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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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"I don't think I'm gonna be quite that bad. But oh I want to take her skirt off with my teeeeeth," groans Finnah.
"Yep. You sure do like girls," diagnoses Mial. "I wonder when I'm going to get like that. Well... I don't know, it's hard to tell with Aurin and now you as examples. Maybe I'll be like Dad and not notice what I think of boys or girls until I've practically already married one."
"I don't wanna marry her, she's a human, she's fourteen, new on the flag dance team, just - nnnnnf. I'll try to shut up about it though."
"You can talk about it if you want," Mial says generously. "I haven't had like forty years to get tired of Finnah's Thoughts On Girls yet."
"My thoughts are mostly nnnnnf and also mostly about the particular girl, like, now that I think about it I do believe I am generally partial to girls but mostly right now it's the one."
"Does she have a name, or just a really tasty-looking skirt?" laughs Mial.
"Taaril," says Finnah, shooting him an exasperated look. "Her name's Taaril."
He grins. "Sorry."
"Anyway, if I'm all girls-noticing now, you're due. I'll get you back if you tease me, mark my words, I will take notes."
Mial giggles.
"I honestly might have noticed girls already and just not noticed noticing girls," he says. "Because I was expecting noticing girls to come with not being able to shut up about them for days on end. I dunno. Mostly I notice scoots. But, uh, not in that way, I don't think."
"I honestly might have noticed girls already and just not noticed noticing girls," he says. "Because I was expecting noticing girls to come with not being able to shut up about them for days on end. I dunno. Mostly I notice scoots. But, uh, not in that way, I don't think."
"I think there are probably degrees," says Finnah. "I dunno, aren't there girls in your racing club?"
"Yeah. They're all 20-equivalent or more, though," he snorts. "There were girls in my old racing club and I'm pretty sure I didn't notice any of those. Or the boys. It might be boys. Who knows."
"What about the neighbors? Like, I know we don't have any really close neighbors, but there's the Kithenik who're usually outside in handfuls when we go in for groceries, the blonde girl in her forties is cute."
Mial considers the blonde girl in her forties. He shakes his head. "I dunno, I guess she's pretty. But I don't have any urges to braid her hair or do anything to her clothes."
"Or kiss her?" asks Finnah. "The skirt-removal-with-teeth might just be a me thing."
"Or kiss her," he confirms, shaking his head again.
"Well, it'll happen. Or it won't, I guess, whatever. But if and when it does out come my notes." She makes a mock-threatening gesture in his direction.
He giggles again. "What is even in your notes."
"Nothing, yet."
"Well, then, I'll just have to try very hard not to tease you about girls, I guess."
"You do that. Tease Aurin instead."
"Teasing Aurin is fun," Mial says agreeably.
With Mial setting precedent, when a fifteen-year-old human girl starts winning half her races in the junior league with a scoot her cousin tuned up for her, she's pretty much summarily moved early into the adult league (and the associated organizational structure institutes a formal policy that if you win half or more of all the races that the junior league holds for a period greater than one year, or more than two-thirds of the races over a period of four months, you are automatically eligible for this promotion).
This girl, whose name is Amidaar, proceeds to make friends with everybody in the big league and revamp her racing outfit to look more grown-up. She makes a particular point of saying hi to Mial, who is closer to her equivalency than anyone else there.
"Welcome to the grownup league," he says, grinning, when she comes to talk to him. "Nice to have you around, I was getting tired of all these old people."
"It's great to be here," she says. "Think I'll get picked on for not making my own scoot? I have the channeling capacity of like an insect, so."