Welcome to Gaia! ::

Amalirahc grinned. "Yeah, for a little while. We didn't stay here long. It's hot like Nauros, but too dry for Mama and Papa."

He himself had never really been in one place long enough to have a preference. He loved going everywhere.

"Maeglin! Lalwen!" he called as they caught up with the girls.

They turned to look at him when he called their names, and Lalwen's eyes lit up brightly. "Amalirahc!" the shy girl exclaimed. She let go of her sister's hand and ran to hug Amalirahc. "Hi!"

Amalirahc grinned and hugged Lalwen back. "You sure grew since the last time I was here," he beamed at her.

Lalwen giggled, her dark eyes shining brightly. "That's because you haven't been here in a while."

Amalirahc shrugged, still grinning. "That's because I've been traveling. Except this time I'm not just with Mama and Papa, this time we've got a whole lot of people with us!" He reached back and tugged Miyuki forward. "This is Miyuki, she's my best friend!"

"Hi," Lalwen said, shyly again now that she was being confronted with a stranger.

"And nice to meet you, too," Lalwen murmured, smiling.

Amalirahc grinned. "She's awful shy," he confided to Miyuki as if it weren't obvious. "But she's really nice. She just takes some time to get used to you." He grinned at her. "She's older than me but littler than me. But we get along really well, right, Lalwen?"

Lalwen giggled softly. "Amalirahc plays with me when Maeglin doesn't want to," she told Miyuki as it if were a secret. "Mama says Maeglin is growing up, so I must expect such things, but I still think it's not very nice."

Lalwen frowned. "That's what Mama says." She wrinkled her nose. "I hope I don't have that much work to do when I'm older."

"You probably will," Amalirahc told her cheerfully. "But it means that you'll be grown up too, then! And then you can do all kinds of things that you can't do yet, I betcha."

"Like what?"

"Like go to the city on your own!" Amalirahc was an eternal optimist. "Or maybe you can even go traveling. Or find somebody that you love! You can't do that when you're little, right?"

Lalwen giggled at him. "You're so weird."

Amalirahc grinned at Miyuki. "You say I'm weird all the time!"

Lalwen giggled again. "He's always silly." She poked Amalirahc in the ribs, making him squeal. "Who says I even want to find someone to love? I bet even when I'm fifteen like Maeglin I won't want to!"

"Why not?" Amalirahc blinked, rubbing his rib where she had poked him.

"Because once you fall in love, you can't do anything fun." The girl wrinkled her nose.

"Because once you fall in love, then you get married, and then you either spend your life working, which as far as I can tell is even more boring than lessons," the girl replied seriously, "or else you stay at home and wait around for your husband to come home and would be even more bored."

Amalirahc rubbed the back of his head. "Um ... Lalwen ... you do realize that just about every grownup here is married?" he told her, sounding more grown up than her despite being younger. "And look! We're all traveling together. It's a lot of fun!"

Lalwen turned to walk backwards so that she could look at the trail of adults who were following after the children. "Well ... maybe," she said, but she sounded doubtful.

"Yes, but if you're not married you're more free to choose what you do and how much you work," Lalwen smiled. "When you're married then sometimes you have to work more because you have more people to support and sometimes you have to work less than you want because you have to get home."

Amalirahc stepped between the girls - literally. "Okay, okay, you're both right," he told them. "But let's stop here, okay? You two both could keep going forever."

He was grinning when he said it, though. He knew them both.

They arrived at the dining hall then, and as promised, there was food and refreshment aplenty for all. Andarien kept his eyes open, and when he spotted a platter of fresh bread, he ran over and sat on the chair closest to it. Amalirahc was right beside him: he couldn't say no to a loaf of fresh bread, or anything like it for that matter.

River wandered over to join Miyuki and Lalwen. "Maeglin went to tell her mother we've arrived," she told them.

The moment River drew near, Lalwen turned shy again, and this time she hid behind Miyuki. "Mama probably already knew," she said, her voice so soft it was hard to hear.