Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I don't know," Amalirahc admitted. "Mama finished them all before I was born. So it might have taken a long time, but it might not have."

He directed her attention to the largest one over on the other side of the room. "This is a model of the one that we're going to be going on," he told her. "But the real one, our whole house can fit into just one small part of it, it's so big!"

Amalirahc giggled. "I was born on that ship!" he told Miyuki proudly. "And I lived there til I was two years old! And Mama and Ada still take me there sometimes."

He loved it on the ship, and he wished that they could spend more time there. He was really looking forward to their trip.

Amalirahc grinned and moved to the other side of the model. "Here," he pointed at one of the cabins. "This is the cabin where me and Mama and Ada lived til we came on land. And then the next time we went on the ship, I got a cabin to myself!"

He was so proud of the fact.

"It's really neat," he went on. "I can go swimming and I can help with the sails sometimes - Neko says when I get bigger and stronger I can help more, but right now I'm too little."

"Maybe you could learn," Amalirahc suggested. "Mama and Ada taught me. Maybe your mama and ada could teach you!"

It was the perfect idea, to him. Of course, he was assuming two things: first, that they had swimming skills of their own; and secondly, that they would let her learn on the open ocean.

Amalirahc grinned. "Then maybe when they get back from the city we can ask them!"

He pointed to a small deck low on the ship, barely above the waterline. "That's where we can get off and on for swimming. And ..."

He pointed at the side of the keel, where there were tiny ladder rungs sticking out. "There's somewhere else we can climb up if we need to, or if maybe the lower deck is under the water somehow."

"If the weather is good and the waves are calm," Amalirahc nodded. "But we have to have Mama with us too, just in case. Things can change really fast out there so it's really dangerous."

He pointed to the tiny ship's wheel on the bridge of the ship. "And that's where Neko steers the ship. The wheel moves the rudder ..."

He moved to the back of the ship and pointed at the tiny rudder. "... and that makes the ship turn the way Neko wants it to."

Amalirahc nodded, eyes wide. "It's like - trying to move a mountain!" he exclaimed. "It's so hard! You have to be really ... really strong to do that."

He just hoped that one day he would be so strong.

Amalirahc nodded. "Just once, though. I'm going to make myself strong before I ask if I can try again. It might take a while, though, because I would have to get very very strong."

He pointed at the main deck. "That's where we are most of the time when we're outside. And this door here, up at the front, that's for Neko and Nako. And this door at the back, that goes below deck, to the storage and the crew's quarters."