Welcome to Gaia! ::

Nehanda paused in thought for a moment. "I'm afraid Acia didn't give me any more information. Um . . . I don't actually know what the fur and feather are from; maybe the plumage and coloring will give you some indication? I do know that someone will be contacting you with probable gender some time before the gryphon emerges. At least, they always have in the past . . ." She trailed off and shrugged helplessly. "I'm really sorry I can't be of more help. There's so much I still don't know about the transformation process! Maybe Foenix knows more; she took pretty careful notes when I was at that stage."

Looking down at Sanar, she tapped the cute girl on the tip of her nose. "All right, kiddo. I'll be seeing you soon!" With a friendly farewell and wave to the other inhabitants of the house, she stepped outside.

[July 9th, 2006]
Backdated >>
[New editions.]

Standing on her tip toes Chao was just able to reach atop the cupboard and extract the worn, dust covered thing that was, at one point, a clean, fresh papered journal.

Making a face at it Chao dropped the book on the table, left the room, and returned with a dust rag.

It took a little while, but soon the teen was able to pick up the book without getting her fingers coated in brown-grey particles.

With a small smile the teen sat down on her bed, only to have the top cover yanked out from under her by Sanar, who gave her a look.

Chao returned the look with a flabbergasted one of her own. "Um... Sanar?"

Bunching up the sheet the Aerandir child toddled the few feet away to her bed.

"Sanar, you'll overheat with that many blankets... why is it going on the floor?"

"S'fer brothersister," Sanar replied, bunching it up and Chao could only watch as she bunched it up then carefully placed the seedpod in it.

After eying it critically she got up and scurried off across the room to her bag and began to take out dried grasses and old sleeves.

Chao rolled her eyes. For a guanaco ostrich mix her daughter sure acted like a magpie sometimes.

"Be careful San," she cautioned and flipped open the journal.

"I will," Sanar replied and went back to her business.


Chao paused, "San?"

"Mu?" Sanar asked, looking up from where she'd flopped down on her bed with the minigryphons and Seedpie.

"Can you tell if a gryphon is male or female."

Sanar gave her a 'aren't you smarter than that Mu?' look. "O'Course," Sanar turned back to the long blades of grass she was braiding together.

Right then.

Chao turned back to the journal entry.


"Mu!" the shout caused Chao's head to snap up and she blinked at her daughter, who was standing as tall as she could with her hands on Chao's knees.

"Mum, you were starin' a'your book like i'was evil," the Aerandir informed her guardian with a blink of curiosity.

Chao flushed, "sorry luv, I got lost in my thoughts. Did you finish Seedpie's bed?"

Sanar grinned and hopped off Chao's knees, gently she took Seedpie from his nest and placed him on her bed, "yea! Looki, I added all sor's of stuff of ours. So now is pretty and comfy and a home."

Chao smiled and meandered over, taking in the blanket which was lined with grass, old sleeves of hers and several feathers.

Chao blinked and gestured to the feathers, "San... are those all yours?"

"No'all of 'em. Karma, Ron n'Cian all le'me take one of theirs for Seedpie. Rein even gave some 'o his fur!"

Chao smiled, so that's why some were different sizes and colors... "that's so nice of all you. I'm sure Seedpie will love it when it finally emerges from it's pod."

Sanar beamed with pride before glancing to the window, then back to her mother, "can we take Seedpie to the beach, Mum?"

"Sure, as long as we're careful," Chao replied, picking up Seedpie gently and cradling the pod in her arms. "Go get the others, would you San?"

"'Kay!" Sanar grinned and raced off to climb down the ladder which led to the first floor and collect the minigryphs along with Rein and Loki.

Chao smiled as she heard San calling for their family, herding them together and carefully followed her daughter to the first floor.

[July 22nd, 2006]

[A lecture and understanding, plus the beginning of something.]

Chao sang quietly as she put away the remnants of dinner and straightened up their small home.

Sanar lay sprawled out on the floor emptying the contents of her bag, which had begun to pile up and sorting through it easily. She'd slowed down in her collecting, her love of the shiny and the weird dimming. She wanted things she could work with, that she could shift and change and making something new out of.

So, it was the end of the cutlery stealing, the paper taking from books....

Chao was esctatic but Sanar was merely a little confused by her mother's enthusiatic praise.

Chao flopped onto the couch, watching Sanar sort out the different lengths of grass, the shells she'd found and the occassional insect which had somehow gotten into the bag's confines (every time one of those was pulled out Chao was hard pressed to repress a shudder) before coming to two small, glinting coins.

Pausing Sanar held them up, she'd fogotten about these....

Chao sat up, eying the coins curiously, "hey San... can I see those?"

"Oki," Sanar replied and toddled back to her mother, placing them carefully in the teen's hands.

Chao frowned, she recognized this currency, "this is earth money," she muttered, almost to herself and Sanar cocked her head.

"Earth?"

Chao didn't hear the question, "Sanar... where did you get this?"

"The man had it."

Chao grimaced, knowing exactly who 'the man' was. She also knew that Sanar hadn't had two seconds alone with him during which he could have given the coins to her daughter which meant... Sanar had taken them.

Chao felt like banging her head against a wall. She'd hoped Sanar would move out of this 'collection stage' on her own. It even seemed like she was beginning to... but the moral ground of 'thou shalt not steal' hadn't been established as much as she'd hoped.

"Sanar... we need to talk."

Sanar fidgeted at her mother's tone and quickly grabbed her bag before moving to the couch cushion Chao was indictating she sit on.

Chao help up the coins, "Sanar... these were David's, yes?"

Sanar nodded.

"Did he give them to you?" she had to be certain...

Give? Sanar pondered that for a moment before shaking her head.

Chao sighed, "Sanar... there is a thing, it is called stealing. Stealing is when you take something that is not your's."

Sanar nodded, vaguely remembering talking about this before.

"And stealing is wrong," unless there were the right set of circumstances but Chao was not going into that grey patch right now.

Sanar nodded, but she was frowning now, "but... what if they aren't using it?"

"It doesn't matter."

"What if they left it alone for a loooooong time?"

"It still doesn't matter. Hun... listen, how would you feel if I took your shell collection?"

". . .sad. But... I dun look at it that much...."

"Or the stones you found, or the rocks you like or your bag?"

"I'd...be sad."

"Right, now, you cannot go around taking what isn't yours. I know I was unclear about this in the past, that was my fault, but-"

"Wha' if I ask?"

"Sanar... if they want to give you something, chances are, they will do it on their own. If you ask them they might feel like they were making you sad by saying 'no' and give it to you, even though they didn't want to."

Sanar couldn't help feeling like that wasn't all bad.

"And how would you feel if you gave away something you wanted to keep?"

Feeling a bit of guilt gnaw at her Sanar shuffled, staring at her hands. "Bad... n'sad...."

Chao smiled and hugged her daughter's shoulder, "right, so asking for everything you want, espically if it belongs to someone else, is called 'being rude'. Which is like being mean, and so it's another bad thing and you should avoid it as much as possible."

Sanar sighed. This all felt complicated. "Is it oki to want things?"

"It is..." Chao fumbled for the words, some part of her psyche laughing at the fact that she was giving a lecture on stealing to her daughter. She beat that voice down. Sanar was a good kid, just a little misguided, and it wasn't like she was blameless for that. "But the important things is to know what's important, what you really want. Often those 'things' aren't actually material things. Friendship, family... all that is better, isn't it? Still, it's fine to want things, and to ask me for them."

Sanar nodded slowly. She couldn't help but be slightly confused by all the twists and turns this discussion was having. Nothing seemed... solid. Well, except the 'stealing is bad' part.

"But no stealing."

"No stealin'...."

"Stealing is bad."

Sanar nodded.

Chao ruffled her hair, "oki... luv, you still have to serve time out upstairs."

Sanar blinked and made a face, ears and wings twitching "Why?"

"Because you did something wrong, even though you didn't know it was wrong."

Sanar scowled, "that's not fair."

"I know, I'm sorry. It'll only be a half hour long. Afterwards I'll bring up Seedpie and we can all read before bed."

Sanar grumbled but nodded, knowing that there wasn't a way to get around this.

With a sigh she hopped off the couch and sulked over to the ladder, climbing it slowly.

Chao flopped backwards, hoping that this would be enough to keep San away from stealing.

An hour later the guardian was asleep and Sanar was moving downstairs, hooves muffled so as to not click. Once downstairs she swiftly she made her way out the door and out across the dark plain.

She wanted to search. Find things that belonged to no one. Useful things, new things.

Not to mention she was feeling the sharp urge to get out of her home, away from the confusion and tightness of atmosphere, for just a little while.

It'd hadn't taken too long for Sanar to figure out that she wasn't being pursued with the intention of being eaten, but rather she was being herded back home. Some of the minigryphs belonged to her family, though most of them were strangers and left once they got close to her home.

But at that point it would have been just silly to turn back and find Gael, even though the plan had been to house the tablet with her.

With her luck Gael would probably think she'd done it on purpose, but she couldn't do anything about that now, so she'd just deal with it later.

With a light shrug to herself Sanar took the rest of the trip home at a walk.

When she arrived at the door the Aerandir child was faced with the sudden problem of not having quite enough hands to keep a firm hold on the tablet and open the door at the same time.

Squirming she bounced from hoof to hoof, and tried to think of another way in, but really, besides the windows (which were even higher up and thusly harder to get in by) and the roof (same situation except even it was even higher) there wasn't one. Or at least one that would be at all useful or easier.

So Sanar sighed and was forced to leave the tablet half outside, hoping its luck with not being crushed would hold true. Swiftly she opened the door and ushered the mini-gryphs inside then slipped inside herself, looking for something to jam the door with.

It took a bit of rumaging but soon Sanar had found and jammed one of Chao's sandels in the space between the door and the floor. The door stayed open when she let go and, with a grin of triumph, Sanar darted out the door and grabbed the, thankfully still intact, tablet half and made her way back inside.

Then there was the sudden question of where to put the tablet. Upstairs was out of the question as either she or her mother would probably end up stepping on it so it would have to be somewhere down here....

Sanar's eyes fell on the large, but only partially filled, bookshelf and she smiled.

It took some huffing and flapping her wings but Sanar was able to get the tablet half safely onto a mostly unoccupied shelf. Carefully she manuvered it back into the corner then gently tested the bookshelf, making sure it was sturdy. It was, to the point where it wouldn't move (unknown to the Aerandir child the bookshelf was nailed down as Chao was a bit paranoid of it collapsing should they ever experience an earthquake again) even when she pushed.

Smiling Sanar yawned and quickly darted back, removed Chao's sandel from its place as doorknob and then meandered upstairs. She finally felt tired and wanted to do nothing more than sleep the remainder of the night away.

But, when the Aerandir child reached to the top of the stairs she caught sight of a golden glow shining from Seedpie's nest and grinned, dashing over with renewed energy.

Gently she uncovered the pod which held her brothersistergryph and pressed her hand carefully against the glowing, warm seedpod.

"Mu!"

Chao started, jacknifing up and shooting an alarmed glance over to her daughter.

"Sanarwhaisit?!" she asked, the words tumbling out in an incoherent jumble.

"Seedpie's glowin'!"

Oh. Blearily Chao smiled and nodded, "tha's wonderful honey," she made an effort to focus on the glowing seedpod in her daughter's hands, "it'prob'ly means that Seedpie's gonna come out soon. But probably not to'nigh so let's get some more shut eye, 'kay?" flopping back the guardian was out like a light.

Sanar pouted at her mother's not-quite sufficent reaction and sighed, huggling the seedpod gently. "Sorry, Seedpie. Mu's weird at night sometimes. But you really should come out soon so you can meet all of us," she advised, then frowned, "though don' come out before you're ready! Mu says that'd be bad for you..." and, above all, Sanar didn't want her brothersister to be hurt when they arrived.

With a yawn Sanar curled up, keeping the seedpod close, as if trying to guard it and it's occupant. Shutting her eyes against the golden glow the Aerandir child gradually drifted off to sleep as well.

[August 13th, 2006] Zee backdate, oh, arrg x.x

Welcome to the world.

It was, for once, a cooler sort of day. The wind was blowing, dark clouds meandering in on their back, and gentle the coolness circulated throughout the house.

Chao made a quiet, content noise from her current perch. In the mood for a project she and Sanar had undertaken the task of assembling a hammock from a multitude of scarves Chao owned and had, foolishly, taken with her to Ar'Idil. Sanar had found them, buried them, and just the other day brung them back.

It'd been a weird sort of project, but a fun one, with guardian and Aerandir volleying ideas back and forth as they thought of a way to stabilize the hammock ("A net!" "A net?" "Netsa're strong." "...might as well try it out....") to make it comfortable, to test it (the minigryphs hadn't relished the first few falling outs) all the while checking on the glowing pod via glances and fleeting touches. Somehow, utilizing various adhesives and suchwhat they'd managed to anchor their creation from wall to wall on the second floor, opposite from the beds, and now Chao, Sanar, the multitude of minigrphys and Seedpie were all clumped together in the hammock, lazily swaying the the breeze that was fitering through the household.

Chao sighed and laid back against one of the many pillows, eyes fluttering shut.

Sanar, mostly situated in her mother's lap, was beginning to feel sleepy as well, but there was still a touch of restless energy running around in her. It'd been so fun to make the hammock, stringing things together and making everything strong enough then decorating it so that it was pretty and strong.

But now it was over and Sanar was caught between wanting to do more and being sort-of sleepy.

So she was braiding the fuzzy parts of a pillow, with Seedpie on her lap, as such she wasn't the first to notice that the seedpod was doing something weird.

Karma did though. The mini-gryph twitched when the ever-present light faded, making the room more dim then before. He twittered a bit, more in confusion than anything, and untangled himself from the mass of fluff that was the pile of minigryphs to investigate.

Sanar, feeling the shift as the mini-gryph wandered closer, relinquished her hold on the pillow and moved it to the side and gasped as she saw the black seedpod.

"MU!" the Aerandir child nearly screached in alarm, grabbing the nearest part of her mother avaible, which happened to be Chao's kneecap, in shock at the sight of the oddly colored seedpod.

Chao snapped awake, old training the old thing that prevented her from physically snapping up.

Her eyes rapidly unmisted and she sat up fast enough to display hurry but slowly enough not to rock the poor hammock.

"San what... oh heavens," the teen blinked.

The seedpod shifted to white.

Speechless Chao and Sanar watched as the seedpod split and tufts of fur floofed out, gently brushing Sanar's cheek and Chao's exposed calf.

The seedpod settled. Chao and Sanar didn't move. A moment later a small, beaked face peeked out, wings floofing to stretch themselves for the first time in the open air.

The gryphon looked at them.

Sanar and Chao stared back. Mother and daughter rendered speechless. Even the minigryphs were quiet, staring in start curiosity at this new, curious being.

The gryphon blinked and shook itself from end to end, climbed out of its seedpod and relesaed a sharp "quet!" from its beak at them as it tilted its head.

A smile split Chao's face and she leant forward, offering up her hand, "hey there lil'Seedpie."

The gryphon watched warily as the hand shifted closer, wondering what it thought it was up to. When it merely settled on its head he shut his dark red eyes and leant into the touch, craning his head so that Chao would scritch behind his tiny ears. Oooh~ yes. That was a goodtouch. Very good.

Sanar, finally snapping out of her own trance as her mother leant forward, grinned and followed her mother's lead, cooing and clicking until the gryphon shut his eyes and allowed them to scratch all about his head, tracing patterns until he settled down, wrapping its tail around .

"Mumumumumu," Sanar chanted under her breath, stifling the desire to scream and shout and perhaps dance a bit because her brothersistergryph (except he was obviously a brothergryph because just lookit! Really, what else would he be?) looked really very content right now and she wanted to make what Chao called "a good first impression" and excitement was shining in bright in her eyes as she looked up to her mother, "he grew! He came right outta his seedpod 'n it was sof'n'good~n'lookie!"

Chao chuckled, "I see, I se- wait, did you say he?" she paused and the gryphon looked up, floofing his wings and 'quet'ing in protest. He was tired and would like the scritches to continue, thank you very much.

Sanar redoubled her efforts and her brothergryph relaxed and she nodded to her mother, "o'curse." She stroked a hand over the length of the gryphons body and gave Chao a look.

Chao decided not to question this 'obvious' fact and simply nodded and 'oooh'ed to appease her daughter. Looking to the gryphon, to his black and white markings and... oh heaven, she tilted her head and a giggle escaped her lips as she saw the red crown which topped her little boy's (another, excited, motherly giggled bubbled up in her at that thought) head.

"Axel," Chao stated with stark confidence, and, when Sanar looked to her in confusion Chao merely grinned, "his name. His name is Axel."

Sanar looked to the newly christened gryphon who was drifting off to sleep already, exhausted from the effort of being born, and nodded gently, smiling, "Axel..." she tested it out, feeling it in her mouth before nodding again, "hallu there Axel. G'nighty Axel."

"Yes, hello Axel. Welcome to the family."