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Within her precious Sanctum, Airi had begun to wonder.

The outside world had had little to say to her for some time. Her seclusion was near-absolute, perfect in its eternity. She could be at peace here, where it was always spring, where there was light only from a sourceless, ambient mist that never dawned or dusked. All that Airi needed do was remain and wait, without knowing the burden of lost time. But then her thoughts had begun to turn, to imagine, to reflect.

The Fa'e, her children... were they the same as they had once been? As she'd known them to be? What must they think of her these days? How many more had been poisoned against her? In this sanctuary, perfect in its isolation, she did not know. And that not knowing had begun to create a sense of true loneliness inside her, as if she lived in another world from the ones that she had breathed life into.

It might have been easy to try and forget, to push them away for all the pain that she felt. But every now and again, she felt a stirring of life and power, and Airi knew they were there, remembered them as her own. When new lives came; when old ones changed, evolved, grew. And on this day, for the first time in so long, she felt a stirring that was irresistible, and rose to reach back to one of her children.

Mikhail. The angel brought late into the realm of Gaia, the world of the Fa'e. He was still so much unknown to her, brilliant with fire and righteousness - but still very much one of her children. Even if he was a stubborn one that chose sides so quickly before, she wasn't so careless that she would hide her face forever from someone who disapproved of the world she saw, the potential she knew, the intentions she harbored.

It was a lonely afternoon outside of the Sanctum as well, a quiet day in the Fa'e HQ. Sometimes Destiny had a way of arranging these things for her, it seemed, to allow events to play to her whims. Mikhail was here, she could sense him; there would be no better time.

Airi began to walk from her precious sanctuary.

The stained glass window on the balcony rustled with the sounds of the forest, crackled like snapping twigs, moved. Gentle steps, barefooted, led her out onto the tile of the balcony. The parted trees swept back together behind her, standing guard over her sanctuary until she returned. Airi's eyes lidded as she crossed into the common space of the Fa'e HQ, and she lifted a hand to shield them. The light was so unnatural and direct here compared to what she'd grown so used to! But her eyes adjusted quickly; the new air rushed into her lungs, less fresh than in her sanctuary, but lived-in, changing.

She had done it. Airi was here. Now, where was Mikhail?

Laying one hand on the railing of the balcony, Airi slipped her gaze down to the common room below. "Ah, Mikhail. There you are," she murmured, the room acoustics picking up her voice and amplifying it to a stronger, clearer sound than it was.

It was easy to think she was being judged, when it was all too likely she was. From where she stood, Airi could make out but little of Mik's features, but the white of his eyes was plain enough for her to know that at the very least, she'd made some impression. Good or bad, she did not know, and could not tell, but she'd hardly find out from up here.

The child-like girl set her other hand on the railing, and boosted herself right over it. At first, the drop was staggeringly fast, covering half the distance to the ground in a heartbeat - but then quickly slowed, dragged, came to a stop so that Airi's feet were planted on the ground, and she had to look up to meet Mik's eyes.

She smiled. It was a difficult smile, timid and tenuous, but she put it there all the same. "You've grown well."

Airi's smile flickered. It hadn't been a very sincere one in the first place, and met so skeptically, well... was there any reason to push it any further? No; so she let it fall, and her face was a distant, saddened neutral.

"Mikhail...." The girl's gaze wandered sideways and she shifted her weight softly, then pulled back a wayward strand of hair from her face. "The Fa'e are my children. No matter what else may be, this must be true, mustn't it? I am... concerned." Yes, that was a good way to put it. Airi looked back toward him, smiling again more genuinely, in a way that seemed more heartbroken than happy. "I want for the Fa'e to do well, and be happy. How are you getting along, Mikhail? Have you come to find a place in this world?"

Here, Airi could be wholly sympathetic. The Lost Children had seemed so vulnerable to her, having to come and change their lives entirely for a new world. To see that Mikhail had grown, progressed in this new life, was encouraging - but to hear that he still did not feel at home....

Airi wandered a few steps, finding her way to the side of the couch, and boosted herself lightly up to sit on its arm. "Will you please tell me about it, Mikhail?" she asked softly. If she knew more about his situation, how he'd adapted so far, how he felt about his situation, maybe she would know better how all the Lost Children were faring in this world. Perhaps there was something she could do to ease their transition - or maybe there was nothing.

Whichever it was, they were her responsibility. She had to know.

Airi closed her eyes, a slow and deliberate gesture of thought. "I suppose it must be difficult," she murmured, her eyes still closed. One of her feet snuck over the other, curling its toes, bunching up uncomfortably as she tried to understand. "The Fa'e here have grown up knowing what they are, after all. They may not know the details of their past, but on some level, they knew that they had one, and that their lives had purpose. They bonded, some of them so closely, some of them even intertwined through what they were before becoming what they are now. But for you...."

Her eyelids lifted again, and she looked to the angel somberly. "It must seem like an intrusion, doesn't it? To be Fa'e, when you never knew the word before."

And here was where Airi could spare herself no guilt, and spare Mik no truth. Her head dropped, hair cascading over her face, hiding the fact that she was biting at her bottom lip, and her shoulders cringed. "You were one of the early ones, Mikhail. There were no Fa'e before I created them, and I... learned as I went. There were times that I would call a spirit, but they would arrive so far out of reach...."

What did Mikhail want to hear? Was there anything that Airi could say, that would make better the confusion she'd forced into his life through her early ineptitude?

"They found Guardians alone," Airi told him softly. "They made lives. They had found their second chances and evolved into them in ways that a Fa'e on Gaia, knowing what they were, never could. If there was no threat, I would have never permitted you lost ones to be interfered with."

Would it be wrong, to admit....

"... I do not know," Airi told him softly. She uncoiled slightly, enough to reach down with one of her feet and trace a faint circle on the floor with her big toe. It was an odd affair - where she touched it, a pale light seemed to remain, clinging to the ground. She drew first one, then another, then another, slowly forming a small collection of globes on the floor. "It was difficult. Even when you were so far away, not knowing where you were, you were still one of mine - something I'd given my life to."

Airi drew up her foot again; the pictures shimmered and slowly faded, yet seemed to leave a permanent impression there all the same. Many circles, little worlds, but all tied together by one source, unforgettable. "And it didn't matter how far you were from me; I still felt you."

And it didn't matter how long she hid herself from the world, either. Because she still felt the Fa'e in her sanctum. Because they were still part of her.

"So, if I felt you were happy there," Airi drooped her head to the side, regarding the ground still, "I would have left you. And for as long as you were happy, and held your own lives, I would have left you. Because to be Fa'e and know what it is comes second to owning the life that you have now." Her eyes peeked up from behind her lashes, evaluating Mik. "Whatever... some people might think of me, Mikhail, and the things that I want, I do not try to force the Fa'e to my will, or manipulate them to my purposes. You are what you are because I brought you back, but you choose what you will be because no one else can tell you what is right for you. And until there was no other choice, I did my best to protect that for you, and did not try to influence your life when you had already begun it far away from home. In some ways, I'll admit, I always suspected that the children who were born so far from me, were born there because their spirits chose to be. And I've sometimes wondered if some of the Fa'e born here on Gaia wouldn't have preferred a life further away, as well."