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[beshackled]

This is Erichthonios. Apologies for not being available at the moment. Pray leave a message, and I shall respond to your communication as soon as I receive it.

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[baldrshand]

[Ethlyn recognizes him by sight, as she recognizes most of the Chosen who have been here more than a month or two, but she can't put a name to the face. Maybe she's lucky and this is the man she needs.]

No, I'm looking for Erichthonios. [It takes her a moment to enunciate the long, unfamiliar name.] You wouldn't happen to be him, would you?

[beshackled]

Aye. I am Erichthonios.

[If she made an error in speaking his name, he does not point it out.]

What is it that you need?

[baldrshand]

Wonderful! [She claps her hands together, and the parcel paper crinkles.] I'm Ethlyn--I run the Arztenritter. And I'm also your Secret Santa.

[beshackled]

My Secret...

[The befuddled expression holds for a second longer before it all clicks in his mind.]

O-oh!

So Miss Santa Coordinator put our names into the pool of recipients, too?

[baldrshand]

She certainly did! It is an exchange, after all.

[She holds up the package she's brought. The wrapping paper is plain, but done well. Inside is a box with several tins of herbal teas--not knowing much about Erichthonios, she decided on something she figured would be good for anyone.]

This is for you.

[beshackled]

[An exchange. Somehow he'd missed that part of the explanation. But it isn't a bad thing to receive a gift, he supposes...]

My thanks.

[Taking the package into hand, Erichthonios inspects its simple trappings, feeling the shapes of some several objects within. It would probably be best to open it inside, he reasons, lest the contents take a tumble as he opens them.

Ah, but taking a gift and leaving the gift-giver outside would be rude.]

...Would you like to come in?

[baldrshand]

That would be lovely, thank you.

[Ethlyn herself has taken to living in the clinic, and she's always curious to see the homes that people have made for themselves in the months since the inn stopped being able to hold all the people arriving in fields, silos, and woodlands.]

How long have you been living here? ...In both senses. [She adds that, realizing that 'here' could be 'this world' as much as 'this house.]

[beshackled]

[Leaving the door open for her, Erichthonios proceeds into the abode proper.]

Not long at all. A mere six moons have passed since I found myself on the inside of a grain silo.

[The blink of an eye, really.]

As for living in this house, I have done so for about as long as the most recent constructions have existed.

[He'd moved in slightly later than some others, on account of moving in with the aforementioned Themis.

There is not yet much in the way of décor. Their focus had been elsewhere, and this place was not truly home.]

You... have been here longer, yes? I recall the Arztenritter existing when I first arrived.

[baldrshand]

Six moons is something I would have called a short time before, but it's been a very eventful half a year. I'm surprised at how many things have happened in such a short time... there's some new problem every month, it seems.

[Although she did have a little more respect for what could happen in a mere six months simply after becoming a parent. The speed at which a baby grows, changes, starts to become a real person, is so fast.]

I've been here since the first of the Chosen began to arrive in this world. At first I thought it was simply a different continent and I could find some ship to travel back to my homeland.

[She laughs a little at how little she knew back then. Truthfully she can still hardly believe it.]

[beshackled]

My first impression was... different.

[Aside from finding himself in the inside of a grain silo, of all things, his experience had been... slightly on the surreal side.]

Though the size of the buildings are in proportion to our current stature, I could not... and still cannot shake the feeling that I have been shrunk. By a significant degree.

'Tis as though I have been rendered small and placed within a doll's house.

[baldrshand]

...Shrunk? [Ethlyn wonders what he could mean by that. She arrived here shocked to be alive, without even a trace of the wound that killed her, but she still felt all 5'3" inches of herself.] How tall do you think you should be?

[He seems tall to her! But maybe she's just viewing that from, you know, 5'3".]

[beshackled]

[At a hair short of 6', Erichthonios is still around a full head taller than Ethlyn.]

...If I were to guess, I would say... roughly thrice the height I am now? I was a young child when the ground was last so close...

[A very young child. And unlike his brethren here, Erichthonios does not have any experiences of being more modern-sized just yet. He's gotten used to it with time, but there is still a surreal quality to it all.]