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

[pythbox]

That is excellent. They shall have many hugs.

[salt_of_the]

So they shall!

[calescent]

When the Frothens have settled in and Kiri is no longer socially obliged to be constantly available to and solicitous of them, she goes a-wandering down a hall on the second floor that leads to the pantry. (There is a dumbwaiter allowing coordination of the pantry with the kitchen.) She wants to see if they still have that apple jam so as to inform her meal requests when next she issues them.

[pythbox]

Along this hall, there is an alcove containing a large decorative urn.

The large decorative urn appears to be sniffling very quietly.

[calescent]

That is an unlikely behavior for an urn, however large and however decorative.

Kiri peeps into the alcove.

[pythbox]

There is a small blue corner of a small blue sleeve just barely poking out from behind the urn on one side. Whoever is back there must also be quite small, to fit into that amount of space.

[calescent]

Well, there are a couple of servants' children around - the gardener has a baby, the cook has a five-year-old - but this is not the right amount of implied independent mobility for the one or the right size for the other.

"Isten?" asks Kiri, keeping five feet back but crouching down.

[pythbox]

The quiet sniffling stops. The sleeve corner vanishes.

[calescent]

"Did something happen to you?"

[pythbox]

A few more moments of silence. Then a small face peeks out from behind the urn, red-eyed but clean.

"I got lost," he explains, quietly.

[calescent]

"It's a big house," says Kiri. "I used to get lost in here all the time."

[pythbox]

"The palace is big too," he says, scooting a little farther around the urn. "I got lost there."

[calescent]

(Kiri shuffles back a couple inches.) "The palace is even bigger, yeah. Do you want help finding where you were trying to go?"

[pythbox]

He peers suspiciously at her.

"...Is it okay?"

[calescent]

"Is what okay?"

[pythbox]

"That I'm lost," he says. "Is it okay? You're not angry?"

[calescent]

"Wh-" Kiri starts, and then she realizes exactly why she might be angry. Or rather, why someone might be angry.

"No," she says instead. "I'm not. It's fine."

[pythbox]

He peers at her some more, and then crawls the rest of the way out of the alcove.

"I want to go back to my room, please," he says.

[calescent]

"Sure," says Kiri, shuffling back a bit more, almost falling, catching herself, and standing up.

[pythbox]

After a moment of looking at her doubtfully, Isten also stands up.

[calescent]

"If you get lost in here, it's a good idea to go down stairs," says Kiri. "Unless you see a lot of books. The library's in the basement." She shows him to the nearest stairwell.

[pythbox]

"Thank you," says Isten.

[calescent]

"You're welcome." At the bottom of the stairs she turns left, and shows him all the way to the door of his room. "Here you go."

[pythbox]

"Thank you," he says again, and produces a tiny little smile.

[calescent]

Kiri smiles back.