hell of a party

[middlingalong]

Ivan must be drunker than he thought he was. He could have sworn he knew his way around Vivienne's parents' house, since she wanted to introduce him last week and showed him the place, but maybe they have a... secret... upstairs... bar? where Vivienne's room is supposed to be? And most certainly was last time he checked? He's never going to find the sweater she sent him up looking for here, anyway. Why is there a secret upstairs bar in Vivienne's parents' house?

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, it was Grandda, and he was giving me a horse. I wasn't going to make a fuss about the name."

[alicornucopia]

"Well my horse is going to be named Magic, anyway, when I have a dancing horse, instead of borrowing Gumdrop." Nika taps her foot. "But your everybody else is the same?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah," he says. "Da and Mother and Grandda and Gregor and Ivan and Bothari and Elena and Kou and Drou and Aunt Alys. And Uncle Simon - do you have one of those?"

If she didn't have an Illyan, that might explain the continuing mystery of the basket...

[alicornucopia]

"Oh yeah, him too!"

[thisvorlunatic]

All right then, she has one, he's just falling down on the job. Shame on you, Alternate Illyan.

"Sounds like just about everybody," he says. "Well, everybody I knew when I was five. I've met some more people since."

[alicornucopia]

"Interesting people?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Plenty! For example," is he going to say this? he's totally going to say this, "I had a secret little brother. So secret I didn't even know about him until a couple of years ago. Neither did my parents."

[alicornucopia]

"That's very secret. Does he go in a basket too?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Nope. He's a clone," Miles explains. "A secret clone somebody made because they wanted him to sneak into the family and pretend he was me and cause all kinds of trouble. But Mark didn't like doing that, so I told him he could be a part of the family as himself instead. My six-years-delayed twin brother. He took a while to think about it, but I think he's going to come home with me very soon."

There, that's just about the maximum kid-friendliness he can inject into that story.

[alicornucopia]

"Oh. Do you think we could get our one sooner?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Maybe you could," he says. "You could tell your parents about him, and say that he's going to be made on Jackson's Whole by somebody from Komarr who doesn't like Da very much, and then see if they and Uncle Simon can find him that way."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know if they'd believe me," she muses.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'll write them a note," he offers.

[alicornucopia]

"Okay, yes."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Great."

He goes to Bar to ask for a pen and paper.

[alicornucopia]

"WHOA. Whoa how did you do that?" asks Nika, breaking into a run towards the bar and falling over in the process.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Thanks." He turns to Nika. "You okay there? This is a magic bar. She makes things appear, and she's a person; those are how she is magic. Her name is Bar."

[alicornucopia]

"I'm fine. I don't break, I just fall. Hi Bar! Magic, magic!" Nika hauls herself up onto a barstool.

Hello to you too, replies Bar.

Nika peers at this napkin. "You write instead of talking!"

Yes, I do.

"That makes sense, because that's also making a thing appear."

Exactly. Can I get you anything to drink?

"Uuuuuum hot chocolate."

And Nika receives a hot chocolate.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I bet that's going to be some of the best hot chocolate you've ever had," says Miles, and then he climbs onto a stool himself and begins attempting to compose this note.

[alicornucopia]

Nika tastes the hot chocolate.

"You're right," she announces.

"They have hot chocolate?" says Tiny Ivan. "I want a hot chocolate." He goes over, interrupting the card game, and also gets a hot chocolate.

Big Ivan laughs softly.

[thisvorlunatic]

Okay, that's cute.

Now, what the hell does he put down on this piece of paper...

[alicornucopia]

"What're you going to write?" inquires Nika. There is whipped cream on her nose.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm trying to figure that out. You have whipped cream on your nose."

[alicornucopia]

Nika rubs off the whipped cream and licks it off her fingers. "Now I don't. Do you want me to get my Miles to help figure it out?"

"Miles can't come here," Tiny Ivan says.

"Not by himself. I'd have to get Bothari."

"But the garden stops being missing if you go."

"Oh."

[thisvorlunatic]

"There's ways around that now that there's two of you," says Miles. "If one stays and holds the door and the other one goes. But I don't think the other Miles would be much help to me here. I bet he doesn't have nearly as much experience writing notes as I do."

And... let's just not think about Bothari. Let's just. Not think about Bothari at all.