Re: Dashing Through Dolerum (119 4A)

[Nara-pyon]

Khetal frowned in confusion once more and sighed softly. "I do not pretend to understand," he muttered. "I know it has been a long time since I have traveled, since I have stayed anywhere but in a house ... but unless you have enough money to buy your meals every day, or plan on infringing on Leo and Lynliss for the time that you're here, how do you plan to feed everyone?"

Kyrie linked arms with her brother and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Just have patience and you'll see," she told him quietly. "I can't promise you'll understand, but at least you'll see."

She chuckled softly. "I'd forgotten how much you hate not understanding things."

Meanwhile, Daeron, Mailon, Earendil and Kaito were working on setting up the tent, and with the four of them helping out, it was going quite quickly. Khetal was able to see the entire process, due to the fact that when the group had entered Dolerum and decided it was safe to be visible again, Lancaeriel had deactivated the protective runes.

[Kara Winters]

Since it wasn't even a big tent (on the outside) it didn't even take very long.

"Don't worry," Miyuki assured Khetal, "We have plenty in storage."

They had thought about this ahead of time after all, since it seemed unlikely anyone would do business with them.

[Nara-pyon]

Khetal sighed, but waited patiently without further comment. As soon as the tent was up, some of the group started going inside.

"It hardly looks big enough to hold four or five, let alone all of us," Kyrie grinned at her brother. "Come on. You'll see."

She waited until those who were eager to get inside - Andarien, Daenis, Kaito and a few others - were inside, and then she led Khetal forward and into the tent.

Inside, Daenis was working on lighting the stove while Ira sat on the counter next to her, and Andarien was just disappearing into the hallway that led to the forge. The moment Khetal stepped into the tent, he stopped dead, staring, and Daeron, who was coming in behind him, actually bumped into him.

"Keep moving," Kyrie chided him, tugging him away from the door. "You're blocking the others."

Khetal was speechless, his eyes moving over every bit of the kitchen and living room.

[Kara Winters]

Miyuki giggled at Khetal, "Welcome to our home. Would you like a seat?"

She wondered how long it would take for it all to sink in for Khetal.

[Nara-pyon]

Khetal didn't look as though he had really heard Miyuki, and Kyrie laughed and kept holding him by the arm. "Perhaps you'd best get a chair for him before his legs give out," she grinned at Miyuki. "I must confess, I've never seen him like this before."

"Hey, no, no, that's not necessary," Khetal protested, suddenly coming to himself. A light flush came over his cheeks. "But ... I don't understand ... how is this possible?" He looked around himself again.

"Better take him slowly through the rest of it," Wren winked at Miyuki as she passed by her towards her own room.

Khetal blinked again. "... rest of it?" he repeated hollowly.

[Kara Winters]

"Well yea..." Miyuki replied, not at all bothered by the question, "Everyone has their own room here, and there is also the forge because Andarien needed a place to work, which is connected to the woodwork shop because we needed something like that. We have three storage rooms because we needed that room, and then there is the training room... or rooms depending on how you look at it. It's really just one room you can expand by opening walls, and then Lancerial wanted to add gardens, so she did. Oh... and the bathing rooms, we have two those."

Miyuki looked thoughtful, there were 30 of them, if one included Khetal.

"I wonder... should I add another bathing room?" she murmured more to herself.

[Nara-pyon]

This time, without anyone saying anything about it, Khetal moved towards the table and sat down on one of the chairs. Putting his head in his hands, he looked as though he was quite ready to faint.

"So much for slowly," Wren laughed. Changing directions, she stood next to Miyuki and put one arm around her shoulders. "Perhaps it should be explained that Miyuki made this tent using magic," she grinned at Khetal. "We have some very powerful magic users amongst us, with various talents, and Miyuki has made our accomodations while we travel quite comfortable. It's more than a home, now - it's everything we could need for home, business, food ... everything."

She chuckled and looked at Miyuki again. "And I've the feeling that as soon as you've seen it all, Miyuki's going to be asking you for instructions for your own room."

[Kara Winters]

"Of course!" Miyuki protested, "Why else would I have put that off for so long? He's going to need a bed, and since he works in medicine we might need a desk and a chair, and we should introduce him to Shiro and his research."

Now that Miyuki thought about it, maybe she should take a page out of Shiro's set up to determine how to set up Khetal's room if he still did research stuff.

[Nara-pyon]

"Well, we're going to be here a while, and I think we still have to give Khetal a moment to recover," Kyrie grinned, "so let's just leave it for now and let him see the rest of the tent first. Besides, it will give him a chance to think about what he might need."

She patted her brother on the shoulder. "Well, now you've been warned, you should be fine to see the rest of the tent, right? Come on, up you get."

At Kyrie's urging, Khetal rose again and shook his head to clear it. "All right, I think I'll be fine," he murmured. "Just warn me if there's going to be something ahead that might shock me again."

"No promises on that score," Wren grinned. "We never know what's going to surprise someone or not. Besides, Miyuki's already said most of what's in here, so I don't think there will be much more to warn you about."

[Kara Winters]

"Not unless you're shocked by creatures like Ira," Miyuki replied nodding over to where the Pokemon was sitting, "But you know Uruloki so I don't think that should b a big deal."

After talking dragons, talking cats or creatures that represent elements shouldn't be such a big deal.

"Anyways, we'll go down the bedroom hallway first because that is the simplest and we can't poke our heads into other people's rooms anyways so that will also be the quickest."

[Nara-pyon]

Ira perked up his ears and looked over at the group when he heard his name, and Daenis turned to look as well.  When they saw that they were not being spoken to, they turned back to their task.

"Yes, I've known Uruloki for a long time," Khetal murmured. "Nearly as long as Kyrie, actually." He took a deep breath. "All right, I think I'm ready."

"It's all right if you poke your head into my room," Daenis said over her shoulder as she pulled out the dishes she would need for dinner. "I don't mind."

"And I think I'll tag along," Wren added, her eyes sparkling. Then, in English, she added, "This promises to be fun."

Khetal looked at Wren, then at Kyrie, and then sighed softly. "There's two of them," he murmured softly to himself, also in English.

Wren blushed and giggled. Clearly she hadn't meant for him to understand, but underestimated his knowledge of languages.

Kyrie just laughed.

[Kara Winters]

Miyuki laughed at that, she supposed in terms of sense of humour it would be like having the two of them. Though, Miyuki was equally as amused.

"Come on," Miyuki motioned, "This way."

She first opened the sliding door that led to the bedroom hallway.

"It's a pretty long hallway, but I had sort of guessed we would end up picking up people like this," Miyuki admitted.

[Nara-pyon]

"It's a habit that we seem to have," Wren added as they passed into the hallway. "Or I should add, Miyuki's family has. They've been traveling the longest, and it seems they just can't go anywhere without some kind of trouble."

"You're sure Kyrie has nothing to do with that trouble?" Khetal quipped, arching one eyebrow.

Kyrie slapped her brother on the shoulder, making Wren laugh. "No, no, she's only helped us out of trouble," she assured Khetal. "Unless you count Garnelia, but that was just bizarre in every way."

Khetal turned to look at Kyrie. He hadn't been present when they had told Gwen of their trip to Garnelia, and he seemed angry to hear of it now. "I thought you weren't going to go back."

"You're so naive," Kyrie sighed. "We're fine, no one died, and Mari is in charge now. Change subject."

"For now," Khetal agreed; but his tone of voice made it clear that they would pick up the conversation later, when they were alone.

[Kara Winters]

Miyuki really wasn't surprised by this, and logically she knew he had every right to be upset, bu it was so strange because Kryie was the kind of person you did not want to cross. She was amazing and impossible, and really he didn't have much to worry about it.

"We've been traveling long before we ran into Kyrie," Miyuki told Khetal off handly, "In fact my parents have been traveling before I was born. I pretty much grew up on the road."

She led them down the hallway to the end rooms, first showing Khetal her room.

"This is my room, and pretty much the default for most of the rooms, minus the things I've collected over the years," Miyuki explained.

So there was her futon, and low end table (because Miyuki liked to kneel while she worked). The table had scrolls, quills, pens, inks and ink sticks (and grinder) scattered cross it, along with loose paper that held her notes. Senka was napping on her futon, and a staff leaned against one wall.

There was also a dresser for her clothes, she had managed to get during one of their town trips.

[Nara-pyon]

Khetal stood in the doorway and looked around. He didn't say anything, but took his time looking at everything, nodding to himself as he did so. Only when he had taken a good look around did he look back at Miyuki.

"It looks comfortable," he said, as close to a compliment as he felt like giving at the moment - through no fault of Miyuki's, of course.

Wren looked at Kyrie and raised one eyebrow questioningly. Kyrie just smiled and shook her head.

[Kara Winters]

"I think so too," Miyuki replied happily.

She waited for Khetal to stand back into the hallway before closing it.

"Of course, that's for my preference, it really depends on the person. Though we do generally use futons as a default bed, but Daenis, whose room is right over here, has furs."

The kitsune explained as she opened the room to Daenis' door since she had given them the go ahead.

[Nara-pyon]

Daenis' room was very cold, barely above freezing, and the coldness spilled out into the hallway when the door was open. Inside there was a layer of frost over the walls and ceiling, and a few centimeters of snow on the floor, swept away from the door so that it wouldn't also go into the hall when the door was open. There were furs hung up on the walls like a tent, and a pile of furs made up Daenis' bed. Aside from that, she still had very little in her room: her cornett was lying on a small, low table, protected from the hard wood by a square of fur beneath it, and there were a few ice sculptures along one wall: a Glaceon, a dragon, a Leafeon, and one of a creature that was unknown by most of the group.

Khetal shivered despite the cloak he was wearing. "How is it so cold in here?" he asked, surprised by it. "It's not even this cold outside!"

[Kara Winters]

"Oh... that's a rune array I added to her room," Miyuki scratched her cheek thoughtfully, "Unfortunately I haven't yet figured out how to make an array that anyone can adjust when they want and how they want. That requires a bit more... magical moving parts to the array so to speak. So I just added an array that made the room cold and put it on her room and Mailon's."

It was a bit sad that it would have to be removed if Daenis left them, so Miyuki would like to figure out a better way to do it. Not that it was hard to remove an array from a single room since it was just that room and it would just require the removal of the flooring. Not that hard.

[Nara-pyon]

Khetal nodded, but his expression had changed now. No longer annoyed, he was evidently impressed by the room and Miyuki's skills in creating it.

"Fascinating, absolutely fascinating," he murmured to himself. "Rune array, you say?"

Kyrie snickered. "There you go, Miyuki, you've caught his interest."

Khetal didn't seem to hear her. "And the other rooms, do you control how warm they are too, so that they don't get cold in the winter? I should imagine it would make it much safer, no need for fires in the rooms ..."

[Kara Winters]

"Because this space is on another plane, all the rooms without a temperature array would have their temperature set to neutral, that is... roughly room temperature on a mild day without extreme heat or cold. Like the influence of the outside world actually doesn't influence the inside all that much," Miyuki explained, "But we try to keep fires at a minimum, but all the rooms have been fireproofed because of Pokemon."

Not that Ponydash or even Yasu would mean to set things on fire, but it was always better safe than sorry. She was too busy answering the question that she didn't think much of Kyrie's snickering. Though she might have found it interesting that he found the temperature but not the room themselves fascinating.

[Nara-pyon]

"Pokemon?" Khetal repeated curiously, looking at Miyuki again. He rubbed his hands to warm them and then closed Daenis' door to keep the cold in there.

"The pets that aren't dragons," Kyrie supplied.

"Ah." Khetal nodded and turned back to Miyuki. "Are all the rooms so different?"

"You're welcome to look into mine if you want," Wren offered with a grin.

Khetal glanced at Wren briefly. "I'm going to guess it's different again?"

Wren shrugged. "Well, slightly. Though to be fair, most of the rooms are like Miyuki's. We've all just furnished them to our own preferences."

[Kara Winters]

"The only reason why Daenis' room is so vastly different was for her comfort," Miyuki explained, "She had never been away from home and so warmer temperatures tend to make her a bit ill, and having furs like that is what she's familiar with."

Miyuki wasn't sure if Daenis would have stayed at home if she hadn't been forced into a marriage, probably not, but she could imagine how hard it was to leave something familiar.

[Nara-pyon]

"I see," Khetal murmured thoughtfully, nodding. "Then perhaps I can see other rooms another time, and we can move on to the rest of the tent?"

If he could even still call it that.

"Then we go back through the kitchen," Kyrie told him, turning to lead the way since she was closest to it. "The living room also has a play room off the side, I don't think you saw that, but we can check it out if you want."

At the moment it was mostly filled with toys for Amir, though occasionally some of the others went in there for space, too.

"Perhaps later, if there's time," Khetal shrugged. "I heard something about ... workspaces? Gardens?"

[Kara Winters]

"Yes," Miyuki confirmed, "That hallway is behind the door across from the entrance."

Which they had completely bypassed earlier.

"Really, this place is becoming a maze," Miyuki added, "To keep all the gardens together, a hallway in that hallway was made for the garden doors."

[Nara-pyon]

"All the gardens?" Khetal repeated, amazed. "How many are there?"

"Seven," Wren answered as they made their way through the kitchen, where Daenis and Iorlas were working on dinner together. "Six for various climates, and one for experimentation. I'm the one who does the most in the gardens."

"I should imagine that would take quite a bit of work," Khetal commented as they entered the second hall.

Wren shrugged, smiling. "It gives me something to do. I feel useful and I'm not bored. Besides, back home I'm not allowed to get my hands dirty much - I love this."

Khetal blinked at her. "Not allowed to get your hands dirty?" he echoed.

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