Welcome to Gaia! ::

"You were here before?" Lily asked, blinking. "I assume that you're the ones who brought Luk away, then ... and you know this woman?"

Andarien grinned. "Yup! She's our cousin! Because she married our cousin, anyways. How do you have a picture of her here?"

Lily had to think about it for a minute. "Hm ... I think ... about ten years ago or so, maybe a little less, Mother was watching the sky with her distance viewer ... I don't know what she was looking for. Anyways, she says this is what she saw, and the woman was so different from anyone here that she just had to paint her."

Earendil was impressed. "That's very detailed for a glimpse," he had to point out.

Earendil leaned closer to the painting to take a better look at the necklace, and he had to admit, he was very impressed.

"That's the necklace I bought for her in Amon Darthir," he murmured. "This must have been when she returned home after that winter in the Borderlands."

The time frame sounded about right.

"That must be a good distance viewer," Andarien said, impressed, "if your nana could see the necklace that good!"

Lily laughed. "I suppose so."

Lily looked thoughtful. "Is she here with you this time as well?" she asked curiously.

Earendil shook his head. "No, she and her husband have a young child, and they decided that they wanted to settle down."

"We should show this to Leyenda and Kelirahc!" Andarien beamed. "I bet they would like it!"

Lily tilted her head curiously. "Oh?"

Lily was utterly fascinated. "What a small world it is," she remarked with a bemused smile.

She then showed the group the rest of the house: the studio where both she and her mother painted, which was behind the sitting room; the kitchen, which joined onto the dining room; and upstairs: a corridor which went off in both directions from the top of the stairs, and two bedrooms in each direction, and a linen closet in between. Each room had paintings on the walls, some of Lara's, and some of Lily's, and unlike the separation of subject in the sitting room, each of the women had painted both nature scenes as well as animals, and some mixtures.

"That's about it," Lily said when they'd seen all of that. "Bathing room is behind the studio, but there's nothing remarkable to see there. Would you like to get your things now?"

Andarien's eyes lit up at that, and he looked up at his mother eagerly.

"The gear place?" he asked hopefully.

Lily giggled. "If your parents have no objections," she told him, looking to Lin and Earendil.

Andarien clapped his hands together with excitement, and Lily laughed softly.

"So shall we stop there on the way to or from the ship?" she asked them all with a smile, taking them back to the front door and opening it up for them.

"Bags first!" Andarien beamed. "Then we have our money with us and I can maybe get some gears!"

"Even if we do have our money, I don't think it's accepted here," Earendil cautioned his son. "The last time we were here, Senator - Favian? - told us that we would have to go to a money changer before we could make any purchases."

Andarien frowned. "Money changer?" he repeated.

Andarien was disappointed. He wanted to keep building things, and if he just kept reusing the gears that he already had, he would never get anywhere - not to mention, he was very limited in the things he could do with them.

Lily put a hand comfortingly on Andarien's shoulder and smiled down at him. "Don't let it get you down," she told him softly. "You'll get a chance sometime, I'm sure."

Andarien just nodded.

"Why don't we stop on our way to the ship," Earendil suggested. "With or without our bags, we'll only be looking, and if we have our bags and things with us they'll only get heavy."

He looked to Lin to see her opinion on the matter.

"Very well," Lily smiled. "Come."

It wasn't far to her brother's shop, and once more, Andarien had to ogle the shop's sign before he went inside. Inside the shop was not terribly large, but the shelves that were there were covered with all sorts of clockwork items: wind-up toys, dancing figures, clocks of various sizes, and music boxes - one of which was playing a pleasant tune while a ball-jointed dragon, about the length of Andarien's forearm, waved about as if flying through the air atop it. Along the front counter was a long box with many small compartments in it, and in each compartment were a handful of identical gears.

Andarien was in heaven.

He was gaping, wide-eyed, at everything in sight, oblivious to everything else that might have been going on. He didn't even notice when a rope curtain covering a doorway in the back of the shop was pushed aside and a man entered the room. He had the same rust-coloured hair as Lily, and the same green eyes, though his face was not as thin.

"Ah, visitors!" he beamed when he saw the group. "Welcome!"