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As the days passed and Elnara regained much of her lost sleep, her mood improved to the point where she was just as cheerful as she had ever been. The twins required nursing just about every hour when they were awake, but they tended to sleep for a lot of the time, and so she had little trouble getting her own sleep now, for which she was grateful.

She was also glad that she could once more hug and cuddle with Lore as she had once done - the one thing she had truly missed while being so pregnant.

Now that they were fully in spring, the weather was getting warmer, and one morning, after the twins had been sleeping for nearly an hour already, she went to the living room in search of Lore (rather than sleep, as she would otherwise have done).

"You know," she smiled, her hands clasped behind her back, eyes sparkling mischievously, "the twins are nearly a week old now ... and it's such a beautiful day ... we should visit the ranch with them, we haven't been there in over a month."

And those from the ranch couldn't exactly come to visit them whenever they felt like it: a ranch was a lot of work, and of the sort that couldn't be ignored.

Elnara's eyes grew bright, and she smiled widely.

"And I feel as energetic as ever," she beamed, ignoring for the moment the fact that he was laughing at her. "And Arwen apparently told Mother that they've sort of been expecting us any time, so it's not like we'll be entirely unexpected. And look!"

She headed to the couch and picked up two bunches of materials that she had been sewing on for the past week, since the twins had been born, in her spare time.

"I made some slings for them, so that it will be easier to take them places," she said brightly. "Hands free! If you need, that is," she added with a giggle. "I'd prefer to have at least one hand on them so that I feel safer."

Elnara smiled and put the slings down on the couch, shaking her head slowly. "Not quite yet," she replied softly. "They're still asleep, it would be disastrous to wake them up before they're ready ... but they should be waking up any time, then I can just quickly feed them and we should be good to go. I just wanted to make sure you were up for it first."

She winked at him teasingly. It was almost as if he were the one who had been unable to go anywhere for over a month, the one who had been lacking in sleep.

"Well, once we return home, we're going to have many places to visit," Elnara replied with a smile, sitting down and relaxing. "I'm sure your assistants would love to see the twins ... and of course the family ... and we'll be on the clan grounds now, so it won't be as easy as calling everyone downstairs anymore."

She shook her head slowly. How they had all fit into one building, she had no idea anymore.

"Plus, Ninako will want to see them," she added, "so at some point we'll have to visit the Southland again, plus Gion and Nadya, since they don't live there and don't visit often ... and while my other brothers are all over the place, I don't think we'll really have to worry about them, they're always somewhere new ... and I'm not really that close to them anyways."

Maybe she would talk to Kara about making a new portal, one that led to the Plantation, as well as the palace and the Borderlands, just to save on the desert travel.

"That's true," Elnara laughed. "Since we won't have any idea where anything - or anyone - is. Shiro was talking about him and Kaito and Ura living in the clan library, and Serenity and Skye and Ian are going to live together ... Jair will be with Feng and Ryu and Naida ... I don't even know how many of them are going to be living with us anymore."

Probably a good thing, since none of them would be used to having a baby around - let alone two, who cried at different times and couldn't be calmed with logic like the Second children.

Elnara bit her lip anxiously. "Silvrendir ... went off on a quest," she murmured, lowering her eyes self-consciously. "Just before we left for here, he came up to me ... he said he felt something inside him, calling to him ... and he had a letter ... he had to go to the place where he is from ... he didn't know why but ..."

She shrugged. "I let him go. How could I not? He needed it. Here it will be a year for us before we're back again, but for them only two weeks. I don't think he'll even be back by that time. I suppose we will have to wait for his return before we find out where he'll be staying."

Suddenly she heard one of the twins waking up - Garrick, if the volume meant anything.

Elnara smiled and rose to her feet, slipping her arms around Lore's chest and hugging him tightly.

"And of course there will be the four of us," she murmured, "for a very long time."

She went on her tiptoes and kissed him warmly, then smiled at him and headed off towards the nursery just as Hana's quieter cries joined those of her brother.