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Aurin holds his mother's hand as she leads him from the street to his aunt and uncle's house. He's been here only a couple of times, and can't remember most of them distinctly; they're sort of awkwardly related, his dead father's half-brother and the wife thereof. But now they have a baby parunia, and that means there is a dragon related to Aurin who is not too far from his age, only thirty-one years younger. This is apparently the sort of relation that it will be particularly enriching for Aurin to meet. They can do this now instead of waiting a month, because parunias don't die when they're babies; this one is safe, unlike the miscellaneous cousins on his mother's side he's never met because they are all in too much danger to get attached to (and have all succumbed to that danger). So here they are. Even though it was a very long flight and he couldn't ride his mother for takeoff and landing when she had to be a heron, only for the middle part.
Alys knocks on the door.
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Finnah and Aurin contentedly eat it.
"You came out of your room," Finnah observes of Mial.
"You came out of your room," Finnah observes of Mial.
"Yeah," says Mial. "Guess I'm less of a lump today."
He eats his bean soup. Lumpishly.
He eats his bean soup. Lumpishly.
"You're still kind of lumpy," Finnah says.
"Yeah."
"I wonder how long it will take you to unlump this time."
"Dunno."
Soup soup soup.
Soup soup soup.
Soup.
Tarts! (And ice cream.)
Tarts! (And ice cream.)
Mial has a tart and a little bit of ice cream and then becomes a cat again and plods over to the cozy sofa in the living room and flomps on it.
Finnah goes and pets his tummy.
He purrs a little.
That's a good sign! Aurin helps with the clearly melioratory tummy-rubbing.
Purr purr. It is so nice that Mial has people in his life who will give him tummy rubs when he is a fluffy kitty lump.
The following week Finnah has her flag dance performance.
Mial goes to it, and does not cry. He's still not quite fully delumped - he's kind of quiet - but nothing is ruined. And the rest of his lumpiness fades over the next few days; soon he's back to playing increasingly complex strategy games with his father and folding increasingly complex paper figures, some of which he invents himself, and flying his mother's scoot.
He wants to race scoots. Racing scoots is totally a thing. But they don't let eighty-year-old dragonishes do it. Ugh, he has lived what would be some species' entire lifetime and he's still barely allowed to do anything interesting. He is only just this year allowed to be home by himself for moderate amounts of time.
Maybe if he just...
There is, when he looks, a junior league in Esmaar that has lax standards for what identifying information must be provided to enter its qualifying races.
Mial contrives to obtain clothes that code older than his usual outfits, then contrives to obtain a racing helmet. The extra safety spells on racing helmets don't actually need to make the helmet's outer surface seem opaque, and haven't since they invented better glare control in the earliest days of scoot racing, but the opaque look is still fashionable with some crowds and Mial has no trouble finding one that suits his purpose. He shows up to the next tryout. When the mid-fifties elf handing out numbered badges to the candidates gives him a skeptical look, he growls at her that a poorly tested medical potion stunted his growth, and consents to repeat this perfectly true fact under lie detection. The elf apologizes. He is number fourteen out of thirty-one, with five league racers added in to make a total of thirty-six. To be admitted to the league, one must place in the top half of the ranking.
He comes in third, with one league racer and one fellow hopeful ahead of him.
When they make the announcements and hand out the official league membership cards to the newly qualified members, he accepts his, sticks it in his pocket, and then removes his helmet and beams his sunniest smile up at the fifteen-year-old human league official who gave it to him.
"...How old are you really," she says.
"Eighty-one," he informs her. "I'm a shren."
Consternation ensues. But they don't have a lower limit on member age-equivalency written down anywhere - he checked. He is, technically, allowed to fly a scoot; he has, technically, just been admitted to this racing league. They could turn around and ban him immediately... but they don't. They put his name on the membership list.
He goes home and crows about it all afternoon.
He wants to race scoots. Racing scoots is totally a thing. But they don't let eighty-year-old dragonishes do it. Ugh, he has lived what would be some species' entire lifetime and he's still barely allowed to do anything interesting. He is only just this year allowed to be home by himself for moderate amounts of time.
Maybe if he just...
There is, when he looks, a junior league in Esmaar that has lax standards for what identifying information must be provided to enter its qualifying races.
Mial contrives to obtain clothes that code older than his usual outfits, then contrives to obtain a racing helmet. The extra safety spells on racing helmets don't actually need to make the helmet's outer surface seem opaque, and haven't since they invented better glare control in the earliest days of scoot racing, but the opaque look is still fashionable with some crowds and Mial has no trouble finding one that suits his purpose. He shows up to the next tryout. When the mid-fifties elf handing out numbered badges to the candidates gives him a skeptical look, he growls at her that a poorly tested medical potion stunted his growth, and consents to repeat this perfectly true fact under lie detection. The elf apologizes. He is number fourteen out of thirty-one, with five league racers added in to make a total of thirty-six. To be admitted to the league, one must place in the top half of the ranking.
He comes in third, with one league racer and one fellow hopeful ahead of him.
When they make the announcements and hand out the official league membership cards to the newly qualified members, he accepts his, sticks it in his pocket, and then removes his helmet and beams his sunniest smile up at the fifteen-year-old human league official who gave it to him.
"...How old are you really," she says.
"Eighty-one," he informs her. "I'm a shren."
Consternation ensues. But they don't have a lower limit on member age-equivalency written down anywhere - he checked. He is, technically, allowed to fly a scoot; he has, technically, just been admitted to this racing league. They could turn around and ban him immediately... but they don't. They put his name on the membership list.
He goes home and crows about it all afternoon.
Finnah cackles and applauds him when she hears.
greatcomposure
Mial is so smug. He is the smuggest of shrens.
His mother gently chastises him for having snuck around to obtain his grownup costume and not told anyone exactly where he was flying her scoot that morning, and says that in the interests of improving honest communication in this household, if he has another scheme like this he can bring it to her for help.
His mother gently chastises him for having snuck around to obtain his grownup costume and not told anyone exactly where he was flying her scoot that morning, and says that in the interests of improving honest communication in this household, if he has another scheme like this he can bring it to her for help.
When Aurin hears about it, he is rather taken aback by Mial's audacity.
"What was I supposed to do," he asks, grinning, "just wait sixty more years? Come on!"
"It's not like you don't have anything else to do," Aurin says reasonably.
"I don't have enough things to do. I wanna do more things," he says. "More exciting things. And all the really good stuff is age-restricted and I don't like it. Well, now I can race scoots."
"Maybe you wouldn't be so antsy if you had to go to school like me," says Aurin. "But I probably can't convince Mom to move us to Esmaar."
"Why would you convince your mom to move to Esmaar? And why can't you?"
"So I wouldn't have to go to school. And because her job is where we live."
"Have you tried?"
"To convince her? No..."