Welcome to Gaia! ::

Earendil blushed warmly and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "When the two of you left from the Borderlands," he murmured softly, "I felt ... guilty. As if we had tricked her. I know we couldn't have really made her understand what was going to happen, but ..."

He bit his lip softly. "How did she react when you got back to your world?"

Sir Valdemar smiled and moved to his chair. "What kind of stories do you like to hear?" he asked her, sitting down. He patted his knee as if inviting her to come and sit with him. "I like to tell stories sometimes."

Earendil winced a bit. "And who knows where I was at that time," he murmured. "Halfway down the hallway ... I could have been back at the ranch by then for all I know."

He chuckled softly. "Still ... I think ... I have a feeling it just might be her pushing us forward. I know both of us are willing to take our time and see what happens next with us, but Miyuki ... well, I get the feeling she may try to push things forward somehow."

Sir Valdemar helped Miyuki up onto his knee and looked at her thoughtfully. "Happy endings ... hmm." He wondered which one she would like. "What about the story of a little girl who was lost and all alone until one day she found her family?"

Earendil chuckled. "So I can see. It's good though, I think. She won't let uncertainty or awkwardness stand in her way ... unlike us."

He smiled at her. "Since I'm sure you had the same problems I did, once you had to think about them."


Sir Valdemar's face turned serious. "She was traveling with her father," he told her softly. "And there was a bad man after them ... and he came and he hurt her father very very badly!"

He wasn't sure how Lin would feel about telling her daughter a story with an assassin in it, or death, so he had decided to sort of gloss over that part, at least for now.

Earendil smiled softly. "As did I," he replied. "For ... for years, I fought myself, always worrying about you, wondering how I could ever ask you to leave your own world ... your friends ..."


Sir Valdemar looked grim. "She was lost and alone in the forest ... and then she found her way to the city, but no one wanted to give her food or drink or a place to sleep ... they were afraid of her because they didn't know her, even though she was just a little girl."

"They first came here when I was one year old," Earendil said thoughtfully as they approached Sir Valdemar's study. "So ... yes, that would have been close to eighty four years ago."

He was aware that there was a time difference, but he had never realized that it was so stark. By the sounds of it, one year in Gaia was close to thirty years here!

He paused at Sir Valdemar's door and peeked in when he heard the historian telling a story. He didn't want to interrupt ... and it did mean a bit more time for him and Lin.

Sir Valdemar spotted Earendil and Lin, but he paid them no mind, but instead went on with the story.

"They had children," he told Miyuki, "but they would not let their children play with the little girl either. Until one day, when she was in the forest, she was so hungry that she ate some poison mushrooms! A man found her, and he brought her to someone who could help her, and that man took very good care of her and made her healthy again, and then he let her live with him and gave her food and clothes and everything she needed!"

"He was a very nice man," Sir Valdemar agreed. "He was kind and gentle and he had a very good heart. He raised the little girl like she was his daughter, right up until she was a young woman! The people of the city still did not like her very much, but she was always kind to them, even when they were mean to her. She had to leave her home for a while, to run away from the bad man who had hurt her father so badly, but do you know what happened then?"

Earendil smiled and leaned against the wall outside the door, still holding Lin's hand. He knew this story ... he had heard it so many times. Not this version, this was the extremely censored version; but he knew his great grandmother's history as well as if it were his own.

"The bad man caught up with her," Sir Valdemar told her seriously. "He tried to hurt her very badly, just like he had done to her father! But-"

He paused for effect, then added, "When she had been growing up she had taken lessons to make sure that no one could hurt her, and so she knew how to stop the bad man, and she made it so that he could never hurt anyone ever again!"

Sir Valdemar smiled. "When she was growing up, she had someone teaching her," he told her. "Just like I'm sure you mother will have someone teach you. So you must remember, when you have your lessons, that you must work hard, right?"

His old eyes twinkled softly as he smiled at her. He was enjoying himself.

"But that is not the end of the story," he added, shifting his position a bit.