Welcome to Gaia! ::

Earendil smiled and put one arm around Lin's shoulders and pulled her against him as Ulrich chuckled softly.

"To be honest," Ulrich told Aric, "we had been going through a terrible time. You remember that Terexin had come back here with us ... he was killed about seventy years ago. He was all we had left back then, and Ulani and I ... well, we ended up in bad shape. Lin's parents came for a visit, and they convinced us to give life another try ... now here we have a son and a daughter, four grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, and a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren in another land."

There was pride and joy in his voice, and a sparkle in his eye as he spoke.

When he had finished speaking, Aric looked at Lin with a newfound respect in his eyes. "Then from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you and your parents, Lin," he said solemnly. "We know what they were like when their first son was killed; to be left with no children ... well, I can imagine."

Ulrich smiled at Lin. "Be that as it may, we are still very grateful."

"Ah, that reminds me," Aric recalled suddenly, setting Remiel on the ground and reaching for his bag. "Ruwen sent something along for you."

The moment Remiel hit the floor, he started crawling over towards Miyuki. "Mm!"

Remiel sucked on his lower lip and kept crawling towards Miyuki. "Mah!"

He caught up to her and plopped himself on his bottom, then scooted just a bit closer, leaning forward and reaching for her cloak.

"Don't let him get anything too small," Earendil warned Miyuki quietly. "He'll stick it in his mouth, and he might choke."

Remiel stretched just a bit further until his tiny fingers caught hold of Miyuki's cloak. He pulled it toward himself, mouth wide so that he could stick it in and suck on it.

Aric chuckled. "Considering he's never been with people besides his mother and myself," he grinned at Miyuki, "he's not shy at all."

The cloak was jerked out of Remiel's weak grip and he blinked at Miyuki in surprise. "Bah!" He leaned forward again, reaching once more for the cloak.

Aric smiled softly, watching the two as he also kept an eye on Ulrich, who was in the process of reading through a letter that had been attached to a package.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and it opened slowly.

"Nako?" a soft voice called out; and Jasmine appeared in the room, her dark hair tied back away from her mocha face.

Earendil chuckled at Miyuki. "Babies like to suck on anything they can," he told her. "It's their way of finding out about things."

"Perhaps you should be grateful he doesn't want to chew on your tails," Aric suggested with a laugh.

Jasmine smiled shyly at Lin. Though she was an adult now, she was as shy as she had ever been - and she had never really gotten to know Lin very well, which didn't help. "Hello," she murmured softly.

Leilani and Ulani stopped their conversation when Jasmine walked in, and Leilani looked at Ulani curiously. "Nako?" she repeated.

Ulani giggled and moved to greet Jasmine herself. "Come and meet your grandfather's sister," she grinned at her granddaughter, eyes sparkling brightly. Jasmine's eyes fixed on Leilani, and she moved forward reluctantly.

"Perhaps so," Earendil chuckled, "but when you were a baby we had a very hard time trying to keep you from sucking on your own tail. It's just a baby thing, babies like to suck on anything they can."

He glanced over at the other and watched, amused, as Ulani tried to coax Jasmine into meeting her great-great-aunt. It was funny to him how a grown woman could be so afraid of a stranger, even one she was related to.

Earendil laughed. "Not that I recall, though you were with your mother alone for a few days at first. You were three days old already when I met you, so you would have to ask your mother about that."

Ulrich chuckled. "Children are children, after all."

Aric grinned down at Remiel, who had given up on the cloak that Miyuki wouldn't let him have and was crawling towards Jasmine, whose cloak was trailing on the floor.