Welcome to Gaia! ::

Idhril giggled and put both of her hands over Lore's so that it was stuck on her head. "I got you, Papa!" she squealed.

Silvrendir wrapped one arm around Elnara's neck and looked up at her. "Does anybody else call Daddy sir?" he asked curiously.

Elnara laughed softly. "Not many," she replied softly, hugging him tightly.

"Yes, yes you did," Lore replied absently.

He had to keep the conversations straight in his head a bit, even though there weren't that many going on. He didn't know how Tristan did it, carrying on two or three conversations at once while fending off badly timed advances by her boyfriend.

"It's nothing to be sorry about, I understand it's business, but just so you know it's okay to call me by name."

Aranhil cleared his throat awkwardly and studied the floor. "I'm afraid I have a confession to make on that score," he said quietly. He had to force himself to raise his eyes to meet her gaze once more. "It was I who told your brothers ... what you can do."

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I saw you out in the desert, and ... I was ... shocked. I returned immediately to the castle and asked your brother, Elrohir, why he had never told me ... only then did I discover that even they didn't know."

Elnara wasn't quite sure how to react to that. To be honest, it was the last thing she had expected, but the fact that he wasn't running away from her at the moment ... was encouraging. She knew he was acting strangely, compared to what she remembered of him, but she suspected that she knew why that was as well.

Yet that meant it was he who had told her brothers, and thus he who was the root cause for their actions. No, she amended, they were responsible for their own actions. Aranhil had done what he thought was right, as anyone in the same circumstance would have done. After all, it was indeed quite a secret that he had discovered, and she could only imagine how shocked he must have been.

No, she could not blame him.

She hugged Silvrendir unconsciously again until he fidgeted uncomfortably, and cleared her throat.

"I ... I suppose then that I should thank you," she murmured, smiling faintly. "If they had found out any later, I probably would have had nowhere to go ... as it was, I was able to return to Gaia with the Winters family, and from there ..."

She smiled and took Lore's hand again.

Lore began to wonder as he gently squeezed Elnara's hand, if Elnara had been someone dear to Aranhil. He, for the life of him could not recall if she mentioned anything like that, probably not.

"Are you going to be okay?" Lore asked softly.

Aranhil turned his attention to the fidgety child and found that the grip on his chest lessened somewhat.

"Do you like pretty things?" he asked her kindly.

Idhril nodded eagerly and clapped her hands together. "Mama has lots of pretty things," she told Aranhil excitedly. "And my big sister Serenity can draw pretty things! But they don't have so many pretty things as are in here," she added, looking around a bit. "Mama has a bracelet like one of the ones over there" - she pointed towards the wall display once more - "and she has some necklaces and stuff that are real pretty too. Did you make all of these things?"

Elnara set Silvrendir on the floor and let him wander around on his own, then watched Aranhil and Idhril interacting. She was grateful for how things were going ... to be honest, she had been a little apprehensive about how things might have gone. Aranhil, she knew, had loved her once ... and from the look that came and went from his eyes, she suspected that he might still.

She looked up at Lore. Perhaps she should have warned him, let him know that - on Aranhil's part - they had been more than just friends in the past. It would have been fair, and he did deserve to know ...

She fidgeted with her scarf a bit as she watched Lore. Even now, seeing things as they were, she couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. Then and there, she made up her mind that, if the subject wasn't broached before they left the shop, she would tell him as soon as it was convenient.