Their Ball And Chain

Kiera stepped in finally, her parrot Polly still on her shoulder. He seemed almost oddly out of place with the giant black eye-patch over his left eye(whether he was really missing an eye or not remained to be seen really) Yulina ran over to greet her a bit later once she came closer.

"Ah, aren't ya getting big? Pretty soon I'm going to be looking up." Kiera smiled, ruffling her hair, which again caused Yulina to make a face. It was theorized people did that anyway, because the faces she made during that was cute.

"Heh..nice seeing you again." Adell greeted. "You said something about breaking the curse?"

"Ya. I thinkin' of an idea or two. But first." She turned to Ariana and introduced herself and bowed. "Nice to meet ya, name's Kiera Black Heart."

"Get my eye patch" Polly screamed, the patch had fallen off during the bow.

He was ignored by everyone but Yulina.

Kiera blinked, then smiled. "Ah, ya, I remember ya too. Haven't seen ya until now in person but some of the folks I ran into talked about you. Anyway, I got wind of yer problem thanks to Sammy here and I think I might be able to help you two."

"How so?" Adell asked.

"We'll, I travel a lot and dabble in magic. Not as much as that Ion guy, but I know some stuff. If its all right with Sammy over here, I'd like ya two to travel with me." She nodded to Adell's mom. "That way ya two can find something to break that curse of yours. Maybe you'd find to break that curse of yours when I steal-heh, I mean borrow something's. What do ya say?"

"I got no problems with it but.." Adell glanced at Ariana. "It's up to her too really."

"Great!" Kiera seemed happy and bouncing with energy, Polly just seemed pissed at everything but that was like saying the sky was blue or ice was cold--that's to say it wasn't news. "I'll wait for ya two on my ship. I don't wanna just snatch ya away." She reached into her pocket, taking a card and with a worn pen began scribbling something down. "When ya two are ready, hit me up okay?"

She ruffled Yulina's hair once more. "Bye! See ya folks later!" And with that, Kiera was out the door..and out about her business again. Whatever that was.

Adell shook his head. "Heh, she never changes.." He noticed Ariana seemed a bit put off. He thought she might be a bit happier about it. "You okay?"

"Nobody here is going to abandon you." Samantha said gently but firmly. "The only way we would even consider that is if you did something horrible like kill children in cold blood. But we both know you'd never do something like that, so I think its safe to say you're safe."

Yulina nodded feverently. "Yep! You can't get rid of me Ariana! And if Adell tries to leave you, I'll beat him up, okay?"

Adell seemed amused. "Okay, I'll hold you to it then." He said, teasing but then focused on Ariana. "Pretty much what they said, you can't get rid of us that easy even if you wanted too. Talk is cheap, but you'll see, it'll be fine."

"You might not be officially part of the family, but we consider you apart of ours, Ariana." Samantha was pleased the words and encouragement had lifted her spirits a bit. "But for now, why don't we relax and take it easy? We'll just enjoy each others company until you two leave."

"..Movie night at the house?" Adell supplied.

"I was hoping I wasn't that obvious."

* *

Around the next day, it was time for Adell and Ariana to go on their journey. But before then, Samantha had packed Adell and Ariana something's. For Ariana, just some extra clothes to wear since she couldn't simply wear the same thing over and over without taking a shower; same with Adell. Yulina bugged both of them about bringing her pictures or something back. Really, she just wanted a souvenir of some kind.

The Kronos family was gathered around the large air ship in a special area of the Air Port. Airships like Kiera were rare, but others had rode them before. Ones that had the ability to travel to different realms and such, many typically didn't see outside of Nexus City, but they were on the rise.

"Promise you'll bring me something back, okay?" Yulina told Ariana.

"Ya'll ready?" Kiera was patiently waiting as the large vessel was docked.

"Just a moment." Samantha grabbed a camera from her pocket. "You three, go over there. I want a picture of you two so I have something to remember this by." That and she didn't have any pictures of Ariana, that she was going to change.

"That young lady, I'll hold you too." Sure, she was older in human years but she still looked around 19 and was much younger by her race standards. Samantha took the picture before putting putting it away and giving Samantha a hug as well as Ariana. "Stay safe." She whispered before pulling away from them.

Kiera waited for Adell and Ariana to come aboard the ship, and even then Samantha and Yulina were still seen on the ground too watch it lift off. In particular, Yulina had always wanted to see for herself, that and she wanted to ride one of these days.

Adell didn't see any people, all he saw were small..humanoid cat things. "Is it really just me and Ariana here?"

"Nah. I got a crew mate named Rick, he's cleaning something." Kiera said as she walked deeper into the ship. "I'll show ya to yer rooms then you can wander. There's an' training area if ya need it too."

"That's good." Actually, Adell was damned happy about that. "Uh, Kiera, where does this 'Rick' guy come from?"

Kiera shrugged. "I met him months ago. Poor sap was just an wandering. Good guy, don't know what shampoo he uses for that hair of his. Ah! Here ya go."

Standing in front of them was their room. "Ya two can't go far from each other fer the curse, so I figure I just get you two sharing a room."

Kiera nodded. "I'll leave ya folks to it then." As she turned to walk away, she paused. "If ya makes ya uncomfortable Ariana, I could always tell Rick to keep his distance from ya two." She didn't know the whole details, but she did notice Ariana tense a bit. Not many people thought so but she was damned good at reading people, even if she didn't really show it all the time.

Kiera nodded. "All righty. I'll see ya two later then." With that she left the two teens alone for now.

He had heard Ariana trusted him and such, but it still made Adell feel warm inside, knowing that he helped Ariana feel safer. The room, once they got into it was nothing really all that special but it was big enough for them both, though there was two beds. However, since Ariana had taken to sleeping in the same bed as him it wasn't nearly as big of a deal anymore.

"I always wanted to ride on one of these, just wish it was under better circumstances." Adell went to the edge of the bed and sat down. Now that he noticed, they even had a nice T.V. built into the wall to the side they could watch freely. In the middle between the two beds on the dresser was stacks of DVD's of all sorts they could watch

Adell felt a strange tingle-like feeling at the contact of Ariana briefly brushing against him but he ignored it for now.

"On one of your jobs?" Adell was about to say something else when he yawned briefly. Why the heck he was tired around this time he wasn't exactly sure. Maybe it was the airship itself or something.

"That bathroom will probably do." There was a small bathroom just to the left, it had a shower inside of it as well which made things convient. "And I'll change after you do, you can go first."

Adell watched her go into the bathroom before laying down on the bed, hands behind his head as he looked into the ceiling. Idly, he wondered if he was starting to develop something more then just friendship with Ariana. If that was true, it would explain why that simple brushing of shoulders had felt so good. Adell wasn't sure about it, but if that was true, even with Ariana's hangs up he wanted to at least try. That way he couldn't say he had any regrets when this curse was finally broken and they moved on with their lives.

Predictably, Adell was very much..distracted. However he didn't want to seem like a creep so he tried not to look too much and think of something that was unappealing that would calm him down.

Like imagining Aleron declaring his love to him.

Instantly he retracted the thought. That was a bit too much.

"Uh, Ill be right back." He said and left quickly to the bathroom, needing a cold shower. One that would calm his nerves a bit and allow him to relax around Ariana. Once he was done with the shower, he came back, in a simple white t-shirt and some blue pants. Pretty simple but they worked for pajamas.