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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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"...because...?"
"Because she was scared of me and I was scared of her and I feel stupid and awful and every time I do anything I start crying," he says. He is indeed crying.
"Well, she shouldn't've been scared of you, you wouldn't have ever hurt her." Aurin doesn't comment on Mial's fear of her.
"I wouldn't've," he agrees, sniffling. "I wanted to yell at her though, I got so mad, but she was just scared and, and," incoherent sobbing.
Squeeze.
Mial wriggles his arms out of the blanket to hug Aurin with.
That will make this hug less one-sided.
"Dragons get different ways about shrens," says Aurin. "I'm sorry she was a bad way."
"Dragons get different ways about shrens," says Aurin. "I'm sorry she was a bad way."
Sniffle. Hug.
"I want people not to be bad ways about us," he mumbles.
"I want people not to be bad ways about us," he mumbles.
"I dunno how to do that or I'd do it to Grandfather."
Mial giggles softly.
"You're a good cousin," he declares.
"You're a good cousin," he declares.
Aurin giggles too.
"At least I can be mad at Grandfather," sighs Mial. "But it's different being mad at somebody who's just scared. I'm still kind of mad but then I feel bad about it."
"Well, it was dumb for her to be scared. For it to matter that you're a shren you'd have had to, like, attack her, in front of everybody. As long as her elf form was still alive it couldn't even possibly matter."
"Yeah. And I wasn't gonna, I wouldn't ever, I just wanted her autograph because she was cool." He sighs. "Did Mom make lunch yet?"
"I dunno."
He casts the spell to check the time.
"Probably not," he concludes. "Well, maybe I'll go have some when she does."
"Probably not," he concludes. "Well, maybe I'll go have some when she does."
"Has she been just bringing you food the entire time you've been lumping? My mom doesn't do that if I don't want to get out of bed."
"Yeah," says Mial. "What else is she gonna do, let me starve?"
"Well, I get out of bed eventually, when I get hungry."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense then. I probably wouldn't've."
"Even if you got really hungry and you smelled nutmeg rice?"
"Probably," he says. "I'm a really lumpy lump this time."
"Do you even like nutmeg rice, I don't remember, what's your favorite thing?"
Mial considers this.
"I dunno. I'm too lumpy to have a favourite food right now."
"I dunno. I'm too lumpy to have a favourite food right now."
"What's usually your favorite?"