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.
Generated:
Post last updated:
this one is safe
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar opens it, little silver baby snuggled in her arms.
"Hello, Alys. Hello, Aurin. Come on in."
"Hello, Alys. Hello, Aurin. Come on in."
"Hi, Aunt Koridaar. He's so little," says Aurin.
"Hello, Koridaar," says Alys. "How are you and Avar doing?"
"Hello, Koridaar," says Alys. "How are you and Avar doing?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The baby looks at Aurin and meeps. Koridaar scritches him.
"We're doing pretty well. I'm glad he took the time off; looking after this baby seems to be a one-and-a-half-person job minimum. I'm falling a little behind on my research, but I can't regret it."
"We're doing pretty well. I'm glad he took the time off; looking after this baby seems to be a one-and-a-half-person job minimum. I'm falling a little behind on my research, but I can't regret it."
Aurin reaches curiously towards the baby. He is not tall enough to reach without help or the baby ceasing to be located in Koridaar's arms.
"Children are a handful," agrees Alys. "Well, there's only one of him, you'll get accustomed."
"Children are a handful," agrees Alys. "Well, there's only one of him, you'll get accustomed."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar crouches down to hold the baby at a more Aurin-appropriate level.
"Careful with him, he's little," she advises, and then looks up at Alys with a smile. "The way he acts, I sometimes think he thinks there should have been two of him and he's trying to make up for it."
"Careful with him, he's little," she advises, and then looks up at Alys with a smile. "The way he acts, I sometimes think he thinks there should have been two of him and he's trying to make up for it."
Aurin carefully pets his cousin. "Hiiii," he whispers, as though excess noise is the danger from which the baby parunia must be protected.
"Really? What does he get up to?" wonders Alys, smiling down at the children.
"Really? What does he get up to?" wonders Alys, smiling down at the children.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Meeeep," says the baby parunia. He bumps his tiny silver nose against Aurin's hand.
"He likes books," says Koridaar. "He likes to nest in them, specifically. And he considers the surprise dive onto your head the highest form of affection."
"He likes books," says Koridaar. "He likes to nest in them, specifically. And he considers the surprise dive onto your head the highest form of affection."
Aurin giggles. "Meep!" he replies.
"Aurin used to land on my shoulders, which is substantially more comfortable than a landing on the head. He still does it, occasionally," says Alys fondly. "I took to wearing discouraging hats to keep him out of my hair."
"Aurin used to land on my shoulders, which is substantially more comfortable than a landing on the head. He still does it, occasionally," says Alys fondly. "I took to wearing discouraging hats to keep him out of my hair."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I don't have any hats I'd describe as especially discouraging," says Koridaar. "I might ask you to recommend one, except I'm afraid he'd just take it as a challenge. One which the hat would go on to lose."
"Moop," the baby says authoritatively. He stands up on his mother's hands and launches himself into the air, to flap around Aurin in circles.
"Watch out," Koridaar advises, smiling. "He might decide to land on you."
"Moop," the baby says authoritatively. He stands up on his mother's hands and launches himself into the air, to flap around Aurin in circles.
"Watch out," Koridaar advises, smiling. "He might decide to land on you."
"I should have brought a discouraging hat to try," murmurs Alys.
Aurin giggles and shifts and takes off, inviting chase.
Aurin giggles and shifts and takes off, inviting chase.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The baby chases! The baby is good at chasing. He successfully lands on top of Aurin in midair, and lets out a little baby giggle. Koridaar regards this spectacle with extreme fondness.
Aurin is not big enough to hold himself and a baby up in the air. Flomp. "Ow." He shifts human again and sits up.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The baby climbs into Aurin's lap and snuggles him vigorously. Koridaar smiles.
Pet pet pet.
"Now, if they'd sit still for it, this would be a lovely portrait," remarks Alys.
"Now, if they'd sit still for it, this would be a lovely portrait," remarks Alys.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Wouldn't it just," Koridaar agrees. "But sitting still might be a little beyond them."
The baby investigates the prospects of climbing onto Aurin's head.
The baby investigates the prospects of climbing onto Aurin's head.
Aurin has a head. He will let the baby climb there as long as there isn't too much claw involved.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
There is a minimal amount of claw! He sort of stands on Aurin's shoulder and flops over. One wing ends up in front of Aurin's face. Koridaar continues to be charmed.
Aurin sneezes.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The baby squeaks, flaps a few times, and launches himself from Aurin's shoulder. Perches are not supposed to sneeze on one's wings! That is inappropriate perch behaviour.
"Oh, he's got his affronted look going," laughs Koridaar.
"Oh, he's got his affronted look going," laughs Koridaar.
"Sorry," calls Aurin.
"It's a very affronted look," agrees Alys, amused.
"It's a very affronted look," agrees Alys, amused.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar giggles.
And—
the baby falls out of the air, flomp. Directly onto Aurin's head, as it happens.
Koridaar is still smiling, but it's taken on an edge of puzzled concern. "That didn't look like one of his usual love-dives," she comments.
And—
the baby falls out of the air, flomp. Directly onto Aurin's head, as it happens.
Koridaar is still smiling, but it's taken on an edge of puzzled concern. "That didn't look like one of his usual love-dives," she comments.
"No?" says Alys. "Is he tired?"
Aurin pulls the baby off of his head and hugs him. "Tired baby."
Aurin pulls the baby off of his head and hugs him. "Tired baby."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Maybe..."
The baby is content to snuggle Aurin for a few ticks before climbing up and trying the shoulder-launch again.
Flomp.
"...maybe not," says Koridaar.
The baby is content to snuggle Aurin for a few ticks before climbing up and trying the shoulder-launch again.
Flomp.
"...maybe not," says Koridaar.
Alys starts swearing loudly in Draconic. She picks up her son and squishes him hard enough that he squeaks. She says to him a few things in Draconic that are not swear words and then resumes loudly ranting and then finally switches back to Leraal. "Where's Avar? If he flies in - if he doesn't know and he flies in -"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar indulges in some swearing of her own. The baby meeps affrontedly.
"Afternoon nap," she says, "he's here, he won't - but - what happened, that's what I want to know. What happened, and how can I stop it from happening to anyone else. And someone's going to have to tell Piro. And I should—I need to be in at least three places at once—" She scoops up her affrontedly meeping baby and heads to the bedroom to wake up her husband.
"Afternoon nap," she says, "he's here, he won't - but - what happened, that's what I want to know. What happened, and how can I stop it from happening to anyone else. And someone's going to have to tell Piro. And I should—I need to be in at least three places at once—" She scoops up her affrontedly meeping baby and heads to the bedroom to wake up her husband.
"He's a - I hope I'm wrong, but some incompetent individual must have let a shren near here," shudders Alys, still squishing human-shaped Aurin in her arms and following Koridaar. "A baby one or a criminally negligent one, either - do you live near any other dragons, could the baby be chaining infections to anyone else -"
Aurin starts crying.
Aurin starts crying.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"No, but that doesn't preclude flyovers, that's the second place I have to be is—Avar! Avar, love, it's an emergency! Wake up!"
Avar
on-my-word
"Eh? What?" he says sleepily.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"The baby just fell out of the air and couldn't launch himself again," she says. "You need to call your father. I'll be on the bottom of the world if you need me."
And she teleports.
And she teleports.
Avar
on-my-word
Well. Now it's Avar's turn to swear.
But he's digging for a communication crystal while he does it.
Alys cannot exactly fly away; whoever infected the baby is still around. She waits, squishing Aurin, shaking.
Avar
on-my-word
His voice remarkably steady, Avar says into the crystal, "I'm reporting a possible shren infection. At my house, in Imilaat."
A brief pause, perhaps to let Piro do some swearing of his very own, and then he adds, "It was the baby."
Another pause.
"Right now I'm more worried about finding the vector. My wife took him to the bottom of the world, he'll be isolated to anyone's standards; I'm going out looking for stray shrens."
A brief pause, perhaps to let Piro do some swearing of his very own, and then he adds, "It was the baby."
Another pause.
"Right now I'm more worried about finding the vector. My wife took him to the bottom of the world, he'll be isolated to anyone's standards; I'm going out looking for stray shrens."
"If you have neighbors I can leave Aurin with I will help," Alys says, gritting her teeth. "You stay human, Aurin, as you value your life you will, understand?"
Nod, nod, goes Aurin.
Nod, nod, goes Aurin.
Avar
on-my-word
"Yes, we do."
His conversation with Piro apparently concluded for now, he deactivates the crystal, but keeps it in case of further news in either direction. Out they go to petition the neighbours to watch Aurin for a bit.
His conversation with Piro apparently concluded for now, he deactivates the crystal, but keeps it in case of further news in either direction. Out they go to petition the neighbours to watch Aurin for a bit.
With a "hello, I'm Avar's sister-in-law, there's a family emergency, can you look after my son for an angle or two, he won't be any trouble", Aurin is left with the Taraamik next door. Alys helps Avar case the neighborhood for suspicious characters and small reptiles.
Avar
on-my-word
There's a public park just around the corner that would be a good place to stash either; Avar heads there first.
There's some stripey eggshells under that evergreen bush over there.
And a very tiny very red baby biting the ends of bush needles.
And a very tiny very red baby biting the ends of bush needles.
Avar
on-my-word
"I think we've found our vector," says Avar.
He calls Piro again.
"Someone left a shren egg lying in a public park. I'm going to bring the hatchling to the bottom of the world in just a moment."
Is there any remaining chance that this was all some kind of incredible coincidence and if he teleports to the bottom of the world right now he will find his son happily diving onto Mama's head? Enough to be worth an extra tick or two to check, he decides, even if it's close to none; so he teleports to the spot where he and Koridaar occasionally go to have a little alone time, leaving the hatchling temporarily under her bush.
"A shren egg hatched in the park—is he definitely—?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Very definitely. Bring 'em here."
Avar
on-my-word
Teleport - scoop - teleport.
"I might have the vector contained," he reports to Piro. "For all I know, though, the sort of person who'd leave one shren egg lying under a bush might just as easily leave two - I'm going to keep looking. The baby's a red. See if you can find someone who'll admit to having lost a red striped egg recently, why don't you?"
Piro affirms that he will. Avar goes back to casing the neighbourhood.
"I might have the vector contained," he reports to Piro. "For all I know, though, the sort of person who'd leave one shren egg lying under a bush might just as easily leave two - I'm going to keep looking. The baby's a red. See if you can find someone who'll admit to having lost a red striped egg recently, why don't you?"
Piro affirms that he will. Avar goes back to casing the neighbourhood.
Alys doesn't find anything, and joins up with Avar again to report this.
The dragon council is pretty efficient, since the invention of teleportation and communication crystals, at getting urgent questions filtered down. There is a woman in Larotia whose striped egg went missing; she thought the father took it to smash it against her strident and divorce-proceedings-backed wishes.
The dragon council is pretty efficient, since the invention of teleportation and communication crystals, at getting urgent questions filtered down. There is a woman in Larotia whose striped egg went missing; she thought the father took it to smash it against her strident and divorce-proceedings-backed wishes.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The father is going to hear some urgent questions of his very own; Pirodeynan is positively thunderous about the infection of his grandson, and nobody else is too happy either.
Koridaar, meanwhile, wants to talk to this woman in Larotia. She arranges a meeting, leaving Avar to watch the babies on the bottom of the world. (They're going to have to move, aren't they. She'll deal with that later.)
Koridaar, meanwhile, wants to talk to this woman in Larotia. She arranges a meeting, leaving Avar to watch the babies on the bottom of the world. (They're going to have to move, aren't they. She'll deal with that later.)
The woman in Larotia is mid-unpacking into a farmhouse near a field of brightly colored quinoa. "Is my baby okay?" she wants to know. "I mean, besides the - obvious."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"She's fine. My husband's watching her and our son on the bottom of the world."
"This place is in the middle of nowhere. I already notified my color rep that I was planning to raise a shren here."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar looks around. It does seem very - appropriate.
"I can go and get her," she says. "And... would you mind terribly if I or Avar stayed with you for a little while, with our baby, until we can find somewhere like this to move ourselves? The bottom of the world has many qualifications for a situation like this, but 'comfortable' isn't really among them. I'll understand if you're not keen on entertaining strangers, though."
"I can go and get her," she says. "And... would you mind terribly if I or Avar stayed with you for a little while, with our baby, until we can find somewhere like this to move ourselves? The bottom of the world has many qualifications for a situation like this, but 'comfortable' isn't really among them. I'll understand if you're not keen on entertaining strangers, though."
"I'm barely unpacked but - yes, sure, if you don't mind the boxes?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Not at all," she promises. "Thank you. I'm Koridaar, by the way, I'm not sure if our names filtered through all the intermediaries - Koridaar Retaan and Avarpiro."
"I'm Colladiam. I'm so sorry I wasn't keeping better track of my baby's egg. I didn't think he'd take it. I thought he'd be more than happy to let me bring her here and never hear from us again."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"My father-in-law - he's the silver colour rep - is going to be itching to ask him some very pointed questions, I don't doubt," says Koridaar. "Thank you for coming forward. For your little girl's sake, and for the sake of not having to wonder where that egg came from for the rest of our lives."
"She's - well, she's going to live," shrugs Colla. "And at this point that seems - I'm sorry, it scarcely matters, does it. Erm, is your husband - all right about yours?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"He hasn't really had a chance to sit down and think about it yet," says Koridaar. "I don't... I don't expect him to be fine, but I expect him to at barest minimum remain married to me and visit occasionally if I end up raising the kid alone on a farm. I hope he'll take it better than that, though."
Colla nods. "I'm so sorry."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She smiles sadly. "Thank you. I'll go get Avar and the kids now, shall I?"
Nod, nod.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She teleports away, and returns holding Avar's hand and a silver baby.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar has the red. He holds her out carefully to her mother.
Colla gathers her up. "Hello darling," she murmurs. "Welcome home." She looks up at Avar. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Colla. I'm so, so sorry about your baby."
Avar
on-my-word
"Ah - thank you," he says. "I'm Avar. It's... all been a bit of a whirlwind. I think I might finally have enough time to sit down and start reacting to things, though. Dear Magister, am I forgetting anything?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"You have your crystal in case Piro produces news. Alys and Aurin went home. I don't think you have anything else to deal with, no. Give me the crystal and go take a breather. Colla has kindly allowed us to keep the baby here until we find somewhere to move, so that's where I'll be."
Avar
on-my-word
"Thank you, love."
He hugs his wife, passes her the communication crystal, and teleports away.
He hugs his wife, passes her the communication crystal, and teleports away.
"Has she eaten anything since she hatched?" wonders Colla. "I have the kitchen partly unpacked, there's - what do I have - there's fruit and oatsnacks."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I think Avar managed to feed her at some point, but I can't promise it was very much. Let's see if anyone's hungry. Are you hungry, little—one—?" Her voice breaks a little. She cuddles her son and blinks away tears.
"I'll get some fruit and oatsnacks."
The red baby devours fruit and oatsnacks.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
So does the silver baby. Koridaar has composed herself by this time. She decides not to offer an explanation. Colla's baby never even had a chance to be called a little diving menace.
When the babies have been fed, Colla goes back to unpacking, her baby clinging to the back of her shirt and biting her red red hair.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Do you want any help...?"
"Oh - if you like - the movers got everything heavy but there are some things wrapped up in paper and those will be tedious -"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"It's no trouble at all."
Koridaar helps unpack. She is very good at keeping little noses out of the way. (Her son has an extremely inquisitive little nose.)
Koridaar helps unpack. She is very good at keeping little noses out of the way. (Her son has an extremely inquisitive little nose.)
Eventually the red baby climbs down from her mother and investigates the silver baby.
Mialavar
shrennaki
He meeps amicably at her.
"Naaaaar," she says, and she pounces on him, catlike.
He squawks and overbalances, still not used to his useless wings. Then he gives her his affronted look.
She's not impressed. She squirms backwards and then pounces again. Pouncing is fun!
Well then he'll just have to pounce back. So there.
That will get his leg bitten a little bit. Nom.
Squaaaaawk!
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"What is it, little menace—? Ah," says Koridaar, observing the little-bit-bitten leg.
Nom nom. She does not seem inclined to let go. Nom. It's a snuggly sort of biting, though.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Moop," complains the silver baby. He attempts to detach his new friend from his leg. Koridaar watches in case intervention is needed.
"Rrrr," she replies. Tail-lash tail-lash.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
He gives up and flops dramatically on the floor. Koridaar relaxes a little.
Now the red baby is tired of gnawing on him. She decides to use him as a pillow instead.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
He opens one eye, then the other; he curves his neck around to look at her; he meeps contentedly and snuggles her.
Koridaar smiles.
Koridaar smiles.
Snuggly baby shrens!
Colla is very charmed when she comes back into the room with a box of books to shelve. "Aww."
Colla is very charmed when she comes back into the room with a box of books to shelve. "Aww."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"They're very cute."
"Yes. They have - a few weeks, I think, I don't know exactly -"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"You'd know better than I would. Although I'm sure I could find out."
"I'm sorry. Probably we should try not to dwell, yet."
The red baby discovers that the silver baby has a tail. This, too, is bitten.
The red baby discovers that the silver baby has a tail. This, too, is bitten.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The silver baby makes highly indignant sounds and climbs his mother.
His mother pets him and applies a modest amount of ceremonial fuss to his bitten areas, which he finds acceptably mollifying.
His mother pets him and applies a modest amount of ceremonial fuss to his bitten areas, which he finds acceptably mollifying.
The red baby decides not to attempt to summit Koridaar. She goes to see what is under the sofa instead. (The answer is dust. She sneezes.)
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar's son attempts his usual exit from his mother's arms, i.e. direct launch. Flomp. He paws at his flopped-out wings as though demanding they explain their persistent failure.
"Oh, dear..." she murmurs.
"Oh, dear..." she murmurs.
Colla sighs. She finishes shelving the books and goes to get another boxful. Her baby scampers after her, attempting to bite her shoes.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar continues unpacking.
Her baby doesn't try flying again for a while.
Eventually, her communication crystal chimes. She answers it.
"Piro?"
"Where's my son?"
"At home, thinking."
"...Where are you?"
Koridaar glances around, and then settles on, "With my son."
Piro snorts. "Well, go tell Avar our lead dried up. The egg's father admitted to letting some shady character walk off with it, but his description of person, time, and place was too vague to get much out of."
"I'll let him know," she agrees.
"Wanted some time alone, did he? It's all right, girl. You're young yet; you can try again."
"Yes," she says neutrally. "That's true."
Piro doesn't pick up on her tone. "Take care, then. Give my best to Avar."
Koridaar spends some time frowning at her communication crystal after the call is over.
Her baby doesn't try flying again for a while.
Eventually, her communication crystal chimes. She answers it.
"Piro?"
"Where's my son?"
"At home, thinking."
"...Where are you?"
Koridaar glances around, and then settles on, "With my son."
Piro snorts. "Well, go tell Avar our lead dried up. The egg's father admitted to letting some shady character walk off with it, but his description of person, time, and place was too vague to get much out of."
"I'll let him know," she agrees.
"Wanted some time alone, did he? It's all right, girl. You're young yet; you can try again."
"Yes," she says neutrally. "That's true."
Piro doesn't pick up on her tone. "Take care, then. Give my best to Avar."
Koridaar spends some time frowning at her communication crystal after the call is over.
Colla unpacks the box of baby toys that she bought in anticipation of her baby's hatching. The red baby chases a jingly ball into the room. Pounce!
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Well. At least cute babies are still cute.
The silver baby also pounces on the jingly ball.
The silver baby also pounces on the jingly ball.
The red baby pounces on the silver baby. That's her ball. If he's gonna get between her and it he's gonna be the replacement target.
The silver baby counter-pounces!
They have been down this road before, haven't they.
They have been down this road before, haven't they.
A jingly scuffle ensues!
Also biting.
Also biting.
Biting leads to affrontedness! Affrontedness leads to... jingly scuffling, this time!
Jingle jingle nom nom jingle pounce roll attempt at flapping disappointment pounce jingle.
The silver baby discovers a use for his mysteriously nonfunctional wings: if he shakes himself just right, they flop out and encumber his opponent! Ha! Take that, suddenly-wing-draped red baby!
Curses!
...Wings are biteable.
Nom.
...Wings are biteable.
Nom.
Squaaaaaaaaaaawk.
Trimphant tail lashing! Nom nom.
Well - well - he bats the jingly ball away; it skitters off, jingling.
She lets his wing go and chases after it.
The silver baby triumphantly climbs his mother for cuddles.
The red baby catches her ball. And bites it. Jingle jingle.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar teleports in. He looks unhappy.
He arrives near the red baby, and crouches down to say hello to her.
Purr!
...Nibble.
...Nibble.
Avar
on-my-word
He laughs softly. "That's very impolite," he reprimands. "Go on and play now."
And he straightens up again and goes to, first of all, give his wife a heartfelt hug.
And he straightens up again and goes to, first of all, give his wife a heartfelt hug.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Had your think, did you?" she asks quietly. "Piro called. He said they haven't found much; the baby's father saw her egg taken away by someone he couldn't describe clearly, and that's as much as they know."
Avar
on-my-word
"Yeah."
Avar sighs.
"...You wouldn't even consider it, would you. A - a house, I mean, for the baby. For our baby."
Avar sighs.
"...You wouldn't even consider it, would you. A - a house, I mean, for the baby. For our baby."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"If my baby went to a house," says Koridaar, "I'd go there with him."
Avar
on-my-word
"That's... about what I thought, yes. I, ah, considered it," he admits. "But. Well. He's still our baby." Avar takes a deep breath. "I'll look into finding somewhere to move."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She hugs him some more. The baby climbs out from between them and settles onto his father's shoulder.
Avar
on-my-word
"I could never live with myself if I abandoned you," he murmurs. "Either of you. Dear Magister. And our little - our little climbing menace, now."
Colla doesn't say anything about this conversation, though she hears parts of it. She just finishes unpacking the kitchen and works on getting something more substantial than oatsnacks and fruit on the table for her baby and her guests.
Avar
on-my-word
The family settles in with their generous host. Koridaar and Avar both contribute uncomplainingly to the unpacking and groceries and assorted house chores. Avar looks into moving; Koridaar watches the children.
After a few days, Piro calls again, making no mention of the problem, apparently having allowed himself to assume that his grandson has been shuffled off to a shren house and can safely be erased from his picture of the family.
"I think we need to talk," says Avar, and he teleports to Dragon Island.
Their conversation quickly gets loud. Well, half of it does. Avar's anger is small, quiet, intensely focused; he shifts to his human form and speaks in a near-whisper, forcing the roaring Piro to lower his head and his voice if he wants to hear his son speak.
The parts clearly audible to passersby include Piro saying things like "I'll not have my name touch that creature!"
After a few days, Piro calls again, making no mention of the problem, apparently having allowed himself to assume that his grandson has been shuffled off to a shren house and can safely be erased from his picture of the family.
"I think we need to talk," says Avar, and he teleports to Dragon Island.
Their conversation quickly gets loud. Well, half of it does. Avar's anger is small, quiet, intensely focused; he shifts to his human form and speaks in a near-whisper, forcing the roaring Piro to lower his head and his voice if he wants to hear his son speak.
The parts clearly audible to passersby include Piro saying things like "I'll not have my name touch that creature!"
The jade representative, concerned that this could escalate, nips out to Corenta and comes back with a young jade dragon, who adopts her natural form as is customary once on Dragon Island and sits nearby, uncomfortable but willing to do as Eiaa asks.
Avar
on-my-word
Of the two of them, Avar is angrier. Piro... Piro is a little afraid, especially as Avar continues to stand firm.
Eventually Avar resumes a normal speaking volume. "If you are determined to destroy yourself this way, old man, then so be it. Take your name back and keep it with my blessing."
Piro gives a slow nod. "What shall we...?"
"No teleportation," Avar suggests, with an icy smile. "You won't have to worry about it for much longer than a tick, anyway. Might as well be something I was going to do already."
"Very well," says Piro.
"Consider it done," says Avar, and he teleports away.
Piro is not all that angry anymore. He is sad, and tired. Grieving.
Eventually Avar resumes a normal speaking volume. "If you are determined to destroy yourself this way, old man, then so be it. Take your name back and keep it with my blessing."
Piro gives a slow nod. "What shall we...?"
"No teleportation," Avar suggests, with an icy smile. "You won't have to worry about it for much longer than a tick, anyway. Might as well be something I was going to do already."
"Very well," says Piro.
"Consider it done," says Avar, and he teleports away.
Piro is not all that angry anymore. He is sad, and tired. Grieving.
The supervising jade slinks away home.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar quietly reports to his wife that he has repudiated his line name. Or his line name has repudiated him. No more Avarpiro, in either case.
He supposes he should pay Alys a visit, too. For that and other reasons. Find out where she falls on the question of the little climbing menace.
He supposes he should pay Alys a visit, too. For that and other reasons. Find out where she falls on the question of the little climbing menace.
Alys is of course willing to receive a visit from her brother-in-law at a mutually convenient time.
Avar
on-my-word
Then at a mutually convenient time, her brother-in-law visits her. He does not, of course, bring the climbing menace. The climbing menace is at Colla's place with Koridaar, awaiting the finalization of their purchase of some land in a remote part of Esmaar, which should come through in the next couple of days.
Alys invites him in; Aurin is draped over her shoulder, all shining gold.
"Avar," she says. "Do come in."
"Hi, Uncle Avar," says Aurin.
"Tea?" asks Alys.
"Avar," she says. "Do come in."
"Hi, Uncle Avar," says Aurin.
"Tea?" asks Alys.
Avar
on-my-word
"Yes, thank you. Good to see you both."
Now, how in the world does he deliver this news...
Now, how in the world does he deliver this news...
Alys puts the kettle on. Well, she puts the kettle on the fireplace (hers is an old-fashioned house); she lets Aurin light it. He is very proud of himself.
"How have you and yours been?" Alys inquires.
"How have you and yours been?" Alys inquires.
Avar
on-my-word
"Koridaar's wonderful, as always. The little menace remains little and a menace," he says. "And, ah. I've had a - change of name. Piro and I agreed that since he objected so strongly to where I was going to put it, he could revoke my line name."
He's aware of the irony; there is a reason Pirodeynan started a new line for his same-coloured son, although Piro stopped short of removing his own line name. And Avar doesn't actually know what that particular family argument was about; Piro has hardly said ten words about his father.
He's aware of the irony; there is a reason Pirodeynan started a new line for his same-coloured son, although Piro stopped short of removing his own line name. And Avar doesn't actually know what that particular family argument was about; Piro has hardly said ten words about his father.
"That's a pity," says Alys, petting her little firestarter. He shifts in her arms; she adjusts her grip. "But I suppose you still have enough syllables for a song."
Avar
on-my-word
"Yes."
Avar really isn't sure what to make of this.
Cautiously, he says, "You... would be welcome at the naming ceremony, if you chose to come."
Avar really isn't sure what to make of this.
Cautiously, he says, "You... would be welcome at the naming ceremony, if you chose to come."
"Then of course we'll be there, particularly if you or Koridaar can give us a lift. When is it? I may need to schedule around it."
Avar
on-my-word
Avar smiles, trying not to be too blatantly relieved.
"Three weeks from tomorrow. It'll be at our new place, in all likelihood. I'd be happy to give you a lift there."
"Three weeks from tomorrow. It'll be at our new place, in all likelihood. I'd be happy to give you a lift there."
"All right, I have nothing on then apart from a morning meeting with a caterer that I can reschedule if you were thinking it would be in the morning." She pets Aurin's hair. "Your little cousin is going to get named in three weeks," she tells him.
"Then," says Aurin, "he will have a name."
"Yes."
Nod, nod, goes Aurin.
"Then," says Aurin, "he will have a name."
"Yes."
Nod, nod, goes Aurin.
Avar
on-my-word
"He will be little Somethingavar, and we can stop calling him the little climbing menace. But we probably won't," says Avar, smiling. "It's a very apt nickname."
"As long as he's having fun, I suppose. What ever did happen to the red one?" wonders Alys.
Avar
on-my-word
"Her mother took her in. Koridaar and the menace and I have been staying with the pair of them while we get our move straightened out."
"They found who put her egg there, I hope?"
Avar
on-my-word
"Someone took it from the father, implicitly to smash it, and didn't," says Avar. "Perhaps they meant to. One hopes they didn't mean what actually occurred. They haven't been found, in any case."
Alys pets Aurin pensively. "That is... nerve-wracking. There cannot be that much of a shortage of poorly attended shren eggs - even after this -"
Avar
on-my-word
"I agree," Avar murmurs. "I've been nervous every time I shift, since. If they meant what actually occurred, it follows that they meant it to happen to me, or very thoroughly didn't mind if it did. It's not out of the question that I could be targeted again." Wryly, he adds, "At least leaving an unattended shren egg by my house won't work twice."
"Do you have any idea who might have wanted to hurt you?"
Avar
on-my-word
"I mean, I'm - I was active in the community, the one we'll shortly be moving out of, but I wouldn't describe myself as the kind of politician that makes enemies. It's possible it was an indirect jab at Father. The closest someone could get to—I don't even want to finish that sentence."
Alys shudders. "Maybe Aurin ought to learn a bird sooner than later. I don't know that I'd like the results if I didn't let him light the fireplace, though -" Snuggle.
"Fire!" says Aurin happily.
"Fire!" says Aurin happily.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar smiles slightly. "Yes, Aurin. Fire."
"Yes," says Aurin. He shifts again and slithers out of his mother's arms and goes to curl up in the kindling under the heating teakettle. "Warm."
"He's a little too young to quite understand if I tell him he can't do that," murmurs Alys. "He'd only not do it when I was looking. I could lock up the firewood, get a wizard stove, but... I'm sorry, it's awful of me to fret about this in front of you, of all people."
"He's a little too young to quite understand if I tell him he can't do that," murmurs Alys. "He'd only not do it when I was looking. I could lock up the firewood, get a wizard stove, but... I'm sorry, it's awful of me to fret about this in front of you, of all people."
Avar
on-my-word
"I understand," Avar says gently. "Believe me, I understand. I don't mind you fretting. I'd be doing the same."
The kettle whistles. Alys removes it from its place hanging above her son and proceeds through tea-brewing steps. "Thank you."
Avar
on-my-word
Avar smiles fondly at the fire-ensconced Aurin.
Tea brews. Alys gets out honey and milk.
"When my cousin has a name will he stop being sick?" Aurin asks.
"No, dear," murmurs Alys. "That isn't how it works."
"When my cousin has a name will he stop being sick?" Aurin asks.
"No, dear," murmurs Alys. "That isn't how it works."
Avar
on-my-word
"Unfortunately," Avar agrees. "But he'll learn to talk. Which I'm sure will be an adventure..."
"How is talking an adventure?" wonders Aurin.
Avar
on-my-word
"Wait and see."
Aurin snuggles into the fire and sighs golden flames.
Tea is ready. Alys passes Avar a cup and sips her own.
Tea is ready. Alys passes Avar a cup and sips her own.
Avar
on-my-word
"Thank you," he murmurs.
"You're entirely welcome."
Three weeks and one day later, Alys and Aurin get nicely dressed up and accept a teleport to the new house, at which the silver baby is to be named.
Three weeks and one day later, Alys and Aurin get nicely dressed up and accept a teleport to the new house, at which the silver baby is to be named.
Avar
on-my-word
Other invitees include Colla and her baby, and Koridaar's mother.
They did not bother inviting Piro. Avar felt it would just be twisting the knife. It certainly wouldn't result in Piro showing up.
It's a small circle. But, well, quality over quantity, right?
Avar sits, and holds his son in his lap, and names him: "Mialavar."
Round the circle goes little Mial.
They did not bother inviting Piro. Avar felt it would just be twisting the knife. It certainly wouldn't result in Piro showing up.
It's a small circle. But, well, quality over quantity, right?
Avar sits, and holds his son in his lap, and names him: "Mialavar."
Round the circle goes little Mial.
Alys receives Mial and ratifies the name.
So does Aurin, who has a little bit of trouble picking up his cousin but not too much to pass him on to Colla. (Colla's baby does not get to participate because she cannot talk yet.)
So does Aurin, who has a little bit of trouble picking up his cousin but not too much to pass him on to Colla. (Colla's baby does not get to participate because she cannot talk yet.)
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
And then Koridaar's mother, and then Koridaar herself.
"Mial," she says, cuddling her son. He cuddles back.
He's not having such a bad time of it, yet.
"Mial," she says, cuddling her son. He cuddles back.
He's not having such a bad time of it, yet.
The red baby, meanwhile, falls asleep almost immediately after the mildly interesting thing is over. She's very tired. Soon she'll wish she was tired.
"Soon" comes a couple of weeks later, at the quinoa farm. Koridaar and Avar and little Mial are invited to the red baby's naming ceremony likewise. Colla calls her Finnahdiam and passes her around - a few of Colla's friends, and some of her descendants from previous marriages, turn up to the ceremony too.
"Soon" comes a couple of weeks later, at the quinoa farm. Koridaar and Avar and little Mial are invited to the red baby's naming ceremony likewise. Colla calls her Finnahdiam and passes her around - a few of Colla's friends, and some of her descendants from previous marriages, turn up to the ceremony too.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Little Mial is capable of affirming Finnah's name as she is passed around, and he is intensely proud of this. He hugs her on her way past his mother's lap. (He can't pick her up, but Koridaar can do the receiving and passing parts for him.)
Finnah accepts hugs. She accepts them with biting, but she doesn't try to escape, and that's the important part.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Finnah is just a very bitey baby, isn't she. Well, Mial (to his mother's relief) doesn't complain.
She is a bitey baby with a name.
Time passes. No one experiences a radical change of heart in any direction about shrens in general or Mial in particular - accordingly, his cousin makes routine visits, carefully in human form the entire time but not particularly ginger about interacting with Mial.
Aurin has learned a bird form so as to gain and lose altitude around the house in Esmaar safely. He and his mother descend, her as a heron and him as a shiny-gold booted eagle.
When they have landed Aurin is a gold-eyed little human instead. He goes looking for Mial.
Time passes. No one experiences a radical change of heart in any direction about shrens in general or Mial in particular - accordingly, his cousin makes routine visits, carefully in human form the entire time but not particularly ginger about interacting with Mial.
Aurin has learned a bird form so as to gain and lose altitude around the house in Esmaar safely. He and his mother descend, her as a heron and him as a shiny-gold booted eagle.
When they have landed Aurin is a gold-eyed little human instead. He goes looking for Mial.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial is playing a simple board game against his father, and, not to put too fine a point on it, kicking his ass.
"Hello, Aurin," says Avar.
"Hi, Aurin!" says Mial. "I'm wiiiiinning!"
"Hello, Aurin," says Avar.
"Hi, Aurin!" says Mial. "I'm wiiiiinning!"
Aurin plops down next to the board game. "Is it a two person game?" he asks.
Avar
on-my-word
"Yes, but I'm going to lose it on the next turn and I am only too happy to let you take my place."
Avar takes his turn. Mial takes his. Mial wins! Mial is insufferably smug!
"Do you want to try?" inquires Avar.
Avar takes his turn. Mial takes his. Mial wins! Mial is insufferably smug!
"Do you want to try?" inquires Avar.
"Okay." Aurin peers at the pieces. "I don't know this one."
Mial launches into an explanation.
Aurin listens, and then helps set up the board for a new game, and proceeds to do very poorly at it.
Mial will take even this easy victory!
Aurin is willing to play again. He is only a little better at it the second time.
Mial trounces him ruthlessly.
Aurin has run out of patience for this game. "Let's do something else?"
"Okay," says Mial. "Like what? Another game?"
"Or whatever," shrugs Aurin.
Avar
on-my-word
"Dad, get another game," Mial says imperiously.
Avar goes and gets another game.
Avar goes and gets another game.
Aurin knows this one! He does pretty well at it.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial nevertheless trounces him ruthlessly. Again.
"Welcome to the club," snorts Avar.
"Welcome to the club," snorts Avar.
"You are very good at games for being tiny," observes Aurin.
Avar
on-my-word
"I play a lot," says Mial. "A lot a lot a lot. I like games."
(His father - gets a look. Aurin might easily not notice.)
(His father - gets a look. Aurin might easily not notice.)
(Aurin does not notice. Alys, looking on, notices, but does not ask.)
"We can play this one again."
They play that one again.
"We can play this one again."
They play that one again.
Mial looks to be winning. Again.
"Anyway I'm not tiny," he says, circling back to the previous thread of the conversation. "Finnah is tiny. I am little." Proudly, "I'm a little menace!"
"Anyway I'm not tiny," he says, circling back to the previous thread of the conversation. "Finnah is tiny. I am little." Proudly, "I'm a little menace!"
"You aren't even any bigger than her."
"I am too," he insists. "I'm this much bigger!" He demonstrates the difference in nose-to-tail length with his claws. It is not vast.
"That's not even any."
"It is even any! It's more than none! I am bigger than Finnah!"
"You're still tiny."
"Am not."
"Are too. I'm like twice as big as you."
He scoffs. "So what, Dad's lots times as big as you and he doesn't call you tiny I bet."
"Well - well my mom is twice as big as him."
"And there are dragons twice as big as me," says Alys dryly. "It matters very little."
"And there are dragons twice as big as me," says Alys dryly. "It matters very little."
"So I'm not tiny," Mial says triumphantly.
"Are too."
"Am not!"
"You're tiny! I could pick you up."
"My mom could pick you up."
"Maybe we are both tiny."
...Mial peers suspiciously at Aurin.
"I can fit in the fireplace," Aurin volunteers as support.
Avar
on-my-word
"Well... maybe," Mial says doubtfully.
(Avar exhales in relief. He knows what happens when Mial gets carried away and then perceives himself as losing - not all of the time, but too often. It's not that he doesn't hurt, after all. His ability to hold conversations, to distract himself and cover what he's feeling, is fueled by his quick mind and competitive spirit. It's why he's so intense about his games. They give him something to do. Take that away, let him lose his momentum, and it all comes crashing down. Last time, it took him days to stop crying. And it's not even as simple as letting him win, because if he catches a whiff of that he feels mortally betrayed and it comes around just the same.)
(Avar exhales in relief. He knows what happens when Mial gets carried away and then perceives himself as losing - not all of the time, but too often. It's not that he doesn't hurt, after all. His ability to hold conversations, to distract himself and cover what he's feeling, is fueled by his quick mind and competitive spirit. It's why he's so intense about his games. They give him something to do. Take that away, let him lose his momentum, and it all comes crashing down. Last time, it took him days to stop crying. And it's not even as simple as letting him win, because if he catches a whiff of that he feels mortally betrayed and it comes around just the same.)
"The fireplace is good to be in," opines Aurin.
"Why?" he wonders.
"It has fire! I can put fire in there and it's okay. I'm not supposed to put fire other places."
Finnah is much less corrigible about setting things on fire.
Finnah is much less corrigible about setting things on fire.
Mial giggles.
"Finnah puts fire everywhere," he says. "Good for you not putting fire where fire doesn't go."
"Finnah puts fire everywhere," he says. "Good for you not putting fire where fire doesn't go."
"Well, if I put fire where it doesn't go Mother or whoever's watching me doesn't like it."
Mial nods sagely.
"Does Finnah not have a fireplace?"
He shakes his head. "She has a house," he says. "She puts fire there."
"That's not good for houses."
"Yeah," Mial agrees. "I like her house when it's not on fire, though. I can go there."
"You can't come to my house, yet," says Aurin, disgruntled. "It's not allowed."
"I know," he says, nodding. "I'm allowed here and I'm allowed at Finnah's house and I'm allowed on the bottom of the world. That's where I'm allowed."
"Well, when you're a bird you can go anywhere." Aurin turns into an eagle.
"Yeah! When I'm a bird I can fly," he says dreamily. "But that's not until I'm twenty. I am not twenty."
"Are you going to learn to be an elf like your mom?" wonders Aurin.
"Nah," he says. "Human, like Dad. Like you."
Aurin turns into a human again and feels at his ears. "It's pretty okay. One time we went to Koyapar and everything was little but I'm pretty little so I didn't bump my head. Mom bumped her head."
"Where's Koyapar? Why's everything little there?"
"Koyapar is in the tropics, by the - southeast corner, and it's mostly halflings who are little even when they are grown up."
"So I guess they wouldn't build big things." Mial thinks about this. "I'd build big things still," he decides. "So big people wouldn't bump their heads."
"I don't think any of the halfling countries have lots of big things. I think they have a few big things."
"But if not-halflings come visit sometimes they bump their heads!" says Mial.
"Hmmmmm." Pause. "What about fairies? And pixies and sprites. If they make teeny-weeny things they can fit whole cities into a block! And if they don't then they can't."
"I think it's different," says Mial, "if you build things that're so small nobody who's too big can even get in to bump their head on stuff."
"Hmm, okay."
"If I built a house I'd build it big enough for Mom and Dad and your mom and Colla to all not bump their heads," Mial declares. "Even though I'm little and I could fit. Then they could come in and not get bumped."
"Well - which of their heads?" wonders Aurin. "Mom would bump her head in our house if it was the wrong head."
"Mom only has one! And Dad and Colla and your mom can't be the wrong heads around me anyway because I'm a shren," Mial points out.
"Well, somebody could turn into an elephant." Pause. "I don't know why they would do that but they could."
"If they turn into an elephant in a house and bump their head that is their own fault," Mial asserts.
"Okay then." Nod, nod.
Mial grins. He won that conversation!
"Is it very very awful to be a shren? I know it is very awful but is it very very?"
"It hurts pretty awful," Mial admits. "And I don't like that I am only allowed three places. But I don't think that's very very. And when I'm twenty I can be a bird and it won't hurt anymore and I can go places and then it'll be okay."
Aurin nods solemnly. He reaches out for his cousin and scoops him up for hugs.
Mial snuggles up, flopping his wings over Aurin's arms. They are floppable. That is just about all they do is flop, except when he folds them up and they don't even do that.
Well, he's still pretty snuggly. "I wish it didn't happen anyway though."
"Yeah," sighs Mial.
"I'm not even supposed to talk about you to my other cousins," mumbles Aurin.
"Why not?" wonders Mial.
"It would make them uncomfortable."
Mial snorts derisively.
Aurin shrugs. "I'm allowed with my great-grand-niblings though. They don't mind."
"Because they're not dragons?" he guesses. The relationship is a clue.
"Yeah. They're other stuff."
"Dragons are weird about shrens sometimes and that is why Grandfather won't admit I exist," Mial says sagely. (His parents have tried to keep him shielded from things like this. They have not succeeded.)
"I'm not supposed to mention you around him either. I did it by accident and he pretended he didn't hear me. Or maybe he didn't hear me actually. I don't know."
"I don't care," Mial says loftily. "If he wants to pretend I don't exist he can just keep doing that."
"Okay. It's good that it doesn't make you sad."
Mial nods. "I don't like being sad."
"It's no fun."
"Yeah."
He plops his head onto Aurin's shoulder and shivers a little.
He plops his head onto Aurin's shoulder and shivers a little.
Pet pet.
"You need to be polished," Aurin remarks.
"You need to be polished," Aurin remarks.
"I just was though," he objects. "Last... last... something." He twists around to inspect his own scales. "Okay, maybe I need to be polished a little bit."
"Yeah, you have tarnish there, and there, and there -" Poke poke poke. "I don't ever need to be polished."
"Why not?"
"Golds don't. Gold doesn't do the thing. I don't tarnish or patina or rust or do spelters do a thing I forget - Mom?"
"Spelters do not," says Alys, "although when their scales come off, those do."
"Spelters do not," says Alys, "although when their scales come off, those do."
"I bet you're shiny!" says Mial. "Do you have pictures?"
"I had to sit for a portrait," groans Aurin. "I dunno, Mom, do you have a copy?"
"I do, actually," says Alys, and she produces a picture of shiny gold Aurin, posed sitting up on his haunches with his wings spread, looking up at the ceiling, in profile.
"I do, actually," says Alys, and she produces a picture of shiny gold Aurin, posed sitting up on his haunches with his wings spread, looking up at the ceiling, in profile.
"Aww you're pretty," Mial declares. He snuggles his cousin some more.
"It was so boring. It took angles and angles and angles."
"I bet. Mom and Dad tried to get me to do that but I ran away and hid under the bed," Mial says smugly.
"There wasn't a bed there. It was at a studio thing. There was nowhere to go," mourns Aurin.
"They can't bring me to studio things cause I'm a shren! Maybe it's good for something after all," he snickers. "Ha, I can run away from portraits and you can't."
Pet, pet.
"But Mial," says Alys, "then there won't be any pictures of you."
"But Mial," says Alys, "then there won't be any pictures of you."
"I don't care," he says. "I don't want pictures of me if it means having to sit still and be bored for angles."
"It didn't actually take as long as Aurin says," she remarks. "Some artists can do them very quickly."
"But they can't make it not boring," Mial says irrefutably.
"Maybe one of your parents could read to you while you were sitting," suggests Alys.
"You didn't read to me," says Aurin accusingly.
"The studio had a musician there to keep the sitters entertained, Aurin."
"You didn't read to me," says Aurin accusingly.
"The studio had a musician there to keep the sitters entertained, Aurin."
"Well obviously the musician didn't work," says Mial.
"And, and she took a break in the middle! She was gone for like half of it."
"She was gone for ten degrees to eat lunch, Aurin."
"It was too long."
"She was gone for ten degrees to eat lunch, Aurin."
"It was too long."
"Next time you make Aurin sit for a portrait, you should read to him," Mial instructs. "If you don't want to I'll, I'll send Mom to read to him."
"It will be a few years before I'll want another batch. And since his eagle form isn't going to grow, that one can wait until he is more mature," says Alys.
Aurin grumbles.
Aurin grumbles.
"Well, remember the musicians don't work," says Mial.
"I will bear it in mind."
"Good."
Aurin is done hugging Mial now. He lets him go, although Mial is not evicted from his lap if he cares to stay.
Mial declines to move from Aurin's lap. He does fold up his wings, though.
Eventually this visit is over and Aurin and his mom go back home. They are birds and go up and away and then she's a dragon and he lands on her and they go away faster.
Mial goes back to playing board games against the nearest available parent, until he can't anymore and he curls up and cries and has a nap.
They're about due a family visit to Colla's place soon, in the informal rotation that has one or the other of Koridaar and Avar over there helping whenever they have a few angles to spare from their dramatically less troublesome child, and the whole family visiting every so often when Mial is in a good enough mood to handle the trip.
They're about due a family visit to Colla's place soon, in the informal rotation that has one or the other of Koridaar and Avar over there helping whenever they have a few angles to spare from their dramatically less troublesome child, and the whole family visiting every so often when Mial is in a good enough mood to handle the trip.
Colla is very glad to see them. She is run ragged; she hasn't even been trying to hold down a job since Finnah hatched, living off savings from previous careers, and she still doesn't get much sleep. Various objects in the house have various amounts of fire damage.
She welcomes her guests and offers them all teacakes and hands Finnah to Koridaar and disappears up the stairs to take a nap.
Finnah howls.
She welcomes her guests and offers them all teacakes and hands Finnah to Koridaar and disappears up the stairs to take a nap.
Finnah howls.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar holds Finnah and eats teacakes.
Mial climbs up to snuggle. Sometimes Finnah likes that! Maybe this will be one of those times.
Mial climbs up to snuggle. Sometimes Finnah likes that! Maybe this will be one of those times.
Finnah bites his leg. But snuggles up. And she is quieter when she's biting something, though she still whines.
Mial doesn't mind her biting his leg. She could be biting way worse things, like his parents! It is good that she is not biting his parents. Finnah can have little silver snuggles.
Whine whine bite bite.
"Hi," she mumbles around his leg.
"Hi," she mumbles around his leg.
"Hi," says Mial.
She squirms and eventually settles into a slightly different snuggle position. She lets his leg go. "I want teacakes."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Then you can have teacakes," says Koridaar. She provides teacakes.
Finnah eats teacakes.
"I'm bored," she says. "Hurting is boring and I want to do something else instead."
"I'm bored," she says. "Hurting is boring and I want to do something else instead."
"We could play games," offers Mial. That's his go-to solution.
"Okay."
They have a few games around, mostly presents from Mial's parents. Finnah bites Mial's leg again and points her tail at one.
They have a few games around, mostly presents from Mial's parents. Finnah bites Mial's leg again and points her tail at one.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar fetches. That is the job of the parent who is not holding the baby or babies.
Finnah gnaws on her own tail while they play, due to the logistical problems of biting Mial and also permitting him to defeat her at board games simultaneously.
Finnah gets bored of losing much faster than Aurin does. Specifically, after it has happened once she rolls over on her back on top of her crumpled wings and screams.
Finnah gets bored of losing much faster than Aurin does. Specifically, after it has happened once she rolls over on her back on top of her crumpled wings and screams.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial curls up beside her and hides his head to try to prevent his parents noticing him crying. They certainly aren't going to hear him over Finnah.
(His deception is not successful.)
(His deception is not successful.)
Finnah is very loud.
But hurting is boring. Eventually she puts her tail in her mouth again and bites down as hard as she can (this isn't very hard, in a baby a few years old) and rolls onto her front again, sniffling.
But hurting is boring. Eventually she puts her tail in her mouth again and bites down as hard as she can (this isn't very hard, in a baby a few years old) and rolls onto her front again, sniffling.
Mial observes that the noise has stopped. He uncurls.
"Want to play again?"
"Want to play again?"
"Fine," she says, muffled.
"Okay."
Mial sets up the board, since he is not biting any of his parts and that makes it easier for him to move around than her.
This time, for a change, he doesn't win. (It's still close, though.)
Mial sets up the board, since he is not biting any of his parts and that makes it easier for him to move around than her.
This time, for a change, he doesn't win. (It's still close, though.)
Finnah does not roll over and scream! She helps set it up again.
Mial perks up slightly. His strategy is succeeding!
They have another close game, which he loses again.
They have another close game, which he loses again.
This will occupy Finnah for most of an angle. Then she gets thirsty.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar's turn to fetch.
Finnah drinks the water. Her preferred method of drying her lips after having done so a bit messily is to breathe fire - aimed into the air, if not particularly carefully - until this has done the job.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar knows her well enough to get out of the way.
Then Finnah rolls over again, but she keeps rolling, apparently for sheer kinetic amusement, not to be adequately pathetic in her screaming.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial tries the rolling thing. The rolling thing turns out to be fun! Spinnyspinnyspinny oh whoops now he's dizzy. Dizzy and crying.
Koridaar gathers him up and pets him, even though this never helps with the crying, because he has told her it's nice anyway. He clings.
Koridaar gathers him up and pets him, even though this never helps with the crying, because he has told her it's nice anyway. He clings.
Well, that sets Finnah off. She doesn't so much sob as holler, though. With fire.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar puts out the fire with a spell whenever it catches on something, and continues petting Mial.
Finnah eventually calms down and gnaws on her claws.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial is down to very quiet crying by this point, but he is not quite ready to stop being petted and go be sociable again. Pet pet.
Finnah has books, and not all of them have been too on fire to be legible now. She tips one off the shelf and reads and gnaws and reads and gnaws.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial eventually jumps down from his mother's lap, hugs her leg (she smiles at him), and goes over to sit with Finnah.
Finnah turns back to the beginning of the book so Mial can read along with her.
Read read read!
It's a storybook about a light who goes on a hike and heals injured and sick animals and receives fanciful gifts from each one which suffice to let him defeat the bad guy at the end.
Mial has commentary! He thinks the light could have defeated the bad guy faster if he had been sneakier about it.
"Sneaky how?" asks Finnah.
Mial describes his alternate strategy enthusiastically! It rests on less monologuing and more cleverness.
"That wouldn't use all the presents," says Finnah.
"He can keep those in case he meets another bad guy," says Mial.
"But after he defeated this bad guy 'all was well'. So there aren't more. That wouldn't be well."
"All might not be well forever though," says Mial. "It might just be well for a while. Or he might go find a bad guy somewhere else."
"Oh. But then he'd only have a couple of presents to defeat the bad guy with."
"But if he was smart he might not need any more! Or he might find some other animals to be nice to on the way."
"But there can't be more hurt or sick animals because all is well."
"Does 'all is well' really mean nothing bad is happening anywhere ever ever ever, though? Or does it just mean nothing bad is happening around there with those people right then?"
"It says all."
"We ate all the teacakes, but there are still more teacakes in the world. There might even be more in the cupboard."
"There aren't more in the cupboard, and there aren't any more of Mommy's teacakes anywhere."
"But," says Mial triumphantly, "she's gonna make more."
"Harrumph," says Finnah.
Mial giggles a little.
When Finnah is seven, her mother starts looking into painkillers. Most painkillers don't work on esu at all. The ones that help have various side effects; Finnah spends three days asleep on one and wakes up ravenous, has vivid and frightening hallucinations on another, pukes uncontrollably on a third, winds up amnesiac about an entire weekend on a fourth, and finally gets good results, only slightly loopy and significantly analgesiated, on a new, experimental potion. (Colla keeps the first one around as an emergency backup; the wakeup period was awkward, but if the esu gets bad enough that even this new potion won't help, 'knocked out' is more manageable.)
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial's parents have discussions about painkillers around the same time.
They tell Mial all about what happens to Finnah on each of her trial runs. He says he doesn't want anything that might make him hallucinate or puke a lot or lose his memories, but sleeping for days doesn't sound so bad. And he is very insistent that he doesn't need anything yet. Playing games and winning arguments still work for him, although it's getting harder and harder. He spends more of his time crying than otherwise, these days.
Koridaar and Avar agree to respect his decisions. They keep an eye on that painkiller that worked so well for Finnah, looking up its known side effects as they are discovered; apparently the loopiness is it, to varying degrees, and as of yet no one who's been on and off the stuff has had the loopiness persist. Or any other significant problems. It's not even ferociously addictive like some of these things, although it has to be tapered off carefully; withdrawal symptoms include insomnia and intense nightmares, when the tapering is insufficiently careful.
They tell Mial all about what happens to Finnah on each of her trial runs. He says he doesn't want anything that might make him hallucinate or puke a lot or lose his memories, but sleeping for days doesn't sound so bad. And he is very insistent that he doesn't need anything yet. Playing games and winning arguments still work for him, although it's getting harder and harder. He spends more of his time crying than otherwise, these days.
Koridaar and Avar agree to respect his decisions. They keep an eye on that painkiller that worked so well for Finnah, looking up its known side effects as they are discovered; apparently the loopiness is it, to varying degrees, and as of yet no one who's been on and off the stuff has had the loopiness persist. Or any other significant problems. It's not even ferociously addictive like some of these things, although it has to be tapered off carefully; withdrawal symptoms include insomnia and intense nightmares, when the tapering is insufficiently careful.
Finnah is downright cheerful and cuddly (and drunkenly giggly, on and off) while medicated.
Colla hasn't been this well-rested in years.
Colla hasn't been this well-rested in years.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar and Avar still visit regularly, but it's less urgent these days.
Mial, when he visits, snuggles Finnah a lot. And cries on her, but only sometimes.
Mial, when he visits, snuggles Finnah a lot. And cries on her, but only sometimes.
"The potion tastes bad, is that why you don't take it?" she wonders dreamily one day.
"No-o," says Mial. "I don't want to yet, and Mom and Dad say I can wait as long as I want. And sometimes potions do weird things to people and if I'm not on it as long then it won't do as many weird things to me. So I'm waiting until I really need to."
"Mommy likes me more when I'm flopsy." Flop.
Snuggle. "You're nice when you're flopsy. And I'm glad you don't hurt as much."
"Yeah." Pause. "It does taste really bad though."
"Maybe they'll make one that tastes better," he says optimistically.
"Maybe. I get a teacake after I take it in the morning."
"That's good!"
"I love Mommy's teacakes. They have tea in them."
"Is that why they are called teacakes?" he inquires.
"No!" giggles Finnah. "It isn't! You are supposed to eat them with tea. But also, Mommy puts tea in hers."
Mial giggles too. "Extra tea!"
"It's instead of milk. One time Mommy knew a person who did not eat any milk things."
"That makes sense then!"
"Tea-cakes-tea-cakes-tea-cakes-tea-
Mial giggles. Loopy Finnah is funny.
"I wonder if you can make cake tea."
"I bet you can!" he says. "I bet you can put... cake things... in tea. I will get Mom and Dad to make some."
"Do you think it would taste like tea cakes?"
"Maybe! Maybe it would taste totally different," he says.
"Backwards teacake. Inside out."
"Yeah!"
Giggle giggle flop.
Mial holds out another year and a half.
Then he admits defeat. He can barely hide his pain anymore; he cries almost incessantly. It's time for the loopy drugs.
In all that time, no more drastic side effects have been recorded. It's the best thing on the market right now. His parents go out and get a supply of the potion.
His particular flavour of loopiness involves being bouncily energetic. It takes both parents to keep up with him. He chatters and climbs things and requires more and more complex games just to keep him sitting in one place for longer than three degrees. And he doesn't win them so invariably anymore, because he gets distracted or because they are, wonder of wonders, actually beyond his difficulty level. But since losing no longer sends him into angles- or days-long crying fits, it doesn't matter as much.
Finnah finds him very entertaining.
Aurin finds him bewildering and exhausting.
Aurin finds him bewildering and exhausting.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Distant memories of his personality before esu incline both his parents to think this might just be what their son is like when he's not in terrible pain. Or at least mostly that.
It's cheering, even if they're both finally starting to get a taste of the exhaustion of home-shren parents. (It could be worse. He could be this energetic and in agony.)
It's cheering, even if they're both finally starting to get a taste of the exhaustion of home-shren parents. (It could be worse. He could be this energetic and in agony.)
There being only one of Colla, she doesn't have the flexibility to babysit as much as they did for her little firestarter, but she'll fill in in a pinch. Alys is usually a better bet, and comes with an Aurin to help try to keep the little menace entertained.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The help is very much appreciated.
Mial particularly appreciates Aurin. He can be talked into so many things! Many of them involve Mial beating him at board games!
Mial particularly appreciates Aurin. He can be talked into so many things! Many of them involve Mial beating him at board games!
Aurin gets pretty used to losing to Mial at board games except in those with heavy chance elements, and those only once in a great while.
A few months after he starts taking his potion, Mial is alarmed to discover that Finnah is bigger than he is.
"Hey, look!" he says, stretching out next to her and pointing at their tails. "Your tail is longer than my tail! Are you bigger than me? Why're you bigger than me? You're supposed to be littler!"
"I," says Finnah loftily, "eat my quinoa." Streeeeetch goes her tail.
Mial commences a Dramatic Sulk. He flops and humphs and generally carries on.
"I am biiiiig," says Finnah.
"You are too big," Mial says reprovingly.
"I am the right amount of big. I eat my quinoa."
"Hmph."
"Bahahaha." She flops upon him triumphantly.
He squirms. "What if you're squishing me," he says, "with your too-bigness."
"I am not though."
"Bah."
But he snuggles her. Even though she is too big.
But he snuggles her. Even though she is too big.
Snuggle! Purr.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Purr snuggle.
Shren growth is very regular, the same as dragon growth. Slow but steady.
When Mial complains to his mother that Finnah is too big, she gets both of them to sit still for a tick and be measured. And she looks up the numbers.
Finnah is the right amount of bigness.
Mial is noticeably lagging.
She digs into the literature - and yes, there are reports coming in of slowed growth on this drug. None of them quite this dramatic. It shows no sign of stopping after the potion is discontinued, though.
Damn.
Shren growth is very regular, the same as dragon growth. Slow but steady.
When Mial complains to his mother that Finnah is too big, she gets both of them to sit still for a tick and be measured. And she looks up the numbers.
Finnah is the right amount of bigness.
Mial is noticeably lagging.
She digs into the literature - and yes, there are reports coming in of slowed growth on this drug. None of them quite this dramatic. It shows no sign of stopping after the potion is discontinued, though.
Damn.
Indeed. Well, nothing for it, apparently.
It's not like Mial will be using this form once he's twenty anyway. It doesn't matter how big it is.
Aurin can't really see the difference. Mial is bigger than he used to be and smaller than Aurin, which seems about right. But this doesn't mean that when he picks up on Mial's disgruntlement he is above saying:
"You're so teeny!"
It's not like Mial will be using this form once he's twenty anyway. It doesn't matter how big it is.
Aurin can't really see the difference. Mial is bigger than he used to be and smaller than Aurin, which seems about right. But this doesn't mean that when he picks up on Mial's disgruntlement he is above saying:
"You're so teeny!"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial scowls at his cousin. "Shut up!"
(Koridaar tries not to laugh. Oh, she loves her affronted little menace so much.)
(Koridaar tries not to laugh. Oh, she loves her affronted little menace so much.)
"Teeny tiny little small, um, miniscule, um -" Aurin has run out of Leraal adjectives. "Aw, and it's rude to speak other languages in front of people who're not - uh -"
Inspiration strikes.
"Dragonish?" he suggests.
"Dragonish?" he suggests.
Aurin looks at him dubiously.
"Dragonish! Dragonish," Mial says triumphantly. "We're dragonish. That is the thing we are that speaks languages and turns into things except I'm not old enough yet but when I am I will. Dragonish."
"I don't think there's supposed to be a word for that," says Aurin. "Or there would be already."
"Well, but you needed it, and I made it, and now it's there," says Mial.
"It is rude to speak languages in front of people who do not speak them," Alys says. "That doesn't require a new word."
"That's not an are not, though," Mial points out. "That's a do not. He said people who are not a thing only there wasn't a word for the thing so I made a word for the thing and now there is one."
Aurin looks dubious. "Maybe I ought to've said 'do not', though. Or, um."
"Are not speakers of those languages," suggests Alys.
"Are not speakers of those languages," suggests Alys.
Mial scoffs. "What's wrong with my word? It's a good word."
"There isn't supposed to be that word," says Aurin. "It doesn't mean a thing, it's. It's like having a word for socks and hats together."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Who says there's not supposed to be that word?" he demands. "Mom, how's my word sound to you?"
"It seems like a perfectly respectable addition to Leraal," she murmurs.
"See!" says Mial. "Because it is! It does too mean a thing, we are a thing, I was a dragon and now I'm just one thing different I am dragonish."
"It seems like a perfectly respectable addition to Leraal," she murmurs.
"See!" says Mial. "Because it is! It does too mean a thing, we are a thing, I was a dragon and now I'm just one thing different I am dragonish."
"It's like socks and hats," says Aurin. "I'm sorry you aren't a dragon but you still aren't."
"Socks and hats are both clothes," says Mial. "If they were the only two kinds of clothes they would still both be clothes. We have way more stuff in common than socks and hats, and there aren't even other things that are more like just one of us than we're like each other, if we were anything else there would already be a word but I guess everyone just hates talking about shrens that much!"
Aurin shrinks and goes over to his mother.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial growls and climbs his mother, who administers soothing snuggles.
"Did you mean to yell at your cousin like that?" she asks him quietly.
"...no," he says.
"Is there something you want to say?"
Mial sighs. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Aurin," he says sincerely. "...But I'm still right."
"Did you mean to yell at your cousin like that?" she asks him quietly.
"...no," he says.
"Is there something you want to say?"
Mial sighs. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Aurin," he says sincerely. "...But I'm still right."
"Well, don't yell," says Aurin.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"If I find somebody whose fault it is that there wasn't a word I'm sure gonna yell at them," Mial mutters. His mother pets him.
"It's not my fault."
"I know," sighs Mial. "I'm sorry I yelled at you about it."
Aurin lets go of his mother's pant leg and sits back down on the floor, pouting slightly.
Mial climbs down from Koridaar's arms and goes over to him. "Hug?" he offers. "I'm really sorry."
Grumble.
Hug.
Hug.
Hug hug hug.
Pet pet. Soft little dragon scales.
"Teeny," says Aurin.
"Teeny," says Aurin.
Mial makes a face.
It is a teeny face. Because he has a teeny head.
It is a teeny face. Because he has a teeny head.
"Teeny and tiny," giggles Aurin. Hug.
"Bah."
Hug.
Hug.
Years go by. Finnah's flopsome friendly disposition is eroded by the failure of her drugs to keep up with esu; Mial's situation follows, modulo his different initial reaction. Reports roll in that some of the recipients of this drug find that forms they shift into are also smaller than they ought to be, by a little bit.
Finnah's cardinal, when she learns to turn into it, seems about normal-sized. She flies. She flies and flies and flies and flies and flies. She goes and visits Mial and demonstrates this ability to him. She turns into a little toddler who looks just like her mommy so she'll have hands to try to haul him out of wherever he's moping and get him to try, he should be able to do it any minute now, try try try.
Mial does do an awful lot of moping.
He has a bird form picked out. He is going to be a merlin.
When Finnah hauls him out and demands it, or one of his parents manages to coax him, or he is otherwise convinced to temporarily abandon his habit of curling up in dark corners weeping with pain, he try try tries.
And two weeks after Finnah, it works. Merlins are small; he's downright teeny. But he's a bird and he can fly and he can also, incidentally, fit through the half-open kitchen window no problem.
He has a bird form picked out. He is going to be a merlin.
When Finnah hauls him out and demands it, or one of his parents manages to coax him, or he is otherwise convinced to temporarily abandon his habit of curling up in dark corners weeping with pain, he try try tries.
And two weeks after Finnah, it works. Merlins are small; he's downright teeny. But he's a bird and he can fly and he can also, incidentally, fit through the half-open kitchen window no problem.
Finnah chases him! Whee!
He circles the house, and then heads for the edge of the property, cackling at the top of his teeny lungs.
"ISN'T FLYING AWESOME," hollers Finnah. "IT'S SO AWESOME."
"IT'S THE BEST," yells Mial. Zoom!
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial's mother gazes after him, estimates his trajectory, and teleports some distance in front of him.
"Congratulations," she calls.
"Congratulations," she calls.
"Wheeeeeeee!"
His mother's clever plan works out just as intended: he swoops into her arms to deliver teeny tiny feathery snuggles.
His mother's clever plan works out just as intended: he swoops into her arms to deliver teeny tiny feathery snuggles.
Finnah lands on her head.
"We can fly!" she exclaims. "We can fly we can fly we can both fly now!"
"We can fly!" she exclaims. "We can fly we can fly we can both fly now!"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Yes you can," says Koridaar, snuggling her teeny tiny feathery son. "Have fun. Try to stay near the house, please, so you don't get lost."
"Okay," says Mial, and he's up and zooming back to the house immediately.
"Okay," says Mial, and he's up and zooming back to the house immediately.
Finnah follows him.
Zoooooooooooooom!
Even on a pretty intense dose of the growth-stunting painkiller that makes him so bouncy, though, Mial's reserves of energy are not quite infinite. He comes back in the kitchen window and flops birdfully onto the counter.
Even on a pretty intense dose of the growth-stunting painkiller that makes him so bouncy, though, Mial's reserves of energy are not quite infinite. He comes back in the kitchen window and flops birdfully onto the counter.
Finnah lands next to him.
"You should learn your thing with hands, next," she advises.
"You should learn your thing with hands, next," she advises.
"'m gonna be a human."
Like so!
...A teeny human!
Like so!
...A teeny human!
Finnah turns into a human too.
She peers at his ears. "You're short for a human."
She peers at his ears. "You're short for a human."
"I'm short for a dragonish too," he points out. "I'm short for an everything."
"You're about halfling-height! Just, not a halfling."
He giggle-yawns.
"You can start going off your potion real slow now," Finnah says. "Soon I won't have to ever taste it again."
"That'll be so nice," says Mial.
"Yeah! No gross tasting potion."
"Noooo more gross-tasting potion! 'Cause I can flyyyyy," he says. "And I can not be my natural form so I can go places! I wanna go everywhere. I wanna learn to teleport."
"Teleporting looks complicated."
"Mom does it all the time!"
"Well, where do you wanna go? Can I come?"
"Yeah! I wanna go all the places," he says. "Mom and Dad have been lots of places and I wanna go all those. I wanna go to, to Imilaat, and to Aurin's house, and everywhere!"
"Imilaat and Aurin's house is two places," says Finnah.
"Well I haven't been anywhere so I don't know what all the places are but that doesn't stop me wanting to go to them."
"You've been to Larotia. My house is in Larotia."
"Yeah. I've been to your house in Larotia and my house in Esmaar and the bottom of the world somewhere. I want to go to more places than that," he says.
"I'm going to get to go to school. You live in Esmaar so maybe you don't get to do that."
"I do if I want to learn some things. Like wizarding. But other stuff no," he says. "But going to school sounds boring anyway, you go and you sit in one place while people teach you stuff and then you go home, that's hardly going anywhere."
"There's people, there."
"Yeah... I don't know if I'm going to like people," he says. "I know just all the people I know and that's it. I don't know what it'll be like meeting new people. But I wanna try!"
"I have met new people sometimes! Like, the house calls light retired, so then there was a new one who came over if I got hurt."
"I don't need a light that much, I don't really know the ones I've seen," says Mial.
"I got my claw stuck under the edge of a bookshelf, once, and pulled and pulled until my claw came off, and then Mommy had to get the light to come."
"I fell off a bookshelf," he offers. "Broke... something or other. I don't remember. Well, I kind of jumped off the bookshelf. I wanted to land on Mama but I missed. So she got the light and the light fixed me and I climbed on the bookshelf again and didn't miss that time."
"You like climbing things," she says. "Maybe you should learn a thing that climbs. You're silver, you can learn a bunch of things."
"I like climbing a lot! But I'm only sure I want to be a merlin and a human. I'll wait to learn a climbing thing until I'm sure I want to be that exact one. It had better be at least as climby as my natural form, and that's pretty climby."
"Monkeys are climby."
"Maybe," he says. "I'll think about it."
"And squirrels."
"And - and - goats," says Mial.
"...Goats?"
"Mountain goats! I saw a picture in a book of a goat climbing right up a cliff."
"How do they do that? Are they sticky?"
"I don't know! If I be a mountain goat I will find out and tell you," he promises.
"Okay," giggles Finnah.
"Then we will both know."
He decides to stop being on the counter. He birds over to a sofa in the next room and flops upon that.
He decides to stop being on the counter. He birds over to a sofa in the next room and flops upon that.
Finnah hops onto the floor in human form and toddles over to the sofa. "It doesn't hurt anymore," she says dreamily, flinging herself onto the couch and wedging herself between the cushions.
"I knoooooow," says Mial. "It's the best."
"After you've been everywhere then what?"
"Then I dunno. Maybe I go everywhere again," he says. "Maybe I help Mom make better teleportation spells!"
"Mommy says I shouldn't try to learn to even tell time until I'm forty-five or so because of fine motor skills."
"That sucks. Maybe if I practice really good I can learn stuff before then."
"Maybe," says Finnah doubtfully.
"Well, I'm gonna," he says firmly.
Finnah giggles.
Mial grins.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial's father appears in the room and scoops him up delightedly.
"I did it, Dad! I did it!" crows Mial.
"Yes you did," he agrees.
"Now I wanna go see the entire world and learn to teleport and go see the entire world again and help Mom invent spells," Mial adds.
"...How about," Avar suggests, "I see if you can visit Aurin sometime this week?"
"Well, okay. But it better be soon!" says Mial sternly. "I have things to do."
"I did it, Dad! I did it!" crows Mial.
"Yes you did," he agrees.
"Now I wanna go see the entire world and learn to teleport and go see the entire world again and help Mom invent spells," Mial adds.
"...How about," Avar suggests, "I see if you can visit Aurin sometime this week?"
"Well, okay. But it better be soon!" says Mial sternly. "I have things to do."
Finnah cackles. "He wants to go everywhere! We can go places, now!"
Avar
on-my-word
"Yes, you can," Avar agrees. "I'll think of some places to take you both."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Mial cackles gleefully and birds and flies in a circle around Avar's head and humans again straight into his arms, plop. Avar catches him easily.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Mial cackles gleefully and birds and flies in a circle around Avar's head and humans again straight into his arms, plop. Avar catches him easily.
That looks like fun! Pity Avar is occupied. Finnah birds and orbits his head anyway in case Mial decides to go down. (Or up. Up is now feasible.)
Avar
on-my-word
Mial birds and chases her! Avar laughs.
Wheeee!
Finnah still wants to try dropping and being caught. Plop!
Finnah still wants to try dropping and being caught. Plop!
Avar
on-my-word
Avar catches her too!
"I think you started a trend, son," he snorts.
"I think you started a trend, son," he snorts.
Finnah cackles and cardinals into the air again.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial takes the opportunity to plop into his father's arms again. Avar laughs.
Finnah will take a while to get tired of this game. Circle circle plop! Circle circle plop!
Avar
on-my-word
Circle circle plop! Circle circle plop!
When Avar's arms get tired, he sits on the couch so that future plops will require less strength to receive.
When Avar's arms get tired, he sits on the couch so that future plops will require less strength to receive.
Hmmm, that's slightly less fun. Less catching and more landing. Finnah gets tired and sits on the couch next to him with her head on his lap.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar hugs her. Mial continues to plop for a while, and then snuggles up to Finnah and dozes a little.
Zzzzz.
Avar
on-my-word
True to his word, Avar arranges to bring Mial for a visit to Aurin's house.
Aurin's house is very fancy. It is in the middle of Coramna, Corenta, and it has a tidy garden in the front and a yard with fruit trees in the back, and nice furniture and an old-fashioned fireplace (but, recently installed, also a modern wizarding stove) and very attractive wallpaper and carpets. Aurin takes his shoes off at the door and then eagerly leads Mial on a tour of the whole place.
Mial is wildly enthusiastic about this house. He thinks it is pretty and nice and cute and he keeps turning into a merlin to inspect things that are too high up for his teeny human form to get a good look at.
Aurin doesn't think it's quite that exciting - it's just his house! - but he is very glad that Mial can see it.
Mial pretty much alternates between flying around rooms while exclaiming delightedly, and giving Aurin teeny human hugs while exclaiming delightedly.
Aurin accepts teeny human hugs.
"You're a very small human," he observes.
"You're a very small human," he observes.
"It's cause of my potion," he says. "It does that to some people. But it didn't do it this much to anybody but me. I guess I'm just unlucky. I'm almost off it! Two more weeks! But I'll still be a small everything after."
"Maybe when you grow up you'll live with halflings. You wouldn't bump your head," observes Aurin.
Mial giggles.
"If I turned into a halfling I'd be so small. I'm not gonna do it though! I have my human form for hands, and my merlin form for wings, and maybe I'll be a mountain goat for climbing. Goats are fluffy!"
"If I turned into a halfling I'd be so small. I'm not gonna do it though! I have my human form for hands, and my merlin form for wings, and maybe I'll be a mountain goat for climbing. Goats are fluffy!"
"Goats make milk," says Aurin knowledgeably. "We have some goat cheese but I don't like it."
He giggles again. "Is it gross? Does it taste as bad as my potion?"
"I haven't tasted your potion but it's pretty gross."
"Maybe I'll try goat cheese and then I'll know which is worse."
"You can if you want. Then there will be less goat cheese!" Aurin trundles down to the kitchen.
Mial follows cheerfully along!
"Mom, Mial wants to try goat cheese."
"Does he? All right," says Alys, and she opens the cold cabinet and gets out a bit of goat cheese and slices off a taste for Mial.
"Does he? All right," says Alys, and she opens the cold cabinet and gets out a bit of goat cheese and slices off a taste for Mial.
He tries it.
"That is less gross than my potion," he pronounces.
"That is less gross than my potion," he pronounces.
"But it's pretty gross," says Aurin swiftly.
Mial giggles. "Yeah. Thanks, Aunt Alys!"
"You're welcome, Mial," says Alys mildly, slicing off a bit of the cheese for herself and then putting it away.
"Your house is really pretty!" he adds. "It's the prettiest house! So far. Maybe there's a prettier house and I just don't know it yet! I wanna go all the places and see all the things. What are some good places to go?"
"I believe Baveria is nice this time of year," says Alys.
"Thanks, Aunt Alys!"
And he hugs her leg and merlins and zooms off to find his father and tell him about Baveria being nice.
And he hugs her leg and merlins and zooms off to find his father and tell him about Baveria being nice.
Avar
on-my-word
His father is amenable to this suggestion!
They go to Baveria. And everywhere else. Avar leads the expeditions to countries that don't speak Leraal as a primary language; the ones that do are Koridaar's domain. They invite Finnah along whenever it's convenient, which is most of the time.
They cannot go to Iraam, because none of them practice the state religion. They cannot go to Ryganaav because none of them is an unremarkably unmagical human and that state religion therefore thinks they are all evil. They cannot teleport to Erubia because wizardry is "unnatural magic". They cannot go to Egeria because dragonishes have a terrible reputation there on account of some dragons once going there and pretending to be gods. They cannot go to Ertydo because Ertydo has some kind of complicated political beef with dragons that spills over into the merely dragonish.
Mial is annoyed about there being all these places he can't go.
There's still plenty of places left, though, and visiting them is very occupying.
They go to Baveria. And everywhere else. Avar leads the expeditions to countries that don't speak Leraal as a primary language; the ones that do are Koridaar's domain. They invite Finnah along whenever it's convenient, which is most of the time.
They cannot go to Iraam, because none of them practice the state religion. They cannot go to Ryganaav because none of them is an unremarkably unmagical human and that state religion therefore thinks they are all evil. They cannot teleport to Erubia because wizardry is "unnatural magic". They cannot go to Egeria because dragonishes have a terrible reputation there on account of some dragons once going there and pretending to be gods. They cannot go to Ertydo because Ertydo has some kind of complicated political beef with dragons that spills over into the merely dragonish.
Mial is annoyed about there being all these places he can't go.
There's still plenty of places left, though, and visiting them is very occupying.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
And while her son is occupied, Koridaar starts really getting back into the swing of research. Transportation spells are her specialty, but it has occurred to her now that she has so much spare time to wonder what the state of the art is on shrens.
There are a few very careful, very hopeless publications by an "Ehail", who publishes mostly in Munine but occasionally generates her own Leraal translations.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar attempts to track down this Ehail.
The journal which has most recently published a Leraal translation of her work is willing to disclose her location as being on Kep Island, Petar. Koridaar will have to find the building herself. But that's not really a challenge, considering.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Indeed.
Koridaar goes to Kep Island, and visits the shren house there.
Koridaar goes to Kep Island, and visits the shren house there.
An obsidian woman opens the door, looks at her hair and her ears in that order, guesses Leraal, and says, "Can I help you?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Possibly. I'm looking for a wizard named Ehail who published some research about shrens."
"Why?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Because I'm a wizard researcher with an unlucky parunia son, and I want to see if I can help improve the available body of knowledge."
"I'll ask her. Wait here."
The door shuts; there is a delay of a few degrees.
Then a short silver woman opens the door.
"I'm Ehail," she says.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I'm Koridaar Retaan. Do you have some time to talk about your research?"
"Yes. Do you want to come in?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Sure."
Ehail stands aside.
There's a roomful of screaming babies to the right. Ehail goes right past it down a long empty hallway.
There's a roomful of screaming babies to the right. Ehail goes right past it down a long empty hallway.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar gives it a sad glance as she passes by, but follows Ehail.
Ehail leads Koridaar to a little office with a lot of papers in it.
"I can borrow a chair from the night empath's office," she says. "If you want."
"I can borrow a chair from the night empath's office," she says. "If you want."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"That'll be convenient if I'm here more than a few degrees," she says. "Which I think is likely. So yes, thank you."
Ehail goes out and comes back with a chair. She sits in it.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
And now they both have chairs.
"I've read everything you've published in Leraal, but my husband's been too busy to translate the Munine for me. What am I missing?"
"I've read everything you've published in Leraal, but my husband's been too busy to translate the Munine for me. What am I missing?"
"Not very much. I don't have very much. There's - nothing, really."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"So, more confirmations like the one that temporarily turning off the effect of down magic in an area or on a specific person doesn't count as flying? That's not completely nothing," she says. "My specialty is teleportation spells; I spend a lot of time ruling out things that don't work."
"I - well, I spend all my time thinking of silly ideas that don't work. Most of them don't even get published in Munine."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"It's not the best kind of progress, but it's still progress. Do you write them down somewhere, if nothing else then at least so you don't end up testing the same silly idea twice?"
"Yes, I have notes." She gestures at the office's copious quantities of paper with its tiny handwriting.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"If you have the time, I might like a Leraal translation of the whole list. So that when I'm coming up with silly ideas of my own, I can check if they've been done already. And if I think of anything new, I'll tell you."
"I can get that to you," nods Ehail.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
"You're welcome."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"It's occurred to me to wonder if there's an actual underlying difference between infected shrens and hatched shrens," she says, "but I haven't found any answers about that. Which makes sense, considering how rare they are. All the obvious things are the same, and nobody's ever had the resources to start really digging into non-obvious things. I don't even know if the knowledge would be practically useful, if we had it."
"I don't know either," says Ehail. "I've never had a chance to look at even a dragon, let alone an infected shren."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Well, if you want to meet my son and my husband, that can be arranged. But I've seen all three and I don't know that I can point to any non-obvious differences. Except how Mial had unusually bad side effects from his painkiller, but there's only one of him, so there's no way of knowing whether that's an infected shren thing or he's just doubly unlucky."
"I - if your son and husband would meet me maybe in a few years I could come up with some kind of analysis, and - see if there's anything to see."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I'll mention it to them," she says. "There shouldn't be any problem. Kep Island qualifies as a place and therefore Mial will be happy to come here - he's feeling a little bottled up after twenty years in the same two houses - and Avar is very reasonable."
Ehail shifts uncomfortably in her chair but nods.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I'll give you my address so you can send me that list." She writes it out.
Ehail nods and stashes the paper according to inscrutable organizational system.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar can't think of anything else to say.
"Thanks for your time."
"Thanks for your time."
"You're welcome."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I look forward to hearing from you."
And she gets up and teleports home.
And she gets up and teleports home.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar agrees to meet the shren researcher if Koridaar thinks the meeting would be productive. Then he keeps right on bringing Mial (and Finnah) to visit every country in the world from which none of them are explicitly banned.
When they get to Moyet on the list, Avar discovers that it contains a newly opened water park. Mial is intensely excited about the water park. Avar decides to invite both Finnah and Aurin, suspecting that they too will be excited.
When they get to Moyet on the list, Avar discovers that it contains a newly opened water park. Mial is intensely excited about the water park. Avar decides to invite both Finnah and Aurin, suspecting that they too will be excited.
They are slightly less excited than Mial (they are red groups; and, in general, they are less excitable than Mial) but they would like to go.
Alys suggests with utmost Alysly delicacy that Avar and Koridaar might just borrow Aurin.
Alys suggests with utmost Alysly delicacy that Avar and Koridaar might just borrow Aurin.
Avar
on-my-word
That is a completely reasonable suggestion. They borrow Aurin and go to the water park - Avar, Mial, Aurin, and Finnah. (Koridaar declined in favour of working on a new teleport spell.)
It's a pretty amazing water park. There are many things suitable for children! Even small children! Even teeny children! Which is good, because Mial continues to be teeny.
It's a pretty amazing water park. There are many things suitable for children! Even small children! Even teeny children! Which is good, because Mial continues to be teeny.
Finnah's not all that big either.
The park is pretty great! There are waterspout slides and fountains to run through and pools to swim in and a river that may be traversed in flotation devices and a lake with a variety of borrowable boats. Aurin likes the fountains best and Finnah prefers the slides.
The park is pretty great! There are waterspout slides and fountains to run through and pools to swim in and a river that may be traversed in flotation devices and a lake with a variety of borrowable boats. Aurin likes the fountains best and Finnah prefers the slides.
Mial likes all the things. Although he is bored by the borrowable boats after one go. Both the fountains and the slides provide him with endless delight, however.
And all three kids can turn into birds and thus avoid having to climb the stairs to get back in line.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar keeps them all in sight, but wisely conserves energy by not going up and down every single line with them. Mial is still a tiny whirlwind even without his potion.
Aurin and Finnah don't interact very much; he seems scared of her but doesn't pick a fight, and she determines that he isn't interesting.
Mial bounces merrily between them. He is having too much fun at the water park to try to get them to interact, which is probably best for everyone.
And eventually the park closes for the night, after a show put on by a staff water mage.
And Avar teleports everyone back to his house and then delivers Finnah and Aurin each to their respective mothers.
Who are pleased to have them back again.
Ehail gets back to Koridaar several weeks later with a list, in Leraal, several pages long, much of it very silly with apologetic marginalia for how very silly it is.
Ehail gets back to Koridaar several weeks later with a list, in Leraal, several pages long, much of it very silly with apologetic marginalia for how very silly it is.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar carefully reads through the list. She thinks over the problem.
She invents a few spells. First some unexciting variations on cutting or reducing an object's connection to down magic - out of the bowl of oranges she uses as test subjects, she ends up with several that can be kept in the air with the occasional light tap, two that can be sent whizzing across the room with a similar amount of force, and one that bounces crazily from floor to ceiling to counter to wall to wall to floor again until Koridaar cancels the effect and intercepts its last dive with a plate. Splat.
Mial gets to play with the surviving airborne oranges while Koridaar pursues more esoteric possibilities. Interfering with the connection at the source - light objects are less affected by down magic because they are light, so how does one go about making something actually lighter?
None of this batch of oranges survive their contributions to wizarding research. Making objects actually lighter, as opposed to just masking their weight on various levels, seems to be very bad for the objects.
To be thorough, she tests all the orange-safe ones on lizards she finds outside before writing Ehail back. This results in some very confused but otherwise unharmed lizards. She writes out all the spells verified in this way, adding that she doesn't hold out much hope but it seems worthwhile to test them just in case, then gives a briefer list of the various ideas that didn't make it through fruit-based testing. It is her emphatic recommendation that anyone who wants to pursue the make-it-actually-lighter idea should wait until they find a version that doesn't violently destroy a gently handled orange before proceeding to testing on anything with a brain.
She invents a few spells. First some unexciting variations on cutting or reducing an object's connection to down magic - out of the bowl of oranges she uses as test subjects, she ends up with several that can be kept in the air with the occasional light tap, two that can be sent whizzing across the room with a similar amount of force, and one that bounces crazily from floor to ceiling to counter to wall to wall to floor again until Koridaar cancels the effect and intercepts its last dive with a plate. Splat.
Mial gets to play with the surviving airborne oranges while Koridaar pursues more esoteric possibilities. Interfering with the connection at the source - light objects are less affected by down magic because they are light, so how does one go about making something actually lighter?
None of this batch of oranges survive their contributions to wizarding research. Making objects actually lighter, as opposed to just masking their weight on various levels, seems to be very bad for the objects.
To be thorough, she tests all the orange-safe ones on lizards she finds outside before writing Ehail back. This results in some very confused but otherwise unharmed lizards. She writes out all the spells verified in this way, adding that she doesn't hold out much hope but it seems worthwhile to test them just in case, then gives a briefer list of the various ideas that didn't make it through fruit-based testing. It is her emphatic recommendation that anyone who wants to pursue the make-it-actually-lighter idea should wait until they find a version that doesn't violently destroy a gently handled orange before proceeding to testing on anything with a brain.
Ehail writes back in two days. The lightened baby she tested the lizard-safe spells on was not able to fly, not quite.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She didn't expect much, but it's still a bit of a disappointment. Oh, well.
She reminds Ehail that she and her family are available whenever Ehail comes up with an analysis she wants to try.
She reminds Ehail that she and her family are available whenever Ehail comes up with an analysis she wants to try.
Ehail's next letter says she's working on an analysis.
And that attaching extensions to the baby's wings while he was lightened also did not work.
And that attaching extensions to the baby's wings while he was lightened also did not work.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial happens to see this letter, and comes up with a multitude of designs for possible wing extensions. Koridaar takes him to the bottom of the world and lets him try them out, in combination with the various safe lightening spells. He has lots of fun, but of course can do nothing to verify whether any of this would affect esu; he hardly goes two waking angles without birding around. Koridaar nevertheless records both Mial's observations and her own on the effectiveness of these various contraptions at augmenting a shren's natural wings, and sends notes and contraptions all to Ehail.
Three weeks later Ehail sends her a copy of all the experimental notes. No success.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She didn't expect any. (Mial nevertheless feels that he has Contributed to Research, and is very proud.)
And that's all from Ehail for a while.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Life goes on. Mial slows down on his world tour. His last visit is to the Taavlas Isles, even though nobody lives there; they are named on an atlas and therefore they count.
He writes down a list of all the places he isn't allowed to go, just so he can scowl at it. His mother observes that Dragon Island isn't on the list. Mial emphatically declares that he wouldn't go there even if he could, because that's where Grandfather lives. Grandfather, as far as Mial is concerned, can keep his dumb island.
Koridaar gives him a hug.
He writes down a list of all the places he isn't allowed to go, just so he can scowl at it. His mother observes that Dragon Island isn't on the list. Mial emphatically declares that he wouldn't go there even if he could, because that's where Grandfather lives. Grandfather, as far as Mial is concerned, can keep his dumb island.
Koridaar gives him a hug.
Time passes.
It takes Ehail two and a half years to invent her analysis. She writes to Koridaar about it. She includes the instructions for the spell, in case Koridaar's husband would prefer to be analyzed by his wife than by a shren, and in case it's more convenient not to bring Mial over.
It takes Ehail two and a half years to invent her analysis. She writes to Koridaar about it. She includes the instructions for the spell, in case Koridaar's husband would prefer to be analyzed by his wife than by a shren, and in case it's more convenient not to bring Mial over.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
It is more convenient to cast it on both of them herself. She does that, records the results meticulously, and sends them back.
Ehail reciprocates with results from examined shrens.
There is no difference between Mial and them.
There is no difference between Mial and them.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
But now that there's an analysis available, it's easier for Koridaar to think about the field of dragonish analysis. She invents variations. When she has one she likes, that actually seems to provide clearer results and not just slightly prettier ones, she sends it back to Ehail along with the information from Avar and Mial.
Ehail sends back what she comes up with.
It yields, ultimately, nothing of use.
It yields, ultimately, nothing of use.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
They could keep going back and forth like this for decades, and in fact Koridaar suspects they probably will, but there just aren't that many directions from which to come at the problem and they have now explored all the ones they can easily find.
It's too delicate a system for Koridaar to feel comfortable messing with; they've gotten far enough to know that the actual state of shrenhood, the reason their wings are too weak to be of any use, is some kind of delicate magical adaptation to patch a condition that would otherwise just kill them. Without a much better understanding of how it actually works, she's reluctant to spend much time coming up with possible interventions which she has no safe way to test. There's no equivalent of oranges and lizards to be had here; it's live subjects or nothing.
It's too delicate a system for Koridaar to feel comfortable messing with; they've gotten far enough to know that the actual state of shrenhood, the reason their wings are too weak to be of any use, is some kind of delicate magical adaptation to patch a condition that would otherwise just kill them. Without a much better understanding of how it actually works, she's reluctant to spend much time coming up with possible interventions which she has no safe way to test. There's no equivalent of oranges and lizards to be had here; it's live subjects or nothing.
Colla begins to prevail upon Koridaar and Avar more often for babysitting.
She has met a charming dragon and wants alone time with him.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Well.
Koridaar and Avar are perfectly happy to babysit. They like Finnah.
Koridaar does... wonder, about this charming dragon's attitude towards shrens. She finds she wonders that about most dragons, these days. But he's dating someone who's raising one, so he's probably not that bad.
Koridaar and Avar are perfectly happy to babysit. They like Finnah.
Koridaar does... wonder, about this charming dragon's attitude towards shrens. She finds she wonders that about most dragons, these days. But he's dating someone who's raising one, so he's probably not that bad.
Finnah has met the man; she's not welcome on date nights, but there are other occasions when he's around. Finnah doesn't have anything in particular to say about her mother's gentleman caller. She refers to him by name without frowning (or for that matter excited bouncing.)
Mial is curious about him! He asks lots of questions. What's his name, what's his colour group, does he like Finnah's mom's teacakes. (Is there anyone who doesn't like Finnah's mom's teacakes.)
His name is Serularan and he's red like Finnah and her mom and he likes the teacakes, says Finnah.
That's good. It would, says Mial, be weird if he didn't like the teacakes.
Finnah agrees. The teacakes are very good.
Mial's parents provide decent tasty things, but neither of them has a particular specialty like Colla's teacakes.
Mial is reminded by this conversation of their old cake-tea experiment. He decides to go solicit some cake-tea from his mama. (It's tasty, if a bit ridiculously sweet.)
Mial is reminded by this conversation of their old cake-tea experiment. He decides to go solicit some cake-tea from his mama. (It's tasty, if a bit ridiculously sweet.)
Finnah tastes it.
She likes teacakes better than caketea.
She likes teacakes better than caketea.
"Teacakes are better because I can eat more before I get tired of them," says Mial. "When I have caketea I only want one cup at a time and if I have more I don't like it as much."
"Teacakes are bit and caketea is drunk," says Finnah.
Mial giggles.
"And, sometimes Mommy dips teacakes in chocolate."
"Mom could make chocolate caketea," Mial says thoughtfully. "But I don't want any right now, I've had enough caketea." He birds and flies a circle around the kitchen, for no particular reason.
"Chocolate is nice," says Finnah.
"Yeah!"
Colla and her charming gentleman friend get married when Finnah and Mial are both twenty-three.
It's a very small affair at the nearest Enclave of Larotia. Colla has no taste for elaborate productions at weddings. Seru moves into the farmhouse.
Therefore, Seru is there next time Mial visits.
It occurs to him to wonder if Seru likes caketea.
"Hey, you like Colla's teacakes, right?"
It occurs to him to wonder if Seru likes caketea.
"Hey, you like Colla's teacakes, right?"
"Of course I do," says Seru, looking up from the sock he's mending.
"They're really great!" says Mial. "You know what else is great? Caketea. It's like teacakes backwards, it's tea that tastes like cake! Want to try some to see if you like it?"
"I'm not sure if it would be to my taste, Mial," says Seru mildly.
He giggles. "Okay," he says, and birds off merrily, his question answered.
After Seru and Colla have been married for about a month she announces she is pregnant.
She goes on being pregnant for quite a while and then lays four eggs.
Mial is curious about pregnancy, but gets less curious as it persists. He becomes curious again when there are eggs, and asks if he can look at the eggs.
He is allowed to look at the eggs.
They do not have stripes.
They do not have stripes.
"Wow," he says, impressed by this spectacle. It actually causes him to sit still for several ticks before he goes off to see if Finnah wants to play any games.
Finnah will play with him, of course.
The eggs hatch after being eggs for a month. Now there are three little red dragon boys in Finnah's house. Their parents are enchanted. Finnah is enchanted but from a somewhat greater distance.
The eggs hatch after being eggs for a month. Now there are three little red dragon boys in Finnah's house. Their parents are enchanted. Finnah is enchanted but from a somewhat greater distance.
Mial is even more impressed by actual babies! They're so little! He listens with utmost solemnity to the explanation that he must be very very careful around them and Finnah's house is not a Special Shren Place anymore, and he promises that he will be very very careful, and he is.
Then he is in no danger of harming the little babies.
For the month that they live before, one by one, they die.
For the month that they live before, one by one, they die.
This is bewildering and sad. He knew about dragon babies, of course, but... he met these dragon babies. They were little and red and they had little claws and little noses. And now they aren't there anymore.
Colla and Seru are very sad, too, but, well, this is what happens.
They wait a little while, and then Colla gets pregnant again.
They wait a little while, and then Colla gets pregnant again.
Mial is less excited this time.
But he still comes to visit after the babies hatch. (They are little, and red, and they have little claws and little noses.)
But he still comes to visit after the babies hatch. (They are little, and red, and they have little claws and little noses.)
There are only two this time.
One day, while Mial is over, one of them starts coughing.
One day, while Mial is over, one of them starts coughing.
...Mial is slightly alarmed. He peers at the coughing baby.
Colla is more sad than alarmed.
She picks up the baby and holds him and cries. "Seru. Seru, one of them -"
Seru rushes into the room and also cries.
The baby coughs.
She picks up the baby and holds him and cries. "Seru. Seru, one of them -"
Seru rushes into the room and also cries.
The baby coughs.
Now Mial is really alarmed. He sits on the floor and hugs his knees and blinks tearily up at the baby in Colla's arms.
"Mial, you don't need to watch," says Colla in a low voice.
Cough, cough, cough.
Cough, cough, cough.
He sniffles and stays put.
Eventually the baby stops coughing.
Mial's sniffles are very very quiet.
He gets up and goes over and hugs Colla's leg. He is so sad, and that was her baby with little claws and a little nose; she must be even more sad.
He gets up and goes over and hugs Colla's leg. He is so sad, and that was her baby with little claws and a little nose; she must be even more sad.
Colla lets Seru take the limp red form away, because her leg is being hugged. Pat, pat.
Loud coughing can be heard from upstairs, where the other baby is.
Colla bolts out of the leg-hug. "SERU."
Loud coughing can be heard from upstairs, where the other baby is.
Colla bolts out of the leg-hug. "SERU."
Mial sits back down.
And there he stays, with his arms wrapped around his knees, crying very quietly into them.
Seru comes back from wherever he went, without the first baby.
Eventually the coughing stops and he and Colla take the second baby away, too.
Eventually the coughing stops and he and Colla take the second baby away, too.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial keeps crying. He is still crying when his father scoops him up and takes him home, and continues after they get there. Eventually he goes to sleep, and then when he wakes up he isn't crying anymore, but he isn't happy either. He slumps around the house, not taking an interest in things. He neglects the motor skills exercises he has been faithfully doing to see if he can learn how to wizard yet yet yet.
And he neglects to be a merlin and fly.
And he neglects to be a merlin and fly.
When Aurin visits and finds that his cousin is a lump, he does not know what to do right away, but eventually he diagnoses part of the problem and says, "You should fly."
"Don't wanna," says the lump of Mial.
"But you have to."
"Don't care," the lump asserts, from where he is curled up human-shaped on the couch.
"But you really have to!"
"No I don't," declares the lump.
Aurin disagrees, but apparently arguing isn't going to get him anywhere. Hmmmmm.
Aurin goes and puts a chair under the nearest window, and opens the window up, and then he attempts to peel the blanket off Mial.
Aurin goes and puts a chair under the nearest window, and opens the window up, and then he attempts to peel the blanket off Mial.
Mial resists the removal of his blanket! He cannot be such a lump without his blanket! He clutches it tightly in his teeny hands.
Aurin pulls harder. He cannot execute his plan if there is a blanket around Mial, not at all.
Mial is very determined to keep his blanket! But he is also pretty teeny. Aurin is much stronger. The blanket comes off.
"Give that back!"
"Give that back!"
"You can have it back after you fly." Perhaps Mial will just fly and Aurin will not have to resort to drastic measures.
"Don't wanna," he says with a scowl, grabbing for the blanket.
Aurin flings the blanket across the room and scoops Mial up in a huggly sort of carry-hold.
He carries him over towards the window and manages with some effort to climb onto the chair.
He carries him over towards the window and manages with some effort to climb onto the chair.
"What are you doing," says Mial. "I want my blanket. Put me down."
Aurin puts him -
out the window.
out the window.
Mial squawks.
A very angry merlin comes zooming up, barrels in the window, and flies directly into Aurin's face, yelling. "AURIN YOU JERK! I COULD'VE LOST A FORM!"
"Nuh-uh! It's not that high up!" exclaims Aurin, falling backwards when Mial flies at him.
"I could've anyway if I was unlucky," he says, flapping agitatedly with his wee bird feet clutching Aurin's shirt.
"You were feet down!" says Aurin. "'m sorry."
Mial becomes human and sits upon Aurin and glares down at him, tiny arms folded in unconscious imitation of his father.
"Hmph."
"Hmph."
"You have to fly," says Aurin, crossing his arms right back.
"I don't have to," he says.
"Yeah-huh you do."
"I do not, and anyway it makes me tired not to and then I don't want to more, whose stupid idea was that," says Mial.
"That's not my fault."
"Yeah but you didn't have to drop me out a window," he grumps.
"Well, you didn't fly when I said to! And now you aren't a lump in a blanket."
"Hmph," he says, and he goes and gets his blanket and wraps it around himself and glares at Aurin from within it. He looks ridiculous. And much less lumpy, even still.
Giggle.
Glaaaaaare.
"Are you really really mad?"
...He sighs.
"I'm some mad. I guess I'm not really really."
"I'm some mad. I guess I'm not really really."
"Well, just don't go so long without flying, again."
"Or what, you'll throw me out the window?"
"Duh."
Mial makes a tremendously grumpy face and balls up his blanket and heaves it at Aurin.
Aurin catches it and throws it back.
Well now they're just going to be flinging this blanket at each other, aren't they.
Mial actually giggles, after a few iterations.
Mial actually giggles, after a few iterations.
Yay! That is the correct status for Mial to have. Toss catch toss catch.
Mial considers himself to have won if the blanket unrolls in midair and flops all over Aurin. His success at achieving this outcome is mediocre. But whenever he manages it, he giggles again.
Aurin is not really playing to win, here, so he doesn't particularly aim at flopping the blanket on Mial.
After several flops, Mial is sufficiently cheered to go over and hug him.
Hug!
"You're okay now?"
"You're okay now?"
"I guess," he sighs.
Hug.
Hug.
Aurin is an acceptable cousin. Even though he threw Mial out a window.
Aurin is an acceptable cousin. Even though he threw Mial out a window.
Aurin thinks that he's great especially because he threw Mial out a window. There were reasons for the throwing of Mial out a window. It was not random defenestration.
Colla lays more eggs. There is a batch of two, a batch of four, a batch of three. They all die.
There is a batch of two.
One of them dies.
The other one doesn't.
Mial is so glad that the baby didn't die. When is the naming? Can he come?
No, he is not invited.
Colla asks Koridaar if they can take Finnah that day, actually. Seru's relatives, you see.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar is very understanding about Seru's relatives. She passes on her son's congratulations and adds her own and her husband's.
"Thank you," says Colla, and she smiles and hands Finnah over. "I'll let you know when Seru's father has gone; he's staying for a while. Thank you so much."
She sends Koridaar a letter a couple of days later.
It asks just how long Koridaar might be convinced to keep Finnah.
She sends Koridaar a letter a couple of days later.
It asks just how long Koridaar might be convinced to keep Finnah.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
How long on what scale, exactly...?
Seru's very worried, he managed it when the babies were in all likelihood not long for the world anyway, but this one (his name is Xaran) - Seru's very worried -
Twenty years?
Twenty years?
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar inquires if Colla would like to come for a visit and talk this over. Avar can take the kids to an amusement park.
Colla acquiesces.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar has tea and biscuits going.
"So," she says. "I'm absolutely willing to look after Finnah for as long as she needs me. I just... want to be sure you've thought through all your options, first."
"So," she says. "I'm absolutely willing to look after Finnah for as long as she needs me. I just... want to be sure you've thought through all your options, first."
"She's shifted natural, at least once, since she learned to," Colla says, not making eye contact. "That was just the time I caught her. It isn't like - setting a book on fire, where it's all right if over a few tries she learns not to. There are no more tries, anymore. We can't."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Have you talked to her about it at all...?"
"She's forty-four. She - she isn't a particularly responsible forty-four."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I understand," murmurs Koridaar.
"The next best option is a house, but, she already knows you, and Mial, and." Shrug. Total lack of eye contact.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I can look after her. For as long as necessary," says Koridaar.
"Thank you. I can - wait around and explain it to her so you won't have to."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar nods.
There is tea and biscuits.
There is tea and biscuits.
Colla sips tea. She doesn't take any biscuits.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar comes back with the kids.
He observes that Colla is still there.
He suggests to Mial that they go play a game in the other room. Mial cheerfully accepts.
He observes that Colla is still there.
He suggests to Mial that they go play a game in the other room. Mial cheerfully accepts.
Colla glances at him, then looks into her teacup again.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Hi, Finnah," says Koridaar.
"Hi," says Finnah, going over to her mommy to climb onto her lap.
Colla swallows. "Finnah, darling, you're going to stay here for a while until Xaran is bigger."
Finnah blinks at her. "I'm not going to drop him out a window."
"I know."
"Am I in trouble? Aurin actually dropped Mial out a window and did not get in trouble."
Colla shakes her head. "It's just to make sure your little brother is safe."
"But I'm not going to drop him."
Colla swallows. "Finnah, darling, you're going to stay here for a while until Xaran is bigger."
Finnah blinks at her. "I'm not going to drop him out a window."
"I know."
"Am I in trouble? Aurin actually dropped Mial out a window and did not get in trouble."
Colla shakes her head. "It's just to make sure your little brother is safe."
"But I'm not going to drop him."
"I know you aren't going to drop him. But it would only take a tick to hurt him very badly. Later he'll be able to keep himself safe no matter what happens, but -"
"I know not to shift around babies!"
"I know you know. But you might not be perfect at it and it is so important to be perfect at it for twenty whole years, so, Koridaar says you can stay here, until Xaran is older."
"But..." Finnah is at something of a loss for rebuttals. "But you're my mommy."
"Of course I am. I'm Xaran's mommy too and if you stay with your friend here everybody will be totally safe, so that's how it's going to be."
"I know not to shift around babies!"
"What if you thought he was somewhere else and you were wrong, Finnah - you'd wind up spending a lot of time here anyway when Seru's side of the family came to see Xaran, it's barely any -"
"I'm not dangerous!"
"You've already done it once!" exclaims Colla in a high breathless voice, and then she looks away, shamefaced.
Finnah slides off of her lap.
"I know not to shift around babies!"
"I know you know. But you might not be perfect at it and it is so important to be perfect at it for twenty whole years, so, Koridaar says you can stay here, until Xaran is older."
"But..." Finnah is at something of a loss for rebuttals. "But you're my mommy."
"Of course I am. I'm Xaran's mommy too and if you stay with your friend here everybody will be totally safe, so that's how it's going to be."
"I know not to shift around babies!"
"What if you thought he was somewhere else and you were wrong, Finnah - you'd wind up spending a lot of time here anyway when Seru's side of the family came to see Xaran, it's barely any -"
"I'm not dangerous!"
"You've already done it once!" exclaims Colla in a high breathless voice, and then she looks away, shamefaced.
Finnah slides off of her lap.
"I -" says Colla.
"GO AWAY," says Finnah. "YOU DON'T LIVE HERE AND I LIVE HERE NOW SO I CAN TELL YOU TO GO AWAY."
Colla stands up.
"GO AWAY," says Finnah. "YOU DON'T LIVE HERE AND I LIVE HERE NOW SO I CAN TELL YOU TO GO AWAY."
Colla stands up.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar stands up too.
"Should I take you home, Colla?"
"Should I take you home, Colla?"
"Yes, please," says Colla faintly.
Finnah charges out of the room at high speed.
Finnah charges out of the room at high speed.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar teleports Colla home, and comes back, and goes looking for Finnah.
Finnah is being a bird on top of the roof.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar would have some difficulty getting up there to talk to her.
Mial is not so encumbered.
Koridaar goes and has a quiet word with her son. He abandons his game and merlins and flies up to the roof.
Mial is not so encumbered.
Koridaar goes and has a quiet word with her son. He abandons his game and merlins and flies up to the roof.
Finnah doesn't object. Or address him. Or react in any way.
Mial perches next to her.
She doesn't move, speak, or turn her head.
She does close her eyes.
She does close her eyes.
"Um, hi," he says tentatively.
"Rrr," is all he gets in reply.
Okay then. He'll just... stay where he is. Yeah.
Eventually Finnah opens her eyes and looks beadily at him.
"What."
"I dunno," he says. "I came up here to see if you needed anything but then it was really hard to tell. You look kind of like you're being a sad lump but I bet throwing you out a window wouldn't help at all and I dunno what else to do about sad lumps, I only know how to be one, not how to fix one."
"Do you know I live here now?"
"Yeah. Mom said. She said your mom sent you here because of the baby, in case you forget and shift natural. Which I think is kind of dumb," he adds, "she's had babies six times now and we never forgot around any of them, not either of us, you lived with them the whole time even, it doesn't make sense to start worrying now."
"I'm not dangerous," mutters Finnah.
"I know," says Mial. "I'm kind of mad at your mom. Even though it'll be cool to have you living here."
"The last time somebody didn't want me around she left with me."
"...Who doesn't want you around this time? Seru?"
"Probably."
Mial shifts on his perch. If merlins were equipped to scowl, he would be scowling.
"What a jerk! You were there first, he doesn't get to, to, to steal your mom."
"What a jerk! You were there first, he doesn't get to, to, to steal your mom."
Finnah huddles in fluffed-up feathers.
"Seru is a lizard," Mial declares firmly, and he shuffles closer and tries to administer small feathery snuggles. "A nasty mom-stealing lizard."
Finnah doesn't move either toward or away from the snuggles.
Well, she can keep having them, then.
Birds can't really cry.
Finnah turns human and sobs.
Finnah turns human and sobs.
A teeny merlin is not, Mial feels, big enough to properly snuggle human Finnah. He turns human too, and hugs her.
That will get him cried on.
That is okay.
For a long time.
That is okay too.
Eventually she runs out of crying to do, for now.
Mial has not yet run out of hugs.
Finnah doesn't have anything else to say. She just sits there perched somewhat precariously on the roof and lets him hug her.
"I'm hungry," he says. "Are you hungry?"
"No," mumbles Finnah.
Her stomach growls.
Her stomach growls.
"...That sounded like a hungry noise," Mial observes.
"I don't want to eat anything."
"Okay. Do you want to go inside anyway? There's blankets. And my parents."
"Fine."
Mial birds and flies into the house.
Finnah hesitates a moment, but then does the same thing.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar is reading a book in the living room.
"Finnah is sad and you should hug her," Mial announces. "I'm hungry and I'm getting a snack."
"Do you want a hug, Finnah?" asks Avar.
"Finnah is sad and you should hug her," Mial announces. "I'm hungry and I'm getting a snack."
"Do you want a hug, Finnah?" asks Avar.
Finnah turns human.
"Okay."
Avar
on-my-word
Avar scoops her up and sits in his comfy chair and hugs her.
Finnah sits in this hug without doing much of anything.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar is well-supplied with hugs. He will not run out anytime soon.
"I live here now," she informs Avar, in case he missed this information and thought she was sad for no reason.
Avar
on-my-word
"I heard," he says.
"What do I have to know about living here now?"
Avar
on-my-word
"Well, you can keep the room you're staying in," he says. "You can ask me or Koridaar when you need anything, except that it's important not to interrupt Koridaar when she's in her office with the door closed. But if I'm not home and it can't wait, you're allowed to knock on her door."
"Okay," mumbles Finnah.
Avar
on-my-word
Hug.
Stiff lap-sitting accompanied by intermittent sniffles.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial comes back from getting his snack, and dispenses a hug each to Finnah and his dad, and picks up Avar's book and starts reading it to him, since Avar has been delegated the task of hugging Finnah and cannot conveniently read it himself.
Finnah is listless, short on appetite, and passively amenable to being hugged, as her residence in her new home wears on.
Colla mails a couple of boxes with Finnah's clothes and toys and books.
Finnah flies into a rage and attacks the nearest box until her fists are full of splinters.
Avar
on-my-word
Avar gets a pair of tweezers and carefully extracts the splinters, while Koridaar rescues the contents of the boxes and disposes of the slightly mauled box.
Finnah cries while the splinters are taken out; one may safely assume it is not from discomfort.
Listlessness, disinterest in eating, and apparent indifference to her steady supply of hugs persist, only gradually lifting.
Aurin comes for his next visit on a day where Finnah has recently accomplished the milestone of eating some breakfast without coaxing.
Aurin keeps his distance from her. She makes no attempt to close it, but she notices and sort of glares halfheartedly at him.
Listlessness, disinterest in eating, and apparent indifference to her steady supply of hugs persist, only gradually lifting.
Aurin comes for his next visit on a day where Finnah has recently accomplished the milestone of eating some breakfast without coaxing.
Aurin keeps his distance from her. She makes no attempt to close it, but she notices and sort of glares halfheartedly at him.
Mial observes this dynamic. He decides he does not like it. He drags Aurin into another room to talk to him alone.
"What's your problem with Finnah?"
"What's your problem with Finnah?"
"I - uh - I don't really know her," mumbles Aurin.
Mial folds his arms and produces a Look gleaned from his father's repertoire of unimpressed-with-your-excuses Looks.
"I don't! You're my cousin but she's... just somebody who's around, and."
"And...?" prompts Mial.
"And Mom said to be careful..."
"Careful about what," says Mial.
"About, uh, shrens I don't know, really really know."
"Well you're not gonna get to know her if you keep ticking her off by acting like she's about to eat you," says Mial. "You should be nice to her. She's really sad."
Aurin shifts his weight from foot to foot. "I don't want her to be sad but I don't think I can fix it."
"You can be nice to her anyway," says Mial. "Me and Mom and Dad being nice to her doesn't fix it but we still are."
"I don't think she is in a making friends mood," opines Aurin.
"Me either," Mial admits. "But still. Just be nice, okay?"
"I'm not being mean to her!"
"You're being weird."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"I am not."
"You are!"
"What's so weird about how I'm being?"
"You're not going near her. In a weird way."
"What would I go near her for?"
"I dunno. I go near her sometimes, and you go near me sometimes."
"Do you just want to play board games that need a bunch of people or something?"
Mial considers this question, then says, "Yeah."
(Because he thinks Finnah will probably play board games with them if coaxed, and then maybe Aurin will stop being weird.)
(Because he thinks Finnah will probably play board games with them if coaxed, and then maybe Aurin will stop being weird.)
"Well, okay," says Aurin.
Satisfied with his strategy now, Mial trots back into the other room and gets out a many-player board game - a fairly simple one, for a greater chance of Finnah-approval - and commences coaxing.
Finnah lets him ramble on about the virtues of board games, regarding him in silence, before finally saying, "Fine."
"Okay," Mial says brightly. He sets up the game.
Aurin sits at the board next to Mial and takes the blue pawn and obligingly plays.
Finnah plays somewhat mechanically, but she doesn't stare into space when it's her turn or anything.
Finnah plays somewhat mechanically, but she doesn't stare into space when it's her turn or anything.
Mial is moderately satisfied with this outcome.
Eventually the dice turn up with Finnah as the winner. She seems pretty indifferent to this outcome.
"Want to play aagin?"
Finnah shrugs. Aurin says, "Okay."
This is sufficient enthusiasm for Mial's purposes. They play again.
The dice are in Mial's favor this time.
Finnah tips herself over on her side and looks at the pawns.
Finnah tips herself over on her side and looks at the pawns.
Mial is not sure what to do with tipped-over Finnah. He contemplates her for a moment, and then concludes that maybe she is done playing board games.
She is not going to do anything that contradicts this conclusion.
When Mial makes no move to set up another round, Aurin wanders off.
When Mial makes no move to set up another round, Aurin wanders off.
Mial hugs Finnah and then wanders off after Aurin. There are plenty more games to play.
After Finnah has been living with Mial for two months, she writes her mother a letter, which no one else in the household is invited to see. She gets a reasonably prompt response, which no one is allowed to see. This goes on every few months. Finnah does not seem to enjoy sending or receiving the letters but continues regardless.
Between letters, Finnah relaxes. She eats normally and expresses lucid, if often scathing, opinions about things. She flies around and plays board games with Mial and fingerpaints and sings and reads and accompanies her host family on trips to places that are not Aurin's house. (Aurin himself relaxes around her - though he is obedient to his mother's instructions about remaining human- or eagle-shaped - but Alys mostly doesn't, albeit with the utmost politeness.)
Between letters, Finnah relaxes. She eats normally and expresses lucid, if often scathing, opinions about things. She flies around and plays board games with Mial and fingerpaints and sings and reads and accompanies her host family on trips to places that are not Aurin's house. (Aurin himself relaxes around her - though he is obedient to his mother's instructions about remaining human- or eagle-shaped - but Alys mostly doesn't, albeit with the utmost politeness.)
Mial is pleased with Finnah's recovery! He is curious about her letters, but upon discerning that she does not want them read, immediately promises not to read them.
He is also pleased that Aurin is not being so weird about Finnah anymore.
He is also pleased that Aurin is not being so weird about Finnah anymore.
While most institutions that teach wizardry (at least, the tradition practiced by nonfey air-breathers) are principally geared towards adults or at least adolescents, there are a handful, including a newish one in Paraasilan called Binaaralav Academy, that will take kids as young as six-equivalent if they can pass the admissions tests.
Upon learning of this, Mial studies fiercely for the admissions tests.
He is sixty-two, and he passes on the first try.
He is sixty-two, and he passes on the first try.
Well then, he may register for classes this coming Rohel.
He does that. And also spends an entirely decorous* and proportionate** amount of time racing around the house cackling gleefully and hugging anyone who will hold still long enough.
*No.
**Also no.
*No.
**Also no.
Finnah will usually hold still long enough.
She has long stopped writing letters to her mother; she has nothing much to distract her from hugging a Mial who wants to be hugged.
She has long stopped writing letters to her mother; she has nothing much to distract her from hugging a Mial who wants to be hugged.
"I'm gonna learn wizardry! I'm gonna learn wizardry! I'm gonna learn wizardryyyy!"
"Wow, really, you hadn't said."
Mial giggles.
Hug.
"Isn't it a boarding school though?"
"Isn't it a boarding school though?"
"Yeah," he says, un-gleeing slightly. "Which will be weird. And I'll miss you and Mom and Dad. But I can still visit home! And I'm gonna learn wizardry!"
"Well, I hope you like it," says Finnah.
"It'll be great! I'm gonna learn wizardry!"
And, his capacity to stay still exhausted, he birds off at top speed to find someone else to hug and cackle at. He will get back to Finnah soon enough, never fear.
And, his capacity to stay still exhausted, he birds off at top speed to find someone else to hug and cackle at. He will get back to Finnah soon enough, never fear.
Finnah has no doubts on this subject.
Binaaralav's break ends, and Mial's first term starts. He is placed in a room with an elf boy of comparable equivalency, given his class schedule, taken on a tour with the other new students through the important classroom buildings and the cafeteria and the library and the light's office and the stairs and between-building glass-enclosed bridges connecting these locations, and presented with the option to sign up to be bitten by small vampires who are attending the school on a faculty-orchestrated rotation.
Binaaralav's break ends, and Mial's first term starts. He is placed in a room with an elf boy of comparable equivalency, given his class schedule, taken on a tour with the other new students through the important classroom buildings and the cafeteria and the library and the light's office and the stairs and between-building glass-enclosed bridges connecting these locations, and presented with the option to sign up to be bitten by small vampires who are attending the school on a faculty-orchestrated rotation.
Mial investigates the vampire thing.
When he discovers that it will make them live longer, he signs right up.
When he discovers that it will make them live longer, he signs right up.
And so before there have even been any classes yet he is visited by a small vampire who knocks nervously on the door and is let in by the elf roommate. The vampire looks at the elf's eyes and then concludes that Mial is probably who he's there to see. "Um, hi."
"Hi! I'm Mial," says Mial. "You're from the vampire signup thing, right?"
The vampire nods. "I'm Iire. So, um, I still have to ask, is it okay if I bite you?"
"Yeah!" says Mial.
So Mial gets bit. It doesn't feel like much of anything.
Which is weird, but he supposes it must be convenient for people who aren't shrens. He reads one of his class books.
Eventually Iire detaches. "Thank you," he says politely.
"You're welcome," says Mial cheerfully, looking up from his book.
And Iire goes away.
And the next day, classes start.
And the next day, classes start.
Mial is so enthusiastic about classes. He wants to learn all of the things.
Well, there are plenty of things to learn. And gestures to practice.
He learns the things and practices the gestures. He practices the gestures a lot. He is very impatient to learn how to wizard.
His roommate thinks he's kind of obsessive.
Mial concedes this point readily.
And eventually the term is over and he may attempt a tier test if he likes.
Of course he is going to attempt the tier test. He is going to aggressively attempt the tier test.
The tier test is pretty hard!
It is no match for Mial's single-minded focus.
The test is not actually designed to be passed by six-equivalents, since it is not designed by Binaaralav faculty and is the same thing adult students get; but that will not stop Mial from passing it if he gets enough questions right. Now he may take second-tier classes.
In Mial's opinion, he gets an unacceptable number of questions wrong - i.e., any.
He'll just have to study harder next term.
Second-tier classes, here he comes!
He'll just have to study harder next term.
Second-tier classes, here he comes!
Second-tier classes never knew what hit them.
While Mial is home on break from school after passing his sixth tier test, Finnah gets a letter from her mother that was not prompted by a letter from Finnah.
Finnah reads it.
And then storms down the stairs with it crushed in her hand, sobbing; drops it on the floor and pushes the door open, and stalks out all by herself into the yard.
While Mial is home on break from school after passing his sixth tier test, Finnah gets a letter from her mother that was not prompted by a letter from Finnah.
Finnah reads it.
And then storms down the stairs with it crushed in her hand, sobbing; drops it on the floor and pushes the door open, and stalks out all by herself into the yard.
Mial goes out after her.
She does not make any particular effort to be easy to catch up with, but she isn't running, so he can do it.
"Finnah? What happened?"
"AAAAAAUGH," she replies.
"...Do you want a hug?"
"NO."
"...Okay."
Well, that's most of his ideas out the window. And none of them turned into birds before they hit the ground.
Well, that's most of his ideas out the window. And none of them turned into birds before they hit the ground.
Growl growl stomp stomp.
Well, Mial is just going to... wait and see if either he has a brilliant idea for how to solve this problem or Finnah asks him for something.
And Finnah has apparently decided to walk in a straight line forever.
She's going to run off the property eventually if she does that. But not for a while.
She doesn't care, anyway. Walk walk walk.
Well, once she does run off the property, Mial had definitely better stick by her. Even though the only real hazard out here is being startled by a small lizard.
"What," says Finnah when he has been following her closely for a while.
"I dunno. What yourself," says Mial. "I don't want you to get lost or something while you're stomping into the middle of nowhere."
"I'm not going to get lost. I live here," she growls.
"Not if you keep walking until you hit the ocean. Then you won't be where you live anymore. You'll be in the ocean."
"I know how to swim."
"...Are you going to run away and live on the Taavlas Isles or something?" he wonders.
"I don't know."
"If you do can I still come visit you on school breaks?"
"ARGH!"
Mial isn't sure what to do with that.
Well, Finnah is doing stomping.
Then Mial will keep following her.
"Why are you following me? I'm not gonna get lost."
"I dunno," he says. "Do you want me to stop following you?"
"MAYBE."
...That's not a yes, so he doesn't.
"You can't help," she growls, after more stomping.
"I don't even know what the thing is that I can't help with, so sure I can't," he says.
"Got a letter."
"I saw."
"Did you read it?"
"Of course not!"
"My brother can shift now."
"...Oh," he says.
Stomp.
"Did... did your mom... ask you to come back?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
Stomp stomp stomp stomp.
Follow follow follow.
"Are you just going to keep following me forever?"
"If you don't tell me to go away."
"Well - well, don't you have anything else to say but oh, then, if you're gonna follow me?"
"What do you want me to do, teleport home for a pel-pwon board?"
"We can't play pel-pwon I am walking."
She is stomping.
She is stomping.
"So, I don't know what to do but I don't want to go away in case I think of something."
"Rrrrg."
"Sorry." After a moment, he adds, "I bet we could play pel-pwon while you were walking, if I carried all the everything. I'd probably drop some of it, though."
"I don't want to play pel-pwon."
"Okay."
"I'd miss you, if you went back."
"I'd miss you, if you went back."
Sniffle.
"I, I mean, do you want to...?"
"My mom said I h-had probably better not i-impose."
"Your mom is really dumb then!" exclaims Mial. "You're not imposing, we like you!"
Sniff.
"You've lived with us for twenty years. I like you, Mom likes you, Dad likes you! You can stay with us as long as you ever want, I promise!" he says fiercely.
"It's not up to you I'd have to ask your parents and what if they say no or want to know why I don't want to go home anymore -"
"They will say yes. I'd go and get Mom right now but she made me promise to only teleport when I'm really calm until I'm older! You just ask her, though! She'll say you can stay!"
"But what if she doesn't. Or if my mom tries to take me. Or something."
"I'd, I'd rescue you," Mial insists. "Somehow! I would! And Mom will too say you can stay. And she wouldn't let your mom take you if you didn't want."
"I don't even know why I don't want to go home anymore!"
"That doesn't mean you don't not want!" he says. "I don't know why I want to be a wizard so bad, but I'm not gonna let that stop me!"
"I used to want to go home really really bad though."
"But if you don't now, then now you can not."
"Your parents only thought they were taking me for twenty years."
"So? Ask Mom! Ask Dad!"
"What if they get tired of me in another twenty or thirty years and Mom doesn't want me any more and then I have nowhere to go but - but a house?"
"They will not get tired of you," Mial insists. "You're—you're—" He has a strong habit of speaking Leraal, because of his mom, but Leraal doesn't have the word he's looking for; he lapses into Draconic. "Family." A very specific kind of family. Not blood-related or formally adopted, but chosen, loved, kept.
Sniffle.
Mial nods firmly. "You are."
Finnah stops stomping and sighs and sits on the ground.
"Can I hug you now," says Mial.
"Yeah. Okay."
Hug.
Sniffle. Hug.
Hug hug hug.
"'re you calm enough to teleport or do we have to go all the way back."
He considers this question seriously for a few seconds, then says, "Yeah, I can," and gets up and holds her hand and teleports them home.
Finnah picks up her crumpled letter and looks at it and then drops it on the floor again.
Mial hugs her. "Do you want to go talk to Mom and Dad now? I think Mom's working but Dad's probably around here somewhere..."
Nod, nod.
Avar
on-my-word
Mial commences the search for Dad.
There he is!
"Dad you have to tell Finnah she's," he uses the Draconic word again, "family! Her mom wants her back but she doesn't wanna go but she thought you'd get tired of her but you won't, right, you can't, because it's Finnah!"
Avar puts down his book.
"That's a very good word for it," he says, "now that you put it like that." He regards Finnah with a serious expression. "You are absolutely welcome here, Finnah, for as long as you want to stay. I promise it. It's your home as much as it is Mial's."
There he is!
"Dad you have to tell Finnah she's," he uses the Draconic word again, "family! Her mom wants her back but she doesn't wanna go but she thought you'd get tired of her but you won't, right, you can't, because it's Finnah!"
Avar puts down his book.
"That's a very good word for it," he says, "now that you put it like that." He regards Finnah with a serious expression. "You are absolutely welcome here, Finnah, for as long as you want to stay. I promise it. It's your home as much as it is Mial's."
Finnah sniffs and gulps and hugs Avar's leg.
Avar
on-my-word
He leans down to hug back.
Hug.
"I don't wanna go back to her anymore."
"I don't wanna go back to her anymore."
Avar
on-my-word
"Then Koridaar and I will do our best to see that you don't have to," he says.
Nod, nod.
Avar
on-my-word
Hug, hug.
Now she's crying again. On Avar.
Avar
on-my-word
He will just continue hugging her, then. It seems like the appropriate response.
Yep.
Snuggle.
Snuggle.
Avar
on-my-word
Snuggle.
Eventually: "Do you want to write your mother back, or do you want Koridaar to talk to her for you?"
Eventually: "Do you want to write your mother back, or do you want Koridaar to talk to her for you?"
"I don't want to ever ever talk to her ever again at all ever."
Avar
on-my-word
"All right." Hug.
Hug. Sniff.
Avar
on-my-word
Hug, hug.
Finnah has nothing else to say on this subject for now.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar is informed of circumstances.
She writes to Colla.
Finnah declines your invitation. She would rather stay with us.
She writes to Colla.
Finnah declines your invitation. She would rather stay with us.
There is a delay, and a letter from Colla to Finnah.
Finnah discards it unread.
There is a further delay, and a letter from Colla to Koridaar.
There's no longer any reason for her to be away from home. Xaran can shift now and the plan was always that when that happened she would come home. Surely you can explain it to her if she doesn't understand it from my letters?
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She understands perfectly well. She disagrees with your plan.
She's not even seventy. Please send my daughter home.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She made her choice, very emphatically I might add, and I am inclined to support her in it. I understand that sending her here was the best decision you felt you could make out of a set of very bad options, but that decision had consequences, and this is one of them. I will not force her to return to you when she does not want to go.
Finnah gets more letters.
She throws them away, unopened, jaw clenched.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
She is well within her rights to do so.
And school starts up again at Binaaralav.
Mial goes back.
He's a little distracted for the first couple of days, missing Finnah more than he used to, but then he settles back into his routine. He is going to get through his remaining tier tests in the minimum possible time. He is going to be a wizard.
He's a little distracted for the first couple of days, missing Finnah more than he used to, but then he settles back into his routine. He is going to get through his remaining tier tests in the minimum possible time. He is going to be a wizard.
The tests continue not to be designed for him. This continues not to matter. After he has been in school for a total of three years and two months, he is a wizard.
Darn right he is.
When he goes home, he announces that they should have a party to celebrate. So they do. Aurin is invited. There is cake.
When he goes home, he announces that they should have a party to celebrate. So they do. Aurin is invited. There is cake.
Aurin likes cake! Aurin likes cake very much indeed.
Finnah does too.
Finnah does too.
And the cake is great cake, because Mial is a wizard and this is an important occasion which deserves the best of celebratory cake.
He hugs everyone a lot and eats more cake than may be strictly advisable and enthusiastically plays board games.
He hugs everyone a lot and eats more cake than may be strictly advisable and enthusiastically plays board games.
Aurin wants to know if now Mial is supposed to get a job or something, since that is what wizards do, it being a job qualification among other things. This seems to concern him. Mial seems awfully young to have to go find a job.
"I don't want a job," says Mial. "Except I'm gonna help Mom with hers! She says I can test her new spells before she publishes them." He is immensely proud.
And now Mial is not so busy, so if he would like to, he can come visit Aurin's school and see what it is like, if that falls under the category of "places that exist and therefore must be gone to". Aurin has been going to half-years of school for a couple of years (humans in Corenta start when they are six, but Aurin was allowed to start late and skip into the same form as the nine-equivalents on the grounds that he is a dragon and a) would have wasted more time than the government is prepared to demand, repeating introductory forms over and over, b) did not need to be taught to read, or about the basics of recent local history that he lived through, or do other basic things like count and name colors that may slip under the radar for six years but not for sixty). There is a visitor's day coming up.
Mial will absolutely come visit Aurin's school! It qualifies as a place.
So on visitor's day Mial may follow Aurin around and look at large quantities of Aurin's classmates milling around with their own visitors, and at displays of student art and projects (Aurin has won third place in the plaster sculptures contest and was one of fifteen displayed essays on Our City).
Aurin goes to an expensive private school that Alys chose principally for its educational virtues but which also teaches bilingually in Vansalese and Ertydon as a partial immersion language program in whichever direction. Accordingly, a number of Ertydoan, Linnipese, and Gibryelan immigrants have kids there.
While Aurin is in the bathroom -
This family of redheads looks lost and is trying to extract directions from one of the math teachers who doesn't speak any Ertydon beyond "hello" and similar.
Aurin goes to an expensive private school that Alys chose principally for its educational virtues but which also teaches bilingually in Vansalese and Ertydon as a partial immersion language program in whichever direction. Accordingly, a number of Ertydoan, Linnipese, and Gibryelan immigrants have kids there.
While Aurin is in the bathroom -
This family of redheads looks lost and is trying to extract directions from one of the math teachers who doesn't speak any Ertydon beyond "hello" and similar.
Mial trots over to them.
"Are you lost?" he asks in Ertydon. "What are you looking for?"
"Are you lost?" he asks in Ertydon. "What are you looking for?"
"We're looking for the auditorium," says the mom.
"Your accent is very good," compliments the dad. "Did you learn that here?"
"Your accent is very good," compliments the dad. "Did you learn that here?"
"No, I don't go here," he says. "I live in Esmaar; I'm visiting my cousin. I know where the auditorium is, though! I can show you!"
"Oh, he's a dragon," murmurs the dad.
"Yes, thank you, please do," the mom tells the supposed dragon.
"Yes, thank you, please do," the mom tells the supposed dragon.
"Just a sec, then."
He turns to the math teacher and explains in Vansalese, "They wanted directions to the auditorium, but I know where that is, so they're fine now!"
Then he turns back to the lost family. "It's this way," he says cheerfully. "And I'm not a dragon, actually, I'm a shren. Close enough, though."
He turns to the math teacher and explains in Vansalese, "They wanted directions to the auditorium, but I know where that is, so they're fine now!"
Then he turns back to the lost family. "It's this way," he says cheerfully. "And I'm not a dragon, actually, I'm a shren. Close enough, though."
"A what?" asks the mom.
"A shren! We're sort of... dragonish," he explains. "Sometimes a dragon lays a striped egg and when the baby hatches their wings don't work in their natural form, and that's a shren. And we're very very contagious in natural form, that's how I'm a shren, one hatched in a park near my house when I was a baby dragon that couldn't shift yet."
He finishes this explanation just as Aurin emerges from the bathroom and catches up with him. "Mial, there you are, where are you going?"
"Is this your cousin?" asks Mom Redhead. "Is he a shren too?"
Aurin is not very successful in decorously containing his reaction to this suggestion. "No!"
"Is this your cousin?" asks Mom Redhead. "Is he a shren too?"
Aurin is not very successful in decorously containing his reaction to this suggestion. "No!"
"No, he's a dragon," says Mial. "Hi, Aurin! These people are lost and don't speak Vansalese so I'm showing them where the auditorium is! And they thought I was a dragon and they didn't know what a shren was so I told them."
Aurin finds something deeply incorrect about this situation but can't articulate it.
"Have we upset you?" wonders Dad Redhead to Aurin.
"You don't just - you don't ask dragons if they're shrens," mutters Aurin.
"Have we upset you?" wonders Dad Redhead to Aurin.
"You don't just - you don't ask dragons if they're shrens," mutters Aurin.
"It is kind of rude," Mial contributes. "I'm sorry, I would've warned you if I'd thought of it. But I am a shren and it doesn't bother me much so sometimes I forget."
"Around some dragons you don't even mention shrens but I'm used to Mial," adds Aurin.
"Don't even mention -? I'm confused," says Mom Redhead.
"Don't even mention -? I'm confused," says Mom Redhead.
"Dragons have weird feelings about shrens," says Mial. "It's kind of hard to explain. But some dragons just get really upset about us."
Aurin doesn't have any clarifications to add to that, although he doesn't look like it fully represents him in all particulars.
"Anyway, here's the auditorium," he tells the redheaded couple.
"Thank you," says Redhead Dad.
"Anyway, here's the auditorium," he tells the redheaded couple.
"Thank you," says Redhead Dad.
"Bye!" says Mial to the no-longer-lost people.
Then he turns to Aurin.
"If I ask you what that face was about are you not going to know what I mean?"
Then he turns to Aurin.
"If I ask you what that face was about are you not going to know what I mean?"
"No?"
"When I said they thought I was a dragon and they didn't know what a shren was, you looked really confused or something."
Aurin squirms. "I dunno. I guess not everybody knows what shrens are? I don't think there are very many dragons in Linnip."
"Yeah. And they only guessed I was a dragon because I was speaking Ertydon and then told them I live in Esmaar, so they didn't really have any way to know I was a shren in particular anyway."
"Yeah." Shrug.
Shrug.
"The school has a swimming pool, do you want to see?"
He beams. "Yeah!"
So Aurin shows him the swimming pool, and other features of the school.
It's pretty great. And the swimming pool rekindles Mial's interest in something he's thought about but never gotten around to: properly choosing more forms than just human and merlin.
He wants to be methodical about this. Even as a blue-group, he only gets ten slots - he has no idea how he could possibly get by with just five. There are so many things to be, and he hasn't even heard of most of them yet!
When he gets home from Aurin's school, he begins a systematic research project that lasts him the next three and a half years.
He knows that he wants a swimming form (that's what got him started in the first place), but doesn't anticipate needing to breathe water, nor especially want to visit the oceans a lot, so he doesn't just go for merfolk and have done with it. After some back-and-forth on the subject of cephalopods - a month of it, to be exact, during which time anyone who talks to him hears about how exciting it would probably be to have tentacles - he tentatively writes down his favourite variety of river otter and moves on to the harder problem: climbing forms.
There are lots and lots of different climbing goats in the world. Many of them have cool-looking horns. Different species have been studied to different extents. But Mial has trouble envisioning such a goat climbing, say, a bookcase. He turns to other kinds of animal. Squirrels are neat, but a Mial-squirrel would be practically bite-sized; he'd rather go for something a little bigger. A cat, say. Even a cat would be fairly teeny, though... maybe a big sort of cat. Biggish. More than a pet but less than a lion.
Oddly enough, it's during a return to the subject of goats that he finds it: a species of snow leopard that preys on the goats and ibexes of the Rimarel Mountains on the continent of Nanela, and has developed astonishing balance and agility for this purpose. Their average size falls comfortably within a range that - he makes his mother calculate it, and then explain how she calculated it so he can check her work - would make a Mial-sized version come out just a bit bigger than an ordinary domestic cat. They are wonderfully fluffy. He'll be warm a lot when he uses it, living in a desert - but he'll have a form that will stay cozy when he visits cold places. He writes that down too, and selects a goat from among the prey species after several more months of deliberation. (They are mostly a lot like each other, and he wants to know which one is best, and it's hard.)
The next item on the agenda is to survey the non-climbing non-swimming animal species of Elcenia and see if there are any he desperately wants to try. But although he covers pages and pages with the names of species he thinks are interesting - bats and badgers, snakes and stoats - none of them, in the end, are interesting enough. He wants one thing that swims and two things that climb. It would be fun to slither or echolocate, but not fun enough to be worth using up another form slot out of his limited supply. Not yet.
He spends another month after that fretting about his choices, including wavering several times about whether or not he wants to pick a hybrid form for one of the three - it feels almost like a waste not to use this option, open to him but closed to any dragonish from a different colour group. Ultimately he sticks to single species, though: their characteristics are much more predictable. He'll have forms left over to experiment with, when he's older and has been using these ones for a while and wants something new.
And then, about two months shy of his seventieth birthday, he finally learns the three new forms. Immediately he begins spending most of his time as one of the climbers. Goat-Mial can climb the side of the house straight up to the roof with no trouble; feline-Mial prowls the tops of bookshelves and pounces fluffily upon his unsuspecting parents. And then upon his very suspecting parents, once they have developed a habit of checking all the tall furniture for evidence of fluff whenever they enter a room.
He wants to be methodical about this. Even as a blue-group, he only gets ten slots - he has no idea how he could possibly get by with just five. There are so many things to be, and he hasn't even heard of most of them yet!
When he gets home from Aurin's school, he begins a systematic research project that lasts him the next three and a half years.
He knows that he wants a swimming form (that's what got him started in the first place), but doesn't anticipate needing to breathe water, nor especially want to visit the oceans a lot, so he doesn't just go for merfolk and have done with it. After some back-and-forth on the subject of cephalopods - a month of it, to be exact, during which time anyone who talks to him hears about how exciting it would probably be to have tentacles - he tentatively writes down his favourite variety of river otter and moves on to the harder problem: climbing forms.
There are lots and lots of different climbing goats in the world. Many of them have cool-looking horns. Different species have been studied to different extents. But Mial has trouble envisioning such a goat climbing, say, a bookcase. He turns to other kinds of animal. Squirrels are neat, but a Mial-squirrel would be practically bite-sized; he'd rather go for something a little bigger. A cat, say. Even a cat would be fairly teeny, though... maybe a big sort of cat. Biggish. More than a pet but less than a lion.
Oddly enough, it's during a return to the subject of goats that he finds it: a species of snow leopard that preys on the goats and ibexes of the Rimarel Mountains on the continent of Nanela, and has developed astonishing balance and agility for this purpose. Their average size falls comfortably within a range that - he makes his mother calculate it, and then explain how she calculated it so he can check her work - would make a Mial-sized version come out just a bit bigger than an ordinary domestic cat. They are wonderfully fluffy. He'll be warm a lot when he uses it, living in a desert - but he'll have a form that will stay cozy when he visits cold places. He writes that down too, and selects a goat from among the prey species after several more months of deliberation. (They are mostly a lot like each other, and he wants to know which one is best, and it's hard.)
The next item on the agenda is to survey the non-climbing non-swimming animal species of Elcenia and see if there are any he desperately wants to try. But although he covers pages and pages with the names of species he thinks are interesting - bats and badgers, snakes and stoats - none of them, in the end, are interesting enough. He wants one thing that swims and two things that climb. It would be fun to slither or echolocate, but not fun enough to be worth using up another form slot out of his limited supply. Not yet.
He spends another month after that fretting about his choices, including wavering several times about whether or not he wants to pick a hybrid form for one of the three - it feels almost like a waste not to use this option, open to him but closed to any dragonish from a different colour group. Ultimately he sticks to single species, though: their characteristics are much more predictable. He'll have forms left over to experiment with, when he's older and has been using these ones for a while and wants something new.
And then, about two months shy of his seventieth birthday, he finally learns the three new forms. Immediately he begins spending most of his time as one of the climbers. Goat-Mial can climb the side of the house straight up to the roof with no trouble; feline-Mial prowls the tops of bookshelves and pounces fluffily upon his unsuspecting parents. And then upon his very suspecting parents, once they have developed a habit of checking all the tall furniture for evidence of fluff whenever they enter a room.
Finnah is slightly bemused by how much time and effort he's putting into this. She says that if she were going to turn into something else she would be a hyena of some kind, but evinces no hurry about it.
"I can only be ten things out of all the things there are to be and it is not enough," he explains. "So I have to pick the best things I possibly can, because I can't be all the things like I really want."
"Are you going to use up all your forms? What if you suddenly need to be some eleventh thing?" asks Finnah.
"No, I'm only going up to five and then I'm not picking anything else before I'm two hundred unless I absolutely need to," he says. "Like if we moved to a merfolk nation or something. Which we wouldn't do because Mom can't breathe water. But if we did."
"I don't think I'd like to live under the water," says Finnah.
"Me neither probably. It'd be weird. I like air better."
"Also to shift at all way underwater you'd need at least two water forms."
"Yeah. I'd probably pick merfolk and octopus," he says. "But I'm not gonna unless I actually have to live in the ocean."
"You'd probably be a very irritating octopus," predicts Finnah serenely.
Mial giggles. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I bet you'd stick to people. You're really huggy."
"Maaaaybe. I dunno, some forms aren't that good for hugging," he says. "Human's best of the ones I have. Octopus does have lots and lots of arms, though..."
"Sticky suckery arms."
"But lots of them." He giggles again.
Finnah giggles too.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial is somewhat between projects after he settles on his three new forms. The pouncing game keeps him occupied for a little while, and he's always interested in helping his mother test her spells, but as time goes on and Mial continues to lack a focus for all his energy, the household's frazzlement level gradually rises.
Koridaar's first solution, since he was so enthusiastic about wizardry, is to turn him loose on her collection of spellbooks, theoretical texts, and old research notes. While he's busy with those, she finally finds a scoot whose promised safety parameters meet her standards and whose price falls within her modest budget. She buys it; it's convenient to have for trips to medium-distant places she hasn't already been, and after all, everyone else in her family can fly.
Mial, predictably, is fascinated by the scoot. He climbs all over it in human, feline, and goat forms the day she brings it home. It is shiny and blue and he wants to know everything about it. How fast does it go? How high? Can he see both these attributes demonstrated? How do you make it go? Can he make it go?
Once he allows his mother to get a word in edgewise, she explains that it goes both fast and high, that she is not planning to take it out again until she has analyzed it to her satisfaction, that it has controls in the front seat which she knows how to use, and that she will teach him how to use them too if he promises to be very, very, very careful. Very. Very, Mial.
He eyes the scoot with a mixture of suspicion and longing.
Koridaar's first solution, since he was so enthusiastic about wizardry, is to turn him loose on her collection of spellbooks, theoretical texts, and old research notes. While he's busy with those, she finally finds a scoot whose promised safety parameters meet her standards and whose price falls within her modest budget. She buys it; it's convenient to have for trips to medium-distant places she hasn't already been, and after all, everyone else in her family can fly.
Mial, predictably, is fascinated by the scoot. He climbs all over it in human, feline, and goat forms the day she brings it home. It is shiny and blue and he wants to know everything about it. How fast does it go? How high? Can he see both these attributes demonstrated? How do you make it go? Can he make it go?
Once he allows his mother to get a word in edgewise, she explains that it goes both fast and high, that she is not planning to take it out again until she has analyzed it to her satisfaction, that it has controls in the front seat which she knows how to use, and that she will teach him how to use them too if he promises to be very, very, very careful. Very. Very, Mial.
He eyes the scoot with a mixture of suspicion and longing.
Finnah is not especially interested in the scoot. She doesn't see much point except the obviously practical to flying while shut up in a capsule.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial cannot quite articulate his feelings about scoots, beyond insisting that it is shiny and he likes it.
It takes him a week, and three flights with Mom at the controls, before he finally acquiesces to her condition and swears to be very careful with the scoot. In order to limit the temptation to bend this promise - they take promises seriously in Mial's line, but the scoot is very shiny and goes very fast - she extracts a secondary promise that he will not take it out by himself, even after he knows how, until both of his parents are satisfied with his ability to handle it and his understanding of its safety mechanisms.
She told herself she wouldn't, but Koridaar finds herself writing up a detailed list of suggested improvements to those. There are so many things that can go wrong when you are zooming along at high speed in a bespelled contraption, and now that she actually has the thing in her possession, she can see that it is not really adequately protected against all of them. She sends the letter to the manufacturer not expecting much to come of it; they're probably just going to find it obnoxious.
In order to lower that risk, she declines to mention the significant role her seven-equivalent son played in thinking up some of the more obscure ideas. As he has already proved while helping with her research, Mial has a twisty little mind that thrives on the challenge of figuring out how to break the unbreakable.
He complains loudly that having to be very very careful ruins the fun, but he is impeccably conscientious in his actual handling of the vehicle. And deeply, deeply enthusiastic about his scoot-flying lessons. Clearly not all of the fun has been ruined.
It takes him a week, and three flights with Mom at the controls, before he finally acquiesces to her condition and swears to be very careful with the scoot. In order to limit the temptation to bend this promise - they take promises seriously in Mial's line, but the scoot is very shiny and goes very fast - she extracts a secondary promise that he will not take it out by himself, even after he knows how, until both of his parents are satisfied with his ability to handle it and his understanding of its safety mechanisms.
She told herself she wouldn't, but Koridaar finds herself writing up a detailed list of suggested improvements to those. There are so many things that can go wrong when you are zooming along at high speed in a bespelled contraption, and now that she actually has the thing in her possession, she can see that it is not really adequately protected against all of them. She sends the letter to the manufacturer not expecting much to come of it; they're probably just going to find it obnoxious.
In order to lower that risk, she declines to mention the significant role her seven-equivalent son played in thinking up some of the more obscure ideas. As he has already proved while helping with her research, Mial has a twisty little mind that thrives on the challenge of figuring out how to break the unbreakable.
He complains loudly that having to be very very careful ruins the fun, but he is impeccably conscientious in his actual handling of the vehicle. And deeply, deeply enthusiastic about his scoot-flying lessons. Clearly not all of the fun has been ruined.
Aurin decides that he too wants to learn to fly the scoot.
Alys asks Koridaar what she thinks of this idea.
Alys asks Koridaar what she thinks of this idea.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar... expresses some reservations, but says that she is willing to give Aurin some scoot lessons if Aurin agrees to take them very seriously and Alys agrees that he is allowed.
Alys tells Aurin that he may have one lesson, and then she'll make an updated decision based on how he handles that.
Aurin is on his very best behavior.
Aurin is on his very best behavior.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar teaches him some basic things about how to make a scoot go.
(Mial sits in. He nobly refrains from heckling. He can heckle later, when Aurin has learned how to fly the scoot.)
(Mial sits in. He nobly refrains from heckling. He can heckle later, when Aurin has learned how to fly the scoot.)
Alys continues to allow Aurin lessons. Aurin continues to be on his very best behavior.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Then Aurin continues to learn how to scoot.
It's not unusual for Mial's mood to take a downswing and stay that way for a few days until he bounces back to normal.
It is a little unusual for those few days to stretch out into a week. Then two. Then three.
One day Finnah knocks on his door.
"Yeah?" he says listlessly.
"Open up!"
"'kay."
He shuffles over and opens the door.
He shuffles over and opens the door.
"What's got into you lately?" demands Finnah, hands on hips.
"I dunno," he yawns. "I'm just... tired." And this is Finnah, so he adds, "And sad for no reason."
"Well - can you stop?"
"Dunno," he says. "If I could, I would, wouldn't I?" He does not sound sure of this.
"Would you?" wonders Finnah. "Or would you keep being sad for no reason in case it was eventually interesting?"
"It's not very interesting so far," he says. "Nothing's very interesting right now. I don't even care that much about Mom's scoot." Sigh.
"Even though it's shiny and fast?" Finnah clarifies.
"Even though!" he exclaims sadly.
"Wow, that's pretty bad. What about people, are people interesting? Is being a goat interesting? Is candy interesting?"
(Finnah thinks candy is very interesting.)
(Finnah thinks candy is very interesting.)
Mial turns into a goat, and stays that way a moment, and shakes his head, and turns into a human again.
"I could try some candy and see if it's fun I guess."
"I could try some candy and see if it's fun I guess."
"My friend from flag dance gave me raspberry caramels for last Lufelsis and I still have some. You can have one," says Finnah magnanimously.
"Thanks," he says. He even smiles a little bit.
Finnah gets him a caramel and watches him expectantly.
Mial nibbles the caramel.
"It's tasty," he says.
"It's tasty," he says.
"But are you still sad for no reason?"
"Yeah," he sighs. "But I'm sad for no reason with candy and I think that's better than sad for no reason with no candy."
"That was not the point, though," says Finnah.
"Yeah."
He finishes the candy.
"Thanks anyway."
He finishes the candy.
"Thanks anyway."
"What else should we try?"
"I dunno."
If Aurin were here he might throw Mial out a window, but Mial is not going to suggest that.
If Aurin were here he might throw Mial out a window, but Mial is not going to suggest that.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to Finnah, although she does say, "Have you flown?"
He hesitates, then shakes his head.
"You could try it." She turns into a cardinal illustratively.
He gazes at cardinal-Finnah.
"It's so much work though," he sighs.
"It's so much work though," he sighs.
She turns into a human so as to eloquently look more skeptically at him.
"Really?"
"Really?"
"I don't really feel like moving."
"Uh, yeah, that happens when you don't fly, dummy."
"It was happened even before and that's why I didn't and now it's even more happened."
"Well, you can make it less happened."
"Yeah, but," he makes a slow vague gesture intended to indicate his general apathy towards this notion.
"Mial the thing is making you be boring you can't want to be boring you're Mial."
...he grins a little at that.
"You're a wizard," she adds. "Is there a spell about being sad for no reason?"
"I don't think so! I haven't heard about one."
"Well, did you ask Koridaar?"
"No..." He eyes the door to his room, as though trudging out to look for his mother is a daunting task.
"Are you going to?"
"I should. I guess. I kind of wanna have a nap instead."
"Mial."
"I know," he says, "but it's so hard to do things."
"Do I have to ask her for you? After I gave you a caramel? Do I have to do everything?"
"I'm sorry," Mial says sadly. "...I'll have a nap and then I'll go ask her?"
"You'd better do it actually."
"I will. Probably."
"Actually. You can do it right now or you can promise."
"...I promise," he says reluctantly.
"Okay. Have a good nap," says Finnah, and she leaves him be.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial has a nap.
Then, because he promised, he drags himself out of bed and lumps around the house until he locates his mother.
"What is it, love?"
"I'm sad for no reason, is there a spell or something that'll make me not?"
"I don't know of any spell that will do a thing like that," she says, scooping him up and kissing his forehead.
"Okay," he sighs. "Thanks." And he flomps his head on her shoulder.
Then, because he promised, he drags himself out of bed and lumps around the house until he locates his mother.
"What is it, love?"
"I'm sad for no reason, is there a spell or something that'll make me not?"
"I don't know of any spell that will do a thing like that," she says, scooping him up and kissing his forehead.
"Okay," he sighs. "Thanks." And he flomps his head on her shoulder.
Finnah checks up on him, after dinner, asking Koridaar:
"Did Mial ask you about his being sad for no reason?"
"Did Mial ask you about his being sad for no reason?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Yes," she says. "As far as I know, there are no spells to solve that problem."
"Are there other things? I also tried caramel."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I'll look into it."
Finnah nods solemnly.
"It makes him boring."
"It makes him boring."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar smiles slightly. "That's true."
"He isn't supposed to be boring."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"That is also true."
"Fix it."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"I'll do my best."
Finnah nods and goes about her business.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Mial lumps around the house.
But a few days later, of his own accord, he birds and flies in a little circle. Then he goes and finds his mom and asks her to find him something to do, anything, as long as it's something he hasn't tried yet. She thinks about this request for an angle or two and then comes back to him with a book on paper folding, which he digs into with rapidly accelerating glee. By the end of the week, he's bouncing around like nothing ever happened, and when he finishes learning all the different figures in the book he asks his mom for more.
But a few days later, of his own accord, he birds and flies in a little circle. Then he goes and finds his mom and asks her to find him something to do, anything, as long as it's something he hasn't tried yet. She thinks about this request for an angle or two and then comes back to him with a book on paper folding, which he digs into with rapidly accelerating glee. By the end of the week, he's bouncing around like nothing ever happened, and when he finishes learning all the different figures in the book he asks his mom for more.
Finnah is very relieved that he is being Mial instead of boring.
Mial is kind of relieved too, but when he's not being a lump of Mial it's hard for him to remember what it was like.
The paper-folding hobby, unlike many of the other activities he has tried during his childhood, sticks. It provides an outlet for some of his irrepressible energy. Not all his energy, but some.
The paper-folding hobby, unlike many of the other activities he has tried during his childhood, sticks. It provides an outlet for some of his irrepressible energy. Not all his energy, but some.
Finnah, meanwhile, is busy doing flag dancing and playing an elaborate game with collectible tokens and trying to make fudge that doesn't burn or otherwise fail at being fudge.
Mial will happily test her fudge efforts, and offer critique on request. Or sometimes without request, if a batch turns out particularly badly.
Finnah doesn't take criticism very well.
He recalibrates pretty quickly to be increasingly diplomatic about it, but will still make faces at sufficiently bad fudge.
Well, then, he no longer gets tastes. So there.
Well, that just won't stand.
He thinks over the problem for a while. If he stopped making faces then she might let him try her fudge again. But it is very hard not to make faces at really bad fudge, and sometimes it's not obviously burned so he doesn't know not to try it until it is too late.
Mial starts making fudge. He has less fudge-making experience than Finnah, so it doesn't turn out nearly as well. Which is exactly the point. He needs to practice not making faces when he tries a spectacular candy failure. (Finnah is welcome to have as much as she likes, and he will warn her away from the really awful ones.)
He thinks over the problem for a while. If he stopped making faces then she might let him try her fudge again. But it is very hard not to make faces at really bad fudge, and sometimes it's not obviously burned so he doesn't know not to try it until it is too late.
Mial starts making fudge. He has less fudge-making experience than Finnah, so it doesn't turn out nearly as well. Which is exactly the point. He needs to practice not making faces when he tries a spectacular candy failure. (Finnah is welcome to have as much as she likes, and he will warn her away from the really awful ones.)
While he is working on this, Finnah perfects her basic fudge recipe, gives all her friends except Mial packages of it for Lufelsis, and starts working on branching out into different flavors.
Pretty soon, Mial can make decent fudge and is acceptably confident in his ability to conceal reactions to bad candy.
He goes to Finnah and apologizes for making faces at her candy and promises not to do it again. And gives her all his latest batch of decent fudge except the little bit he tried for quality control purposes.
He goes to Finnah and apologizes for making faces at her candy and promises not to do it again. And gives her all his latest batch of decent fudge except the little bit he tried for quality control purposes.
Finnah tastes his fudge and tells him that he didn't use enough vanilla and gives him a slice of her attempt at peppermint.
Mial sincerely and enthusiastically compliments the peppermint.
Good. Finnah is smug.
When Finnah has learned to make a lot of different flavors of fudge, she moves on to penly.
When Finnah has learned to make a lot of different flavors of fudge, she moves on to penly.
Mial, on the other hand, totally abandons candy-making. He has gotten what he wanted out of it, and he really doesn't want to start making it a competition between him and Finnah. Which tends to happen when he gets really interested in things. So he's just gonna quit while he's ahead.
Flying his mom's scoot and learning ever more intricate paper-folding figures are mostly enough to keep him occupied for the next little while anyway. Mostly.
Flying his mom's scoot and learning ever more intricate paper-folding figures are mostly enough to keep him occupied for the next little while anyway. Mostly.
Finnah keeps up with the candy-making thing. She is very diligent about it.
Mial tries all of her candy and compliments it when it is good and makes diplomatic suggestions when it is not good and does not make any faces at it. And he flies the scoot and folds paper and climbs many things.
It is about this time that the city of Paraasilan - not particularly near his home, but quite near his old school - is developing a reputation as a big theater town. For example, there is a production of Saanen Afternoon, which is a musical starring a gaggle of children who originate from a variety of different backgrounds and family situations but come together to produce a newspaper. There are songs about various backstory traits and the newspaper project. The kid with the most screentime is a brunette Eastern elf in her late twenties, playing an Avehali immigrant; she gets all of one song and a third of two others and can sing and act really well.
After the show is over the actors may be visited and asked for autographs 'round back.
Mial has been to a few plays, but this is the first one he's liked this much. Acting, it turns out, is really cool.
He marches right back to compliment the elf's performance and ask for her autograph. She was the best one and someone should tell her so.
He marches right back to compliment the elf's performance and ask for her autograph. She was the best one and someone should tell her so.
No elves here! (Well, some elves, but Western ones.)
Turns out with her wig off her hair's awfully sparkly.
Turns out with her wig off her hair's awfully sparkly.
...well, it's not like Mial has a problem with dragons. It's not like he even knows for sure she is a dragon. She's pretty clearly dragonish, but that doesn't matter to his agenda here, does it? No it does not.
"Hi!" he says, in Leraal as is his habit. "You were the best one in the play! Can I have your autograph?"
"Hi!" he says, in Leraal as is his habit. "You were the best one in the play! Can I have your autograph?"
"Of course!" she says with a beaming smile.
Kimmetleuly she writes for him. Four Draconic characters and a Leraal approximation.
"But now you know my name and I don't know yours!"
Kimmetleuly she writes for him. Four Draconic characters and a Leraal approximation.
"But now you know my name and I don't know yours!"
"Your name's pretty," he says. "I'm Mial!"
It doesn't quite occur to him that his name does not match the language he is speaking. It's just his name. His mother doesn't have trouble pronouncing it or anything.
It doesn't quite occur to him that his name does not match the language he is speaking. It's just his name. His mother doesn't have trouble pronouncing it or anything.
"Are you an immigrant like my character?" wonders Kimmet. "Your Leraal's perfect."
...Oh. Darn.
He shakes his head. It is technically true that he moved to Esmaar as a baby, but he moved from Imilaat, which speaks the same language. The reason he has a name like Mial and speaks perfect Leraal is that he is dragonish.
His sudden hesitation, and the half-conscious lowering of his silver eyes, probably looks a lot like an outbreak of shyness.
He shakes his head. It is technically true that he moved to Esmaar as a baby, but he moved from Imilaat, which speaks the same language. The reason he has a name like Mial and speaks perfect Leraal is that he is dragonish.
His sudden hesitation, and the half-conscious lowering of his silver eyes, probably looks a lot like an outbreak of shyness.
(Kimmet signs somebody else an autograph and smiles at them and accepts a compliment on her touch of Avehali accent that she put on for the play.)
This helps jar him out of it a little. What is he, ashamed? Scared?
"Thanks for the autograph," he says firmly, raising his eyes again and giving her a big smile. "You're really cool!"
Not going to turn and bolt back to his mom. Not going to turn and bolt back to his mom. Not going to turn and bolt back to his mom. He is not scared of her just because she's probably a dragon.
"Thanks for the autograph," he says firmly, raising his eyes again and giving her a big smile. "You're really cool!"
Not going to turn and bolt back to his mom. Not going to turn and bolt back to his mom. Not going to turn and bolt back to his mom. He is not scared of her just because she's probably a dragon.
"Thanks!" says Kimmet. "I'm only here for a few more weeks and then my family's going back to Rannde so it was really lucky there was a play I could fit into our trip."
"Oh, Rannde's nice!" he says. "Have you been to that park with rides that go right over the side of the world? What's it called - 'Edge Park', that's it!"
...oh, oh no, he was doing so well, why did he have to go and give the name of the park in fluent Munine like an idiot shren.
...oh, oh no, he was doing so well, why did he have to go and give the name of the park in fluent Munine like an idiot shren.
Kimmet tilts her head. "I've never gone, no - are you a dragon? Oh! Of course you are, I didn't get a good look at your eyes before."
"I'm a shren," he says. His voice only wobbles a little bit, but his smile is gone, gone, gone.
Kimmet shrieks and backs up against the theater wall. Heads turn. Everyone's looking at Mial; the director, who's been supervising the audience interactions of the child actors, starts towards them.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar starts towards them too.
Mial is caught in a storm of conflicting urges - to yell at Kimmet, to cry, to rip up her autograph and throw it on the ground, to turn and run back to his mama. Instead of any of those he just squeezes his eyes shut and hunches his shoulders and clenches his tiny fists.
Mial is caught in a storm of conflicting urges - to yell at Kimmet, to cry, to rip up her autograph and throw it on the ground, to turn and run back to his mama. Instead of any of those he just squeezes his eyes shut and hunches his shoulders and clenches his tiny fists.
"Kimmet, is this kid bothering you?" the director asks.
"He - he -" she stammers. "He's -"
"Look, being allowed to talk to the actors is a privilege, Aaran," says the director to Mial, "you can't disturb them. Get out of here."
"He - he -" she stammers. "He's -"
"Look, being allowed to talk to the actors is a privilege, Aaran," says the director to Mial, "you can't disturb them. Get out of here."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar thinks of scooping up her son, and then thinks better of it. She crouches down and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want to go home, Mial?" she murmurs.
"I—I just," he sobs, and then draws a deeper breath and yells, "I JUST SAID I WAS A SHREN IS ALL, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING," and clings to his mother and bursts into tears.
She picks him up and teleports home.
"I—I just," he sobs, and then draws a deeper breath and yells, "I JUST SAID I WAS A SHREN IS ALL, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING," and clings to his mother and bursts into tears.
She picks him up and teleports home.
Finnah had a flag dance related conflict with the first act of the play, but she's home now, at the kitchen table poking a lump of clay.
She looks up when Mial and Koridaar come home.
"What happened?"
She looks up when Mial and Koridaar come home.
"What happened?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Mial went to ask one of the actors for her autograph," says Koridaar, hugging her scooped-up Mial, "and she turned out to be a dragon, and when he said he was a shren she screamed and the director told us to leave."
Mial is crying too hard to add anything to this.
Mial is crying too hard to add anything to this.
"Oh," says Finnah, brow furrowed. Mial is already being hugged, but she can turn into a cardinal and land on him and give him beaky nuzzles.
Mial sniffles. It is probably safe to assume he appreciates his supply of beaky nuzzles even if he cannot say so at the moment.
That's generally a pretty safe assumption with Mial, yep.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Koridaar goes and sits on the couch, and Mial cries on her. For quite a while.
Finnah's patience for this activity is not infinite, but she goes and brings him some of her latest penly before she returns to playing with clay. It's chocolate sesame.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Miles eats his candy and cries. He finishes the candy before he finishes the crying. His mother continues to hug him until he falls asleep in her lap, and then she puts him to bed.
The next morning he does not emerge from his room. Koridaar brings him his breakfast. He is pretending to sleep, so she leaves it next to his bed. When she brings him his lunch, some of the breakfast is gone. She judges this a moderately good sign. But it's about the only good sign available. He continues to stay curled up in bed, refusing to open his eyes or talk to anyone, eating only halfheartedly and only when there is no one in the room so he can go on pretending he is never awake.
The next morning he does not emerge from his room. Koridaar brings him his breakfast. He is pretending to sleep, so she leaves it next to his bed. When she brings him his lunch, some of the breakfast is gone. She judges this a moderately good sign. But it's about the only good sign available. He continues to stay curled up in bed, refusing to open his eyes or talk to anyone, eating only halfheartedly and only when there is no one in the room so he can go on pretending he is never awake.
Finnah spends a while sitting on his bed shoving him. "Mial. Miaaaaal."
Sitting on his bed shoving him and calling his name are ineffective at getting him to do anything.
"She's just some jerk dragon. Come on."
Sniffle. A nonzero response, at least, even if it's hard to tell whether it's positive or negative.
"She's just some entitled jerk dragon! Why do you care what she thinks?"
Slightly less tiny sniffle.
"She was scared of me," he mumbles.
"She was scared of me," he mumbles.
"She's stupid. Come on."
"I was scared of her," he adds unhappily.
"Why?"
"Cause - cause she was a dragon and I'm a shren and what if she was awful about it - but then she was scared. And I really wanted to yell at her but she was scared."
"Because she's stupid."
"I'm stupid," he mutters. "I shouldn't've been scared of her. I shouldn't've said I was a shren."
Pat pat pat.
He un-lumps enough to hug her briefly.
"Thanks, Finnah." Sniffle.
"Thanks, Finnah." Sniffle.
"You're welcome. Are you going to come out of your room now?"
"Maybe. I'll think about it."
"You have to come to my flag dance performance next week at least. We're opening for the gymnastics show."
"I'll try."
"If you don't come Koridaar or Avar will stay home with you and then they won't come see either."
"Well - well maybe I'll tell them not to."
"Or you could just come. Instead of trying to argue about whether you're old enough to be home alone."
"I'll probably just sit in the back and cry and everyone will stare at me and it'll ruin your show," he mutters.
"Well, so come and then don't do that," says Finnah.
"What if I can't not do that."
"Can't you? Is this even about the stupid dragon?"
"I don't know," he says. "It started about the stupid dragon."
"Well, what else would it be about?"
"Maybe I'm just stupid and awful and that's why I'm sad all the time."
This is such a transparently stupid and awful thing to say that Finnah briefly wrestles with a contradiction, then says: "But you're a wizard so you definitely aren't stupid and also you're usually not sad, sometimes you're just sad for a long time."
"Well, I'm sad now and I don't know how to stop and I don't know if I'll be done by your flag dance performance but if I am I'll come."
"I don't only want you to stop because of the flag dance," Finnah hastens to mention.
This actually produces a tiny smile.
But then he starts crying.
"See?" he sniffles. "It just happens whenever I have feelings or do stuff!"
Finnah pats him again.
Sniffle-hug.
"Aurin's coming over tomorrow," Finnah says. "Are you going to be a lump the whole time?"
"Probably."
"Then what's the point of him, he's not my cousin."
"I dunno."
"Should he not come?"
"I dunno," Mial repeats. "Maybe he'll throw me out a window again. It wouldn't work though probably."
"You'd just splat?"
He nods.
"Why?"
"I dunno. I just feel stupid and awful and sad and I don't wanna do anything and I don't care if I splat. Except I don't really wanna lose a form but I probably wouldn't, the window's not that high."
"You might feel better if you flew," Finnah points out.
"It hasn't even been that long, has it? I don't really remember," he says.
"Well, I dunno exactly how long is that long, I don't let it get there, but maybe? You seem like even a little more tired is too much more tired."
"Then maybe I'm all the tired already and it'll hurt next and I'll be less tired."
"That'd be dumb."
"At least I'd be less tired," he points out.
"Yeah, but still."
"Yeah."
Finnah sighs. "Get better," she tells him, and then she slides out of his bed and leaves him be.
He goes back to being a lump.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
The next day, Koridaar goes to pick up Aurin.
"Mial isn't feeling well," she says. "I think 'sad lump' is the phrase."
"Mial isn't feeling well," she says. "I think 'sad lump' is the phrase."
"Oh. Should I go over later then?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"It's up to you. He might stay a sad lump for quite a while this time; it's been going on more than a week already."
"Well, I'll come today, then."
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"All right."
She teleports Aurin to her house.
"He's in his room if you want to try talking to him."
She teleports Aurin to her house.
"He's in his room if you want to try talking to him."
Aurin nodes and goes to Mial's room. In what he thinks is a very considerate move, he doesn't knock, since Mial is being lumpy and might not want to be bestirred to let someone in. In he goes.
Mial is being so lumpy. A plate of breakfast, with some breakfast still on it, sits by his bed; he is curled up human-shaped wrapped in a blanket from which only his head protrudes, staring at the wall opposite the door, and he has no discernible reaction to Aurin showing up.
Aurin goes up to him and pokes him. "Hey."
"Hi, Aurin," he sighs.
"Wow, you're really pretty lumpy. Maybe I should throw you out a window again."
"I wouldn't even fly," he says dully. "I'd just go splat."
"Oh. Well, that's totally not the point of throwing you out windows. Why're you so lumpy?"
"Did nobody tell you?" he wonders.
"No-o, Aunt Koridaar just said you weren't feeling well."
"Oh."
He goes quiet for a tick or two.
Then he says, "We went to see a play and I wanted to tell one of the actors how great she was and get her autograph, except it turned out she'd been wearing a wig and she was a dragon not an elf, ninety-something it looked like, and I told her how great she was anyway because I don't have a problem with dragons but I kept talking to her and she thought I was a dragon and I said I was a shren and she screamed and the director told me to get out. And Mom took me home."
He goes quiet for a tick or two.
Then he says, "We went to see a play and I wanted to tell one of the actors how great she was and get her autograph, except it turned out she'd been wearing a wig and she was a dragon not an elf, ninety-something it looked like, and I told her how great she was anyway because I don't have a problem with dragons but I kept talking to her and she thought I was a dragon and I said I was a shren and she screamed and the director told me to get out. And Mom took me home."
Aurin scoops up Mial, blanket and all, and hugs him.
Mial sniffles.
"'m sorry that happened," says Aurin.
"Thanks," sniffles Mial.
"...but I don't know why you're being a lump about it."
"Because - because," says Mial.
"...because...?"
"Because she was scared of me and I was scared of her and I feel stupid and awful and every time I do anything I start crying," he says. He is indeed crying.
"Well, she shouldn't've been scared of you, you wouldn't have ever hurt her." Aurin doesn't comment on Mial's fear of her.
"I wouldn't've," he agrees, sniffling. "I wanted to yell at her though, I got so mad, but she was just scared and, and," incoherent sobbing.
Squeeze.
Mial wriggles his arms out of the blanket to hug Aurin with.
That will make this hug less one-sided.
"Dragons get different ways about shrens," says Aurin. "I'm sorry she was a bad way."
"Dragons get different ways about shrens," says Aurin. "I'm sorry she was a bad way."
Sniffle. Hug.
"I want people not to be bad ways about us," he mumbles.
"I want people not to be bad ways about us," he mumbles.
"I dunno how to do that or I'd do it to Grandfather."
Mial giggles softly.
"You're a good cousin," he declares.
"You're a good cousin," he declares.
Aurin giggles too.
"At least I can be mad at Grandfather," sighs Mial. "But it's different being mad at somebody who's just scared. I'm still kind of mad but then I feel bad about it."
"Well, it was dumb for her to be scared. For it to matter that you're a shren you'd have had to, like, attack her, in front of everybody. As long as her elf form was still alive it couldn't even possibly matter."
"Yeah. And I wasn't gonna, I wouldn't ever, I just wanted her autograph because she was cool." He sighs. "Did Mom make lunch yet?"
"I dunno."
He casts the spell to check the time.
"Probably not," he concludes. "Well, maybe I'll go have some when she does."
"Probably not," he concludes. "Well, maybe I'll go have some when she does."
"Has she been just bringing you food the entire time you've been lumping? My mom doesn't do that if I don't want to get out of bed."
"Yeah," says Mial. "What else is she gonna do, let me starve?"
"Well, I get out of bed eventually, when I get hungry."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense then. I probably wouldn't've."
"Even if you got really hungry and you smelled nutmeg rice?"
"Probably," he says. "I'm a really lumpy lump this time."
"Do you even like nutmeg rice, I don't remember, what's your favorite thing?"
Mial considers this.
"I dunno. I'm too lumpy to have a favourite food right now."
"I dunno. I'm too lumpy to have a favourite food right now."
"What's usually your favorite?"
"I dunno. I usually like nutmeg rice okay, I guess." He contemplates this for another tick, then adds, "Usually I like iced planets a lot."
"Iced planets are pretty good."
"Yeah."
He does not sound as enthusiastic as he usually would about iced planets.
He does not sound as enthusiastic as he usually would about iced planets.
Aurin squeezes him and then puts him down.
Mial hugs Aurin, and yawns, and emerges slightly more from his blanket.
"Let's go see if there's gonna be food soon," he says. It feels like having more feet will decrease the effort involved, so he becomes a fluffy silver snow leopard. Plop, onto the floor. Plod plod plod.
"Let's go see if there's gonna be food soon," he says. It feels like having more feet will decrease the effort involved, so he becomes a fluffy silver snow leopard. Plop, onto the floor. Plod plod plod.
(Aurin pets him. Soft!) And goes with him to the kitchen.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
Kitty Mial is very soft. And pettable.
Koridaar turns out to have just started making lunch. Neither iced planets nor nutmeg rice feature on the visible menu.
Koridaar turns out to have just started making lunch. Neither iced planets nor nutmeg rice feature on the visible menu.
"What's for lunch?" asks Aurin.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Bean soup. Hello, Mial."
"Hi, Mom."
She doesn't ask if he's feeling better. He's obviously feeling less like a lump, or he'd still be in his room, pretending to sleep for another week solid; but he's obviously not feeling up to his usual non-lump standard, or he wouldn't be so droopy. And would probably have challenged somebody to a board game by now.
"Hi, Mom."
She doesn't ask if he's feeling better. He's obviously feeling less like a lump, or he'd still be in his room, pretending to sleep for another week solid; but he's obviously not feeling up to his usual non-lump standard, or he wouldn't be so droopy. And would probably have challenged somebody to a board game by now.
Aurin keeps petting Mial the kitty. Soft soft soft soft. "Is there dessert?"
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"There could be, potentially. Is there a call for dessert?"
"Dessert!" calls Aurin loudly.
"DESSERT," echoes Finnah from upstairs.
"DESSERT," echoes Finnah from upstairs.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Suggestions?" she inquires.
"Rhubarb tarts," says Aurin authoritatively.
"CHOCOLATE," hollers Finnah.
"CHOCOLATE," hollers Finnah.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Rhubarb tarts are more Avar's department than mine. If you want some, you can go ask him," says Koridaar.
"Hey, Uncle Avar, where are you," says Aurin, wandering off.
Avar
on-my-word
"Over here," he says, emerging from his study. "Hello, Aurin."
"Hi can there be rhubarb tarts for dessert Uncle Avar please?"
Avar
on-my-word
He smiles.
"Why not."
Yaaaay!
Avar
on-my-word
Laughing, Avar proceeds to the kitchen to make rhubarb tarts. He and Koridaar stay out of each other's way and help each other with their respective tasks as needed.
Aurin waits, petting Mial. Eventually Finnah comes downstairs and perches on top of the cold cabinet and watches cooking happen.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"We still have some chocolate ice cream, Finnah, if you'd find that satisfactory," says Koridaar.
"Yes, that will be good," says Finnah.
Koridaar Retaan
greatcomposure
"Good."
Bean soup occurs!
Bean soup occurs!
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.
Koridaar Retaan
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..."
"Well, why not, if you want her to?"
"I like some things about Corenta. Just not having to go to school. Also I guess I do meet most of my friends there."
"Well, okay," says Mial. "But if you wanted to convince your mom to move to Esmaar, I'd help."
"I bet," says Aurin. "But her job is there. She's lived there like forever."
"I," says Mial, "just convinced the junior branch of Scoot Lively to let me in even though I am six equivalent years younger than their next youngest member. I am good at convincing."
"But Mom knows you."
"So?"
"So maybe it would be harder to convince her."
"Or maybe it'd be easier. But anyway you don't want me to do it so why are you trying to tell me it'd be hard?"
This is not the way to discourage Mial from trying to do a thing, Aurin.
This is not the way to discourage Mial from trying to do a thing, Aurin.
"I dunno," shrugs Aurin.
Mial snorts.
The first time Mial has a race as a league member, he is approached after the race by a reporter. "Hello! Do you have a few degrees?"
"Sure," he says brightly. He came in second; this is acceptable. He just needs to practice more, and maybe - no, Mom almost certainly won't let him tweak the spells on her scoot even a little tiny bit...
"As far as I've been able to determine you're definitely the youngest equivalency formal scoot racer in Esmaar, and possibly worldwide. Want to tell me about that?"
Mial shrugs.
"I'm eight-equivalent, but that's eighty-one years of actual time," he says. "If I was some species I'd have died of old age by now. If I was some species I'd have died of old age twice. And I still can't do a lot of things - I don't want to drink redreed wine or hold public office, but I do want to race scoots. So I found a league that didn't have a formal age restriction and I placed in their tryout race and hoped they wouldn't kick me out when I told them my age and species, and they didn't." He grins. "What can I say, I'm an impatient kid. I got my wizard certification when I was sixty-five."
"I'm eight-equivalent, but that's eighty-one years of actual time," he says. "If I was some species I'd have died of old age by now. If I was some species I'd have died of old age twice. And I still can't do a lot of things - I don't want to drink redreed wine or hold public office, but I do want to race scoots. So I found a league that didn't have a formal age restriction and I placed in their tryout race and hoped they wouldn't kick me out when I told them my age and species, and they didn't." He grins. "What can I say, I'm an impatient kid. I got my wizard certification when I was sixty-five."
The reporter writes all this down. "Do you feel that being chronologically eighty-one makes you significantly more mature than an eight-year-old human or an elf in their mid-twenties?"
"Maybe, maybe not," he says. "I think maturity is more about personality than time. What I have that an eight-year-old human definitely doesn't is seven more decades of experience. I've been flying my mom's scoot for ten years now. An eight-year-old human hasn't been alive long enough to get that much practice in, and a twenty-four-year-old elf would've had to start when they were four-equivalent."
"So you don't think the league or your family has anything to fear about your propensity for accidents."
He laughs. "Nah. I'm good, I'm careful, I've had ten years to get good at being careful. Ten years to get good at being good, too, as you can see." He holds up his second-place token.
"Think you'll do even better next time?" smiles the reporter.
"Planning on it!" he affirms, grinning.
"Do you think that equivalency restrictions in general should be relaxed for dragons?"
"Oh, I'm a shren," he corrects absently, most of his attention on the actual substance of the question. "No, actually, I think maybe equivalency restrictions should be relaxed in general. If it's important that people should know how to do something properly, write a test and make them pass it, like with wizardry. I know it's not that simple, but equivalency restrictions are really annoying when you grow this slowly. Or at least they are to me. I admit there probably aren't that many eighty-year-old dragonishes desperate to join scoot-racing leagues."
"Dragonishes?" says the reporter curiously.
"Oh." Mial laughs. "Sometimes it's awkward not to have a word for dragons and shrens as a group, when you're trying to talk about things like people who speak Draconic or age ten times slower than humans, so I made one up. Way back when I was just a baby, I think."
"Oh, I see," says the reporter. "You're very precocious!"
Mial grins brightly. "You bet."
"Anything else you'd like to say before I go write my piece?"
He shrugs. "Nah. It was nice talking to you! Bye!"
And just for the sake of theatrics, he teleports back to where he left his mom's scoot when he went to pick up his token.
And just for the sake of theatrics, he teleports back to where he left his mom's scoot when he went to pick up his token.
A little while later there is a fluff piece in a regional newspaper about him. It includes mention of the word "dragonishes" and prompts four angry letters to the editor.
Mial is delighted about the fluff piece in the regional newspaper.
When the issue with the letters to the editor gets published, he reads all four of them in a state of slowly escalating rage and then takes that copy of the newspaper to the bottom of the world with him so that he can assume his natural form and burn it to ash.
When the issue with the letters to the editor gets published, he reads all four of them in a state of slowly escalating rage and then takes that copy of the newspaper to the bottom of the world with him so that he can assume his natural form and burn it to ash.
Finnah thinks he's being dramatic. This happens whenever dragons find that someone who is in a position to receive letters has acknowledged shrens.
"Yeah," says Mial, "and that ticks me off." He stomps up to his room, jingling faintly - when he shifted, he dropped about a pocketful of tiny silver scales, and he picked them up rather than leaving them on the bottom of the world.
Aurin comes over a few days later.
"What's got you in a mood?" he asks, when he observes that Mial is in a mood.
"What's got you in a mood?" he asks, when he observes that Mial is in a mood.
"Ugh," says Mial. "You remember there was a story about me in the newspaper? Well, a bunch of dragons wrote in being lizards about it. 'I don't think it's necessary to profile individuals with this affliction in a widely read newspaper'," he quotes, and scowls. "What a load of crap."
"Oh." Pause. "Um, well, you seem to be coping better than the last time there was a problem about it."
He snorts. "Yeah, I'm mad instead of lumpy. I guess that's an improvement. You know what," he adds, "I think I'm gonna get serious about this scoot-racing thing. See how many more articles they'll write about me. See how many more nasty letters to the editor I have to set on fire afterward."
"How does that help?" wonders Aurin.
Mial grins. It is apparently possible to grin angrily.
"By making it necessary to profile individuals with this affliction in a widely read newspaper, obviously. And if some lizard doesn't wanna hear about me doing cool stuff just because I'm a shren, well, too bad."
"By making it necessary to profile individuals with this affliction in a widely read newspaper, obviously. And if some lizard doesn't wanna hear about me doing cool stuff just because I'm a shren, well, too bad."
"You seem really hung up on that wording," remarks Aurin.
He growls.
"It's just so - ugh! Like just the fact that I exist is so awful that no matter what I do with my life, it can't be worth talking about where somebody might hear, because then they'd have to think about shrens for half a degree!"
"It's just so - ugh! Like just the fact that I exist is so awful that no matter what I do with my life, it can't be worth talking about where somebody might hear, because then they'd have to think about shrens for half a degree!"
"Maybe they just didn't want the paper to mention that you're a shren," suggests Aurin.
He growls louder.
"What are they gonna do instead, lie and say I'm a dragon? I mean, the fact that I'm dragonish was half the point of the article!"
"What are they gonna do instead, lie and say I'm a dragon? I mean, the fact that I'm dragonish was half the point of the article!"
"I dunno," says Aurin, looking away.
"Ugh."
He starts pacing.
"I'm not mad at you, anyway, I don't wanna spend this whole visit yelling about dragons. Let's - let's play a game, I dunno, pick something."
He starts pacing.
"I'm not mad at you, anyway, I don't wanna spend this whole visit yelling about dragons. Let's - let's play a game, I dunno, pick something."
Aurin picks something.
They play it, once Mial manages to sit still long enough to take a turn. He calms down gradually. By the end of the visit he is mostly back to normal.
But even once he's no longer actively mad - and he has a few more flare-ups over the following week, when he lets himself get worked up about it again - he maintains his resolve to get serious about scoot racing. He doesn't quite actively seek media attention... but he is the youngest-equivalency formal scoot racer in the world; he checked. And he's good. As he puts more and more of his time into practicing, he starts winning more and more often. That's the kind of thing people write articles about, isn't it?
But even once he's no longer actively mad - and he has a few more flare-ups over the following week, when he lets himself get worked up about it again - he maintains his resolve to get serious about scoot racing. He doesn't quite actively seek media attention... but he is the youngest-equivalency formal scoot racer in the world; he checked. And he's good. As he puts more and more of his time into practicing, he starts winning more and more often. That's the kind of thing people write articles about, isn't it?
For big races, yes, it is. Reporters talk to him. Some of them try writing the articles in ways that don't draw attention to his species. Others avoid this, and get letters to their editors.
He is never interviewed by anyone from the Chronicle. One of its editors is a dragon.
He is never interviewed by anyone from the Chronicle. One of its editors is a dragon.
Well then maybe he'll just have to become bigger news.
That isn't actually why he decides he wants to design his own scoot. He wants to design his own scoot because he's familiar with and tired of all the flaws in the design of his mother's, and it's an interesting challenge that might actually keep him occupied for a good long while. The fact that it's another way to be strikingly unusual in a public forum is just a very nice bonus.
That isn't actually why he decides he wants to design his own scoot. He wants to design his own scoot because he's familiar with and tired of all the flaws in the design of his mother's, and it's an interesting challenge that might actually keep him occupied for a good long while. The fact that it's another way to be strikingly unusual in a public forum is just a very nice bonus.
Well, it'll take a pretty long time.
In this pretty long time, Aurin discovers girls. It becomes pretty difficult to get him to talk about anything else.
In this pretty long time, Aurin discovers girls. It becomes pretty difficult to get him to talk about anything else.
Mial gets kind of exasperated with him about it.
"Oh my god, Aurin, do you think about anything that's not girls?"
"Oh my god, Aurin, do you think about anything that's not girls?"
"I have to do homework, sometimes," says Aurin. "Uh, and..." Pause. "No, not really, it's mostly girls, girls are nice."
"What about - nutmeg rice, rhubarb tarts, winning at board games, flying, fire, has every nice thing you know about just been replaced by girls, is this going to happen to me when I turn a hundred twenty-two, because if so I might just stay ninety-one forever," says Mial.
"I still like those things," says Aurin. "But I've liked them for a very long time so there's not as much to think about anymore. Also I haven't fit in the fireplace for ages."
"Get a bigger fireplace," he suggests.
"Mom said no."
He grins. "Convince her."
"She doesn't want to remodel the house and it'd annoy the neighbors and anyway it'd only postpone the issue," recites Aurin.
"Get a really big fireplace and put it - oh, you can't teleport I guess," says Mial. "Well, learn to teleport and get a really big fireplace and put it somewhere else."
"Uh... where?"
"Some side of the world. Some part of the bottom of the world very far away from where I go to burn newspapers. The Taavlas Isles," lists Mial. "There's lots of places."
"If I learned to teleport I could just go to the big firepit on Dragon Island."
"I guess. It wouldn't be yours though."
And there might be girls there and that would be contrary to the point of this exercise.
And there might be girls there and that would be contrary to the point of this exercise.
"It's really, really big though."
"If you built one on the bottom of the world it could be bigger," says Mial.
"I don't even know how to build one. And there wouldn't be any firewood on the bottom of the world. ...I'm not sure if they do the big firepit with firewood or something else, but there isn't any something else on the bottom of the world either."
"I bet you I can learn how to make you a fireplace that'll work on the bottom of the world," Mial says cheerfully. "Or the side or wherever."
"I mean," says Aurin, "I wouldn't mind if you did that, but girls would still exist."
"And then you wouldn't go to your nice fireplace because you would be too busy looking at girls," he surmises.
"And talking to them," says Aurin. "That part is pretty important. Some people in my class haven't figured out yet that you also have to talk to them."
Mial snorts. "Well, talking to people is more fun than looking at them generally, unless they're really obnoxious for some reason."
"Yesterday a girl in my art class let me braid her hair," says Aurin dreamily.
"You are mystifying," says Mial.
"Am not, I'm just older than you."
"So maybe when I'm older you'll be less mystifying, but you sure are mystifying now!"
Aurin snorts. "I don't see why it's so weird. You've got parents. Uncle Avar calls Aunt Koridaar 'dear Magister' all the time. Is that mystifying?"
"He doesn't go around braiding her hair and making weirdly happy faces about it," says Mial.
"Well, I don't know if he ever braided her hair in particular, but I bet you he's made faces about her and they've just been married too long for him to do it a lot anymore."
"Whatever," says Mial. "Maybe I'd be mystified by Dad too if he was a hundred and twenty and talked about girls all the time, but I also wouldn't be even alive yet."
"You will grow up and you will discover girls. Or whatever," says Aurin. "Probably. And then you will get it."
"Maybe not. Maybe I will just be mystified forever."
"I think that happens sometimes," nods Aurin.
"Well, if I suddenly start caring about girls more than scoots I'm gonna be annoyed," says Mial. "Scoots are great."
"Don't tell Finnah you care more about scoots than her," teases Aurin.
"Finnah isn't 'girls', Finnah is Finnah. I will be just as annoyed if I grow up and start liking boys more than scoots, and I don't care about scoots more than you, although I might start thinking about it if you never say another non-girls-related word ever again in your life."
Aurin snickers. "I'll play a board game with you if you'd rather."
"Thank you," says Mial. He sets up a board game.
Which Aurin plays, mostly avoiding talking about girls.
Mial generously lets him come closer to winning than usual.
Aurin doesn't actually notice. He may be distracted by thinking about girls.
What a hopeless case.
It only gets worse over time.
The first time a girl lets Aurin kiss her he won't shut up about it for three weeks.
The first time a girl lets Aurin kiss her he won't shut up about it for three weeks.
Mial devises a strategy: every time Aurin goes on about kissing for too long, Mial starts talking about the technical details of scoot-building with equal enthusiasm and frequent mocking imitation of Aurin's dreamy faces.
This isn't actually much of a deterrent. Aurin just sort of lets him talk while thinking about other things, presumably the kissed girl.
It gets Aurin to stop going on about kissing temporarily, and gives Mial an opportunity to think through his design problems out loud, so it's not a total loss.
What a happy symbiosis they have.
It takes Mial not quite thirty years to build his first scoot. His mom helps out a lot with parts of the design and theory, and she and his dad both contribute to the physical construction, but he casts every single spell himself. It's both faster and shinier than Mom's: it's painted silver, with brown accents because he likes the way those colours look together on his merlin form, and the controls are all his own design. He is immensely proud. But he waits a full year, practicing every chance he gets, before he brings it to a race.
Even before, it was very uncommon for him to come home from a race with less than second or maybe third prize. It's now pretty rare for him to come home with less than first. There is talk of moving him from the junior branch of Scoot Lively to the main group, in the hope that he'll be competing more on his level there, but the league organizers are not yet ready to make an exception to the main group's equivalency restriction and he is still only a hundred and nine. Still the youngest-equivalency formal scoot racer in Elcenia, although the next youngest is twelve-equivalent, so his reign will be over in about a decade at most.
A reporter for a technical column is curious about his scoot and asks him technical questions. Then, because the column will need a little fluff, he asks the standard questions about how very precocious Mial is and how he feels about that.
Mial is very enthusiastic about the technical details of his scoot. He knows his stuff, as he should, since he designed it all.
When they get to the standard biography portion, he laughs. "Don't you people ever think of something new to ask me? Yep, I'm still the youngest-equivalency formal scoot racer in the world. Yep, I still think it's great fun. Yep, I still think equivalency restrictions are never going to be as good a measure of ability as real proficiency tests in whatever field. I've been answering these for almost thirty years now, come on. Actually, am I the youngest-equivalency person ever to build their own scoot? I bet I am, but I haven't checked."
When they get to the standard biography portion, he laughs. "Don't you people ever think of something new to ask me? Yep, I'm still the youngest-equivalency formal scoot racer in the world. Yep, I still think it's great fun. Yep, I still think equivalency restrictions are never going to be as good a measure of ability as real proficiency tests in whatever field. I've been answering these for almost thirty years now, come on. Actually, am I the youngest-equivalency person ever to build their own scoot? I bet I am, but I haven't checked."
"I'll find out," says the reporter, smiling, "it'll be in the article."
"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?"
"I don't think I'm gonna be quite that bad. But oh I want to take her skirt off with my teeeeeth," groans Finnah.
"Yep. You sure do like girls," diagnoses Mial. "I wonder when I'm going to get like that. Well... I don't know, it's hard to tell with Aurin and now you as examples. Maybe I'll be like Dad and not notice what I think of boys or girls until I've practically already married one."
"I don't wanna marry her, she's a human, she's fourteen, new on the flag dance team, just - nnnnnf. I'll try to shut up about it though."
"You can talk about it if you want," Mial says generously. "I haven't had like forty years to get tired of Finnah's Thoughts On Girls yet."
"My thoughts are mostly nnnnnf and also mostly about the particular girl, like, now that I think about it I do believe I am generally partial to girls but mostly right now it's the one."
"Does she have a name, or just a really tasty-looking skirt?" laughs Mial.
"Taaril," says Finnah, shooting him an exasperated look. "Her name's Taaril."
He grins. "Sorry."
"Anyway, if I'm all girls-noticing now, you're due. I'll get you back if you tease me, mark my words, I will take notes."
Mial giggles.
"I honestly might have noticed girls already and just not noticed noticing girls," he says. "Because I was expecting noticing girls to come with not being able to shut up about them for days on end. I dunno. Mostly I notice scoots. But, uh, not in that way, I don't think."
"I honestly might have noticed girls already and just not noticed noticing girls," he says. "Because I was expecting noticing girls to come with not being able to shut up about them for days on end. I dunno. Mostly I notice scoots. But, uh, not in that way, I don't think."
"I think there are probably degrees," says Finnah. "I dunno, aren't there girls in your racing club?"
"Yeah. They're all 20-equivalent or more, though," he snorts. "There were girls in my old racing club and I'm pretty sure I didn't notice any of those. Or the boys. It might be boys. Who knows."
"What about the neighbors? Like, I know we don't have any really close neighbors, but there's the Kithenik who're usually outside in handfuls when we go in for groceries, the blonde girl in her forties is cute."
Mial considers the blonde girl in her forties. He shakes his head. "I dunno, I guess she's pretty. But I don't have any urges to braid her hair or do anything to her clothes."
"Or kiss her?" asks Finnah. "The skirt-removal-with-teeth might just be a me thing."
"Or kiss her," he confirms, shaking his head again.
"Well, it'll happen. Or it won't, I guess, whatever. But if and when it does out come my notes." She makes a mock-threatening gesture in his direction.
He giggles again. "What is even in your notes."
"Nothing, yet."
"Well, then, I'll just have to try very hard not to tease you about girls, I guess."
"You do that. Tease Aurin instead."
"Teasing Aurin is fun," Mial says agreeably.
With Mial setting precedent, when a fifteen-year-old human girl starts winning half her races in the junior league with a scoot her cousin tuned up for her, she's pretty much summarily moved early into the adult league (and the associated organizational structure institutes a formal policy that if you win half or more of all the races that the junior league holds for a period greater than one year, or more than two-thirds of the races over a period of four months, you are automatically eligible for this promotion).
This girl, whose name is Amidaar, proceeds to make friends with everybody in the big league and revamp her racing outfit to look more grown-up. She makes a particular point of saying hi to Mial, who is closer to her equivalency than anyone else there.
"Welcome to the grownup league," he says, grinning, when she comes to talk to him. "Nice to have you around, I was getting tired of all these old people."
"It's great to be here," she says. "Think I'll get picked on for not making my own scoot? I have the channeling capacity of like an insect, so."
"I mean, I made my own scoot, but I'm widely known to have too much time on my hands," laughs Mial. "You'll be fine. If anybody gives you trouble, just beat 'em in a couple of races and see if they start whistling a different tune. Worked for me."
"I'm looking forward to a turn through the course up in Arkaan more than anything. Those tunnels!"
"Those tunnels are pretty great," he agrees. "Closest I've ever come to a wipeout, but I still love 'em."
"Do you know if there's a way to get access to the course between races for practice?"
"Yep," he says cheerfully. "I actually know the owner already, from doing exactly that, I could get you in no problem."
"That'd be great. I'm sure to get tripped up if I try to race there never having seen the place before."
"I'd be happy to take you there!" he assures her. "When do you wanna go?"
"Lunen work for you?"
"Sure! I'll arrange it with the owner, you just show up. Oh, but do you know how to get to the course?"
"I know where it is," she assures him. "I can probably be there by just after lunchtime."
"All right! I'll see you then."
And just after lunchtime she scoots in to the site.
There is Mial, with his silver-and-brown custom scoot - he has maintained his colour scheme. He waves.
Hers is red and yellow. She lands and hops out. "Hi! Did I keep you waiting?"
"A couple degrees," he shrugs. "No big deal. Hi yourself!"
"So where's the owner?"
"Oh, I've been doing this long enough he doesn't bother coming out to watch," he shrugs. "Even if I brought company, apparently. I'll be in trouble if you collapse a tunnel or something. Don't collapse any tunnels."
"I won't collapse any tunnels," she laughs. "How long are we allowed to stay?"
"Four angles."
"That's probably enough for a couple runs through even though I don't know the course. Awesome." She hops back into her scoot.
And Mial hops into his.
Off he goes through the course!
Off he goes through the course!
Amidaar takes it slow the first time, learning the twists and turns. The second time through she speeds way up.
Mial keeps a comfortable distance ahead of her on the first time through.
On the second time through, he still keeps ahead, but not nearly so easily.
On the second time through, he still keeps ahead, but not nearly so easily.
"Think we have time for another?" she asks, after the second.
Mial checks the time.
"Yeah, nobody's going to complain if we're a couple degrees overtime, and if you fly like that again we won't be." (He grins at her.)
"Yeah, nobody's going to complain if we're a couple degrees overtime, and if you fly like that again we won't be." (He grins at her.)
She grins, and she's off again. Zoom!
Zoom!
"Thanks for showing me around," Amidaar says, when they've just about tied (she fell behind in the tunnels, but caught up at the cliffs). "It was really nice of you."
"Hey, no problem," he says cheerfully. "It was nice flying with you!"
"See you around!"
And she closes up her capsule and it flies away.
And she closes up her capsule and it flies away.
And Mial goes home.
And flops onto the couch.
And flops onto the couch.
Finnah comes home later from her grocery trip. "Hey you."
"I have discovered," says Mial, "a girl."
Finnah laughs. "Oh? Do tell."
"Her name's Amidaar and she's fifteen and she just got into the grownup league with me and I took her to the Arkaan course for a practice flight and she's really good and she's fifteen," he says. "I'm probably too young for her now and I'm only going to get more so."
"Ugh, tell me about it," says Finnah. "I'm seriously considering only dating elves till I'm a hundred and eighty. It'll still get weird but not so fast."
"She flies so good though," he sighs.
"Awwww," coos Finnah.
Mial giggles softly. Then sighs again.
"I hope you don't turn into a lump over having crushes. It's always really depressing when you do that. For obvious reasons."
"It's depressing to me, too, believe me," he snorts. "I don't know. I don't feel lumpy exactly. I definitely want to continue leaving the house so I can race Amidaar, for example."
"Do you want to beat her?" wonders Finnah.
"Well, yeah. I haven't gone totally crazy." He grins.
Finnah giggles.
Mial giggles back.
Two days later is an Aurin visit.
"Hi, Aurin," says Mial. "It finally happened: I like a girl."
"Just the one?" says Aurin.
"So far. Her name's Amidaar, she's a racer, she's human, she's fifteen, I have no chance."
"How do you know?" asks Aurin.
"What, that I have no chance? Well: she's human. And fifteen," he says. "And I'm a hundred thirty-two. If I'm not too young for her now, I will be next year."
"I kissed two different sixteen-year-olds when I was a hundred and thirty five," says Aurin. "...I mean, it was during one of those party games that involves kissing, but they didn't make faces or anything."
"Well, you're you," says Mial. "I'm not you. I'm me. I don't just wanna kiss her. And even if I somehow managed to go out with her it'd last like a year or two at very most before it got super weird."
"Oh. So you'd rather just skip it?" asks Aurin, sounding like this is conceptually challenging.
"Yeah! I mean, I'm having all these feelings now, imagine the epic lump I'd be if I actually went out with a girl I liked and then she grew out of me."
"...so you're just not going to date until you're what, a hundred and sixty or something?"
"That sounds like a good plan."
"Wow," says Aurin, rather in the tone that might be expected if Mial had announced that he was going to spend the next thirty years without eating chocolate, listening to music, or beholding sunshine.
"Unless," snorts Mial, "I meet a nice dragonish in my age range."
"You could pick up girls at shren houses," muses Aurin.
"Girls at shren houses don't race scoots. Or if they do, I'm only likely to know about it if I meet them at a scoot race instead. And it hasn't happened yet."
"I wonder what shrens in shren houses do do with their time. I think I just sort of imagine them sitting around all day, being miserable."
"Maybe you should go pick up girls at shren houses and then you'll find out," Mial suggests.
"Iiiii think I'm good with the ones at school thanks."
Snort.
"But, like, if you only want to date shrens or dragons, who race scoots, and there aren't any of those in your club, you could go meet one and teach her to race scoots."
"Maybe. I dunno. It's not that I only want to date scoot racers, it's that there is this one scoot racer that I want to date because she races scoots really well, and that is the only way I know of that I start wanting to date somebody."
"Huh. I dunno what to tell you then."
He shrugs.
"I bet you wind up asking out at least one person before you're a hundred sixty," asserts Aurin.
"Yeah? What do you wanna bet?"
"Uhhhh, five aaberik?"
"Sure," snorts Mial.
"By then I'll be a hundred and ninety. I'll be almost done aging," muses Aurin. "Mom already sighs and tells me I look just like my dad, as if that wasn't obvious."
Aurin winds up owing Mial five aaberik. Mial has done a lot of pining, some of which escalated to requiring cousinly defenestration, but not asked anyone out. Meanwhile, Finnah does date; she's been through a couple of girlfriends by the time (at age 157) she starts working at a candy store.
Mial is invited to Amidaar's wedding.
Aurin winds up owing Mial five aaberik. Mial has done a lot of pining, some of which escalated to requiring cousinly defenestration, but not asked anyone out. Meanwhile, Finnah does date; she's been through a couple of girlfriends by the time (at age 157) she starts working at a candy store.
Mial is invited to Amidaar's wedding.
Mial goes to Amidaar's wedding. He wishes her and her spouse all the best.