Welcome to Gaia! ::

The girl smiled widely and set the candy in Miyuki's hand. Almost immediately, the other children surged forward again.

"I have a strawberry candy!" "Here, does your doll need a cloak?" "Do you want to play?"

"Children," Elros spoke up, stepping forward. "One at a time, please. Miyuki-sol cannot listen to everyone all at once."

There was an astonished silence in the group of children, until the girl who had offered Miyuki the peppermint exclaimed, "Sol?!"

"Hello, Miyuki," the children chorused. "Hello, Sen-sen!"

They began to introduce themselves, one at a time: Arya, Selene, Yacob, Rowen, Sheena, Rayne, Eluin, Elan, Chervin, Mylar.

"Normally there's a bunch more of us that play together," Arya explained to Miyuki, "but some of them are following Queen Aerin today. It's a game we play! It's lots of fun!"

"No," Sheena spoke up, "it's more like we're being spies! We follow her - or someone else - and we have to report back to the others what they're doing and what's the most exciting thing they do, and if they see you or they know that you're following them then your mission is a failure and you lose!"

"She doesn't usually do very exciting things though," Mylar added, rubbing his freckled nose. "Usually she just walks around and talks to people."

"She had new people with her yesterday though!" Selene exclaimed. "That was different!"

"And she's got someone new with her today too," Rowen recalled. He pointed at Miyuki's doll. "He looks like that."

"Aurin?" "Captain Striate?" "You know the captain?"

Their tones were filled with awe. But then one of the children added, "I overheard a bit of what they're talking about. They're talking about rebuilding the city. That means we're going to have bigger homes!"

The children were excited about that.

"I'll have a bedroom to sleep in!" Yacob grinned happily.

"A bed," Sheena said dreamily. "A bed of my very own."

"We can have a separate shop instead of working out of our home!" Eluin beamed.

"Hey Miyuki, you should come see our playground!" Alya said suddenly, smiling widely. "It's loads of fun! We can climb and hide and play and everything! And we take turns bringing lunches to share with everyone, too!"

"Yes, come and see!" the children insisted, giggling and grinning. One of the girls ran forward and took Miyuki's hand. "Come on, come with us!"

One of the boys looked up at Lin and smiled brightly at her. "May Miyuki come and play with us?" he asked eagerly. "We want to show her our playground!"

The children led Miyuki away from Lin and Elros, nearly all the way to the other side of the city. There, behind some of the houses, was a large play area for the children of the city. It had ladders and platforms and slides and swings, little shelves for the children to keep things, rooms for them to play in when the weather was not cooperative, and just about anything a child could want. It was clearly new, perhaps a year old, and very strongly built.

"Come on, Miyuki!" the children urged her, running to the play set and beginning to play.

Yacob climbed up onto the highest beam of the structure and spread his arms like wings.

"Here comes the Captain of the Wing Riders!" he grinned, cat-walking across the beam towards a platform on the other side. "Make way for the victorious captain!"

A few of the others cheered for him. "Down with the gnomes!" Selene cheered. "Free our people!"

"Down with the tyrant!" Eluin said fiercely, raising one fist into the air. "Come on everyone, join the captain and stop the evil king!"

Elan giggled and tugged on Miyuki's hand. "Come on, join in with us!" she grinned.