Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I made all of this furniture, too," Ulrich grinned, motioning towards the chairs and couch. "As well as the furniture for ... well, pretty much the entire Borderlands, really. The valley and the ranch ... and in between ..."

"Don't brag," Ulani laughed, poking him in the side and making him jerk away from her.

Earendil chuckled. "Well, he may just have a reason to brag," he grinned. "The furniture I've seen is excellent workmanship."

Ulrich smiled. "I made a new set for her when she married Adonai," he said warmly. "Big enough for their double bed. I believe the old one went to ..."

He glanced at Ulani. "Who has it now?"

"Adanedhel had it first," Ulani replied, "and then it went to Ecthelion."

She turned to Earendil and explained, "Adanedhel's oldest son."

Ulrich blinked at her. "Adanedhel or Ecthelion?" he asked.

"Both?" Earendil smiled sheepishly, hoping for a bit of context.

Ulani chuckled. "Adanedhel is fifty two, Ecthelion twenty seven," she answered. "Ecthelion's brother, Kadmiel, is twenty three. Oh, you know Roydon, Arwen's husband, yes? His sister, Rose, is Adanedhel's wife."

Ulrich laughed at the look on Lin's face. "One would think you would be used to this by now!" he grinned. "Look at it this way, Rhea wasn't born until fifteen or so years after Adonijah, and Adonijah is several years younger than Adanedhel, and Rhea's what, forty already?"

"Thirty seven," Ulani grinned. "But I would be willing to bet that part of the reason it's so unexpected for you, Lin, is because none of the rest of us have changed, unlike in your world, where most people would have aged a great deal in the same amount of time."

"Though I hear Storm and Starr finally grew," Ulrich grinned. "That's something. I know for a while Elnara was worried about them, having gone for a few years without growing."

"Now we just wonder about Vergil," Ulani murmured. "Five years he's been here ... by that age, you were already an adult, Lin."

"The only thing I can say is, I can't find any sort of pattern in any of the growths of people from your world," Ulrich shook his head slowly. "I admit it, I can't make heads or tails of it."

Earendil set aside his now-empty plate, watching Lin and Miyuki thoughtfully. Had there been any patterns to how Lin had grown, he wondered. He thought back to it ... but there had simply been too many years in between, and without him knowing much about Gaia time, he couldn't say.

"Perhaps," Ulrich chuckled, "we can just conclude that the world you come from originally is a very unstable and strange world."

Ulani glared at him. "That was very rude," she told him flatly. She turned back to Lin. "Though I am afraid I do have to agree with him, at least about the unstable part."

"Who knows?" Ulani smiled. "It could be anything. Of course, it would be nice if it were peaceful, as far as we're concerned ... but somehow I don't think it will be."

"Nope," Ulrich nodded. "Our next mission will be to get the children back from the humans. And there's a lot more humans than dwarfs. They don't live as long, but they breed like rabbits."

Ulani slapped his arm. "Attitude!"