sister, though he didn't voice the question.

Her eyes turned towards Aphismet as he began to speak, holding onto Isi for a minute more until she remembered her brother was lumbering by like some amused giant statue. Releasing the teen promptly and straightening, she put a hand on his shoulder and gave the older Italian a look that clearly told him to swallow any teasing he might have felt. "B, this is Isikoro," she introduced the two, indicating the behemoth she called a brother to the younger sibling. "Isi, this is my brother--"

"Brad," the man introduced himself, knowing full well his sister didn't use the name. "Nice to meet you, Isi - can I call you that?" His indigo eyes dropped to observe the teen's full arms, both in part to make sure he had it all and in secondary to see if he was free enough for a handshake. The man wasn't about to impose. Instead, he dipped his head in acknowledgement to the teen, "I've heard only good things about you." His attention again returned to the chef, his expression still without a smile. He wasn't exactly keen on letting his sister do the moving, but he also knew that fighting her was like wrestling with said lion in said glass shop, and thus, he gave Aphismet a few more points of approval. "That'd be fine with me."

Alex bit her lip, but nodded, her smile warming as she looked to Aphi. Giving Isi an affectionate touch to his back, she bounded to her boyfriend and wrapped him up in another hug, albeit brief, beaming at him. "We'll have to shuffle some stuff - I obviously don't need my kitchen supplies - we'll just put those in B's truck and he'll take them from there." The less they had to wrestle with, the better, though where to put the potter's wheel and her easel...? With an exuberant smile, the woman turned on her heel and all but skipped out of the house towards the trucks.

Rivener didn't know his brother and his Important One were at odds. At least, not any more than the first time they'd met. The Scorpion remained unaware of the second altercation between the two, and probably all the better: it might have dampened his mood a bit. For the moment, however, Rivener was more than content running himself to exhaustion by zipping around his room showing the smokey Frei everything at all.

Once it was clear Zul showed some interest for Rivener's albums, the Sigel flapped his wings excitedly and retrieved the books in question, throwing them all onto the bed and beckoning Zul over so they could look through together, both laying on their stomachs with the album open before them.

A handful of minutes into this activity, Riv sighed deeply and leaned sideways, putting more of his weight on Zul and wrapping a wing around him. He placed a soft, utterly affectionate kiss to the Frei's cheek. "I am so incredibly happy, Zul. I'm so incredibly happy." He sighed again, sounding content and blissful. As far as he was concerned, the world could end now: it didn't get any better than this.

Aphismet watched everyone hug, introduce, shake hands, and move along to their tasks with a wide grin on his face. Isi was acting grumpy as ever, but the chef hoped that somewhere under that usual surly attitude Isikoro was actually glad for the new family addition. Aphi certainly was! And by all accounts Alex was. The woman positively beamed after that brief, warm hug. It drew a fond chuckle from the chef as he followed his girlfriend out to the truck, helping her sort the boxes.

"We'll find places for everything. We have a storage room upstairs if there are things you'd like to keep for the future... There's always room for more kitchen things though!" he laughed.

The laugh stopped as the meaning behind all this suddenly hit home. Aphi picked up a box labeled "bedroom"... This box was going to go into HIS bedroom. THEIR bedroom.

He grinned dumbly, blushing.