"Aleko draws pretty well. Usually he doesn't spend enough time on a specific piece to leave it 'finished' to the point where it looks like it belongs in a frame, but he'd be perfect for helping Patience play with the ground."

"Yeah, it'll be great. I guess if I'm gonna do it here Loel should have input too, in case he doesn't want weird Alekomonsters statue-ing around in his yard."

"Statue-ing," giggles Ekador.

"Well, once I'm gone they're sure not gonna do anything else. I guess while I'm here I could make them move around. We could make a giant bluestones board and I could move the stone pieces and you could turn some trees into wood pieces and it would be only useful when we were both here, does that sound like enough of a pointless display to suit the occasion? Oh and speaking of occasions are we gonna do the magic handholding thing?"

"An excellent question," says Sarelle.

"Because we are all here, now, and I've never tried it."

"I'd like to, and I think the choreography works if I stand between you and Loel, since order doesn't matter. But there have been some misgivings." Kiri gestures in the direction of the misgivings.

Ekador sighs. "Yes. Although I suppose, given that we have the opportunity, and you've said we will have to do it eventually regardless..."

"Well, with that level of enthusiasm I can't believe you're not bouncing in your chair waiting for Loel to get back. It's pleasant, I swear."

"Grandpa said so," agrees Patience.

"I believe you that it is pleasant. The question is not whether it is pleasant. The question is whether I want to do it."

"Well, what are the reservations, then?"

Patience shrugs. "I wanna try it. I don't know what it's like and I want to."

"And I am wary for no specific identifiable reason."

"I mean, I guess you're allowed," says Patience, shrugging again.

And here is a bin of blessings, and its bearers.

"Loel, how do you feel about magic handholding?"

"I feel just fine about magic handholding!"

"The idea has been proposed as an event for today's agenda and Ekador's got vague misgivings," explains Kiri.

"Mm," says Loel, nodding understanding. "Well, no rush, right?" He gestures to the bin of blessings, by way of suggesting an alternate pastime.

"Right." Kiri peers into the bin. "Well, there's five 'suits' like cards, but then there's the extraordinaries, and the numbers aren't right, so we might or might not be able to adapt any given card game successfully depending on how much that matters."

"Nothing stopping us from making a new one," says Loel. "And anyways, the blessings don't come in numbers, that seems kind of important. We could give them numbers, but it might be more natural to do something else."

Kiri tilts her head. "Some of the blessings are more - physical, about physical circumstances - than the others, but it's not quite even between everything - grace and beauty, strength, nothing for sweela, swiftness and travel plus you could argue for flexibility, health and fertility plus more you could argue. So that doesn't match up neatly. Maybe some kind of collecting game like Daisypicking would work; it doesn't matter that four is larger than two, for that, so it wouldn't matter that grace isn't 'larger' than wealth or whatever."