Welcome to Gaia! ::

I must admit... it's been quite some time since I've written anything in a journal, but I like to document the younger years of my children's lives for them. That way there's a precedent for them writing in their own journals. And truth be told, I haven't had young children in my house for quite some time. All I have is Nate and Willie, and Willie's pretty much sefl sufficient and stays out of the public eye.

But now I also have Ravi. Ravi is a half ant boy with four arms and blue skin who needed a new home after his mother had to leave on urgent business. He's still a baby, and he's unbelievably cute. My friend, Moofuls, was talking to me over the phone the other day and she mentioned several orphaned Sin children (which is what Ravi is). Her own Lyrus is Sin child, and I've always admired his upbringing... so naturally after we got off the phone, it occured to me that I might be able to provide a loving and caring home for one of the orphans. Long story short, I applied, I met some of the Orphans, and one little baby in particular, Ravi... He just stood out to me. I was so glad when I was accepted as Ravi's new mother, and I can't wait to see him and Nate grow up together. Somehow I just know that they'll be the very best of brothers.

Now, you see? This is why Gus says I shouldn't start journals for my children. Because I rant and rave about how cute and good and wonderful they are, and then they're forced to read about it everytime they pick up their books. Yes well, poo on Gus, I think he's wrong.

Ravi, my little blue love... you are wonderful, and kind and sweet. Please stay that way and grow up well. Please treat Nate with the love and respect that only a close brother can give, and please be true to yourself, whoever that may be.

Your mother, Keppit.

Ranald stared down at the little blue head of the child sitting in her lap and sighed. Why did Keppit always do this? Yes he was cute and yes he obviously needed a family, but that didn't mean that Keppit needed to bring yet another kid into the little cabin they called home. “Yeah it's cute, but I gotta ask...”

“His name is Ravi.” Keppit didn't bother to turn around, and instead continued to make sandwiches at the counter behind the sofa. The cabin was a very small building, one room really not counting the bathroom, with three lofts, one big bed and two sofas big enough to sleep on. No mater where Keppit chose to stand, she would still be able to hear Ranald's complaining, and so she chose to stand right behind the white haired woman.

“Sure sure.” Like Ranald cared. “Whatever his name is, where's he going to sleep? Huh?” Without even hearing Keppit speak, Ranald knew what the answer would be. He'd get Jen's old loft, or Alex's loft once he was big enough... and that sucked. Now that the older kids had all moved out it has seemed like Ranald was finally going to get an actual bed instead of a sofa. “I think it's probably time to built an addition onto the cabin.”

“Nonsense.” Keppit turned on her sister and grinned almost evilly. “There's been a lot more people in this house than there are right now. Besides... you're never had a real problem with the sofa before.”

“That's because whenever I fight you for the bed I lose.” She stared back down at the sleeping infant in her lap. He really was quite cute, and he awoke a slight pain in her at not having kids of her own... briefly, then the pang went away and she passed the sleeping infant off to her sister. “Give him Alex's old bed.... it'll be better for someone who can climb, and if Nate's anything like Fitz was when he was little he'll be better off in the bed with the big ladder.

Thirty minutes later Ravi and Nate were in the backyard of the Skull Monkey Hq, each holding a pacakage of potaoe chips, a cheese string stick, a baggie full of trail mix and a juice box. Ravi was still mentally commiting all that Keppit had told them to memory, while Nate reviewed his snack foods and compared them to what Ravi had gotten. Keppit had said, not to climb anything higher than the swingset, not to fight with each other, and to please not get completely covered in mud or such.

"How come you gots red juice?" Ravi turned to look at Nate and then dropped his attention to his juicebox. Without really thinking about it he held it out so Nate could swap his purple one for Ravi's red. The ant boy didn't really care as long as it was juice and sweet. He shoved his trail mix and cheese stick into his pocket, held onto his potato chips and juice box in his lower hands. The small blue child smiled over at Nate as he climbed up on the swingset and began to swing. Nate climbed up into the next swing and just sat there. "It thought this would be more fun really. "suddenly the half zombie boy leapt off the swing and ran across the backyard towards the shed. Ravi frowned, quickly going over the rules in his head to make sure there was nothing about the shed, then he slunk down off the swing, dropped his chips and juicebox beside the swingset, and walked over behind Nate.

"Nate. We should go swing or somefing." The ant boy glanced back towards the swing as Nate reached up and pulled open the shed door. "Nate, no! Jen will be mad... Mom will be mad."

"You're just scared." Nate laughed and stepped boldly into the shed, not turning to see if Ravi followed. Ravi, of course, did follow. As they entered the shed, the young ant child looked around him taking in all the gardening tools, and the broken yard toys. There was a plastic kiddie swimming pool leaned up against one wall, obviously out of season. Nate suddenly pointed above their heads at something green up on a shelf. "Wassat?"

Ravi cocked his head and looked up at the shelf. It really was a very nice shade of green, and he found himself wondering what it was... so naturally, being part ant, Ravi layed hands on the shelfs to his left and began to climb. He noted with satisfaction as he looked out the window that the shed and the swingset were the same height, thus making it ok in his head for him to climb this shelf. When he got up to the green thing he looked at it carefully. The poor kid couldn't read yet so he stared at the picture on the front.

"What is it?" Nate called eagerly from down below...

"I dunno." He poked at the picture with a little blue finger as if that would make the meaning suddenly become clear. "It's got a Cow on it." He used the aforementioned finger to poke a hole in the bag and came out with something akin to dirt, only smelling quite a bit more foul. "Ech. It smells really bad."

Nate sighed and crossed his arms. "Okay. I don't care anymore." So with a sigh Ravi began to climb down the shelf, but halfway down he lost his balance and came crashing down onto Nate. The two boys lay sprawled across the shed floor, and as Nate was complaining at Ravi, the little ant boy noticed a metal ring in the floor. Nate became distracted by Ravi's lack of attention to him and looked to see what the ant boy was staring at. "Oooh." He reached down and grabbed the ring in both hands. "help me, please."

Ravi didn't say anything but just put all four of his hands down on the ring around Nate's and helped him pull on the ring. Between the two of them, they were strong enough to pull open the trap door in the floor. Once the two of them were standing above the hole Ravi suddenly had an urge to go down into the darkness. Not just an urge either... a compulsion of the very strongest kind. So he did. The little ant boy lowered himself to the floor and slipped down into the darkness. He could hear Nate voiceing his reservations from above him, but that was no consolation now. Here was something that needed Ravi's attention. He heard a thudding beside him and felt around in the dark only to lay hands on Nate, who had dropped into the hole after Ravi.

"Ravi, we gotta go back." Nate's voice was a little shakey, but Ravi didn't hear it.

"Hold my hand." The little ant child devoted his two left hands to holding Nate's reassuringly... and then he began to walk down what he thought was a hallway. They walked very slowly, Ravi feeling along the tunnel wall with his right hands. Every four feet there was a wooden support beam of some kind, but other than that there were no breaks in the tunnel and somehow Ravi sensed that the height and width were remaining constant as they walked.

Twelve minutes later the tunnel ended, and Ravi wasn't sure what to do next. Nate however noticed that there was a very thin square of light at the roof above their heads. "another door?" His voice was a little less shakey having had time to get used to the darkness.

Ravi nodded, even though it couldn't be seen in the dark, let go of Nate's hand and reached for the dirt wall in front of him. His hands came across the metal rungs of a ladder and he grasped them with a grin. Once Ravi was at the top of the ladder he realized that he could only almost open the door... "Nate, issa ladder, climb and help me please." Nate did as he was bid and a moment later the two of them had the trap door pushed open and were staring across the Hq den at their older brother Jen.

Jen just shook his head, walked over to the window, opened it and called out. "Mum! You can stop looking! They're here in the den."

Ravi would have blushed hard if his skin wasn't as blue as Jen's shirt was purple.

Ravi, Nate and Charlie were sitting in the backyard, at the base of Satou's old treehouse. Ravi had his lower set of arms crossed and held the remote in his upper left hand. He really wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it now that he had liberated it from the livingroom, but when he asked Charlie had waved a furry hand at him saying that it was for later.

Charlie and Nate were sitting side by side, close enough that they could both look at the wallet that Ravi had so deftly stolen from Ranald's pocket. Ravi still didn't know how he felt about looking through the wallet, so he was keeping his distance. Charlie was tossing anything she found out onto the grass anyway, so he really didn't need to be over there to see the wallet's contents. So far there was a gaian driver's liscense that read Ranald K. Kalhoun, a business card from a comic book artist, a library card, a diner's club card, several more cards that seemed to be designed only to fill random wallet space, and a peice of paper full of the phone numbers of people that Ranald knew.

"Isn't it wrong to look through other people's wallets? There might be something in there that she doesn't want us to see." Ravi frowned at the other two.

"Isn't it wrong to steal from your auntie? Don't make me tell on you, Ravi..." Charlie grinned evily at her brother and continued to riffle through the wallet. She pulled out several more cards, and a wrapped up square that felt like it had a squishy circle in it. She frowned at that for a second in puzzlement and then gave up on it as she tossed it to the grass.

Nate gasped suddenly and grabbed the wallet from Charlie. Ravi found that he couldn't take the suspense and he quickly rushed over to Nate's side. The three of them crowded around one thing, as Nate pulled it free of it's platsic wallet casing, and stared down at the photo in Nate's gray hands.

There, in plan colours, was a very pretty blonde Ranald with a very young Jen, Gus and Satou sitting around her. They stared at it for a long time, since they'd never seen Ranald with long hair or as much colour as she had in that picture... and she was gazing down at Jen with love, with her arms around Gus as she cuddled him. Ravi frowned. "Aunt Ranald doesn't really like kids... right?" Maybe it was just him... and Nate and Charlie... but Ranald had never looked at any of them with that kind of love... and that woman was deffinitely Ranald.

Charlie sighed. "No, Aunt Ranald doesn't like kids."

"Maybe it's Aunt Ranald's twin sister?" Nate asked, and recieved a punch in the arm from Charlie in response.

"No, stupid. Mom IS aunt Ranald's twin sister... and this isn't her."

"That's right." Ravi took the picture from Nate to get a better look. "But she kind of does look like Mom a little..."

This time Charlie punched Nate in the arm. "What part of 'twin sisters' doesn't make sense to you? That's Aunt Ranald in that picture, and she looks like Mom because they're TWINS!"

"Alright, you don't have to yell." Nate rubebd his arm. Charlie really could pack a punch with her small Rabbit hands, and Ravi's arm was stinging from where she'd struck him.... But he was more interested in whatever it was that had happened to change Ranald from this loving woman into the remorseless and generally appathetic woman they all knew.