"Nice to meet you, Kerron! Do you seriously pick up on everything people want to do with, to, or about you? I can't decide whether that's really convenient or really embarrassing," says Darcy.

"I try to aim for convenient," says Kerron. "And it's not just stuff about me, I just get more detail on that. I don't automatically interpret what I see. I can quit reading your colorshapes if you want."

"I'm pretty sure it's too late to save my dignity at this point, but thanks," she says, laughing.

Kerron peers at some flying colorshapes. "Well, in case there's any of it left and you wouldn't want it to suffer some awful fate later, I should probably warn you relatively upfront that I'm chronologically twelve, in case that affects any... ice-cream-related interests... I may wish to hear lots more about."

"...But this is some kind of weird magic-and/or-science thing and you're as developmentally twentyish as you look, right? Because you look developmentally twentyish," says Darcy, looking.

"Oh yeah," says Kerron, "half-vampires do that." He winks. "I've been legal for five years now."

"Awesome," says Darcy. "In that case, let's talk about ice cream."

"Might melt," he says, speculatively picking up one of her hands in his. "I'm warmish, you see."

"You are warmish," she agrees. "But I think I can deal."

He takes a step into her personal space, although not so close that he can't regularly have a look at flying colorshapes, and laces their fingers. "You think? Sounds messy."

"You know, I think I agree with you."

"It's so great when that happens," beams Darcy.

"It is! Somebell set up a buffet," observes Kerron, "but I don't see any ice cream at it. Might be a do-it-yourself project. I've got squares," he adds, winking. "If you wanna go upstairs."

"I would love to go upstairs," says Darcy. "And eat ice cream."

Kerron's still holding her hand. He pulls her stairward. "Of foods," he says, "ice cream is one of the better ones."

"Ice cream is my favourite," says Darcy. "Especially when combined with other tasty things. Apple pie, funnel cake, hot guys..."

"So, I'm detecting a thing for temperature contrasts here," he purrs, squeezing her hand and pulling her up the first few stairs.

"You might be onto something there!" says Darcy. "Good thing you're warmish, huh?"

"I am very conveniently warmish!" he agrees. Up they go. Yep, somebody prescient has separated this floor into "airlocked" chambers. This is the Belltower and pastwatching doesn't work at Milliways, so there is no feature inviting people to donate their bodies to pornography, just indications of vacancy or lack thereof.

"You're very convenient in general," says Darcy.

"I try. If for some reason you opted to cease to wear your hammer would it fall through the floor and hit somebody on the head?" He peers at colorshapes, and reaches for a door labeled "vacant".

"You know what I bet I go with?" he says, opening the door and ushering her in. "I bet I go with pineapple and coconut."