Welcome to Gaia! ::

While Lin headed back to the room, Earendil went ahead with Miyuki and Andarien to the kitchen for some breakfast.

"Good morning," he greeted Kara and any others who were in the kitchen.

"Grandma, look!" Andarien said proudly, holding up the Eevee again.

"Yeah," Andarien agreed as the Eevee pawed at his cheek playfully. He giggled at it. "I don't want to give it a boy's name if it's a girl or a girl's name if it's a boy."

"We figure Shiro will be able to help us," Earendil added, taking a seat.

Andarien grinned. "Yeah, Shiro knows everything."

At least, that was how it seemed to him.

Andarien had to think hard about that. Was there a particular sweet that he liked? He wasn't really a sweets person ... he liked things that were a bit more neutral in taste. But when it came to sweets that weren't overly sweet, he had to say ...

"I like maple ... and mints," he shrugged. "But I like apples and eggs and potatoes and bread best of all."

Earendil helped Andarien to try some of the fruits he hadn't tried before. They wouldn't have the chance when they traveled after all, and he wanted to make sure that Andarien had a more varied palate than he currently did.

After they'd eaten (making sure that the Eevee ate nothing other than its prescribed pokemon food), they headed to the clan library in search of Shiro.

"Those are a lot of books," Andarien murmured, looking at the seemingly endless shelves of books. "What's in them all?"

The Eevee seemed as awe-filled as its master, it's dark eyes wide as it looked around the building.

Andarien looked around at all of the books. There were so many of them ... he couldn't wait to learn what they had in them!

"In the kitchen," Shiro's voice came from the doorway that led from the library proper to the living area of the building.

When the group made their way to the kitchen, they saw Ura sitting at the table and using Shiro's tablet while Shiro stood at the counter, washing the dishes they'd used for their breakfast.

Shiro grinned at the family when they entered. "Good morning," he greeted them. "Oh, Andarien, I see your Eevee hatched."

Andarien beamed up at Shiro and held the Eevee up for him to see clearly. "Yeah! And Nana said I should ask you if it's a boy or a girl so that I can give it a good name!" He paused, then added, "And I want to make sure it's a good Pokemon name, so maybe you can tell me how Pokemon names work?"

Shiro laughed. "Of course. Why don't you all take a seat?"

Andarien put the Eevee on the table before climbing up onto one of the chairs next to Ura.

"Tablet," Shiro called to Ura, drying his hands on a towel.

Earendil chuckled at the look on Ura's face when the neko pushed the tablet across the table towards Shiro. Shiro also saw the look, and he sighed. "Come on, check your email on your own computer. Or better yet, check my email. That should take you the rest of the week."

Ura simply smiled and leaned back in his chair. "I'll leave that for you," he said with a catty grin.

The Eevee tottered over to the tablet and sniffed at it.

"No, no," Andarien said quickly, picking up the tablet so that his pet wouldn't break it.

"Even with the spam filter that Shiro designed for himself," Ura grinned, his tail flickering back and forth playfully, "he ended up with more than even he can handle in a single week."

Shiro had never trusted the standard web-hosted email sites, so he had created his own domain - with the added advantage of being able to advertise his own work and be able to send things over the internet with the level of encryption he wanted. With that of course he had created his own email server, and had written the program for it himself. He had yet to receive any unwanted emails through it, either spam or chains.

"I started with seven hundred and thirty eight," the genius said dryly, "and so far I'm down to four hundred eighty ... the next time we go away, Ura is responsible for checking my email while I'm gone."

The whole conversation was going over Earendil's head, but he got the gist of it.

Ura snickered. "Eight days."

"Barely over a week." Shiro sat down and pulled his tablet closer. He started tapping away on it, and in a matter of seconds he looked back at their guests. "Okay, here we go. Information on Eevees."

Andarien held his hands out to the Eevee, and it went back to him and nuzzled its forehead against his chin.

"'Eevee is an evolution type pokemon,'" Shiro began, and then he frowned. "Ah ... I'm going to have to summarize. You won't get most of this. Okay ... it changes forms easily ... eighty seven per cent are male ..."

He glanced up at the Eevee. "Yours is shiny. Silver instead of brown. Super rare. Only one in two thousand are shiny. It's more than just a colour, too. It means they're generally stronger and faster and smarter than regular Pokemon."