Welcome to Gaia! ::

Once everyone was down, Kelirahc touched his mark, and the dragon vanished once more. Then he turned to the others and asked a question.

"Is anyone hungry?" Shiro translated, looking around. "We can either eat here, or eat back at the village."

"If we eat here," Leyenda offered, "we get fresh food ... at the village, it will be at least a day or two old. It's still good then, but it's just better fresh."

Arwen looked at Roydon thoughtfully. "I suppose we might as well try some of it," she shrugged.

He nodded. "Sounds good to me."

Shiro told their answer to Kelirahc, and the man nodded and followed after Leyenda, taking her hand and leading the way into the jungle.

The foliage wasn't as thick in this area, and they made their way fairly quickly and without any difficulty to a grove of orange trees. Leyenda's eyes lit up when they got there, and she reached up and picked several of the bright fruit.

"Here," she said, handing one to Kelirahc and then handing them out to the others. "They're delicious! I don't know what they're-"

"Orange," Shiro grinned, taking one and rolling it between his palms. "Bit of a boring name, but you're right, they're great!" He dug his thumbnail into the skin and began to peel it quickly.

Leyenda blinked. "Then you have them in Gaia, I assume?" she asked him as Kelirahc opened one for the two of them to share.

Kelirahc offered half his peeled orange to Leyenda, and she smiled warmly and bit into it, savouring the taste - and the meaning, now that she knew what it meant.

"We should gather some and take them with us," Shiro murmured thoughtfully as he finished peeling his. "They're quite full of vitamins, and while I understand that elves don't need to worry about that as much ... Lin I'm sure does, as do we nekos."

"Oh, and Lin, Arwen, Roydon," Rhea spoke up suddenly, "don't take food directly from anyone's hand in the village ... I doubt anyone will offer, but just in case. It means you're romantically interested in that person." She had been the one to talk with Kelirahc and Leyenda and discovered that that was how everything had begun between them in the first place. "If you accept, it means that you accept their advances, and have in interest in them as well."

"Duly noted," Roydon nodded. "Thank you."

Roydon grinned mischievously. "In that case," he murmured. He took a piece of his orange and held it up in front of Arwen's mouth, and she laughed and bit into it, then held up some of her orange for him to do the same.

Shiro chuckled. One thing about elven marriages, they often remained just as fun and flirty as when they were simply engaged.

"I agree wholeheartedly," Shiro murmured back. "But if you think about it, almost everything we eat back home that we don't grow ourselves has been genetically altered, and every change they make takes away from the taste. Sure, they might be bigger, or more orange, but they're also more diluted. They're more water than anything, and the only way you can really get vitamins from them is if you somehow eat the rinds."

He looked at the orange in his hand. "This ... this is far and above the most delicious orange I've ever eaten. It makes me sad to think that Gaia's oranges might once have been like this."

There were some advantages to genetic engineering, he would never deny that ... but when it came to food, he had to admit that he didn't approve of it.

Shiro grinned cattily. "Mind reader."

He however did not spit out the seeds, but rather swallowed them. Seeds carried vitamins that were hard to find anywhere else, and he didn't mind swallowing them. He just made sure not to bite them open first - because they tasted awful.

"But leave it for now, we can take some later," he added. "We don't want to look as if we're hording stuff when we go to meet the elders of Kelirahc's village."

Once everyone had finished their oranges, Kelirahc, motioned for them to follow him.

"This way," Leyenda smiled at everyone, following after him, her hand securely in his.

"Come on," Shiro murmured softly to Lin. As they walked he asked her, "Are you starting to feel a bit nervous?"

Shiro nodded. "Me too," he murmured. "Though ... I guess Kelirahc never really batted an eye at us, maybe he just thinks we're as normal as the elves are in the Four Lands."

Wasn't that a novel idea.