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"Now I have to get dressed," Aliya grinned, flipping her unbrushed hair over her shoulders. "Be back in a bit again!"

Giggling, she left the kitchen once more.

Ulani smiled as she held up one of the shirts. "Sometimes I wonder where she gets all of her energy," she murmured, standing again and moving over to where Cindy was sitting.

"Could you turn a bit?" she requested. "I need to measure where to make holes for your wings."

Ulani laughed as she took the measurements.

"Well, that's understandable," she smiled as she moved to sit down again and begin her work. "I mean, you must be so used to having them that you just don't think they're anything special anymore."

She grimaced slightly. "You should have seen your mother when she first fledged," she murmured. "She was ... bloody."

"I always wondered how she got those wings of hers into the slits in her clothes," Ulani laughed, taking up a pair of scissors and beginning to cut. "It's pretty amazing, all in all."

She smiled.

"Those kind are pretty," Ulani smiled. "I always felt naked when I wore them, though ... actually, I just plain felt naked in dresses, unless I had my stones around my neck."

She reached into the front of her tunic and pulled out a small, worn leather pouch to show Cindy what she meant. It was hanging from a thin leather cord that was tied around her neck, but was hidden (most of the time) by her tunic collar. Then she slid the pouch back into the front of her tunic, hiding it away once more.

Ulani nodded.

"They're among the most powerful magic known in Arda," she replied with a smile. "I used to need them a lot ... I've had them on me since I was fifteen years old, and to go anywhere without them ... it's like I'm not fully dressed."

She dropped the scissors and picked up the needle and thread.

"In the time of my great-grandmother's reign," she continued her explanation, "all those of the royal household received a set on his or her nineteenth birthday. Why then and not their sixteenth, when they became an adult, I don't know ... but anyways, we all got them."

She frowned as she stitched. "Unfortunately," she added, "now that there are hardly any dwarfs left who are on good terms with the elves and who have the proper skills, there haven't been any elfstones given out in several decades."

"Perhaps," Ulani said softly, frowning. "But it will take a lot of forgiveness on both parts - and a change in attitude in the dwarfs. Despite the fact that they were pushed back and the Four Lands were not destroyed, they still - some of them anyways - still believe that they're superior."

She bit her lip and looked as though she wanted to say something else, but wasn't sure if it would be a good idea.

"Time?" Ulani repeated, raising one eyebrow. "Time to let their anger and their hatred simmer and boil. I think one of the reasons the humans don't hold grudges is because they don't have time to spare to take action on them. I know people say that time heals all wounds, but there are some that are beyond the power of time."

She set her needle and thread aside and held the altered tunic up for inspection. "No, trust me. Things never have been and never will be peaceful between the dwarfs and the other races. We were never meant to live together, in this world or any other."

"That, unfortunately, is one of the problems," Ulani frowned, folding the tunic and holding it out to Cindy. It probably wasn't perfect, but it was the best she could do in the time alotted.

She wondered if it would make any sense if she went into the makeups of the races with Cindy.