Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Ah... you're welcome, Fae," Keilin said, relieved that her flower had pleasing responses. "It's... it's a kalmia polifolia - a bog laurel, if you may. Part of the Ericaceae - the Heath family," she continued on as if she had rehearsed this for many hours. "They are usually seen as pink, but the one I had was white, rare. Spent a good while picking it out for Pueblo, wondering what would match her most. I really do hope it looks nice on Pueblo, I can't wait to see it on her." She smiled and took another sip of tea without thinking. "And I'll ask the same question to you - anything new since we last met?" Keilin laid back where she was sitting, relaxing a little.

Chata cocked his head to the side, wondering what all the ruckus was about over that bowl. He inched closer towards it, standing on his two hindlegs to get a closer look. A flower? It was just a simple flower Keilin got for Pueblo's guardian. What was so pretty about that? Chata chirped joyfully anyways, just happy that Pueblo was. He pawed at her hand, trying to grab it; though he knew enough from experience that it would go through, he did it anyways.

"Thanks - I think. Expensive taste? Gah! That doesn't sound so good for our budget," Keilin giggled at Fae's wink. Rarely has she ever been winked to, and if she was winked at, Roladex was the one doing all the winking. "Mmm... oh? Michelangelo? Sounds interesting. I've been just going through the basic specs of music history with Chata before going on with the people and such... I think we've found Chata's calling. He's going to be a musician, a bard, somewhat." Her eyes glittered as she mentioned 'bard,' reminiscensing about a poetry club she used to go to with the usual savvy bongo players, romantic poets, and the overall atmosphere of the place that teemed with bards.

Chata shivered, Pueblo's hand sending chills down his spine even though they never physically met his pelt. He laid down on all fours, head pointed upwards, watching the floating form of Pueblo calmly.

Keilin laughed at Fae's remark for the future. Maybe... "Need to find the one instrument suitable for him, though - haven't yet. And most of the 'instruments' I have at home are toys, somewhat. But... Hmm, you're studying about artists? Maybe we should teach them together sometime... I mean, painting, pottery, music, they're all art, right?" she suggested.

Chata cheeped in surprise, taking a step back in surprise of Pueblo's blowing. He tried to mimic her blowing, puffing out his cheeks and chest; but to no avail, for his mouth wasn't as wide or big as Pueblo's, since he was still in his gryphon form. He soon gave up, and retired to Keilin's lap and cuddled there, closing one eye; the other one focused on Pueblo. He was getting sleepy.

Keilin yawned, trying to conceal it behind her next sip of tea. She tilted her head, looking at Fae while she kept nodding until she finally stopped; seemed as though she had snapped up from a dream. Keilin finally put her tea down on the coffee table and put her hands on her lap, semi-holding Chata, who looked up at her and chirped.

"You're welcome, again," she said, "I do all I can to help." Keilin looked back at Fae's front door and then to Chata. "Chata's getting sleepy... Maybe we should talk some other time, Fae." She got up and placed Chata on her shoulder, facing Fae, waiting for a response.

Chata looked back to Pueblo from Keilin's shoulder and feebly attemped to blow through his beaks again. Nothing. What came out, though - was a soft whistle, which traveled through the air and reached Pueblo, then stopped. Chata chirped, wrapping his tail around Keilin's arm as he waved a little good-bye with his right paw.

Chata chirped loudly at Fae's last remark, wondering what Pueblo would look like and how she'd be like if he wasn't able to go through her anymore. He chirped again at Pueblo, eager for the next time when they would meet again. His eyes closed as Pueblo passed through him, the gentle breeze washing over him making him feel comfortable and at ease.

Keilin nodded and smiled, waving back at Pueblo. "I'll do just that some other time, then. Can't wait to see Pueblo when she's solid! Good luck in finding the rest of your items, Fae, and - have a good night's rest!" Her head bowed down slightly from an old habit, and she then quickly turned around and headed towards the door. She opened it, took one last look at Fae and Pueblo before bowing yet again, and then headed towards her house before the dark of the night had fully settled in. Chata remained on her shoulder facing the opposite direction, keeping watch on the house they had left until they got farther and farther until it was out of sight.

May 30th, 2005__________(Backdated)

She had almost forgotten that Pueblo was a child now as she stirred in bed. She fought the internal alarm clock going off inside of her but eventually let it win reluctantly. And when Fae's brightly green eyes flitted open, it surprised her to find the company of a little girl snuggled into her side. That's right... it wasn't a dream. The magic of those artifacts had indeed left Fae with a little Aerandir child. She had never raised a kid before, but with a simple task in mind already, she smiled and stroked Pueblo's maze hair with an affectionate hand. Then, after another moment's silent thought, Fae leaned down to give the little girl a gentle kiss on her forehead, then leaned over in the opposite direction to check her alarm clock. 6:23 am? What had disturbed her from her sleep? Wondering this drowsily for moment, she started to feel movement against her opposing side.

All this movement from the other body in the bed had triggered her eyes to open and look around tiredly. New eyes... colors... sizes... she rubbed the annoying blur from her eyes instinctively and wrapped her arms around her mother's. "Feee?" She yawned, squeaking out an attempt at Fae's name. Her new vocals shook her to more awareness and raised her ears off from her head. She even wiggled her toes under the covers which had a new feeling as well.

Fae turned over to look into the emerald eyes of Pueblo's and smiled. "Good morning, Abby. Already trying to speak, are we?" She grinned and rolled onto her side for a better view. "You know what we'll do today that's going to be a lot of fun?" She watched Pueblo shake her head no and only grinned slightly more. "You're going to learn the alphabet! I want you to understand English, or how to speak, like me. Wouldn't that be lots of fun?"

Pueblo seemed to contemplate this offer, but after awhile of sitting up and tilting her head side to side, and holding her chin between her thumb and index finger, she nodded. Her ears stood as her arms reached out, ready to go with an excited expression!

"Woah, woah there," Fae laughed and sat up quickly after. "Don't think this'll be a five minuet's job. Besides, we should eat something first." She thought for a moment. Uh oh... this could take awhile of figuring out what she likes to eat. Well, she ate meat as a gryphon, so maybe she could cook something with rabbit or beef. "C'mon, let's go see if we can find you something that you'll like." Then, she took the littler girl's small hand into hers and slowly helped her up the ladder.
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15 minuets later, Fae and Pueblo sat at the dinning room table, each with a dish of eggs and sausages in front of them. The eggs would be scrambled and cooked fluffily, and the sausage wouldn't be too spicy. A carton of milk, apple juice, and mango juice sat in front of them on table as Fae helped Pueblo pick a drink by standing behind the girl. "So which one would you like? You could try all three I suppose.." She thought, a bit stumped.

Pueblo wasn't exactly?tall enough for the table, so she sat on a pile of books and a pillow on top for extra cushion. Her legs dangle danced under the table and had her arms propped up on the surface for support, seemingly in hard decision. Her lips were twisted and her eyebrows were furrowed- she didn't know what any of these were! Finally, she pointed to the mango juice just because it was a bright orange. She took grip around the glass she received with both hands and held it sturdy on the table upon Fae's command. Then, she watched the liquid empty into her cup and peered inside. Then with Fae's help, Pueblo lifted the cup to her lips and took a sloppy sip, mango juice trickling from the corners of her mouth. With a large gulp, Pubelo's ears stood up at the tangy-sweet taste. She put the cup back down and wiped her mouth off with her arm, but was quickly corrected by her mother who wiped her off with a napkin. Following Fae's example, Pueblo leaned as faaarr as she could across the table to grab for another napkin, then begun to wipe off the sticky juice from her fur. She didn't know what to think of the tangy drink, but in any case, she was curious to find out what the others tasted like! If trying new things meant it had this much excitement, then she wanted to try everything!.

A milk mustache later, Pueblo begun to try the apple juice after the small amount of milk and decided on the sweet taste. With guidance from her mother, Pueblo fondled a fork in her fist. This new way of eating was hard! All she wanted to do was plant her face into it like she did as a gryphon- easy! But Fae really insisted, and she eventually speared a sausage. And where the hunger came from, Pueblo lifted to fork back up and crammed the whole thing into her mouth!

Watching Pueblo take over the eating part, her eyes widened as she noticed Pueblo taking bigger bites than she should! "Pueblo! Don't cram the whole thing into your mouth all at once, sweetie. You need to take bites- smaller pieces so you wont choke," she told her, then made her spit the partial chewed sausage out onto her plate. Fae then took the knife and fork into her own hands and begun to cut the meat into copious pieces."There. Now it won't be as hard to pick it up, too." She smiled as she watched Pueblo fist the fork again and spear the little pieces. "Be sure to chew at least six times..oh," she forgot that Pueblo didn't know numbers yet as the Aerandir's ear stood up. "Like this," she begun and counted to six on her fingers, stating each number carefully and slowly, then going over all six numbers again.

Pueblo had her mouth almost around the meat chunk until she was stumped with 'numbers'. Registering what Fae was doing, she placed the fork on the plate and stuck her own hand out. Pueblo watched and stuck out her index finger when the number 'one' was announced, and so on. Once they got to six, she blinked a couple times and went through them again. She clapped her hands together once she got them sketchily in her mind, then picked the fork back up and chomped down onto the food. Chew...one, she stuck out a finger on her right hand as she held the fork in her left. Chew...two, she held out two fingers. After six chews, she swallowed. Boy, did all these new rules make eating slower!

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After breakfast was finally over with and the dishes were washed and put away, the two had gathered outside inside the hammock comfortably. Pueblo sat in front of Fae with her legs crossed and pointed to a book that was between them. Fae had turned it the Aerandir's way- she knew Pueblo already knew which way the book needed to face in order to read it because she had exposed her to books before. But this book was different from the regular text books... this one was more colorful and child-like. It was a practice book about the ABC's and 123's. Fae would teach Pueblo how to read, write, and speak all at the same time knowingly how long this could take. But it would be easier for Pueblo to learn the letters then write it out to memorize it and then sound it out to keep it locked inside her mind. Or at least that was the plan. "Alright, so before you can speak those numbers we learned today, you're going to need to know the alphabet. We can try three letters a day. I announce that today is the start of letters A through C!" Fae pointed down at the letter A in the paper book. "This is the letter 'A' as in Ape. Now, try to draw it. That one's a capital 'A' and the other 'a' is lower case," she explained and drew them out slowly for Pueblo to watch. "Oh, and how to hold a penci...hm, wow," she thought aloud. There was a lot more to teach children then she thought there was! "Well, we don't know which hand you write with yet, but I'm right handed, so you can try holding the pencil in your right hand. You remember pencils and paper don't you?" She smiled and demonstrated how the pencil should be held between her fingers. "Like this." She helped Pueblo struggling to hold onto the pencil the correct way.

Pueblo's eyebrows furrowed and her nose scrunched up a little. As excited as she was to use her hands, it was slowly coming to her that her mother made it look easier than it actually was. Finally getting the pencil in her hand, she weaved her fingers in the correct position. But, c'mon! Fae practically broke her fingers trying to keep them in certain spots. And after she finally did get a hold of the pencil the way she was supposed to, Fae just made her do it all over again! She didn't see the point, but it was nearly impossible for her to keep trying to hold the pencil with this hand. Pueblo's eyes narrowed- after about the 10th time, she knew what she was doing... it just wasn't working for her. Dropping the pencil and sighing, she realized something and looked to her other hand. She hadn't even thought of trying to use that hand before! Quickly grabbing the pencil, she attempted to adjust it between her left finger... and all by herself; she held the pencil between her left fingers with a grin. Okay, what was next!?

As the hour went by just trying to get Pueblo familiar with the new writing style, her eyes raised above her glasses to get a correct visual; Pueblo was left handed.. "Do you like holding the pencil better with your right," she held up her own right hand, "Or your left?" She held up her other hand to indicate the lefts and rights. As she watched Pueblo comprehend what was left and right, she finally saw the child's left hand raise with the pencil in it. Fae grinned. "A lefty, eh? This'll prove interesting," she thought aloud to herself. "But moving along, remember when you tried to paint with your beak and it didn't really work too well? I'm assuming that was instinct- like if you had hands, you'd be able to actually paint. Well writing is almost the same way, just, you're using a pencil, and instead of drawing pictures, your drawing letters. Think of this as a new style of art," she insisted upon the child who looked half with her. Good- at least Pueblo looked like she understood some of what she said. She pointed back down to the 'A'. "Now, with the pencil in your left hand, try to copy that letter. Pretend it's a picture of something, if that's easier for you, but you have to make them look the same." Soon, Fae pulled Pueblo into her lap so she could guide her hand and break it into the habit of forming letters. "There we go... upper case 'A'... line up... line down... then one in the middle. Yeah! There you go," she praised the smiling girl. "Now for lower case... this one's a bit trickier because it's curvy. So like this, Aaayyyy," she sounded it out as she guided the girl's hand. "Now you say it!"

Pueblo was too into this to lean against her mother's stomach- she wanted to be right there in the action! With Fae's hand on hers, the arches and curves of the letter 'A' came to her and practiced on her own. This wasn't so different... drawing and painting and art was so familiar to her. This was just a different kind of art, like her mommy said. Pueblo practiced a few 'A's on her own that came out rather shakily before she started to sound the letter out. "Eh?Eehheee...eeeh!" She giggled as she continued to sound and write the letter 'A' out.
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