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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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"Thanks," he says, grinning. "I look forward to reading it."
According to the article when it is published later, Mial is the youngest-equivalency person to build a functioning scoot by himself, according to the International League of Scoots' definition of what traits a vehicle must have to be a scoot and not something else, but younger-equivalency groups have managed it before.
This article doesn't actually mention the word "shren", but at least one dragon recognizes Mial's name and sends a letter to the editor anyway.
This article doesn't actually mention the word "shren", but at least one dragon recognizes Mial's name and sends a letter to the editor anyway.
...Mial would have expected that to send him into a rage, but in fact what happens is that he laughs hysterically and then pins the angry letter to his wall, next to the article that prompted it, above the shelf where he keeps his scrapbook of News Articles About Mialavar. It makes him feel accomplished.
Meanwhile, Aurin continues to be mad about girls, and as he grows beyond the equivalent of age twelve girls become significantly keener on him.
When Aurin is a hundred and forty-four and Mial comes over to visit one afternoon, Aurin has an exceedingly dopey and pleased look on his face.
When Aurin is a hundred and forty-four and Mial comes over to visit one afternoon, Aurin has an exceedingly dopey and pleased look on his face.
"...Did something girls-related happen?" inquires Mial.
"Maaaaybe."
"And you're not immediately telling me all about it whether I want to hear it or not?"
"That wouldn't be very, you know, gentlemanly."
"You can keep right on not telling me, then," he snorts.
Aurin gazes dreamily into space.
"...Are you going to be totally hopeless and unable to pay attention to anything that's not a real or imaginary girl for the next week?"
"Hmm? Why, what do you want me to pay attention to?"
"Board games," Mial suggests. "Me."
Aurin obligingly blinks at Mial. "You aren't doing anything," he points out after a moment.
"I won another scoot race a couple days ago. Congratulate me. Then let's play something."
"Congratulations. What d'you want to play?"
"I dunno... how about not board games, how about something with cards for a change."
"Okay." Aurin gets a deck of cards and tosses it to Mial.
Card games ensue!
Aurin is sometimes distracted by the need for dreamy staring into space.
Mial patiently puts up with this problem of his.
Eventually, Aurin has lost at card games enough times, and it becomes lunchtime, and then time for Mial to go home.
Time goes on.
Now that Mial has built one scoot, he starts building a second one with the lessons he learned from the first. It goes much faster this time; in fact, it's ready for his first race in the regular, equivalency-restricted branch of Scoot Lively, when they finally give up and let him in at age 120. (The normal restriction is 20-equivalents and up.)
He comes in third. They are more serious about it up here.
In some races, he places as low as fourth - fifth, once. But he is still consistently near the head of the pack, and he wins enough races to accumulate some prize money. (The prize money up here is also more serious.)
Now that Mial has built one scoot, he starts building a second one with the lessons he learned from the first. It goes much faster this time; in fact, it's ready for his first race in the regular, equivalency-restricted branch of Scoot Lively, when they finally give up and let him in at age 120. (The normal restriction is 20-equivalents and up.)
He comes in third. They are more serious about it up here.
In some races, he places as low as fourth - fifth, once. But he is still consistently near the head of the pack, and he wins enough races to accumulate some prize money. (The prize money up here is also more serious.)
When Mial and Finnah are a hundred and thirty, Finnah comes home one day and announces loudly "I THOUGHT YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW THAT I LIKE GIRLS, LIKE, WOW," and flops on the couch.
...Mial cracks up.
"Are you going to never talk about anything else again, like Aurin?"
"Are you going to never talk about anything else again, like Aurin?"