liakoura | okay but what's the thread count

Kiri stays away for weeks, and then she's back, and then she goes to the Ardelay house to learn her way around it and make (thoroughly advised) decisions about staff maintenance, and then she's back, and then she leaves again to be at the Chialto house, but this time Ko is allowed to go with her.

(At a safe distance.)

It's a long boring ride, or it would be boring, but Kiri has learned to make harmless fire-shapes in the air and entertains him with swirls and streamers of it crackling alongside the carriage until she decides to take a nap.

He's not going to be able to sleep in this carriage, it bumps too much, but he can scoot over and sort of nudge part of her onto his lap while she mumbles words.

(And then lurch away from her once she stops partway through "interior decoration".)

She smiles a sad smile at him like she always does when she wakes up and finds him halfway across the room. Or in this case, the carriage.

"You're not even huggy," he observes, on this occasion. "Not like Jayce is anyway." (Jayce is a very huggy little boy.)

She shrugs. "If I didn't have a family and it was just me, and distant Ardelay relatives I barely know, and stuff, then that would be fine probably. We just used to be next to each other all the time and now we can't. I don't need hugging, I just want my brothers."

Ko thinks about this, but doesn't get much of anywhere. Kiri's the smart one, all sweela, always thinking and writing. He isn't going to come up with a solution if she can't, probably.

"I could just try it again," he says.

"You didn't like it last time," she says.

"Yeah, but, you weren't mean about it or anything."

"Why would I be mean because you had to go to the bathroom?"

"I dunno." He fidgets, and looks out the window.

She makes a fire-dart that follows the path of his eyes.

They arrive in Chialto, and wait for the arrival of the prince.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

pythbox

The prince giggles. "I wouldn't," he says. "Even if I could. I don't think I'd even want to could."

From:

calescent

Kiri snorts. "Far as I know most people don't care about it. I do though."

From:

pythbox

He shrugs. "I care differently than you care."

By which he means: if Kiri wants to memorize herself like a book, she wants the opposite of the kind of self-knowledge that the prince has and is pleased about. If it were somehow possible to know himself so perfectly well that he could never again have a moment of realizing what he's going to do only after he has decided to do it - and he doubts it could be possible, however many sweela primes might try it - there would go much of the appeal of continuing to live. Surprise is one of his birth blessings for a reason.

Edited Date: 2014-03-07 02:32 pm (UTC)

From:

calescent

"Way differently," agrees Kiri. "I don't want to surprise myself like that at all."

From:

pythbox

"I like it. I feel like it's part of what makes me me and not somebody else."

From:

kindestgarden

Renny comes down the stairs, having squared the luggage away. "Are you three ready to go?"

From:

calescent

"I think so," says Kiri.

From:

liakoura

"We just sort of triangle around Kiri and make sure nobody gets close to her, right?"

From:

calescent

"Yes please."

From:

pythbox

"Okay!" the prince says cheerfully. He is imagining her bubble again.

From:

calescent

And out they go. Kiri dodges and weaves as necessary within her triangle to conscientiously not get within five feet of anyone they pass in the street.

From:

pythbox

While they're walking, the prince spots a little shop with a window display of five lovely necklaces made of glass shapes linked by thin chains - white and yellow elay surrounded by dreamy swirls, blue and purple coru surrounded by ripples and waves, black and brown hunti surrounded by woodgrain streaks, red and orange sweela surrounded by stylized flames, green and green torz surrounded by stones and vines.

His first thought is of himself, as a girl, wearing one of those necklaces. They're so pretty.

What he actually says out loud is, "Ooh, look at those! I wanna get the coru one for my mom. And Kiri, you could get the sweela one to wear when you're tired of red dresses."

Edited Date: 2014-03-07 06:49 pm (UTC)

From:

calescent

"I like them," she says. "Are the rules about wearing the same jewelry different from wearing the same clothes?"

From:

pythbox

"Yeah! You can wear the same jewelry as much as you want, almost, just if you always wear the same one thing all the time everywhere people are gonna think it means something special to you and some of 'em will think you're - I dunno, something not nice." (He knows what that particular kind of contempt looks like, but not what it actually represents in the minds of the people who feel it.)

From:

calescent

"So I should get maybe a couple things to cover for being obviously sweela when I'm in other colors but this can be one of them. It's pretty."

From:

pythbox

"It is! They're all pretty."

From:

liakoura

Aleko is paying very careful attention both to Kiri's assessment of aesthetics and to the prince's description of the rules.

From:

kindestgarden

Renny buys the sweela necklace for Kiri.

"If we get a lot of clothes today we can have them delivered to the house, but this is small, so you can just wear it now," she says, and she puts it over her daughter's head.

From:

pythbox

"It looks really nice on you!" says the prince. He imagines himself wearing the coru necklace again. And then he buys it, for his mother, who he's sure will like it as much as he does.

From:

calescent

Kiri has a little purse which is big enough to hold a little blank book.

She scribbles a line of cipher in it, then puts it away.

On they go.

From:

pythbox

On they go! To clothes.

The prince is really good at clothes.

He picks out things that would be good for Kiri to wear and explains what occasions they would suit the best and pays attention to her aesthetic preferences and explains his opinions to Aleko whenever he has more of an explanation than 'I dunno, it just is'.

From:

calescent

By the end of the trip there are enough yards of miscellaneous fabric slated for delivery to the Chialto Ardelay house that Kiri should be all set until she's grown two inches and can't wear any of it. "Good, that's over with. Thank you for helping."