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," 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."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm gonna be a uuuunicorn," hums Little Miles.

"Congratulations," says Grownup Miles.

[alicornucopia]

"Can I ride on you? Unicorns are like horses," says Nika.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I might not be the right size unicorn," says Little Miles. "But if I am then yeah. Just not if you'd squash me. I want to not be a squashed unicorn."

"A noble aspiration," says Grownup Miles.

"I don't know what that means but shut up," says Little Miles.

[alicornucopia]

"I wouldn't squash you. You would have to be about as big as Gumdrop," says Nika. "And then I could dance you and we could win all the horse dancing contests."

[thisvorlunatic]

"That doesn't seem fair though," ponders Little Miles. "If I'm a person learning to horse dance then you're not really doing anything except not falling off of me. And they might not let unicorns in the contests."

"They probably wouldn't," says Grownup Miles.

[alicornucopia]

"Oh," says Nika, stymied by this quandary. "Well, we'll find lots more unicorns and have unicorn dancing contests then and win those!"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah!" says Little Miles.

[isthisart]

"Yeah. That's what we'll do."

And she goes back to magic textbooks.

"Are all of your grownups besides Bothari somewhere you can't go?" wonders Linya. "We're sending you home with so much stuff..."

"They're at a," handwave, "thing. So's Gregor. There's servants? I guess?"

"Bothari satisfies the 'is an adult' criterion by himself; what I was hoping was that we could send you to fetch one of the people you're going to be explaining this to..."

Nika shrugs. "You could write them letters, too."

"I think I will. Here, we'll switch seats and Isabella will tell you the words you haven't learned yet while I do that."

There is reshuffling.

[thisvorlunatic]

"What are you going to write? And to who?" wonders Grownup Miles.

[isthisart]

"A summary of the... payload. Notes on myself and Isabella for Nika's later curiosity and that of anyone she cares to show. Isabella might want to add a bit on expected developmental timeline in case that's useful."

[warpfairy]

"I can even produce parenting tips that stem from having had parents."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I don't feel the need to give my parents tips on parenting me," muses Grownup Miles.

"They do okay?" says Little Miles.

"Yeah."

"Well, they're Da and Mama, so that makes sense," says Little Miles.

"Yeah."

[isthisart]

"My guess is that they won't need most of it - they are sensible people - but it might be nice to have written down."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah, I guess."

[isthisart]

"And - Nika, did your mama and da name you or was that in your basket?"

"They did it."

"My name and Isabella's both have the sound 'bel' in them, and 'mir' in our second names. If you wanted to find your dragon birth parents that might be a hint that Simon couldn't have found on his own, if you used to have a different name with that sound."

"Huh. Okay. I like my name now just fine though."

"It's pretty."

[middlingalong]

Ivans have become tired of whirligig.

"Read me a story," Tiny Ivan says to his alt.

"Sure. What story do you want?"

"I dunno. Something good."

Ivan goes to the bar and borrows a copy of some adventure story he liked when he was seven, which tiny Ivan will not have read yet. He reads tiny Ivan the adventure story.

[pythbox]

"Hey," says Little Miles. "Cetagandan Grownup Nika. How're my bones?"

[isthisart]

Cetagandan Grownup Nika checks. "About halfway done," she reports. "It would probably be safe to take you out of the brace now, although I suspect you'd immediately try to run around at top speed, and while you probably wouldn't break anything if you walked you might still do if you slammed into a wall."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I don't even know how to run around," says Little Miles.

"That's not better," Grownup Miles points out. "That is in fact arguably worse."