Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lara smiled warmly. "I'm glad," she said genuinely. "When you see my family, do give them my love, won't you? I'm sure Kyrie will as well, but the more the merrier."

Earendil chuckled. "We will. You all take care, too, all right?"

"We will," Lara assured him. "Have a safe trip."

Earendil nodded and picked up his bag, then waited for Lin and Miyuki to do the same.

And after one final goodbye to Lara, they headed to the Gearsmith's shop to pick up their son.

Andarien was already outside and waiting for the three of them when they arrived, with Eon sitting next to him on the street and Ponydash standing behind him, pawing the ground impatiently. The Ponyta had not had much chance to be outside in the past year, and Andarien could sense - even without having to ask his dear friend - just how antsy he was, how desperate he was to run.

Andarien's chest was also at his feet, as was a bag that Corazin had bought for him, custom made, and which Andarien had asked Miyuki several weeks earlier to rune for him.

At Andarien's request, Corazin himself had gone back inside after bidding Andarien farewell and good luck in his journeys, so that their farewell would not be long, drawn-out, or overly emotional.

Eon was the first to notice the rest of his family arriving, and he ran up the road to greet them, even though Ai and the babies were not visible.

Eon circled Miyuki once to see if she would open the bag and let Ai and the babies out, but when she didn't he trotted back to Andarien.

Andarien was dressed warmly, a scarf wrapped around his neck and tucked into the front of his neatly buttoned jacket, his goggles resting atop his Victorian era cap. He looked as Gaian as if he were waiting for a bus, and it was clear that when Corazin had bought him new clothes, it had been Andarien who had designed them.

When Eon returned to him, Andarien knelt in the thin layer of snow on the street and petted him tenderly.

"All ready to go?" Earendil asked as they drew closer.

Andarien nodded and straightened again. "My chest isn't something that's easy to carry," he replied. "How are we going to take it?"

"You could always strap it to Dash's back," Earendil suggested.

Andarien turned to the ponyta and smiled at it. "Well, what do you think, Dash?" he murmured, stroking the creature's neck. "Think you could carry my chest?"

In response, the flaming horse-like creature nuzzled Andarien's cheek.

Andarien smiled widely and turned back to the rest of his family. "Do you have rope?" he asked them.

Andarien took great pains to be careful in how he tied his chest to Ponydash's back so that the chest would be secure without the Pokemon being injured by it. He put one hand on top of it afterwards to test it, then turned to his family and smiled widely.

"Ready," he nodded. "And we're meeting everyone else at the city gate, right?"

"And we have everything we need already so we should just go straight there," Earendil suggested. "Hopefully we can make some good distance today."

"Are we in a hurry?" Andarien asked curiously.

Earendil chuckled softly. "No, I suppose not. But it's a huge country, and we don't want to take forever either."

He grinned. He had seen a map of the country, and there were other settlements further north - none of them as big as the city of Caras Galadhon, to be sure, but some of them were fairly sizable - and he was eager to see them and compare them to the city they'd just spent nearly a full year in.

"She does seem in a bit of a hurry, doesn't she?" Andarien remarked as they started off; not because of her comments that morning, as he hadn't even seen her then, but due to her hurrying them along when they had been preparing to leave.

Earendil smiled at his son. "Well, I'm sure she's eager to get back to whatever she usually does," he murmured. "And we owe her a great debt of gratitude for all that she's doing for us. We might not have been able to make this trip without her help."