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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 can fit in the fireplace," Aurin volunteers as support.
on-my-word
"Well... maybe," Mial says doubtfully.
(Avar exhales in relief. He knows what happens when Mial gets carried away and then perceives himself as losing - not all of the time, but too often. It's not that he doesn't hurt, after all. His ability to hold conversations, to distract himself and cover what he's feeling, is fueled by his quick mind and competitive spirit. It's why he's so intense about his games. They give him something to do. Take that away, let him lose his momentum, and it all comes crashing down. Last time, it took him days to stop crying. And it's not even as simple as letting him win, because if he catches a whiff of that he feels mortally betrayed and it comes around just the same.)
(Avar exhales in relief. He knows what happens when Mial gets carried away and then perceives himself as losing - not all of the time, but too often. It's not that he doesn't hurt, after all. His ability to hold conversations, to distract himself and cover what he's feeling, is fueled by his quick mind and competitive spirit. It's why he's so intense about his games. They give him something to do. Take that away, let him lose his momentum, and it all comes crashing down. Last time, it took him days to stop crying. And it's not even as simple as letting him win, because if he catches a whiff of that he feels mortally betrayed and it comes around just the same.)
"The fireplace is good to be in," opines Aurin.
"Why?" he wonders.
"It has fire! I can put fire in there and it's okay. I'm not supposed to put fire other places."
Finnah is much less corrigible about setting things on fire.
Finnah is much less corrigible about setting things on fire.
Mial giggles.
"Finnah puts fire everywhere," he says. "Good for you not putting fire where fire doesn't go."
"Finnah puts fire everywhere," he says. "Good for you not putting fire where fire doesn't go."
"Well, if I put fire where it doesn't go Mother or whoever's watching me doesn't like it."
Mial nods sagely.
"Does Finnah not have a fireplace?"
He shakes his head. "She has a house," he says. "She puts fire there."
"That's not good for houses."
"Yeah," Mial agrees. "I like her house when it's not on fire, though. I can go there."
"You can't come to my house, yet," says Aurin, disgruntled. "It's not allowed."
"I know," he says, nodding. "I'm allowed here and I'm allowed at Finnah's house and I'm allowed on the bottom of the world. That's where I'm allowed."
"Well, when you're a bird you can go anywhere." Aurin turns into an eagle.
"Yeah! When I'm a bird I can fly," he says dreamily. "But that's not until I'm twenty. I am not twenty."
"Are you going to learn to be an elf like your mom?" wonders Aurin.
"Nah," he says. "Human, like Dad. Like you."
Aurin turns into a human again and feels at his ears. "It's pretty okay. One time we went to Koyapar and everything was little but I'm pretty little so I didn't bump my head. Mom bumped her head."
"Where's Koyapar? Why's everything little there?"
"Koyapar is in the tropics, by the - southeast corner, and it's mostly halflings who are little even when they are grown up."
"So I guess they wouldn't build big things." Mial thinks about this. "I'd build big things still," he decides. "So big people wouldn't bump their heads."
"I don't think any of the halfling countries have lots of big things. I think they have a few big things."
"But if not-halflings come visit sometimes they bump their heads!" says Mial.
"Hmmmmm." Pause. "What about fairies? And pixies and sprites. If they make teeny-weeny things they can fit whole cities into a block! And if they don't then they can't."