Welcome to Gaia! ::

Elnara nodded thoughtfully, then sighed. "No," she murmured, "I would never have imagined."

She rubbed her arm as if trying to warm herself, despite the fact that she was actually bordering on uncomfortably warm due to the desert heat, which she wasn't used to.

"I have to admit, though," she said hesitantly, "that ... it's ... despite everything, it's nice to know that Daeron ... and Luthien ... and even Tinuviel, whom I hadn't met before, are all defending me ..."

"Will it be alright for you to keep waiting for me?" Lin asked curious.

She knew it would take her a long time to grow (well in a sense Earendil was lucky it would take her about two years or so to grow unlike a nomral decade). However, she knew about the time difference, and wondered if that would be okay for him.

"I can wait," Earendil nodded, smiling. "I'll just tell my Ninako that I'm not finished my training yet. Uncle Eldrin won't get me in trouble, he likes that I'm so eager to continue. Besides that, if I did leave, Haradhel wouldn't have anyone else to spar with."

Elnara nodded, eyes downcast. "I don't know what I'd have done, if Kara hadn't taken me in," she admitted. "There were times, I remember, when I wondered if it wouldn't be better ... just not to be. But ... when they took me in, when they made me feel like I was more their family than anyone else's, when I felt they were more my family than anything I had ever felt before ... it was ... wonderful."

She paused.

"Still," she concluded, turning to Lore and smiling faintly, "even with them, I would have been lost if not for you."

Lin could not understand how anyone could wait that long, but the idea of immortality was an odd one for her. She was young, not even a year old so it was of little surprise. However Seconds were never granted old age, but she did not know that, no one did. The eldest Second to exist was not even two years old.

All Lin could do was look at Earendil adorably confused.

"It's always difficult to be alone," Elnara murmured. "And sometimes, even when you're surrounded by people, you still feel alone ... until you're with someone of your own kind, or someone you love dearly ... loneliness breeds fear, and fear breeds madness and despair. There are people who will try to tell you that laughter is what can cure even the incurable diseases."

She shook her head. "It's love."

It didn't necessarily have to be a courting love, a lover's love, but just a personal love from family and friends. Working at the library, she knew Lore was constantly surrounded by people of all races and ages - but how many of them (that weren't members of his staff) actually paid him more than a passing glance? A polite comment?

Lore chuckled a bit wondering if he could get her to be any closer and was grateful that the children were not like the little ones who thought any sort of display of affection was gross so to speak.

"You're right," he murmured.

Elnara smiled and leaned her head on Lore's shoulder as they rounded a corner and approached a set of stairs.

"He should be just down here," she murmured, nodding to the torch-lit corridor at the bottom of the long stairway. "It's cool down there ... which is nice."