Welcome to Gaia! ::

Haradhel passed Faith to Kara and took Hope carefully from her. "It's about time someone sat down to do that," she smiled. "After all, how long has it been since you've been coming here? Decades, I know that much. Since before the ranch was founded - or even before Aliya was born, according to Ulani and Ulrich."



Aliya laughed. "Well, look at it this way," she grinned at Ryu. "If you would let her do it on her own, and she fell, she would learn to stay closer to the ground until she was better at it. Doesn't that make sense? She's at the age where her physical harm won't be as bad as if she were older or younger, and it would teach her a lesson and you wouldn't have to worry so much."

The wisdom that came with being a mother and grandmother.

Elnara looked over at the others as she heard her name. "Well ... bringing me home, Gion was eighteen at the time," she recalled, "so it couldn't have been later than 20 or 21." She paused. "No, 25. He's a few years younger than Elrohir, I had forgotten."

Haradhel blinked. "Then it's already been seventy years," she told them, her eyes wide with wonder. "So long ..."




Aliya grinned. "So let her keep doing it," she told him. "She'll learn eventually. If you keep running after her like that, she won't learn, and she won't stop - and then when she gets older, too big for you to catch, she still won't have learned, and you'll both be getting hurt."

Elnara looked over her shoulder at Kara. "Three years," she agreed. "That was when I first arrived in Gaia. It feels like so much longer ... probably because of how much time I've been spending in this world after all. A year's honeymoon and all, plus the visit to the Southland ... and all the visits in between ..."




Aliya laughed. "Feng's got a point, Ryu," she grinned. "Come on, it's just her transportation out of the water. Give her a break."

She reached over and put one hand on Naida's head, ruffling her hair affectionately. "Would anyone care for a drink?"

"Well, and then you get into the problem of the difference in methods of telling time," Elnara pointed out. "The years are mostly the same, but the months are so different in length, and even the weeks don't match up."

Haradhel had known about the months being longer in the Four Lands, but she hadn't known about the weeks. "How so?" she asked curiously, holding Hope to her shoulder and rubbing her back slowly.

Elnara turned to Haradhel. "Well, the weeks in Gaia are seven days," she explained, "with two days as the weekend, where many people have off work." Though Lore still often went in to the library, but she had given up on trying to get him to take more time off.




Aliya laughed. "Something tasty," she grinned, heading towards the kitchen. "Well come on, we'll see what we can find for you, how does that sound?"

She had a feeling that Naida wouldn't be allowed to have wine - the Gaians seemed a bit strict about their children having wine - but there was plenty of cider in the cellar, and even fresh milk ...

Elnara tilted her head a bit as she looked at Kara. "I thought it was two weeks to a year," she commented. "When Lore and I got back, it was the weekend before Lore had to return to work ... but I was off work permanently, remember? With the twins being so young and all ..."

She felt a bit guilty having Yukito taking on her workload as well now, but it had been that way in the beginning as well, and she had a family to take care of now.




Aliya heard the thud as she headed down into the cellar, and she turned around and stuck her head back into the kitchen. "You're too big to be on the table now," she told Naida firmly, but with a smile. "Chair for you."

As she disappeared down into the cellar again, the front door opened and footsteps could be heard. "Nana?"

Elnara shook her head. "Well, I've never been one to keep track, so I'll trust your word on that," she murmured. "It does make things a bit more difficult though ... for figuring things out, I mean."

Haradhel couldn't help but laugh at that. "Well, I stick to one world, so it all makes sense for me," she smiled. "Honestly, we all love when we get visits, but I don't know how you manage to keep your sanity about you. Time changes and differences and never knowing when you're going to end up here or when you're going to end up back home, or not even knowing how old you are - which I believe was the question the last time Elnara was here."

Elnara blushed. "Yes, it was."




When the door opened, it was Alyse who was standing there - but it wasn't her who had opened the door, it was a little girl about half Feng's height. She had Alyse's blue-violet eyes and tanned skin, but her hair was a dark brown with lighter highlights. On the back of one hand, there was a patch of darker skin, almost brown - a birthmark in the rough shape of a bird - or at least, so she liked to claim.

Alyse's eyes lit up when she saw Feng. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Hello! Welcome back! When did you get here?"

The little girl was about to run inside, but when she saw Feng and Ryu between her and the doorway, she turned around and hid behind Alyse's skirt instead. The top of her face was visible as she peered around Alyse's legs, and her hand, the one with the birthmark, clutched tightly at the fabric of her skirt.

Haradhel kept rubbing Hope's back gently. "Well, to be honest, we don't see much of Rhea or Cindy out this way," she admitted. "I would suspect that they'll be doing little experiments with Rhea's magic ... to my knowledge they still haven't found a limit to what she can do. Even Aragost says that he's never seen such magic, not since the Valar and the Maiar lived among our kind."

Elnara blinked. "Considering that they created the world," she murmured, "that's impressive."



Ulani and Ulrich were both inside the house, Ulani working in the kitchen while Ulrich sat in the living room and whittled away at a block of wood. Ulrich looked up, hearing the sound of footsteps in the thin layer of snow outside the door, and lowered his carving to his lap, waiting for the knock that he knew would be coming.



Alyse giggled and turned around, picking up the little girl and holding her on her hip. "Feng, Ryu, this is my daughter, Jasmine. Jasmine," she murmured, "you know Mama's told you stories of Feng and Ryu, Nako's friends?"

Jasmine looked at the two of them, then turned and buried her face in Alyse's shoulder shyly.