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Quinnahunti ends, Quinnatorz elapses, the twins have their ninth birthday on the thirteenth of Quinnasweela, and Kiri has eventually seen bits of everything she will need to take or delegate charge of - the palace, key portions of Chialto, the Ardelay estate, and the various family business concerns (the national network of libraries being the primary thing, but the Ardelay family has been a major investor in museums as well, and Kiri has inherited partial concerns in things ranging from bakeries to stationery stores; eventually she will have to take a more active role in managing the finances, but they should be self-managing for the time being unless too many key people die.)
In Quinncoru, Kiri - with Aleko in tow this time in addition to Renny - makes a visit to the palace, and, since the king seems willing to ignore her and she doesn't really want his attention, and since there is not a full complement of primes around, has nothing much to do with herself but make a beeline for the prince. (Aleko goes exploring by himself.)
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calescent
calescent
"Well, besides the regent thing and advising the king which I've been avoiding doing because I don't want him to pay attention to me yet - when you're king, or Isten if it's Isten I guess, we'll all have to ratify you, or him, to make it so you're - oh, hm, if you're king one day I won't be able to read your mind anymore."
"Huh," he says. That sounds vaguely inconvenient. But not enough to push him out of neutrality on the subject of his possible future kingship.
calescent
"So there's that, I have to have an idea how to do that. And we can also be involved in foreign policy things. I've been thinking I should learn a foreign language. I don't know which I should start with, though, I don't know if I'm good enough at languages to pick up a lot of them so I should do the most important one first."
"I dunno anything about that," says the prince. He wants to learn about foreign countries someday in pursuit of eventual plans for running away from home, but it's not that urgent, so he hasn't done much.
calescent
"When I pick one you could work on it with me," she suggests.
He grins. "Sure!"
calescent
"We're pretty insular and can go years without hearing from anybody, but we interact the most with Soche-Tas," she says. "So I was thinking Soechin, but the language is harder than Berringese, I heard, and I'm also considering Malinquan."
"Well, if you're only going to learn one anyway, it's better to do a harder one that's more useful than an easier one that's less, right?"
calescent
"Unless everyone has the same idea, and there are six people at any given engagement who can translate Soechin and nobody who bothered with Malinquan."
"Nah," he says. "Because a bunch of people are going to go for the easier one anyway."
calescent
"I suppose. And I also suppose I can't be that bad at languages because I invented and committed to memory an entire cipher with a lot of made-up words in it when I was six."
He giggles.
calescent
"So Soechin to start, I guess. When you're better we can go to the house and there's plenty of books on it and one of my cousins will probably help if we need it."
"Okay!"
This sounds like fun to him.
This sounds like fun to him.
calescent
"And then if your tutors want you to account for your time away you will have something to tell them."
That's handy!
He giggles again.
He giggles again.
calescent
Some time later, when the prince is recovered from his... "illness"? They're going with "illness"? - the Ardelay contingent, two princes and a nursemaid in tow, heads out to the Ardelay country house.
It's big - she can accommodate a hundred guests at a moment's notice, ostensibly, although some of them might have to share rooms and the east wing would have to be summarily aired out. Most of the time only a few Ardelay cousins live here, and Kiri is allowing them to continue, as there's plenty of space and there's no reason to breed ill will by booting them. They also help look after the place.
There's a surrounding lawn, with appropriately sweela-associated plants in little plots here and there, which if examined from a vantage point on the roof turn out to be each sweela blessing drawn in foliage. The house itself is three-branched like the symbol for sweela itself, complete with a greenhouse, a little chapel with its own bin of blessings coins, and a gazebo at the point of each wing to serve as the symbol's dots. Kiri thinks it's kind of overdoing the theme, but whatever.
The carriage containing her, her twin, her mother, her friend, his brother, and the nursemaid lets them off at the convergence of the wings and she leads them into the central, north-pointing one. "The library is here," she says. "And some of the guest rooms, and the rooms where we stay when we're here. You can be down from the hall from us if you like."
"I think down the hall sounds nice," says the elder prince. Little Isten nods agreement.
liakoura
"No reason to give her lots of chances to fall down stairs if she doesn't have to."
The prince giggles. Isten looks at the ground. The prince crouches down and hugs him.
calescent
"I have never, ever drawn grace in my life. Once I sat drawing blessings out of the bin in the chapel until there were only three left and they were all grace. It didn't seem to want to give me the spiritualities or the contentments either but it was really, really not letting me draw any grace."
At that, Isten giggles. Quietly, but he does. His brother grins and hugs him again.
liakoura
"I feel like drawing something now. We could find Jayce and all pick things for each other."
"Okay!" says Isten.
"Sure!" says the prince.
"Sure!" says the prince.