"Kas's kid got 'button'," he says. "That one's pretty cute too."

"Aww. I haven't met her yet."

"Maybe you will sometime," he says. "I have no idea where she got to after everybody hugged her."

"First time I was at a Joker party the deck all congregated around me and watched me be adorable and Mum turned me into a blue fox."

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww," says Celo.

"Ayep. Made it a little awkward when another party rolled around and I was old enough to hit on girls who'd been adults at the previous one, but, you know, I managed."

Celo laughs. "Good for you!"

"Thanks. Hey, have you seen any golden bubbly at this buffet? Kinda thirsty."

"Nope," he says. But a square like red-gold honey flashes briefly in his invisible fingers, and then he hands Kerron a glass. "What is that, anyway?"

"Synthetic blood - well, not exactly, doesn't taste like blood," he takes a swig, "and it's fizzy, but it fills the same nutritional requirements."

"Right, Aurum bloodsuckers," he says, grinning and shaking his head although Kerron can see neither thing. "What kinds of blood work for you guys, besides human?"

"Uh, I think Dad bit Aianon once, full vampires can't stand wolf blood but it's just sort of weird-tasting to half-vampires - I haven't bit a wolf, Lily did, she's interested in culinary applications of sanguinary flavor-space or something - animal blood works fine and tastes lousy to vampires but okay to us, I'm not aware of any other experiments."

"Huh," says Celo. "Maybe some adventurous nibbler should give me a try. Not you," he adds with a hint of a giggle.

"Yeah, I'm not your guy," snorts Kerron. "Dad or Lily. Or both for that matter."

"I'll keep 'em in mind," he laughs.

"Lily's yea high, blue eyes, hair somewhere between blonde and chestnut depending on the lighting, she'll let it get to her knees before she hacks it off but today it's about two feet long," says Kerron. "If you don't want to go around reading large numbers of nametags to locate her. She was wearing pink last time I saw her but that might change."

"I don't really go by the visuals most of the time, but I guess they're better than nothing," he says. "Thanks."

"Why, how else would I describe her? I could tell you how she smells but English is kind of crap at that."

Celo giggles. "I'm a nymph," he says. "I have senses you don't. Makes it harder to work from descriptions of people unless the person doing the describing is another nymph, but what can you do."

"Huh. What kinda senses?" Kerron's squinting at the grain now, but nothing comes clear.

"If you must know," he says, laughing, "I see sexuality."

"...And you're at a Bellparty which has Bells at it. That sounds, eh, what's the word I'm looking for..."

"Yeah, I've been through that with Aether," he snorts. "Took me a while, but I figured out how to stop interpreting."

"So now you see, what, the Monet equivalent of - er - Monet painted blurry things," clarifies Kerron.

"Not really? Like, you get all hung up on the information aspect because that's the only part you know about, but that's not the important part," he says. "I get the same amount of detail, I just don't go the extra step of thinking about what it means in practice."