Aeotha thought she already knew this story before the woman even got to the bottom of it with them. An Alchemist had come, a kind one, and the woman being so lost without her husband had taken him into her home without thinking. There was a time in Aeotha's life where such a thing could have happened should she have stopped walking for longer than a week or two. She never stayed anywhere long, but there had been a kind face here and there that would have eagerly welcomed her in for however long Aeotha wished. Her mouth twisted and she looked at Skandra when the woman began to describe the man to him.
Her first guess was Shantar. An eager, hopeful one, even. If it wasn't Shantar, and it wasn't Skandra, that only left one person that Aeotha knew about. Her finger slid off the children's arms and she stood up quickly. She was standing awkwardly, almost completely on her toes and looking, searching for the immortal that certainly couldn't have been here. Poised and almost ready to strike out at the very idea that.. that the man could be here. Could have been here, at all.
No. It certainly couldn't have been..
When she looked down, Skandra was looking at the woman still, and not at her. Aeotha let out a breath.
"She can't mean Gershul." Aeotha said it so softly, as if the name itself would draw the man to them.
Aeotha searched her mind for what she knew about the man. She'd only heard stories. Had she ever actually set her eyes on him? She remembered Skandra telling her about his father, but not in any mystified son sort of way, it was that Skandra hated his father. Shantar almost always avoided obvious questions. She tried not to pry too much into their history, she liked them both too much. She loved Skandra too much to... upset him. More than she already did every time her temper got out of hand, or his. Aeotha was trying to think of someone else. Anyone else that reminded her of Skandra. But there were scarce few alchemists she knew. She knew two, personally, and one only by name. Alchemy was forbidden by the temples and Aeotha still felt..
She felt like she was walking with danger when she dealt with it too much. Amazing though it could be. Her entire life she'd been told it was unnatural.
"He wouldn't have.. No. No it's Shantar. It has to be Shantar. Much older, right? But kind, and.. strange." The woman was looking between them now. Aeotha was searching the ground, the sky, her eyes frantically darting around.