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Not a month past, and already people searching for family were coming into his tent. ...He wasn't sure whether this counted as one or two cases on it's own. Either way, this looked to be just one more thing to get used to in this country. "Guessing it's to do with that war not so long ago? I'm from a ways off, so I've only heard about that mess, and then, not much. Doesn't seem like people wanna talk about it this soon." Perhaps it was impolite to ask, but even the old man told him to mind his work and stop asking. And his master held a vast reservoir of patience for 'stupid prentice questions'! Something happened to him, too, I'll bet. Those shouting nights don't sound like any fun.

"...Like I said, just stop me if I get too personal. I was on a different continent when all that happened, and most folks just go quiet rather than discuss it, is all." Questions aside, he kept back and watched her work. It didn't seem all that different from some of his mother's blueprints, actually, saving that she was clearly drawing it up inside her own head. His passion might have been chemical and material science, but Aire could see the appeal of crafting, or building, as the case may have been. The bent-nosed belrean had to reorient and focus himself on Masika's work, as his mind whirled off in a completely different direction, something involving a pressurized liquid delivery system. Again, thoughts for when he was free of company. She clearly had her own errands to run after this.

Were he anyone else, the prentice might have said that going on a trip to train was a bit of a strange choice. Especially taking your child along for the same. But then, look at his own exploratory desires had gone. And he could have done better, with one of his family along for the ride. Wish that it could've gone so smooth for them, though. I'm far too lucky, looking back. "If the Aishan had been better settled, we might've got wrapped up in it too. Hear they only got a tree growing on Belrea in my lifetime." And even radicals needed more than one generation to build up a head of steam unless something went terribly wrong. It wasn't like innovations, his father had said. War took building, a foundation, or it would just collapse on itself before it began. Better that nobody laid those cornerstones down, he'd said, and Aire was inclined to agree, what with the echoes still lingering around Jauhar.

There were other thoughts, timing and dreadful possibilities, but he kept these locked in an ivory box, behind his lips. These were no use to anyone, and didn't deserve open air and light. While she was busy, Masika's host at least attempted to make himself useful. In this case, stacking the cut shapes neatly along the edge of the table according to size. Largest on the bottom, smaller going up. Having learned with chemicals and stone, his fingers nimbly kept away from the well-oiled shears, even in an adept's quick snips. It gave Aire time to think up better questions than the ones wasting space in the front. "Sounds like you've come a long ways. Anything in particular lead you two here?"

From the thin teen's perspective, an Alkidike was much like an Elaria, mostly because he hadn't met too many of either as yet. That the other tribes of earthling were so different still boggled the mind. Belrea didn't have much in the way of easily-accessible medical records on that symbiotic race. Oh they'd studied what little they could, as he knew it. ...But most of it still boiled down to 'probably magic' in much more respectable language. "Still surprised how quickly the airship dock was adapted. It used to be a lookout post, I understand.

One important bit only caught his ear after a few moments, though, and tugged at the braincells attached to his ear. "Chibale, Chibale... Wasn't that the Alkidike homeland? I thought earthlings were unwelcome there." It didn't slow his gathering of the fresher fabric portions, but the confusion and mild concern were not hidden, as indeed few of Aire's emotions were. The warrior-women were not to be trifled with, even he knew. They did not take kindly to visitors, and he wasn't sure whether or not that included mixed folk.

For the most part, they were scheduled every few weeks or so, on something of a rotating destination. It had taken a few months for one to arrive bound for Belrea. He still didn't understand the system as yet, but it wasn't something paid much attention these days. There was so much to learn! So many compounds and chemicals, healing and even magic to unravel, to puzzle out the workings thereof! Dirigibles were easy enough to understand, once the basic engineering principles were applied- But those aren't common here. They're used to making simpler machines, I've gotta remember.

Well, that was... something, at the least. Better than rushing headfirst into danger. That the girl had an arrangement gentled the worry and confusion both, mixing oddly on his rawboned face. It seemed odd to Aire that one born of their tree, as the Aishan themselves, was denied full citizenship. But then, Belrea's meritocratic bureaucracy might well have been to an outsider, also. ...But something still clunked in the data he had. "You're putting your search on hold to go to Chibale, then? What's the occasion for these festivities?" It seemed odd to look for the explicitly non-Alk folk on their xenophobic home...