Welcome to Gaia! ::

Shiro smiled at Miyuki. It sounded like she was indeed being very mature and responsible about her Pokemon.

"Each Pokemon has a different set of abilities that it can learn," he explained to Lin. "Some are learned naturally as it grows - instinctively, I could say - while others need to be taught. So there's that kind of training. Then you also need to train it to obey commands. Knowing how to do something means nothing if it won't do it when you need it to. And of course, what manuals can't teach you, is how to be a friend to your Pokemon. I did a bit of research when you came home with the eggs. I can pass it on to you if you'd like, or I can go through it with you and Andarien and Miyuki."

He turned to Miyuki. "For you, it will be slightly different. I think for Andarien, it's fair to assume that he can't fight with his Pokemon, but that they will have to protect him. For you, you're going to have to train yourself alongside your Pokemon. If the two of you learn together, then you're bound to fight better together as well."

"I would ask a fighter who has a fighting partner," Shiro suggested. "A fighter who fights alone - or at least, who is accustomed to fighting alone - won't be able to help you with how to fight with someone else, especially if that someone else is an animal."

Then, echoing her thoughts, he added, "You're already learning to fight from Alassëa. She has a falcon on whom she relies for a lot. She might be someone to ask."

"What about me?" Andarien asked eagerly. Eon had already hatched, so he wanted to get started!

Shiro chuckled at his excitement. "You should talk to someone who knows about training animals. Adonijah would be perfect, I think. He can talk to animals, too, so that would help the process along. The only problem is, when?"

Since it was hard to think that shy Adonijah would go sailing with them, and they wouldn't be spending much (if any) time in the Borderlands before heading south.

"Alyse is coming, is she not?" Earendil pointed out. "She grew up training horses with her mother, right?"

It was true she was not as outgoing as her twin brother, Adwin, but she was not nearly so shy as Adonijah.

"That's true, actually," Shiro mused. "And as I recall, when she was younger she had always dreamed of training her own horses ... when she wasn't dreaming of traveling."

"I'm sure it wouldn't be any different," Earendil agreed. "Except that I have a feeling the Ponyta wouldn't be staying in a stall, not if it's going to be training with Andarien."

Andarien blinked up at his mother. "So I can start sleeping with Ponyta's egg too now?" he asked her.

Andarien beamed at that. "Then all three of us can learn and train together!" he said brightly, rubbing Eon between its ears. The Pokemon let out a contented squeak, and Andarien giggled at it. "Yeah, me too," he told it, grinning.

"I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting trip," Shiro chuckled.

Earendil was eying Andarien thoughtfully. Was it his imagination, or had Andarien just spoken with the creature as if he'd understood words from the squeak?

Shiro grinned. "True, true. They are."

Earendil glanced at Lin for a moment, but rather than answering her implied question, he turned back to Andarien and asked, "So now that Eon's got a name, how does he like it?"

Andarien blinked. "I don't know!" he exclaimed. "I didn't ask him!" He poked Eon lightly on the nose to get its attention. "Hey, Eon, how do you like your name?" he asked it sincerely.

The Eevee's tail waved back and forth and it began to chitter away excitedly. Andarien giggled and grinned at his father. "He likes it!" he beamed. "And that's good because then he won't be grumpy when I call him!"

Andarien grinned and nodded at Lin. "Yeah!" he said brightly. "He says he can't wait for the Ponyta egg to hatch because then we can all play and train together and that's going to be fun!"

Eon rolled onto its back and pawed at the air playfully, making Andarien giggle at it.

Shiro chuckled softly and leaned back in his chair. "Well, now I know for certain that the legends are true. About dr- about Iorlas's gift to Andarien. It truly does give the gift to communicate with anything that has the intelligence to do so."

Human(oid) languages was one thing, but to be able to communicate with animals ... that was indeed something amazing.