Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lore's other hand hovered over Storm just in case the boy fell, it kind of made him nervous to see Storm being so bold, even though... he knew the fact that the likelyhood of Storm falling was a low one.

"No joke," Lore replied absently, "The Second race grows by stages rather than slowly over an amount of years."

"And exactly how long does it take them to grow, then?" Amara asked, somewhat dazed. "I mean ... if she was so tiny only a few weeks ago for you, then ... will she be twice this size in another two weeks of your time?"

The entire idea was hard to believe, let alone understand.

"As far as I know," Elnara agreed, "it varies. Celebor took quite a while to grow to child, Serenity and Skye took even longer ... and, well, the twins are nearly ... what, a few Gaian months old? And yes, each stage takes progressively longer, Feng and Ryu took a year or so to become teens."

Starr tripped over the hem of Lore's sleeve and fell right onto her stomach, and wrapped her hands and legs around his arm so that she wouldn't fall. Her wings beat wildly, trying to keep her where she was; but slowly, ever so slowly, Lore's sleeve started twisting and Starr went along with it until she was hanging upside down from his arm.

Storm giggled. "Funny Starr!" he laughed, pointing.

"I don't know... a year? Maybe two?" he guessed, "There are very few that take up to three years or more, but no more than five."

He carefully took Starr by her robes so he could put her on his shoulder, so he didn't have to worry about her falling or anything like that.

Amara laughed softly and clasped her hands behind her back.

"Why don't you all come in?" she invited, stepping to one side to let them enter first. "Fletcher's not home at the moment, I'm afraid ... actually, he'll be gone for the better part of the week. But there's fresh cakes, if anyone's interested."

She tucked her long golden hair behind her shoulder again and smiled at them warmly.

Elnara grinned at Lore. "You guys go on ahead," she suggested with a nod towards Lore and Amara and the children. "I'll get Skye and be right in, she's wandered off again."

And she set off around the side of the house in search of her daughter.

"YES!" Storm cheered, pumping one fist into the air and grabbing onto Lore's head so that he could ride on his shoulder without falling over. "We're gonna go in!"

Starr was just as happy but slightly less obvious about it. "Thank you!" she beamed at Amara, clapping her hands quietly and swinging her legs back and forth, tapping her feet against Lore's collarbone.

He would have rather waited for Elnara, seeing as she was looking for Skye and Skye did have a bad habit of wandering off to be honest. However the twins wanted to be inside so inside he did go.

"Well, you two were being as patience as possible," he murmured ot them.

"Magic?" Amara repeated, following them inside and closing the door behind them.

There was a staircase to the immediate right of the door that led up to a second storey. The room that they had entered appeared to be a sitting room: it was very cozy looking, with a fireplace in the far wall, across from the door, and three couches around it. There was a large woven rug in the middle of the floor, dyed several different colours, and other pieces of furniture - footstools, chairs and a few more couches - were scattered neatly around the room. The walls were covered with multi-coloured handprints and footprints, paint that looked old and a little bit faded.

Amara moved to a little cupboard that was against the left wall, beneath an oval mirror that was hanging on the wall, and knelt down. She opened it and took out a small basket with what appeared to be a loaf of bread in it, then closed the cupboard and moved to rejoin her guests.