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Nika is impatient for everybody to come home already so she can show them her new stuff and Miles can show them that he can walk if he learns now and Ivan can - well, Ivan doesn't really have much to show for the trip, what kind of altly help is 'don't try aged fish, you won't like it' - well, Ivan can be a firebird, that's something. Ivan can tell them that he is a firebird. Except he doesn't seem to have been pleased about it. Well, whatever, Nika will let him show the grownups about... pens. Wait, if she let him do that, she would not be able to use her pen in the intervening time in case the grownups arrived. Oh well. Ivan will not get to do anything interesting. Maybe that will be okay with him. If he wanted interesting things to show off he should have done more magic bar stuff.
So Nika waits by where she expects grownups to come in, and she reads about magic on her pen.
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"Yeah. I wasn't even pretending the right thing! There weren't any fairies in the magic bar at all. I can't turn into a dragon yet because I don't have a magic thingy but we're going to learn to make them, we got magic books."
"Can I see your magic books?"
"Sure! I can send them to your pen. You get a pen. It's the one your grownup picked. He wasn't there but they had one so they knew what kind you'd want." Nika performs arcane pen gestures.
"Where is my pen?" he asks reasonably.
"It's in the box of pens. This way." Nika shows him this way, and the box of pens, and finds the one labeled Gregor. "You get the pointy kind."
Gregor picks up his pen. He observes its pointiness.
"How does it work?"
"How does it work?"
"If you wave it around it will teach you to use it!" she says. "I've had mine for hours now, it's the best thing."
Gregor waves his pen around experimentally.
This calls up a tutorial! The tutorial explains that a pen is very like a comconsole. It tells him that he can change its default gestures if he wants, and explains the default gestures to a) make the pen work almost exactly like a comconsole, b) draw, c) write with gestures in Cyrillic, d) do specialized pen-things that comconsoles cannot do. He is supposed to imitate these gestures as they are introduced so the pen can learn how he holds it and moves it. It is a very good tutorial. Linyabel hires excellent help.
Gregor becomes totally absorbed in figuring out the pen. It's fascinating.
Nika sits by him and hugs his leg with one arm and does pen things with the other hand.
He ruffles her hair occasionally, because she is little and cute.
When he manages at last to find and begin reading one of the magic books, he becomes even more fascinated.
When he manages at last to find and begin reading one of the magic books, he becomes even more fascinated.
"I wonder if you're a thing," says Nika, when she notices what he's reading. "Bar couldn't tell, because you weren't there."
"I don't know how to tell," he says thoughtfully. "And... people might be upset, if I was a thing."
This is the sort of thing you have to think about as an emperor.
This is the sort of thing you have to think about as an emperor.
"Well, you don't have to turn into it. Ivan doesn't want to turn into a firebird. But I want to turn into a dragon! And fly! Dragons can do that! Also Miles needs to turn into a unicorn and I can ride him around and we can do unicorn dancing like horse dancing only with a unicorn."
"I think," says Gregor, "people will still be upset if I'm a thing, even if I don't turn into it at all."
"Oh. Well, don't tell them, then, if you are."
He nods thoughtfully.
Leghug. "Can you learn to do magic and not be a secret about it, though?"
"I don't know."
"Hmmm. Well, I'm going to do that. And if you need magic done and you can't do magic because of stuff I will do it."
"Thank you, Nika." He gives her a smile.
Nika beams up at him.
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