As Amara stood before the entrance of the village she looked around, wondering who was going to be the first to come greet them. Surely with the way things had ended up going at the Kage Summit someone was going to come investigate why the Raikage of all people had shown up at their village gates. That, and she just didn't see the people of Makkura as being laxed in their security. It wouldn't have surprised her if they didn't somehow know she had been on her way before she had even got this close.

Regardless, she kept her passive shock reigned in, not wanting to come across as threatening. Far from it, she wanted to make sure that things were okay for her daughter to be here. Especially because it would make her little girl happy.

She loosened her grip on Gemma's legs so that if she wished she could slip herself down and off of her mother's back. "Stay close, Gemma... I want to make sure it's okay for you to visit before you go running off into the village.", she said softly. It was the truth of course: she had no reason to lie to her child. As she waited she found herself thinking back to the last and only time she had been here: Alec Kane had used some strange ability after convincing her to look into his eyes which had placed her somewhere she couldn't escape from. He had taken her to the tower, to a lab, where she had been looked over but otherwise not harmed. All they had simply been after were answers.... perhaps... just perhaps they weren't as bad as she thought. How could they be if Aella was so happy in her letter to Gemma?

When her mother loosened her grip on her legs she slipped herself slowly down and to the ground. Once her feet had touched the earth she moved out from behind her mother and took a few steps towards the entrance. However, at her mother's request she didn't go any further. She simply looked at the village with child-like wonderment and curiosity. She wasn't afraid of Makkura or the people in it, even though she had heard the story of what happened to her mother when she had been just a little older than Gemma was now. Aella had been happy, so she figured they couldn't be such bad people.

"I wonder if Aella knows I'm here.", Gemma wondered out loud. She would have called out to her friend, hollered to see if she could hear her, but she didn't want to make anyone angry, or disturb anyone.

Gemma was here. OHMYGODOHMYGOD. Her best friend was here. In Makkura. She had been close enough to pick up on her arrival at the village gates and she hadn't wasted a single second in darting off, straight towards where Gemma and her mother were. Arms were open wide as she ran in anticipation of the tackle hug she was about to give Gemma. "GEMMA, GEMMA, GEMMA! I MISSED YOU!", she shouted.

She ran straight through the entrance and barreled into her friend. Arms latched around her as the momentum behind her hugging tackle would easily be enough to knock them both off of their feet and send them rolling in the dirt. But, it wasn't like Gemma could be harmed by such things - even her skin was tough as a dragons scales, and Aella herself wasn't breakable with the panda inside of her. "I'm so glad you came to visit! Can you stay the night? Can you, can you?!", Aella asked happily while keeping her arms wrapped around her friend: she had no intentions of breaking the hug or letting them up for the next few seconds.

Something had been flying around in the dark skies above Makkura the entire time. It was bright orange and left glowing trails behind it that would remain several moments before vanishing. A large glowing phoenix descended from above the clouds suddenly, headed toward the front gate. When it was close, one could see that the bird was actually an aura that surrounded a boy. He wore a black and white striped top, lose fitting slacks and black sandals. The boy had red eyes and a mop of white hair.

The temperature in the immediate vicinity would rise somewhat. As he landed, the large phoenix shape vanished; the bright orange glow along with it. If one had ever seen his father, Jr would be nearly the spitting image of him. His father had informed everyone already on the party line that visitors were coming from the direction of Kumo; possibly to visit Aella. Jr landed to see a girl he'd never seen before, along with the one girl he did the weird eye trick on all those years ago. Aella and the other girl looked close, so he knew there would be no trouble.

Jr didn't say anything, because he didn't know if she still had hard feelings behind what happened to her mostly, but as the Kage giving respect to another Kage, he waved with a nod to Amara.

Amara watched Gemma get tackled to the ground by her best friend and couldn't help but chuckle. The girls were close, the kind of friendship that would last a life-time. It was the very reason why Amara knew she couldn't keep Gemma from Aella even if it meant her daughter coming to a village that she had had some bad history with. A smile spread across her face at Aella's enthusiasm over Gemma's visit.

Her attention then shifted to the arrival of Junior, slightly weary as he came down from the sky: she had been wondering what exactly had been flying around up there, but knew better than to try and investigate. When she saw that it was simply the Kuraikage, and his nod and wave seemed friendly enough she offered one back. "Hello. Gemma wished to come see for herself that Aella was okay after she heard how sick she had gotten, and to perhaps spend some time here, if that's alright?"

Amara had finally become okay with the whole thing, mainly because she knew how happy it made the girls: telling either of them no to this would cause them to be upset, and she didn't want that. "I know our past... history.. hasn't been all that wonderful, but I do hope to somehow fix that, if it's only fixed for the sake of Gemma and Aella. I know you all are family to Aella, and Gemma's her best friend... Keeping them apart simply over something that happened so long ago wouldn't be fair to them.." She hoped the explanation would do: she had no intentions to cuase problems with the Kuraikage, or anyone else in the village for that matter. She simply wanted the children happy, and if this was what it took then she was willing to oblige.

Gemma giggled as she was tackled to the ground by her best friend, not minding the impact in the slightest. Arms wrapped around Aella as she hugged her back just a furiously. "I was so worried when you sent me that letter Aella. I had to make doubly sure you were okay. I brought you presents, and my momma says that if it's okay with everyone here I can stay for a little while. A sleepover just like we had back in Niwa.", Gemma said happily.

Her attention then too shifted over to Junior, even as Aella kept her pinned to the ground. She offered a wave and then a giggle before looking between her mother and Junior. She hoped it would be okay for her to stay since she really wanted to see Aella: or if not for Aella to at least be able to come to Kumo for a few days to visit her. Either way she'd be happy... though, having the chance to explore a new village sounded more than appealing, so she hoped she could stay.

"Can I stay?", she asked Junior curiously, wiggling free enough from Aella's hug to at least be able to sit up.

Aella allowed her friend to sit up, releasing her grip so she could at least do that. She looked between her uncle and Gemma's mother, her head turning so quickly that she became dizzy and giggled just as Gemma often did. Eventually she released her grip enough and stood to her feet before helping Gemma to hers. She hoped her friend could stay: when she had originally mentioned that Gemma might poof over here via the necklaces they had no one had seemed to have a problem with the idea - other than happy for the heads up so that they would expect such a thing. So, she didn't see why there would suddenly be a problem now. Maybe even by Gemma being here things would at least start to fix themselves between Kumo and Makkura... she was hoping at least.

She then became very aware of some fuzzy, four inch high creature that had attached itself to Gemma's back... the thing was almost spider like, if not exactly so. Her head tilted a bit and she moved closer. "Gemma... I don't want to scare you, but you have a Joltik on your back. It probably likes you because your part thunder dragon. It won't hurt you.. it just feeds off of the excess raiton you let off... It's kind of cute." Her head tilted curiously as she looked closer at it: it looked very healthy, probably because Gemma gave off some serious voltage when she wanted to, and it seemed friendly enough since it hadn't tried to attack Aella for being that close. "I'll remove it if you want me to... but it seems to like you. They're pretty cool, I've seen a few on the streetlights... "

Personally Jr didn't have a problem with the 2 girls, or with Kumo. If at least one village out there was friendly with Makkura then that was good enough with him. With how close Aella and Gemma were, who was he to say they weren't allowed? His father most likely wouldn't have a problem with it either, but he didn't see him coming down here and trying to play nice with what happened all those years ago. He may not have hurt her but still, what he did was pretty wrong...

”No problems here!” said Jr, shrugging his shoulders. ”There's eyes and ears everywhere around here, so my folk know how close those 2 are now. She'll be able to come and go through here whenever, and she'll be well looked after if she wants to stay here.”

Some of the villagers came around to say hello to Jr. He responded by grinning some and waving back. He hoped some saw this and began to realize that perhaps the Kanes and The Dark weren't actually these evil villains that most people portrayed them to be... not all of the time, anyway. Realize that perhaps the bad things they did all had a purpose behind them. Jr knew that some minds would never be changed though, and that they would forever be the bad guys...

She was glad to hear that Junior didn't have a problem with Gemma staying. The more she saw of Makkura, including the way everyone seemed to be happy and friendly, the more she began to wonder if the place and the people in it were as bad as everyone made them out to be. Yes, they had done some things in the past that wasn't considered friendly... but, she was pretty sure if she bothered to ask they had a legitimate reason to do each and every one of those things.

She gave a nod to Junior and smiled. "Thank you." She looked over to Gemma before scooping her daughter up, careful not to disturb the Joltik on her back, adn hugged her. "Behave yourself while you're here, kay? You can poof home when ever you're ready." She set her daughter down and looked oer her with a grin: she was glad the girls were happy.

Before she turned to leave she looked over once more to Junior. "Do me a favor... tell your father there's no hard feelings over what happened all those years ago. Let's just say... given the position I'm in now, responsible for all of those lives... Well, had I witnessed a child wipe out an entire village on accident I probably would have wanted to know how too, and would have likely done the same thing he did."

Gemma hugged her mother back and then blnked as the Joltik that Aella had pointed out came up on her shoulders. It let out a strange purr sound that sounded very much like a motor idling. She giggled once, poked it, and then giggled again. "I like 'em, I think I'll name 'em Spark. I've never had a pet... but if she only eats raiton, I have plenty of that to share."

She then looked up to her mother, looking between her and Junior as she heard what her mother said. Her mother was forgiving someone for what they had done to her... did that mean that perhaps Makkura and Kumo were going to become friends? Gemma thought that idea would be pretty cool, especially since Aella was living here now. "Come on Aella, you can show me around!", she said happily as she grabbed her friends hand with a smile.

[Exit]

Aella watched as Amara gave Gemma a hug, and heard as well as Amara forgave her grandfather for something he had done a long time ago. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but she figured if she wanted to guess she could. Perhaps now more villages could be friends with each other. She always heard bad things about the village of Makkura and yet she had only had fun since arriving. She didn't quite understand how that made any sort of sense.

Her fingers closed around Gemma's hand and she nodded with a giggle. She skipped into the village, knowing that Gemma would likely being doing the same... and began to show her all of the places she could in the village...

[Exit]