Ita finds all the attention a bit overwhelming, but diligent studies enchanting and alchemy.

(Her brother is rather put out about it).

Tepam is just very excited about yet even more magic to play with.

Sefoni would also find this all very overwhelming, if she let herself pay any attention to all the attention she is getting. She's a bit too busy holing herself up in the greenhouse figuring out the perfect way to raise these new plants for that, however. When she isn't doing that, she's in the alchemy lab with Ita. She only leaves for school and when Keolin comes to drag her home to sleep. 

(Keolin is supportive, of her new magic if not her desire to plant herself in the gardens like one of her flowers.)

Mika learns some alchemy, but he mostly keeps to enchanting. Ita and Sefoni will mostly be working on that, after all, and there's only seven of them. Alchemy is interesting, but he likes enchanting better.

By the beginning of winter, Mika, Alesin, and Tepam get good enough at making the three simple enchantments that Liarae lets them start working on making their own. Tepam's necklace Boon is, as expected, extremely useful for this.

Which only motivates Tepam to try harder, it gets more difficult to pry her from magic. Not because she doesn't want to do other things, but because she just gets carried away. Even when she misses or almost misses things she is Excited about.

Things like the class trip! The first time they're leaving the island, ever, class trip. They're supposed to go in fifteen minutes and Tepam isn't at the school yet! Mika tugs on a teacher's sleeve and points this out. 

"I think I saw her earlier," Alesin tells them both. "Mika and I could go get her?" 

The teacher decides not to send Mika, given his distractability. Instead he sends Alesin and Dasenifer, reasoning that the most responsible of the triplets will hopefully be able to keep them on track. 

Seni accepts this and follows Alesin to wherever Tepam is likely to be.

"I'm not that bad, am I?" She asks him as she leads him up to the labs. "Mika's the one who runs off all the time..." 

"You are not, but two people is better at keeping each other on task. And we have a short time."

"Mm," she nods. "That's true." 

Up the elevator to the enchanting labs they go, where they will hopefully find Tepam. 

They in fact find Tepam in the enchanting labs, actually at the door, fiddling with her Boon.

Alesin calls down the hall towards her from just outside the elevator, "Tepam! You're late, we're just about to go!"

Tepam looks up. "Oh, sorry. I just..." she stares at the thing again.

Seni, without any ceremony, just goes over and takes Tepam hand to conduct her to the elevator.

Lesi snorts, "I guess that works, too." 

"What kind of enchantment were you working on?" She asks as they take the elevator down. 

"I was fiddling with the light one to make it bright or dimmer."

"It'd be good to be able to give them brightness settings," she muses. "I think that might need more than one enchantment, though... Or a layered one, or something. At least with the pieces we have right now. Maybe it'll be easier with something from a spell or other enchantment. But we've got to wait," sigh. 

"Did you get any progress?"

"Waiting is terrible," Tepam tells Alesin. "I didn't really make any progress. I got distracted when I did a variant enchantment that starts bright and then dims until there is no more light and I was trying to poke at it to see if I could make it behave."

"Yeah. And that's something I think might need stuff we don't have, too. Controlling what the light does after we've cast the enchantment, besides just turning it on and off. Maybe you can figure it out with the Boon, though."

(It's really annoying that it was only the four of them at Milliways! Who knows what kinds of Boons the rest of them could have had... they could have brought back a lot more if more people had been there.)

(It's a terrible tragedy, nearly ever kid is wondering what Boon they would've gotten.)

They return and the teacher makes a head count before the kids are loaded into cars.

The cars sit six kids, along with the two adults in the front. Lesi and Mika are in the same one as Tepam, with Lakini, Aden, and Migah in the other three seats. Mika chatters excitedly with them on the way, Lesi chiming in every so often as well. The drive isn't too long, mostly involving crossing the bridge connecting the two islands, driving around to the other side of it, and then making their way through the city to their hotel.

Once they enter the city limits, Mika stares out the windows in wide-eyed wonder. Of course he's seen pictures, but it's so different from anywhere he's been! 

"There's so many people," he says, watching a horde of pedestrians cross the street while they wait for the lights to change. 

"I know! I want to talk with a few!"

"Me too! Actual new people that don't live with us! I wonder what it's like living here."