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Aurin holds his mother's hand as she leads him from the street to his aunt and uncle's house. He's been here only a couple of times, and can't remember most of them distinctly; they're sort of awkwardly related, his dead father's half-brother and the wife thereof. But now they have a baby parunia, and that means there is a dragon related to Aurin who is not too far from his age, only thirty-one years younger. This is apparently the sort of relation that it will be particularly enriching for Aurin to meet. They can do this now instead of waiting a month, because parunias don't die when they're babies; this one is safe, unlike the miscellaneous cousins on his mother's side he's never met because they are all in too much danger to get attached to (and have all succumbed to that danger). So here they are. Even though it was a very long flight and he couldn't ride his mother for takeoff and landing when she had to be a heron, only for the middle part.
Alys knocks on the door.
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Mial observes this dynamic. He decides he does not like it. He drags Aurin into another room to talk to him alone.
"What's your problem with Finnah?"
"What's your problem with Finnah?"
"I - uh - I don't really know her," mumbles Aurin.
Mial folds his arms and produces a Look gleaned from his father's repertoire of unimpressed-with-your-excuses Looks.
"I don't! You're my cousin but she's... just somebody who's around, and."
"And...?" prompts Mial.
"And Mom said to be careful..."
"Careful about what," says Mial.
"About, uh, shrens I don't know, really really know."
"Well you're not gonna get to know her if you keep ticking her off by acting like she's about to eat you," says Mial. "You should be nice to her. She's really sad."
Aurin shifts his weight from foot to foot. "I don't want her to be sad but I don't think I can fix it."
"You can be nice to her anyway," says Mial. "Me and Mom and Dad being nice to her doesn't fix it but we still are."
"I don't think she is in a making friends mood," opines Aurin.
"Me either," Mial admits. "But still. Just be nice, okay?"
"I'm not being mean to her!"
"You're being weird."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"I am not."
"You are!"
"What's so weird about how I'm being?"
"You're not going near her. In a weird way."
"What would I go near her for?"
"I dunno. I go near her sometimes, and you go near me sometimes."
"Do you just want to play board games that need a bunch of people or something?"
Mial considers this question, then says, "Yeah."
(Because he thinks Finnah will probably play board games with them if coaxed, and then maybe Aurin will stop being weird.)
(Because he thinks Finnah will probably play board games with them if coaxed, and then maybe Aurin will stop being weird.)