Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was another one of those boring Sunday drives through the countryside with the same old hills and trees and flowers and birds, still in the same places as the last Sunday they drove through the area, only this time there was a very noise-prone girl, sitting in a car seat between him and his brother, demanding their attention.

Cianan was playing some sort of clapping game with Taji -- or at Taji, as the girl had only grasped the concept that there was some hitting of the other person involved, and swung at her older brother as often as she could.

"--and never came down, 'til the fourth of July, -ly, -ly! Julyyy. July. Can you say 'July'?" It seemed very awkward to speak so seemingly condescendingly to a baby like this, but everyone did, and Cianan was certainly not about to break tradition.

"Gireoh," Taji said agreeably in response.

Rhine sighed and decided to calculate the chances of an asteroid hitting the car to keep himself busy, and was surprised to find, a few moments later, that they had stopped. He unbuckled his seat belt and, leaning forward, poked his head out the wide space between the two front seats. "What's going on? Did we get hit?"

"No -- engine blowout." Rhine waited for his father to continue; he didn't.

Sighing, the younger boy turned to face his mother while his brother chimed in from the backseat, "Can it be fixed?"

"Are we going to die out here?" Rhine added thoughtfully.

"No one's going to die, Rhine," Madeleine smiled wryly. "We'll take a look at it, I suppose. Stay in the car if you'd like."

"Sihroiuhd!" Taji protested, waving her arms a little, and when this garnered no immediate reaction, she breathed in deep and began to wail loudly.

"...But take the baby out for some fresh air, would one of you?"

"Alright, alright, you." Rhine grumpily slid back into his seat, waving Cianan away from where he had been unfastening Taji from her seat, and pulled Taji against him long enough to reach out with his free arm and open the car door. Stumbling out into the chilled afternoon air, Rhine held Taji up with both arms as far away from him as he could. "Look, here you go. I don't have any coconut juice though and it looks like all the singing bowing animals are on vacation today."

"Eirih," Taji giggled and kicked her legs a little.

Cianan crawled out after his twin, and seeing the precarious position he was holding their new baby sister in, sighed and firmly took her from him. "You're the very reason we were never allowed to get a puppy, you know."

"A shame, it would've made a much better experiment subject than you." Rhine mused and finally turned to face the car.

The hood was propped open, smoke billowing out in thick clouds; his mother was peering into the smokey depths and wincing while his father was talking animatedly on a cellphone on the other side of the road. "Probably going to be a while before anyone can come rescue us," Rhine decided. "Come on, let's go show the Thingy--"

"--Taji," Cianan automatically corrected.

"--Yeah, the Taji Thingy, let's show her the forest. And the butterflies and the trees and the bees and the flesh-eating bears." He made a face at Taji who giggled again, and before his brother could protest, immediately took a running start into the woods.

"What -- Rhine -- Rhine!" Cianan groaned, and had he not had his hands full with Taji, would have slapped one to his forehead.

He had one of two options, and he was not sure what he liked more -- the first was to simply stay here and let Rhine run into a mountain lion or something and get eaten (and then maybe he could have his room), or chase after him before he could let that happen.

Handing Taji off to his parents wasn't an option; his mother was attempting to calm his father down, who had proceeded to directly raving at whoever was on the other end of the phone. He knew from experience that no child, no matter how young and defenseless, would want to be around his father when he was angry. Nor could he leave Taji by herself in the car...

"Running after Rhine and watching him get et by the flesh-eating bears it is, then," he sighed, and shifting his grip on his sister slightly, he set off after his brother into the woods.

Bending low enough to grab a stick as he ran through the underbrush, Rhine let it bang against the tree trunks he passed by. Behind him trudged a decidedly less energetic Cianan.

Lions, tigers, and bears -- these things the two were convinced they could handle -- witches of the wood coming out of nowhere with a baby of her own was something much less expected.

"Excuse us? Excuse us?" Rhine repeated incredulously, letting the stick-end he wasn't holding fall to the ground. "What, is this your forest, lady? I don't see a name anywhere. Hey, our car broke down! That's how you can help us--"

"Ignore him, please," Cianan muttered, regarding the other two figures with curiosity.

"Eirho," Taji seeemd to agree, turning to get a better look at the other two. Hey, one was all small like she was! With a thing poking out of its head! She wanted, wanted wanted wanted, now now now. She reached for the other in futility, babbling determinedly as she squirmed in Cianan's grasp, hoping he would get the hint and move closer. He didn't.

"I'm sorry if we were intruding," Cianan continued obliviously, "Like my brother said, our car broke down, so we decided to--" 'Run off to get eaten by bears' didn't seem like the most intelligent answer, though it was the truth. "--...take a walk."

"Goody-two-shoes," Rhine grumbled underneath his breath, accentuating his words with a thump from the stick on the ground.

Rhine promptly opened his mouth again to say something smart-alecky back, but soon realized that he had no idea what to say, and shut it with a look of perplexion. He was not used to not being yelled at, and frankly didn't know how to react to the other woman's patience and politeness.

"Well," he began at last, "We are not quite sure. At least, we weren't able to get our parents to tell us. The hood of the car is smoking. Um."

He was not sure what temple priestesses knew of cars, but hey, he wasn't going to turn down providence! "I'm Rhine. Of what denomination is your temple?"

"I'm Cianan," his brother added, "And this is our younger sister, Taji." His eyes strayed down towards the other girl, and noting her gesture, finally lowered Taji to the ground. The star spirit stood swaying on her feet for a moment, but finally she was overcome by gravity and fell on her tush with a loud 'thump.'

Cianan grinned in spite of himself and extended his hand to shake Getsurei's. "It is very nice to meet you -- your, um, daughter is very beautiful."

Taji had enough of all this noise-making and formalities; the other girl was finally in reach, and scooting along the girl, she placed her hands on the basket and pulled herself up to her knees to peer inside. The horn -- it was right there -- it was so gleaming, but but but this girl had gleaming things on her cheeks too, where was she supposed to start?!

"Master of what?" Rhine continued, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking impatiently on his feet, clearly not a believer in dramatic suspense.

"Moooo," Taji squeaked at Getsurei as she bent down towards Kimi, scrambling away before the strange giant woman could crush her. All she wanted was a look! And maybe a little touchie! But before she could think about it long enough to start throwing a tantrum, Cianan had scooped her up again.

"Thank you -- and that would probably be best," Cianan nodded politely. "I'd like to see your.. dojo. I had no idea there was anything of that sort out here. And I am not sure my parents know what they're doing with the car -- much less how long it would take for anyone to drive out to fix it, so... To bring back something would be better than nothing. We'll follow you?"