Guess who's coming to breakfast?

"Thanks - I appreciate it. I'm sure we can work something out. They do seem like very sweet little girls." He smiled at Teyra, who was eyeing him shyly.

"Hah, it's a good disguise they put on," Lystra laughed. "Alynna especially is a handful - should have known when I named her after that one that she'd be trouble," she teased, pointing to her older brother.

Aleyn sniffed. "I don't know what you mean, I was a perfectly well-behaved child."

"Ooooh?" Vedran grinned. "I sense some hidden stories there."

Lystra pointed to a long-faded scar on her chin. "See that? That's where he convinced me that he'd cast a spell that would make me fly, then got me to jump off the top stair when I was three and he was six. And then there was the time when I was nine and he put a huge spider on my pillow..."

"Hey, that was Maynard's idea," Aleyn protested. "I just caught the spider."

"I still don't like spiders to this day," she frowned. "And he would mix these horrible 'potions' and get us to drink them as his test subjects..."

"Nobody died," he shrugged.

"No, but I threw up a couple times!"

"I like to think it was an early sign of my vocation."

Lenyard sighed. "I missed all the fun stuff."

"Your own fault for being born last," Bretyn smirked.

"Oh, and speaking of being born, he was also the one who explained to me and Maynard where babies come from. I must say, I'm glad I didn't believe his version even then, because it would have made for some serious misunderstandings later!" Lystra said with a chuckle.

Vedran laughed, grinning. "I'm sure he's still be happy to brew you questionable potions if you feel like you're missing out. But I can't believe you'd try more than one! Still - if you want mind boggling descriptions of how babies are made, let me tell you, nothing tops Roscoe's diagrams. He's a warforged, and very scholarly, but there are some occasionally amusing...or distressing... really probably both... gaps in his education."

Everyone, even Aleyn's mother, had a chuckle about that. Bretyn pushed back from the table and stood once things had quieted down again. "Well, I should be getting going, I have way too much stuff to do. It was nice to meet you, Vedran," he added, offering his hand to shake.

Vedran stood from the table to shake. "You as well, Bretyn - have a good day."

"Hope we'll see you around more," the young man said, smiling. "Assuming we didn't scare you off, that is."

Vedran grinned back. "Oh, I don't scare that easily, I'm sure you'll see me around."

"Since you showed you could handle this, next time we'll have to make sure you're subjected to the entire family," Bretyn smirked, and, waving goodbye to his siblings and giving his mother a quick kiss on the cheek, he departed.

Vedran's attention was attracted by the materialization of Alynna at his elbow, tugging insistently at his sleeve. "Are you an elf?" she asked curiously.

"Oh hello there," he smiled down at her, offering his arms in case she wanted to be picked up. "I'm a half-elf, actually."

The little girl climbed up into his lap willingly. She had unruly dark hair that had been wrestled into pigtails, and a skeptical expression. "That's silly," she said. "You're a whole person, not a half anything."

He grinned more broadly. "Why, thank you for noticing, Alynna, that's very sweet of you. Have you met any elves before?"

She nodded. "There's a lady who comes into the shop sometimes, she's really pretty. Like you."

"Oooh, well, thank you. Lots of people are, uh, pretty though, and they're not all elves."

"She has pointy ears though, and red hair like yours, 'cept really really red, like a flower," Alynna explained. "I wish my hair was like that. Can you make hair like that with magic?"

Lystra gave Vedran a distinctly parental look that said 'just let me know if she's annoying you.'

"Some people can do that, of course. You should see when elves get allllll dressed up - some of them use lots of magic to look especially pretty."

Alynna's green eyes went wide, and she looked like she had more questions, but her mother frowned slightly. "Your hair's perfectly pretty the way it is, Alynna. Now run along and take your sister with you." She put down the squirming toddler, and Alynna reluctantly got down from Vedran's lap to lead Teyra away from the table, saying something about playing "elf lady."

Vedran smiled apologetically at the girls' mother after they toddled off. "Do they play pretty well together?"

"Well, mostly Alynna plays with Teyra like she's a very complicated doll at this point," Lystra said with a shrug. "As long as Teyra goes along with what she wants, everything's fine. It's when she gets her own ideas that things go badly."

"Typical older sibling?" Aleyn said with a smirk.

"Oh, is that how that works?"

"Don't you have any brothers or sisters?" Lystra asked curiously.

"In my defense," Aleyn was saying at the same time, with a glance to where the girls were playing in the next room, "I don't think I ever dressed up as an elf princess and made you be my servant."

Vedran chuckled over at the girls in the next room before returning his attention to Lystra. "I have two half-siblings, but they're both quite a bit older than me, and we weren't really raised together."

"Ah, I know what that's like," Mrs. Harrowden said, nodding knowingly. "My mother was my father's second wife, and I had brothers and sisters much older than me. Very overprotective brothers," she added with a sly little smile.

Lystra once again looked surprised at the amount of information her mother was dispensing, but shrugged and began to clear things off the table, with the help of her (extremely quiet) husband. Lenyard leaned forward on skinny elbows, though. "I like it when you tell stories about Ahkas, Mom. You should do it more often."

"Well, your father never liked to talk about it very often, and I was homesick, so I put it out of my mind as much as I could," she said, sipping her tea. "It was easier."

Vedran smiled, though it was hard to imagine either of his siblings being protective of him. "Are you in touch with your family there at all?"