vision

[calescent]

Kiri's up early the next morning, restless with various low-level simmering concerns, and wanders out of her room.

Comments

[salt_of_the]

Hugs.

After a while: "I guess you should get dressed and we should go say hi to everybody. And I should collect Mud, I don't like leaving him alone this long."

[free_flowing]

"Okay."

He kisses her on the cheek, gets out of her lap, and goes to find some clothes - plenty of options in his room, so there's no good reason to put the old ones back on if he doesn't feel like it. A nice matching shirt and kilt, Thiyecine-style, purple with blue trim. Perfect.

[salt_of_the]

She smiles weakly and gets up. "You're gonna have to show me where they are. I can tell how many bodies are where, but I don't know a damn thing about doors and staircases that I didn't this morning."

[free_flowing]

"I promise not to get you lost in my own house," he says, hugging her again.

[salt_of_the]

Hugs. "Good."

[free_flowing]

So. Down the stairs to the kierten, first.

[salt_of_the]

Patience whistles to Mud, who trots up to her making happy doggy noises; he heels.

[free_flowing]

Mud is cute. Patience is also cute.

"Okay," says Loel, "let's go see everybody."

[salt_of_the]

Patience nods.

"What're the new ones like?"

[free_flowing]

"Really, really off-type," is the first description that comes to mind. "You look at Ekador and you think sweela; you look at Sarelle and you think hunti. He's from Malinqua, moved there when he was just a baby, and his birth blessings are a couple of things I forget, and flexibility. It's hard to forget flexibility; he's adapting really well to suddenly living in a different country with a bunch of new responsibilities and also magic. I have no idea what Sarelle's blessings are, come to think of it. I'm betting there's at least one hunti in there, though. Probably certainty or determination or something."

[salt_of_the]

"Huh. That's weird. You and me and Kiri are all very our things."

[free_flowing]

"Yeah. I dunno, though, it sort of makes sense to me. What people see you as and what you actually are aren't necessarily the same, you know?"

[salt_of_the]

"Yeah, I just mean - if I went around acting like I was coru or something but I was really torz, I - I don't know why I'd do that and don't have a good idea why other people would, so it sort of snags me when I think about it? Just never got used to it even though I have plenty of cousins with this or that crown."

[free_flowing]

"Mm. Well, maybe you can ask Sarelle about it. Ekador too, but he didn't grow up here, I'm not sure he's got the hang of the elements yet."

[salt_of_the]

"That... sounds weird. It's really handy to be able to sort people who you're going to interact with more than a little but less than a lot."

[free_flowing]

"I got out of the habit when I was in Thiyec. It didn't seem to make much of a difference. I mean - in Welce it matters what element you are; in other countries it's not a thing." He shrugs. "But maybe I'm the one who's weird. Wouldn't be the first time."

[salt_of_the]

"Maybe. I'm not sure what I'd be like if I didn't have this core of - I am torz, I am so torz that I am probably gonna be the Queen Of Being Torz one day, torz torz torz. It's big in my head."

[free_flowing]

"Huh," he says. "I'm not coru that way. Well, I'm the Queen Of Being Coru, but I mean - there's not a part of me that's the coru part going around being really coru all the time. It's just that what I am and what coru is are a lot of the same things."

[salt_of_the]

"King of being coru," corrects Patience.

[free_flowing]

"Says who?"

[salt_of_the]

"...What'm I missing?"

[free_flowing]

He shrugs.

"Nothing that important, I guess. Just - in terms of... thoughts, feelings, identity, I'm not any more of a king than a queen."

[salt_of_the]

Patience thinks about this.

"Okay. Queen of being coru," she shrugs. "But anyway the torz that is big in my head is not a separate critter, it isn't like I have a hamster made of rocks running around in there. It's more - pervasive."

[free_flowing]

"Yeah. I think I'm still different," he says. "Because - it wasn't a thing, in Thiyec. I wasn't going around being coru. I was just me. I'm the same person either way, but in Thiyec nobody thinks about elements, so I didn't either. It'd be different for you, right? If you went and lived in Thiyec for a few years you'd still be torz torz torz, you might have less reason to think about it but it'd still be a thing that you'd think, wouldn't it? Being in a different country where nobody cared wouldn't be enough to make it stop mattering to you."

[salt_of_the]

"Yeah. I dunno, though, I haven't tried it."