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]

"Very true," says Grownup Miles. "Miles-Five, are you ever going to come back here? You have a game of Strat-O to lose."

"I'm going, I'm going," says Little Miles. "Bring my books."

[washed_in_blood]

Bothari brings Little Miles and the books over to the relevant table.

[isthisart]

When the books are converted, Linya loads up a pen for Nika and sends the lot of them to Grownup Miles. Soon all three of her are reading about runecasting.

[thisvorlunatic]

The Mileses are busy playing games. They will read about magic later.

[middlingalong]

Tiny Firebird Ivan shuffles over to his alt and squeezes in next to him on his bench and receives wordlessly solicited cuddles.

[isthisart]

Linya remembers to check Grownup Miles's bones.

"You're approaching human-normal bone strength range," she murmurs.

[thisvorlunatic]

He grins at her and goes right back to playing.

"That makes it my turn! After I win this game," says Little Miles.

"Oh, you are not gonna win this game."

[isthisart]

"I fear that if the dosing waits for one game it will wait for another dozen. Did you ask Lalita how long it retains its characteristics?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not sure he knows," says Grownup Miles. "Let's not wait for the end of the game."

"Fine," huffs Little Miles. "But do the thing fast, I wanna go back to playing."

[isthisart]

Linya takes a baseline.

...She decides not to even try approaching Little Miles while Bothari is holding him.

[thisvorlunatic]

Grownup Miles notices.

He gets out the remaining two doses, makes eye contact with Bothari to verify that he has permission to approach, and goes and gives dose number two to Little Miles. Then he sits back down and resumes playing.

[isthisart]

And Linya takes periodic readings, but mostly reads about magic. She reads and understands faster than either of her alts, so she helps Nika here and there and between the two of them they average roughly Isabella's pace.

[thisvorlunatic]

There is much cheerful shouting from the Mileses.

"Can I have lots of food too?" asks Little Miles after about a game and a half.

[isthisart]

Linya brings him a Bar-recommended tray.

[thisvorlunatic]

Nom nom yell yell.

[middlingalong]

"I don't," says Tiny Firebird Ivan, "really want to be a firebird." This after extensive silent leaning on his alt.

"Don't blame you," says Big Ivan. "Don't let your cousins give you any magic objects. Sounds like you get to be pretty much a normal human if you don't have one."

Tiny Firebird Ivan nods gravely.

[isthisart]

"How would you not want to fly?" asks Nika. "You're a bird. Birds can fly. ...Bar we need a firebirds book too. And a unicorns book."

There are no published books about unicorns.

"Huh. Why not?"

Perhaps they are particularly uncommon.

"Huh. Okay, but we do need a firebirds book."

She gets her firebirds book.

"...And the whole rest of that series? Please Linyabel?"

"You aren't going to break my budget with an entire libraryful of books, little one."

"Okay so all of the series of the history of whatever."

Nika receives her requested books. And returns to incredulity at her cousin. "Why don't you want to fly?"

"I don't know, I just, I want to be a human," says Tiny Firebird Ivan.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, you can be a human then," says Tiny Miles. "Even though birds are cool. Maybe we can get you a thing so that even if you get a magic thing on you by accident you won't turn into anything anyway. Bar, are there things like that?"

[alicornucopia]

None that are mentioned in published books. If someone has privately invented it I would have no way to know.

"She says no," reports Nika, "at least not that she knows of."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well," says Little Miles reasonably, "I'll invent one then."

Grownup Miles grins.

[isthisart]

"We will have to invent a lot of things," says Nika gravely.

"Bar," says Linya, "who publishes these textbooks, exactly? I mean, there's names, but."

I don't know anything beyond what's contained in the volumes themselves.

"So you might not have to invent that many things. You might be able to go to - Tau Ceti - and find these editors and learn what they know."

"Oh, that makes sense," agrees Nika.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I don't wanna," says Little Miles. "If it's all secret and stuff I'd rather be secret right back at 'em, and only tell Da and Mother and people."

"Good instincts," murmurs Grownup Miles.

[alicornucopia]

"Well, why is it secret?" wonders Nika.

No one has published a book with that information.

"Figures," mutters Nika.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I say we make Uncle Simon find out," says Little Miles. "That's sort of his job."

Grownup Miles giggles.

[alicornucopia]

"And then maybe I can go to magic school!" says Nika, bouncing. "And I will already know these books so I will be very good at magic school."