"Sounds good, Audrey. I'll go bring it up, and then I might grab a few more groceries, to make sure I've got things like coffee on hand for you. Lemme know if you have any thoughts about what you might like for dinner when I get back up?"

And she heads down.

"Alright!" she chirps. And then she gets into bed, still in her princess clothes, and leans back against the purple sheets. 

It's a weird feeling, this adventure. Being in a world so much worse than her own. Being property. Being looked after by someone who both is and isn't her auntie. 

She lays back in bed, and closes her eyes. She's just going to rest a little while...

When Sable returns with the book, Audrey has the covers drawn up around her, is lying on her side with her eyes closed, and is breathing very slow and soft. 

Awwwwwww.

Valid for her to rest. She's had a Day.

Sable puts the book on the bedside table, kisses the top of her head, and then pulls her notebook out of her purse.

She writes a quick note, tears it out, and puts it on the bedside table next to the book.

Hello, Songbirds,

I'm stepping out to the grocery store to get a few things, and if there's time I might grab your laptop as well while I'm out.

If you need anything, don't hesitate to call me. There's a cordless phone in my office, or the kitchen, or the living room.

—Sable

555-4659

Then she steps out to get ready for her trip out.

Once Sable is out of the room, a hand slips out from under the sheets and grabs the book off the bedside table - but rather than reading it, Audrey just clutches it to her chest and smiiiiles as she drifts back into her nice little dream. 

It's not that she really wants to sleep so much as that her energy for socialing is drained at this point, but... she doesn't have the energy to explain that right now. 

So for now, she rests, book cuddled in her arms.

Sable, meanwhile, gets ready and then hops in her car, heading out to her little local grocery. She picks up some coffee, and a pack of frozen waffles, and ingredients to make fresh ones, and a couple kinds of sausages, and boneless chicken cutlets, and a few other things.

She also grabs a multivitamin

That fills maybe forty-five minutes, by the time she gets home to put cold things away. In she goes to store those in the fridge, trying to be quiet enough not to wake Audrey if she's still asleep, and listening carefully in case she woke up.

By that point, Audrey is out like a light. There's no signs of activity from her room.

Cute and valid.

Off Sable goes to her local computer retailer to compare current generation laptops.

She winds up getting something reasonably current and powerful, so that the Songbirds will be able to play games and run fancy media software.

Then realizes that she probably needs to leave Windows on it, since she can't quite recommend the Linux gaming experience, and the better art software is all Windows/Mac-only, and dual-booting is a bit much to ask of her interdimensionally-stranded foster-daughters.

Boo.

Well, she'll discuss the question with the girls after she gets home.

She picks up a lap-desk too, in a pretty shade of purple, and home she goes.

The laptop box and lap-desk get set on the coffee table for the moment, and she checks on the Songbirds again.

By the time Sable gets back, she finds Audrey in the kitchen looking at wursts again and clearly considering whether she is tall enough to comfortably use the stove. Signs point to maybe. 

She blinks when she sees Sable walk in - apparently she was distracted enough to not hear the car pull up - and breaks out into a smile. Then she comes over and hugs Sable softly. 

She taps out a message on her phone, then holds it up where Sable can see. 

Not up to talking right now. Words are hard. I was considering another wurst for supper but there must be something else good? Do you do, like, noodle dishes? I forget what you had for me at lunch.

She hugs Audrey warmly and nods.

"Very valid not to be up for talking, sweetie. I could totally make a noodle dish. I also picked up some chicken on the first trip, so maybe some noodly chicken stir-fry thing, carefully avoiding any textury veggies?"

Audrey hugs back, nods quickly and smiles, and taps out another message on her phone. 

People are a little too much right now. Can you please fetch me from my room when the meal's done?

"Can do, sweetie," she replies, ruffling her hair gently. "Enjoy your rest and your reading. Have laptop setup questions, but those can wait 'til you're up for them."

Audrey's eyebrows leap when she hears the word "laptop", and she smiles hugely and nods really fast one-two-three. 

Food will help. And for laptop setup it's worth pushing. My phone only has maybe a week of battery if I conserve it. 

"Well. I picked one up, and I'm planning on doing the software setup tonight. The real question is — since you're going to be learning a new OS from scratch either way — whether you want to start with the operating system obsessive nerds and computer programmers use, which has better security foundations and more devtools, or the operating system shipped for the general public, which is harder to customize but a little simpler to learn and has more games and art software? There's a compatibility layer to make the consumer stuff run on the programmer operating system, but that does take a bit of work."

She starts getting ingredients out while she explains.

I've never been a really good programmer. I can get by making toys but system administration feels beyond me. It's probably not worth the tradeoff, unfortunately. 

Sable may be noticing just how fast Audrey is able to fingertype, at this point.

She nods, arching an eyebrow with interest. "Simple enough. I'll get you started off with a whole bunch of protective software too, just to keep casual web browsing from installing unfortunate things. And you have spent a lot of time typing on one of those, it looks like. I'm impressed how fast you are."

It's an essential assistive device on my world. For reasons we're demonstrating here. I'm not even using the actual - one second.

She drops out from the page and types for a moment, then holds the phone out horizontally where Sable can see it and presses a button. 

The whole screen fills with text, bold black on a white background, and it animates, showing one word at a time, filling the whole phone screen: 

THIS

IS

A 

FLASHER

IT 

SHOWS

TEXT 

AT 

A 

FAST

READING 

PACE

IT'S 

FOR 

FAST

NONVERBAL

SPEECH

AT 

A 

DISTANCE

IT 

IS 

RUDE

TO 

FLASH

IN 

PUBLIC

BUT 

IT 

GIVES

BETTER

RANGE

FOR

NONVERBAL

SPEECH

FLASHING  

IS 

GENERALLY

USED 

AT

HOME

OR

IN 

PRIVATE

BUT 

SOME 

EVENTS

MAY 

USE 

FLASHERS

MORE

OPENLY

I 

HOPE

THE

PACE 

OF

MINE 

IS 

SLOW

ENOUGH

FOR 

YOU

She taps another button, and a crisply accented woman's voice with an accent that sounds vaguely Irish to Sable's ear speaks up. The speech is fluid and smooth, though occasionally the pronunciation seems a little odd. 

"Or I can use the vocal mode, which speaks the words out loud.", the artificial voice proclaims. "Generally I prefer not to though, since if I am going to make noise I might as well speak myself."

"Oh that's cool! I didn't expect the flasher, but it makes a lot of sense. We should definitely try to set something like that up for you. Although if we get you a local phone you can definitely text me, as well."

Audrey nods quickly and smiles. 

Raising her flasher again, she proclaims: 

TEXTING IS MUCH MORE PUBLICLY ACCEPTABLE ON TERRA THAN FLASHING

MOST DAYS I TEXT CONSTANTLY

SOMETIMES EVEN TO PEOPLE IN THE SAME HOUSE

IT IS EVERYWHERE

BUT FLASHING WORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT HAVE YOUR DETAILS

IT IS ALSO BETTER FOR TALKING TO A WHOLE ROOM AT ONCE

I WISH I STILL HAD CELL SERVICE

I WILL MISS A LOT OF INTERNET FRIENDS

AS WELL AS IN PERSON ONES

I AM SHY 

I FIND IT EASIER TO BE CONFIDENT THROUGH TEXT

THIS IS COMMON ON MY WORLD

USUALLY PEOPLE TEXT BEFORE THEY MEET IN PERSON

EVEN FOR ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

BUT I DIGRESS

"That makes a lot of sense, sweetie. Well, we'll definitely set you up to text, and maybe I can make a little flasher board you can text to from your phone. I've also got ideas for trying to make a set of ears try to read your mood out of the electrical signals from your brain, but that'll be more complicated."

Dinner is slowly shaping up. Sable is frying up chicken and has added some peas and onions and a few other things that cook down soft enough to avoid triggering any texture stress, while some noodles are boiling and should be done shortly.

Audrey peers at the stirfry and nods approvingly, then goes back to her device, a faint blush on her cheeks.

AESTHETIC LIMBS!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE THEM FROM SCRATCH HUH

OOF

IT WILL BE OKAY THOUGH

I AM GOING TO GO SIT AT THE TABLE

AND PROBABLY READ

IS IT OKAY TO SAY I LOVE YOU?

"Awwww! Yes, it is! I love you too, Audrey, and your other facets too."

She kisses Audrey's forehead.

"Enjoy the book, sweetie. Dinner'll be a few more minutes."

Audrey hums wordlessly to herself, and goes and sits at the table. She gets The Fellowship Of The Ring out of her skirt pocket and goes on reading.