Both doing well. Kevin hates the sky and I think he actually misses the Scholomance qua building, but he's very happy about how Boston's infrastructure is being maintained by pros with things to teach him instead of by underpaid children and listening to him being excited by pipes is still great. Abigail has taken up baking and thinks cell phones are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

baking sounds amazing now that you mention it, one moment while I go make cupcakes

Have fun! It's great that we can just decide to do something for no reason except that it sounds pleasant and then do it!

it is! and box mix is nearly impossible to mess up!

Her next message is about twenty minutes later:

Box mix is an excellent invention. I just found that my mom has some cross-stitch kits that come with a specific pattern you're supposed to match exactly and that sounds like it could be a nice way to build mana. So now I'm debating between a few of them and whether I want to try working magic into it on my first try.

(She includes a picture of three bags with elaborate pointillist images of dragon on a mountain, a field of flowers, and a bunch of trees around a lake.)

Those are nice designs! My mom says that most years she goes around to all her mundie friends and does their taxes for them but that's a very seasonal mana generation technique.

Gonna go on a run now, I think I have the go for it now.

the sea is real, who knew

I want to learn to swim

That's so much water! :o (The :o is what my face looks like. Apparently drawing your face with punctuation is a thing in text messages.) 

Learning to swim sounds neat! Do people still wear those stripey shirt-and-pants sets they had in the British History textbooks?

Empirically, no! I am trying not to stare at all the strangers in bikinis but there are several of them here at the moment.

Having just looked up what a bikini is (Wikipedia is so great) I think you would look pretty awesome in one.

(They've all seen each other in the showers but you don't look at each other in the showers, you look at the faucet and the drain and the corners and get clean as fast as possible. Some memories may be getting recontextualized.)

Quite possibly! I think I will take my graduation present money and walk into the fanciest store with bathing suits I can find, because I have no sartorial taste that isn't about embroidering daisies as densely as possible, and need a store person hunting for a commission to put something in front of me.

Excellent plan. I wasn't sure what to do with my newfound ability to buy things but maybe I should get some pretty clothes too. That way I'll have some pictures to trade for one of you in a swimsuit.

(That last sentence gets deleted and retyped twice before sending.)

Oh, well, if you want to stand in for the hypothetical salesperson don't let me stop you.

It fits, but I was also considering a blue one.

It looks to me like you have great taste and don't need a salesperson, but I'd be happy to look at the blue one if you want a second opinion.

And your professional opinion?

Hmm, I think I like the red one better. Also you have inspired me to go out in search of a clothing store.

This is accompanied by a selfie of Marcy next to a flower planter in front of a row house. She's not in a bathing suit but is in a nicer outfit than she's had in four years, with slacks that actually fit and a button-down shirt with just enough buttons undone to be obvious she undid at least one for the picture.

Is that a before picture? Looks snazzy enough to me.

It is; thanks! I genuinely do need more clothes, my parents took a wild guess at how much growth spurt I'd have and I've got like three sets that fit, but also you have inspired me to care about looking pretty.

Shortly thereafter she sends a photo of a pair of buskers, one playing the flute while the other does a dance involving twirling long ribbons on sticks.

This is neat and I wonder if it would combine interestingly with parkour.

I think you need your hands for parkour.

I bet I could make it look cool with the ribbons attached to my wrists. It would be more difficult because there'd be more stuff to keep track of but seeing how well it works would be kind of the point.

Send me video if you try it.