Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I hope they let us go," Andarien murmured. "We already know Ai and Eon are good fighters ... and I know Ponydash is really protective, though he really hasn't gotten a chance to practice anything yet. Maybe if the other part of the island is big enough, he can do some running. I know he likes to run but he hasn't really had a chance to run at all."

He shifted in his chair, then took a sip of his berry juice. It was very tasty - nice and strong without being overpowering. Not too sweet, not too tart.

He looked up again as the girl returned once more, this time with two plates of steaming food.

"Here you are," the girl smiled warmly at the two of them as she set the plates down in front of each of them. From a pocket in her skirt she pulled out two sets of flatware wrapped in cloth napkins and set them down in front of them as well.

"Is there anything else you need?" she asked them, stepping back slightly and folding her hands in front of herself.

Andarien shook his head. "Nope, I don't need anything else," he assured her. "Thank you very much."

The girl bowed her head, smiled, and left the two to their meal.

Andarien picked up his silverware and separated them from the napkin they'd been wrapped in, his eyes on the food in front of him. The baked potato had been split nearly in two, and it seemed that its insides had been scooped out, mashed, mixed with herbs and other things, and restuffed. It smelled delicious, and Andarien's mouth was already watering.

Next to the potato of course was the meat: a mixture of light and dark, the texture of chicken, cut into small pieces. Tucked next to the meat was a tiny bowl of thick gravy.

"This looks good," Andarien murmured with a grin, cutting into the potato.

Andarien tucked in eagerly and found that the food was really very delicious. The flavours weren't overly strong, which was how he liked it, but it was also far from bland.

"Maybe we should ask someone what the spices and stuff is," he murmured between bites. "I mean, someone in the group has to cook, right? And we're gonna be traveling for a long time ... if we can find the herbs while we're traveling it will make things a lot easier."

"Have you talked to Lancaeriel about it?" Andarien asked her curiously. "I mean, she's got so much magic, and she's done so much studying, maybe she knows about it ..."

Of course, he had spent quite a bit of time avoiding Lancaeriel just because she nearly blinded him even with his goggles, so he'd never really spoken to her himself. He was only repeating things he'd heard.

Andarien smiled, fully aware that - perhaps for the first time - Miyuki had acknowledged that he did indeed need to work through things, that things didn't fall into place as easily as others sometimes seemed to believe.

"But even I need help sometimes," he pointed out. "Especially when I first learned that time is different here than in Gaia. Even if I can get the parts to make the watch run thirty hours in a day, that doesn't mean it will be correct. And I'll have to keep consulting with other people until I get it right. And like you said, where we're going to be going later there are loads of people who know different things than the places we've been so far. Maybe you'll meet someone there too who can help you with your runes."

"Sure," Andarien agreed, "but it's his own choice. If he didn't want to be so busy I'm sure he wouldn't take on so much work. Right? I'm sure that if he was too busy to help, he would say so. Anyone would."

It was just possible that he was overestimating Shiro's sense of self-preservation.

"Wouldn't Kaito stop him if he was doing too much, though?" Andarien pointed out. "He has no trouble telling people when they're doing stupid things. I should know, he tells me often enough."

He was smiling when he said it, though. He had learned not to take Kaito too personally. Seriously, yes, but not personally. He spoke his mind, but he always meant it in the best way possible.

Andarien giggled. "Yeah. Not just Shiro, either. He bugs me, too. I don't work like Shiro does!"

He grinned and speared another piece of meat with his fork. "Of course, I'm still a kid," he added.