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Their Isabella having just gone to welcome a new Bell into the peal, Kas and Petaal snuggle up together and take a nap. They'll want to be well rested for the party.
When they wake up, she still isn't back.
[Jane?]
No response.
Kas teleports down to the Janepoint, Petaal wrapped snake-shaped around his shoulders.
The display reads: error 7788: lycanthropy
"...So that's new," he says.
"No shit," says Petaal. "Now what?"
He shrugs. She coils tighter.
"Hang around and wait, I guess."
truthwright
It is later, when Helen is just past her sixth birthday, that Ranata brainphones Kas who is off somewhere. [There's a lovely-looking children's aquarium opening in Chicago,] she says. [I thought perhaps Helen would like it. We could all three go, with Charlie if he's up for the flight but he probably won't be.]
[Okay!] And she supplies the address. [There's a lot of exhibits, we should start at at least ten in the morning to see everything before Helen gets tired.]
At ten in the morning, Ranata hovers over the walk that leads up to the aquarium entrance. She's already healed an ailing otter for tickets.
truthwright
Kas arrives on foot, with Helen. Petaal is coiled around his neck as an iridescent black snake, and Kalavar is perched on Helen's ear as a fuzzy bumblebee.
carillons
"Hi, Ranata!" says Helen, giggling and hugging her. (Kalavar buzzes over to say hi to Castarilan.)
(Castarilan hovers and chatters politely at his granddaemon.)
"Are you ready to see lots of cool swimming animals? There are tanks with friendly ones that Kalavar can go into if she's the right shapes," says Ranata.
"Are you ready to see lots of cool swimming animals? There are tanks with friendly ones that Kalavar can go into if she's the right shapes," says Ranata.
In they go! Ranata flashes the pass she got for the otter's healing. There are themed wings; different environments, divided with glass for civilized coexistence, lit in colors and architectured with coral and plants and populated with fish and mollusks and aquatic mammals and birds and cnidarians and echinoderms and undersea arthropods. There's a show by a woman with a dolphin daemon - keeping real cetaceans in captivity hasn't been allowed for years now, but some people have inconvenient settlements and find the performing arts more appealing than separation or living on a houseboat or trying to finance a home tank, so the general idea persists, in choreography if not in the impressiveness of training across the communication barrier.
There are touch-tanks, where little human hands can pick up starfish and gingerly run their fingers along urchins and unglue snails from tank walls, and there are swim-tanks, where little humans can cross a bridge or creep through a tunnel into central islands surrounded by inhabited water, and their daemons can turn into penguins - or rays - or trout - or eels - or creative little sea-serpents - or otters - and join similarly shaped creatures in capering around. (There are signs up; it is important to turn into a saltwater or freshwater creature, in the corresponding tanks, although exact shape doesn't matter very much. The aquarium is not responsible if some child's daemon provokes an animal and the daemon is pulled farther from their human than they'd like, although none of the tanks in question are big enough to make this more than moderately uncomfortable. Daemons are not to chase, attack, or frighten the animals.)
There are touch-tanks, where little human hands can pick up starfish and gingerly run their fingers along urchins and unglue snails from tank walls, and there are swim-tanks, where little humans can cross a bridge or creep through a tunnel into central islands surrounded by inhabited water, and their daemons can turn into penguins - or rays - or trout - or eels - or creative little sea-serpents - or otters - and join similarly shaped creatures in capering around. (There are signs up; it is important to turn into a saltwater or freshwater creature, in the corresponding tanks, although exact shape doesn't matter very much. The aquarium is not responsible if some child's daemon provokes an animal and the daemon is pulled farther from their human than they'd like, although none of the tanks in question are big enough to make this more than moderately uncomfortable. Daemons are not to chase, attack, or frighten the animals.)
carillons
Helen is delighted by the dolphin dance, and pleased with the snail-petting, and then Kalavar gets to play with the creatures and that is just the best thing. Penguins! Otters! They are especially fond of the otters.
truthwright
Don't tell anyone, but the iridescent snake is missing from around Kas's neck and there is an extra otter going around.
carillons
Kalavar totally knows, though, and she is cheerfully playing tag with Petaal-the-otter. They go around and around, and the other otters join in, and a fun time is had by all.
And whenever they want to move on, there are plenty of neat creatures to see! Ranata picks up Helen so she can see the higher informational plaques and helps her pronounce words.
She is pretty great! And she can send Castarilan humming through the aquarium to get a better feel from the place than the map affords, and they traverse it efficiently but at a leisurely pace, never lost or backtracking.