patience

[calescent]

Alser's granddaughter has the same suggestive "power" blessing from her first set of three that Kiri has. Her other blessings aren't torz either - flexibility is coru, loyalty is hunti - but she is torz, and Alser's current best guess for a successor. She's about the elder prince's age, just a little older than Kiri. Alser asks Kiri if he might visit her at home with this grandchild-of-interest in tow.

Kiri says sure, why not.

And so Alser and Patience Frothen - who is only named for the blessing of patience, and does not wear it in her hair - comes to the house not too long after the princes do.

Comments

[salt_of_the]

"Whatcha reading?" she asks, plopping down next to him.

[pythbox]

"Stories," he says, showing her. "Malinquan ones. They're different from ours. There's a whole bunch of books like this and we've been reading them all."

Isten nods.

[salt_of_the]

"Are they any good?"

[pythbox]

"Yeah!" says the elder prince. "I like 'em a lot. So does Isten." He ruffles his little brother's hair.

[salt_of_the]

"I'm probably supposed to introduce myself to Ardelay," it occurs to Patience to mention. "Since this is her house. Do you know where she is?"

[pythbox]

"Nope," says the elder prince. "But I could help you look!"

[salt_of_the]

"Yeah, I'm worried I'd get lost in here. I'm at Grandfather's house all the time and I can still get turned around sometimes and I've never been here before at all."

[pythbox]

"I'm good at not getting lost and I've been here longer than you," he says. "Isten, do you wanna come with us?"

Isten thinks this over, then shakes his head.

"Okay. Gonna stay here with the book?"

Nod.

"Okay." The elder prince hugs his little brother and gives him the book and hops up off the bench.

[salt_of_the]

Patience follows he-who-she-knows-only-as-Hector. "Can he read already?" she asks as they head inside.

[pythbox]

"Little bit," says the prince. "He follows along when people read to him, I dunno how much he does on his own."

[salt_of_the]

"He's cute. He's what, two?"

[pythbox]

"Yep! He is both two and cute," says the prince, grinning.

[salt_of_the]

Patience laughs. "I'm almost ten and think you are also ten or almost ten."

[pythbox]

"I am ten," says the prince. "How almost are you almost?"

[salt_of_the]

"Half a quintile."

[pythbox]

"That's an almost!" he says agreeably. "Hmm, let's see if Kiri's in the library."

Here is the library! Does it contain Kiri?

[calescent]

Kiri can be found in the stacks, looking for the best Soechin-Welchin dictionary.

[pythbox]

"Hi, Kiri!" says the prince. "I brought you a Frothen!"

[calescent]

"Which Fr- oh, you must be Patience. Hi!"

[salt_of_the]

"That's me! It's nice to meet you, since you are why I am here and everything. I didn't even know when we started that Hector and Isten were going to be here, Grandpa told me that you'd made a standing invitation but I didn't expect to overlap."

[calescent]

Kiri glances at the prince when Patience says "Hector".

[pythbox]

He makes a little bit of a face and shrugs a little bit of a shrug.

[calescent]

"Anyway. Patience, did your grandfather warn you about getting too near me?"

[salt_of_the]

"Well, he told me about it, and I probably won't braid your hair, but I'm not going to freak out about little bits here and there," shrugs Patience.

[pythbox]

The prince giggles. "Braiding people's hair sounds fun, though! Hey Kiri, can I braid your hair sometime?"