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By this time, everyone had gathered around Iorlas, even Daeron and Kyrie.

"I don't know what it is," Iorlas said anxiously, "I just know there's something in there. I can hear it."

Earendil strained to hear anything above the light breeze that was blowing the smoke around, but he he heard nothing at all. He opened his mouth and was about to say so when Iorlas' hand shot out, stopping him before he could utter a sound.

"There it is again," she whispered intensely.

She pushed past Kaito, who was between her and the rubble, and started to claw away at it. She cried out with pain when she grabbed at a smouldering board and blew on her hands to cool them.

Until this point, Kyrie had looked torn, but when Iorlas cried out in pain, she seemed to come to a decision.

"Stand back," she warned everyone, motioning them away from the house.

The others backed off as well, and no one could figure out what was going on.

"Keep going, keep going," Kyrie kept saying, right up until everyone was pretty far away from her and the rubble. Earendil looked over at his family, making sure that they were all right -- emotionally as much as physically -- and when he saw that Lin had Andarien (which he was more worried about as he was so much more innocent and naive than his sister) he looked back at Kyrie to see what was going to happen.

Suddenly, a dragon appeared: a great red dragon, wings spread wide, easily a hundred feet from its nose to the tip of its tail. Its underbelly and inside its wings were a shimmering gold, as were the edges of its enormous scales. Its body was in thirds: one third neck, one third body, and one third tail, vastly different from the dragons of Amon Darthir; and it had a certain majesty about its movements.

"Carefully!" Kyrie called up to it, and the dragon nodded at her, its golden eyes blinking once before it raised one clawed forefoot and began to lift the rubble from the house.

Though most of the group was in shock and awe of the great creature, Iorlas' eyes lit up brightly, and she circled the dragon, heading back towards the house so that she could see what would be revealed when the debris was cleared away.

Earendil ushered his family a bit further away as the dragon began to dig through the rubble: not because of the dragon itself, but to protect them from the beams, walls, bits of broken furniture and pottery and so on that were being so lightly lifted away and tossed aside by it.

"There!" Iorlas suddenly cried out, pointing at something specific.

The dragon focused its efforts where she had pointed, and when it was clear enough Iorlas darted forward and snatched something out of the rubble.

"A child," Earendil blinked in amazement. "A baby?"

As Earendil had said, it was a child, a toddler by the looks of it. It was a boy, naked and bald, and though he had been lying on coals and in the midst of a smouldering building, he had no burns anywhere on his body. Iorlas held him carefully and hurried back towards the others so that she could find a blanket for him.

"He's alive," she said as she approached the others. "Can someone get some water for him? And a blanket? And -- and --"

She was more anxious now than she had been when she had simply heard the child. She didn't know what to do, what he would need!

"Perhaps we should have Kyrie look him over," Daeron suggested, leading his wife away from the house. "Just in case."

He remembered how well she had taken care of Shiro not long before. He was confident that she would know what to do here.

He turned to look for her and was slightly surprised when she turned away from the dragon that had appeared and was coming to join the rest of them.

Earendil held his hands out to Lin obediently so that he could help her to carry all of the things she was pulling out of her bag.

"Lin, that kid's gotta be nearly a year old," Kaito pointed out. "He's way past bottles and formula."

"Let Kyrie do the thinking, Kaito," Shiro told his brother bluntly. "We're not used to the races here. She'll know better than you."

Kyrie looked from the baby to Kaito to Shiro and back at the baby again. "Actually," she said, looking over the child, "I think Kaito's right. He's definitely old enough to be eating solids."

Then she looked back at Kaito. "That's not to say that a bottle wouldn't be handy for allowing him to drink," she added. "Give me the blanket, please."

Iorlas passed the blanket Lin had given her over to Kyrie, and Kyrie set it out on the ground before motioning for Iorlas to lay the child down on it. Once Iorlas had done so, she began to examine the baby.

"He must be a Fire Elf," she murmured. "All the hair on his body has been singed off, but he hasn't got a burn on him ... and I can't imagine his parents would have left him without clothes in this kind of weather, even inside."

She ran her fingers over him lightly, muttering to herself as she did so.

"Bruises from where the debris fell on him ... that's going to need wrapping, that's definitely a fracture ... huh ... I wonder ..."

"Aside from some bruising and a fractured rib," Kyrie told everyone, "this child is suffering from malnutrition and dehydration. It's probably been two or three days, maybe more, since he's had anything. He needs water immediately."

Iorlas searched through her bag for a flask. "Lin, can you pass me a bottle?" she requested anxiously.

While Iorlas worked on getting the child some water, Kyrie turned to Miyuki to answer her question more specifically.

"Given that this is Caras Galadhon, and people of the same race don't generally come here to begin their families," she said dryly, "this child must be a half-blood, at the very least. Fire Elf, since he has no burns, and I'm thinking White Elf, for a few reasons."

She ticked the reasons off on her fingers. "First, because of his proximity to Sier Belen. Secondly, because of how pale he is. Sure, Fire Elves are pale, but if he had any other blood in him, he would be darker than he is. Third, he's naked, he's been in the open air for a few days with neither blanket nor clothing, and yet he's not cold."

An amused expression crossed her face briefly. "If that's the case, this child will never know what the word 'temperature' means. He will never know either hot or cold."

But considering what the child had been through, this wasn't the time to be amused, and her smile vanished almost as quickly as it had come up.

"I doubt it," Kyrie replied with a shrug. "The attack was a few days ago at least, and I can't think of any reason why they might return. That being said, I haven't survived as long as I have by being casual about things. So yes, expect something, because it's always better to be safe than sorry."

She finished wrapping the child's chest in bandages and put on the shirt that Lin had given Iorlas for him.

"There," she murmured, handing the child to Iorlas once she had the bottle of water ready. "Not too much, you don't want to make him sick. Bits at a time. We'll try food later."

Suddenly an extremely deep voice, barely more than a rumble, asked, "How is he?"

Kyrie looked past the rest of the group, towards the dragon that had mysteriously appeared. "I'll know by tomorrow. The worst is the dehydration. If he can get past that, he'll be fine."