Pizza night had some surprises. Kainudy finally made an appearance, with very mixed results. One of those results was Gweneth turning into a dragon and nearly attacking the base. The question is now is how to get to change back to 'normal' again, since she's having fun with Pheeny and Kai. The guys back at the base aren't sure what's going on, since they couldn't follow along with the others, so they're now milling out on the airfield trying to watch and catch up on things until the girls (and Melchior) return. Gweneth's new teacher is still there with them, now with a flagon of beer in her hand.
Tasha is lounging in a lounge chair, having finally undressed from work in to something more casual, a long gold-metallic Summer dress with sunglasses propped up on hear head -- and that conveniently provide up-to-the-second information on her various plots, plans, and associations. The woman has other implants these days to further help her remain connected, ever appearing natural, hiding the supplementary. Next to her, likewise lounging, is Sophia, who rests a stack of datapads on her lap, her own version of her mother's sunglasses over her eyes. "I see," the wisest of the daughters remarks, "And not beyond predictions, though mass -- if we can even use mass here -- certainly is." Tasha nods slowly, sipping on a fruity cocktail before putting it aside. "Whisper needs tending to, the damage to the realm is damage to her. Galatea and Sharon are working on it." A nod from the other. "The land and the princess are one," Sophia remarks.
"You have some weird kids," Kainudy comments to Tasha. Of course her kid is Galatea, who is hardly normal. "A normal parent would have formed a musical group or softball team. When is Gweneth going to start at the academy?"
"Weird is relative, and relatives are weird," Gabriel quips. "They can't all fit on my boat, either. But it's usually just Kala anyway."
"I find the idea of Galatea and the Waymakers playing softball as unlikely as it is amusing, which is to say, very," Tasha counters, her cool tone and relaxed demeanor not so much as perturbed by the questioning of her parental style. Tasha of thirty years has seen and done much; dealing with difficult, powerful, and dangerous associations is a bland week itinerary to the woman now. "As for Gweneth, soon. I must impress upon her cause and effect, and the importance of responsibility, first. She could be a danger to the other students if she doesn't understand; for instance, if someone should challenge her enough." She turns and smiles at Gabriel, always her rock, even if she's now a rock, too. "I suspect several of them are hiding from excessive judgment -- and that's fine. I didn't return to weigh in on them, only to see the results and to assess what needs be done afterward."
"I'm going to install shields on Gweneth," Kainudy explains. "They'll be woven from her aura, and restrain her a bit while keeping out irritable influences. It's what kept me from going on rampages for centuries. They'll help while she learns. She's never been physically violent before, has she?"
"Not with malice, I suspect Gweneth has no inherent malice towards anything. You spooked her; I thought perhaps it was fear at first, but now I suspect it was shock and discomfort. She fled because she wanted to get away from source, and because you are a sinister and occasionally malevolent taskmaster traumatizing kids like a grim fairy tale." It's all said with a blaise tone that makes it very hard to tell if Tasha is joking or not. Gabriel knows it's bother, a direct assessment and one that likely amuses the red woman immensely. "As for the shield, that seems like a productive and sound approach. We can't have her hurl a Khattan across the market when she finds out limited time offers and amazing deals are, in fact, deceptive."
"Sinister and occasionally malevolent taskmaster," Kainudy chuckles. "Was I ever that hard on you? Walking her through a bazaar in less then a day will be proof that she can handle... well, no, it won't be proof that she can handle teenagers. Who knows what adolescent fancies exposure to non-familial people will do to her. She's not picky eater I hope?"
"Aside from the bout of soul crushing madness and that time we had to figure out of to draw you away from fighting Chaos itself, not to mention my interventions with your family, the multiple wars against elves, your mother endless plotting, ... " The list goes on for some time; Sophia even leans in at new information from across the years, and doesn't bother to hide the fact she's taking notes. "But I only have so much free time so I'll stop there. As for eating, not to my knowledge. She does tend to eat things from about her forest: plants, animals, the occasional monster, sometimes rocks -- she's rather fond of gemstones in fact, precious or otherwise -- some metals, and whatever strikes her fancy really. Thankfully she seems to consider humanoids as non-food items. Presumably, also dragons."
"She's been snapping at Kai and Pheeny a bit, so hopefully that sticks," Kainudy says, and notices Sophia's attention. "Daniarood isn't my mother," she corrects. "She just trained me. I don't intend to use her methods on Gweneth or any of the others. So far."
"I would hope not," Tasha says, with the slightest hint of an edge.
"Ah, that's good to know, thank you Lady Kainudy." Sophia inclines her head, returning to her notes, presumably to edit them. Tasha resumes talking. "I'll send her with Goldie, that should provide a point of draconic familiarity if things become overwhelming. I also intend to recall her mother and have the three -- perhaps more -- of us meet and discuss the matter of responsibility, society, and justice. I've stayed out of Gwyndrael's side of parenting, but we're out of time, and she needs to speak to her daughter and set an accord -- or a distance. In the former, guidance. In the latter, so that we know whether or not she should be counted on to provide parenting in the future. I'm prepared for either possibility and can hardly fault the latter choice, given the surprise of it all, but it would be sad for Gweneth, and I suspect, Gwyndrael."
"She's want to see Gweneth's dragon form," Kainudy says. "That make her a bit interested in upbringing. But too many dragons spoil the planet. I'm amazed at the latest generation's ability to socialized. I had to work hard to manipulate Gwyn's generation into working together. Maybe it got passed down though? I haven't been to the Dragonlands in over a millennia now. You made them sound a lot more welcoming than I remembered. Which reminds me, are you going to also pass the Silver Key on to Gweneth?"
"Let's see how she does with more basic affairs before I start bandying out keys to the universe, weapons of mass destruction, and the like. Besides, there's birthdays and special events to think about. I can't give out all the best presents too early." Tasha has another sip and conveniently pretends not to notice Sophia's ear rotate towards Kainudy and herself when she mentions the Silver Key. "Besides, given her apparent ability, she may not need the Key to get around. One of the others may be more suited to it."
"Ah, the others," Kainudy says. "I can have Kai teach Fiera and Ashera how to topple governments and civilizations if you want. They may have a knack for it, and it's always good to have a skill to fall back on. Could be useful in the long run, and doesn't require any supernatural abilities, in general. I don't have magic swords to hand out. I mean I could but they'd be rather dangerous. No weapons of mass destruction or alchemy recipes. Or they could shadow Kai when she goes and does it. I'm pretty sure it's going to be needed eventually."
"I suspect it may be as well, the Shadow's influence has infected governments and civilizations alike, as has a certain chaotic entity. One enemy at a time, however. Fine, teach Fiera and Ashera if you like. Ashera, especially, would likely find it interesting. Fiera has always had more of a militant bent and someone needs to direct the troops. Ashera enjoys spy games." Tasha nods, sips, puts her drink aside. "Kala is fit to be where she is, though perhaps she's suited to the Key given Phin's connections to dreams, dreaming, and whales. She's also fond of vehicles, which have a sympathetic resonance with the Key. However, she's under-protected and certainly not ready to be more than a risky, self-endangering tourist. She'll need guidance."
"What about this one and the bunny?" Kainudy asks, gesturing towards Sophia with a thumb. "They're very decorative."
Tasha doesn't reply, she turns instead to Sophia and watches her. Sophia notes the gesture and answers for herself. "I prefer my research, to act in support, and to assist my mother with her endeavors. I came to the conclusion early on I am not well-suited to leadership and am well suited to intellectual pursuits and knowledge-based activities, to research, and to a lesser extend, strategy. After explaining my reasoning to my mother, she agreed. That said I will not shirk my duties should I come to be needed or required, and I am not a coward." Sophia then turns, lifting a finger to indicate the distant starfighter in its search pattern. "I've been involved with our research efforts, primarily. As you well know, there are no end to mysteries encountered by our collective families, technologies to exploit, and arcane miscellany to assess. These things must be processed, and I am well suited to this endeavor. In this way, I hope to aid our overall effort and, in time, and if it is possible, produce assimilative technologies, magics, and alchemies purpose-built for the task at hand rather than dredged up, loaned, or otherwise procured willy-nilly -- no offense intended."
Tasha nods approvingly, returning to look to Kaiundy. "As for 'the bunny', she's yet too young, and her personality is mild. Hospitality, medicine, nature are more of her forte, though perhaps she'll surprise us."
"I've known some formidable lapine warriors in my day," Kainudy says, and watches Sofia for a bit longer. "So, Sofia is the truly dangerous one then, I see. What about the others? Rebby, Galahad, Shona, Desdi, Zachary and Zelda? What roles do they play? I suppose I should count Nora in that group as well. She seems to have the most leadership potential."
"She was bred to be a leader," Gabriel points out. "And has taken the role to heart. As for how good she is at actually leading people, that varies."
"I have the good grace not to say so openly, and I caution not to overestimate my abilities -- but yes," Sophia confirms. This causes Tasha to laugh, which earns her a quizzical look from her daughter. "As for Nora, exactly what Gabriel said. She's willful, headstrong, self-confident, but often lacks empathy, modesty, and the ability to separate her self worth and self identity from the duty at hand. She actively competes as well as leads, which can result in problems." She looks to Gabriel for his confirmation before returning to Kainudy. "That said, she can hopefully change and grow. I do recommend her for leadership, for help in that endeavor. Humility, especially, would serve her well. Zach and Zelda are Aaron's domain, and like the rest, not obligated in any way to aid in the overall effort. They're all free to go where they will without expectation. Should they show interest in joining the endeavor, we will assess their ability and direct them accordingly."
"They're the ones that go back and forth a lot, along with Nora," Kainudy ponders. "Are the others friends, or romantic entanglements? I've know handsome wolves before, so I recognize Galahad's potential charisma, unless he's an utter doof. Vartans I'm less familiar with, as I haven't really associated with avians in the past. Rebby seems a bit of a 'free spirit' in my opinion."
"I'd say they're going through a tumult of emotions and still developing their adult relationships. Galahad is Katherine's clone, so despite his antics, unlikely to be 'a doof' even if he acts that way. Though perhaps Katherine would have been a doof if raised differently? An amusing proposition." Tasha smiles a bit at the idea. "But I'm sure he has potential and is more than a bit of a flirt. Rebby stradles the line between athleticism and scholarliness, making her choice of future broad and yet uncertain. She gets on well with Kala. The Vartans tend to stick together and I know less of what they've been up to recently. Vasha would know more."
"So they are, overall, normal kids despite it all with unknown goals or ambitions," Kainudy concludes. "Unlikely to cause problems or distractions."
"It might be interesting to take them all on a bonding excursion," the dragon suggests. "Gweneth seems a bit distant from them. Maybe something with fire and volcanoes and sea-monsters..."
"Sofia looks like she could do with a nice camping trip," Kainudy adds.
Sophia holds up her hands. "I'm afraid despite my appearance I'm not overly fond of the woods nor far flung places of dubious comfort and survivability. I prefer civilization, my lab, and the Library. Computer-space and machine interface. I might be persuaded if there was a sufficient research based reason, or some other phenomenon or element of interest, however."
"Your mom went to a magical kingdom and fought with space-elves," Kainudy points out. "Wasn't that educational, Tasha?"
"I'm not sure if a lust for an adventure, a lust for violence, and a lust for lust constitutes educational, but I certainly learned something," Tasha conceeds.
"And you got turned into a dragon for a bit too at the end, I think," Kainudy says.
"But, maybe Sofia is better off going with Galatea on her various missions of exploration," the dragon concedes. "The rest all seem to have their own things going on as well. That will let me focus mostly on Gweneth."
"More than a bit, hence Gweneth. I doubt my original reincarnation could have produced Gweneth," Tasha notes.
Sophia perks her ears, then nods slowly. "Thaaat could be interesting, yes. And I would like to attain exotic materials. I have a list."
"Any dragon based exotic materials on it?" Kainudy asks.
"If you mean do I intend to hunt dragonkind for exotic materials, I kindly ask you refrain from associating me with such an affront. That said, should the situation arise and circumstances make such available, I will consider the merits versus the ethics. If you mean that you can provide them, that would be quite welcome. However, such materials are merely on my 'C' tier list; my primary list focuses on rarefied elements such as Timestone, the material of stone used by the Vril'ya, samples of Shadow-based exotic matter and biology. Artifacts. Items of advanced technology from prior Galactic Eras. And so on. I've been aiding my mother in her work with the old Galactic Library, for example," Sophia answers.
"My only source of timestone are Galatea's ansibles, so you'd have to ask her," Kainudy notes. "The Vril'ya 'marker' material isn't material, and I don't know if Shadow-based anything extends beyond your mom's pet demon Samael. I assume you've learned all you can from the Dark Horse and the Niss then? And Whisper can conjure up magical artifacts I think. Unless she hasn't learned how yet."
"The Niss have their own agenda, as always. While I consider myself intelligent and educated, I'm afraid I'm not a match for an entire civilization of hyper intelligent beings. Thus, I query them infrequently. Perhaps this is a mistake? It's hard to read the emotions of a people, let alone one different from out own in essential nature, and for that matter, a sphere." Sophia taps her chin though. "The Dark Horse is under constant study and has been by trusted experts since it was placed in drydock. As a weapon of mass destruction, and an irreplaceable transport, it has been reserved for study and specific deployment. Its makers were even more formidable minds than our dear sphere; an ancient predatory species, and your former sparring partner."
Kainudy raises an eyebrow at the 'sparring partner' dig. "You need to push yourself more. Don't just settle for your own expectations of what you can do. Your parents didn't."
"And it only got your mother killed once," the dragon points out.
"I prefer to approach my problems in a well reasoned and considered manner, thank you, preferably with research, logic, and due caution. While my mother has achieved great things, I am aware she is an outlier to the general society beyond here, and many who would attempt the same would not be so lucky. I am not confident in myself as to assume my own great luck," Sophia counters.
Tasha merely listens, trying to hide her smile, giving Gabriel a side-eye 'I'm so proud of her for standing up to Kainudy' glance.
"Hmmm, I see where Gweneth gets some of her... confidence," the dragon notes with a grin. She'll have to poke at some of the others another time. They're all still a bit in shock, probably. "Now, who is going to tell Gweneth it's time to stop playing and come get her spirit tinkered with?"
"I just changed in to my dress," Tasha insists, somehow lounging even harder without doing much more than sitting back slightly,, picking up her drink, and lowering her sunglasses. "Besides, someone should go work on their teacherly raport before their student blasts their avatar and ruins our lawn again. Gwyndrael should be arriving any day now, but as of this moment, you are out of luck."
"Alright," Kainudy says, and finishes her beer. "Gweneth," she connects over the ansible. "Come to the big black field with the spaceships on it." She then waits to see if the young dragon will respond.
Off in the distance the young but gigantic dragon rears her head back, nose up, having received the signal. Her massive head swings around, then settles decidedly on Kainudy. There is a snort of golden-blue flame from her nose, casting light over the waves.
"I think someone is a bit skeptical," Tasha notes with the faintest hint of amusement. "Gabriel would go but, well, he hasn't grown wings no matter how much I insist."
"I'm not going to her," Kainudy says. She deliberately gestures for Gweneth to 'come here' once the dragon is looking at her. It's a finger-pointing down at the ground gesture.
The dragon looks down at the spot, up to Kainudy, down to the spot and back. Kainudy is then subject to the image of a spiky black plant being pulled up, shook around in the mouth, and tossed in the water. And, the young dragon's nose goes a bit higher, eyes wide. She doesn't quite seem to have control of her mass yet, so the exaggerated nose up expression of draconic defiance is marred by her head beinbg a little wobbly. She even slaps her enormous tail against the lake, causing a crack of water displacement and sending waves rolling to the shore.
Off to the side Tasha's muzzle turns upward and she sips her drink in a long, slow, and a bit noisy draw of her long pink straw.
"Gweneth, if you want to learn the secrets of the universe, you must first learn the proper nature of our relationship," Kainudy informs the girl. "Now come here. I need to show you something that will help you avoid further incidents when you start school."
The big dragon lowers herself in to the lake, so that just her upper head is showing, and bubbles crew up from her submerged nose. Far behind her the every tip of her tail swirls around in a circle, causing a small but not insubstantial vortex in the water.
"Would you like help?" Tasha, between sips of her obnoxiously fruity and colorful beverage.
Kainudy sighs. "I'm not going to tell her to sit," she says. "So what do you suggest? Bribing her with a treat?"
"I would suggest asking Pheeny to convince her to come over here and try to like or at least respect you. Gweneth /loves/ Pheeny, she's always there whenever Pheeny arrives, and spends hours with her head in Pheeny's lap, usually curled up with Goldie. I have a painting of the three of them together in my office. Otherwise, remember that she /is/ a dragon. If you want her to be interested in what you're doing, /do something interesting/. Gabriel and I would lure her back to base by openly cooking new foods, having fun, and sometimes I would utilize magics. She'll also listen to Whisper to a degree, they have some sort of /agreement/, but I doubt Whisper's in a mood to speak with her right now. Apology and guilt are somewhat foreign to Gweneth, though not understanding cause and effect... /mostly."
"Pheeny?" Kainudy asks. "I'll have to go through Kai then." And so Kai talks to Pheeny, and Pheeny whispers to Gweneth, "She's very old, you should humor her. And she can conjure ice-cream out of thin air, I think."
The giant dragon head leans in to listen to the small avian woman hovering infront of her, ears up and forward, tail wagging slowly in the waves casting long rolls of water rippling across the lake. Pheeny is treated to the image of Kainudy -- except for some reason she's very small, is covered in the thorns from the earlier bush, and her expression is very scowly. There is the simultaneous experience of this figure getting tossed in the lake and this figure popping up ice cream all around her and in both hands; despite her two-guns ice cream stance, the figure remains sour of face. Beyond that there is a sense of general confusion, especially on the word old. Gweneth it seems, does not comprehend old.
"It's like she was raised playing Pictionary," Kainudy notes, making some obscure reference after the impressions are communicated to her. "And I don't scowl," she complains, scowling. So instead, she blows some flame: gold, blue, and silver, which form balls that she juggles.
Just out of eyeshot Tasha's grin increases just a little more. She reaches over and squeezes Gabriel's hand, and her can see her tail wag.
Much further out the dragon shifts from Pheeny to the fire, then cocks its head with alarming speed. It looks to Pheeny, to the juggling, to Pheeny again, then the juggling before lifting a hand a breathing a huge gout of fire on to its hand, casting the valley in light; the fire lingers there, a mass of ghostly white-blue-gold ghost-flame whose ripples are hands tossing balls of itself, to itself. She shows this to Pheeny and her tail wags.
"I think you're supposed to use your real hands," Pheeny explains. "That's the actual juggling part."
Gwenetherion tosses the mass of fire in to the air, which arcs and looks to be about to hit the water when the great dragon head stares at it very hard and the cloud if self-juggling fire redirects its course by flapping like a flaming multiwinged juggling fire angel to one held up hand -- and then to the other -- and back. Again and again. Gweneth looks to Pheeny for confirmation.
"It's sort of moving on it's own though," Pheeny points out, and creates her own balls of fire to juggle. She manages five at once, and they do act like they have actual weight and mass.
Gwenetherion watches this intently for a good long time, the old flame flickering out the second she stops paying attention to it. After watching, she then breathes a ball in her hand, and beings to replicate the movements and the magic, if with her own flavor of personal magic. The balls get juggled and they seem very excited to be, because the flame-waves form hands and tails that wag and wave, and so the great dragon's tail wags more, and the water is thus disturbed once again.
"Have you considered starting a traveling circus, I'm sure Galactic civilization would find it great fun," Tasha remarks to Kainudy, and then she sips another long, noisy sip.
"You've no idea how many clowns I can fit into a tiny car," Kainudy says, and dissolves her balls. "She is difficult to hold the attention of," Kainudy says. After a moment of thought, she tries singing. Vocalization does not seem to be Gweneth's strong suit so far, and the song is wordless and haunting.
The dragon turns to watch, then its ears go up. She listens for a moment, then looks to Pheeny, apparently for some sort of conformation at what she's hearing.
"Dragons crave novelty," Tasha notes.
"I'm not a singer," Pheeny says. "I've only ever heard Galatea sing and the Karnors howl. I like music though."
Whatever this means to Gweneth, she swims forward and lowers her head, trying to land Pheeny on it in a gentle upward motion. From there the dragon performs a mix of noisy dogpaddling and tail flicking as it makes an uneven approach to the far shore where Kainudy is standing.
"Ahh, this brings back so many memories. Gabriel and I once spent three hours trying to convince her to come out of a tree," Tasha notes.
"Was that the time we used peanut-butter on a stick?" Gabriel asks. "Or was that when she wouldn't come out of that hole?"
Since it seems to be working, Kainudy continues her opera, and then adds something more to it. Imagery. It's not really seen but it's still there somehow, in the song. It's a bit like Gweneth's preferred method of communication, but less abstract. In this case, it's herself flying through the sky with some strange creatures that look like feline centaurs but with giant wings. This shifts to herself laying injured in a forest, with a white-furred Karnor man somehow healing her with golden light.
"I believe the hole, we put peanut butter on a plate on a cart with wheels and rolled it from the bushes while I hid us with magic, and it wsn't easy as I recall. She could sense me even while I was putting in considerable effort. I believe she can even perceive Kai, though not reliably. At any rate it was so frustrating we started coming up with increasingly ridiculous ideas, but refused to resort to easy solutions, deciding we needed to solve the matter with simple solutions for one. The tree incident was when she became fascinated by birds when she seemed to understand Pheeny and birds are, in fact, connected. So I believe every bird became some tiny Pheeny for her to want to be around," Tasha clarifies.
"Quality programming," Sophia remarks, of the magical display. She takes notes without even looking at her tablet.
Pheeny rides on Gweneth's snout. "I think those are memories," she tells Gweneth.
Gweneth emits a general feeling of interest, if not comprehension, that is more animal fascination that intellectual curiosity, but she is approaching, and quickly.
"I believe the forecast calls for rain," Sophia says, pushing her datapads underneath her.
"So it does," Tasha agrees, casually lifting a hand and forming a flimsy, but very hot, dome.
The dragon makes landfall and immediately starts shaking all of its body out while keeping its head very still.
Pheeny takes to the air, to make things easier for Gweneth, and lands atop the base wall, next to one of the artillery pieces.
With Pheeny alighted, the dragon shakes its whole body like a building sized dog, hurling water everywhere in repeating sheets of water until it is somewhat dry, if very spikey of fur. It concludes iits landfall by making a beeline for Kainudy, that is, a somewhat meandering approach as Gweneth clearly gets used to maneuvering on a tail, turning in her in to serpentine plow as she knocks over a few trees, creates a channel from the lake inland, and otherwise moves the land more than passes over it. Finally she does approach Kainudy where she flops down before reaching her, digging a deep gouge in the landscape with her head resting at the far end.
Kainudy stops singing, but it takes time to wind down. "What a mess," she notes, and reaches out to tap Gweneth on the nose. "Boop!" she says, and triggers the transformation back into the girl's normal form, returning the excess mass back to the Unformed.
Something strange happens when Kainudy forces the transformation in reverse. The mass does not return to the Unformed, instead it falls in to Gweneth, like a hyper-dimensional black hole. The experience is not unlike watching something fall down a hole, except if the thing were falling from all directs down a spherical hole, and then it is ever so faintly detectable within the well of Gwenetherion's existence. Consumed, it seems, in to an internal reservoir. Kainudy may not be sure such a thing existed before; could it be an answer to being cut off from the anisble? or has exposure to the asible's power awakened some ersatz copy, a battery of sorts, or a holding place? The core of Gweneth has always been inexplicable, ineffable. Now, it seems to be consumptive. perhaps this the power of a dragon created from an unlikely conglomeration of powers, godlike and otherwise, capable of understanding a thing's truth if not yet its knowledge and wisdom. There does seem to have been some loss in the absorption, making it unclear how much remains and how much returned to whence it came.
"Hmmm," goes Tasha. Sophia leans over to whisper questions, and Tasha responds in the uncertain, having picked up on something but either not understood it or not saw its complete action or both.
"Interesting," Kainudy says. "Hopefully not dangerous though."
"I'm not sure what that was, but I'ma also not sure what I saw. We can review this later," Tasha notes. Another whisper to Sophia, who raises an eyebrow, whispers back, and Tasha nods. The younger Universal Animal sits back and says, "Well, I'm hardly an expert on the Unformed, nor, for that matter, magic of the sort used to shape it, but I will make a note of it and post it for further inquiry when we all have a chance to study this."
Gweneth, who disappeared in to the trough now that she's back to being a solid five feet two inches, can be heard climbing back out. What some may not have seen was the very offended head up as she landed in muddy dirt at the bottom. It's a very mud caked Gwenetherion that reaches the top, but she doesn't seem to mind, nor really notice, as she flops right back down in to almost the same position, give or take body structures and mass.
"I hope this doesn't mean you've forgotten how to use your legs?" Kainudy says. She activates another ansible function to force all of the dirt off of Gweneth. She then.. cracks her knuckles. "Alright, time to forge some armor. Are you ready, child?" she asks Gweneth.
Gweneth just looks up from, Kainudy from the ground, horns glinting like mirrored crystals, nose in the grass, her breathing causing it to sway back and forth. Her mind is strangely silent, and perhaps that in itself indicates something -- that her mind is focused on Kainudy and not broadcasting.
"I'll take that as a yes," Kainudy says, and takes a deep breath. "Persephone did this for me, a long time ago," she says, and begins to move her hands in an almost hypnotic pattern, leaving afterimages. What's not seen as the way Gweneth's draconic aura is being manipulated. It's being tightened and woven, becoming less a projected expression of will and more of an actual barrier. From Gweneth's perspective, the world might actually be becoming a bit duller.
This is shown on Gwenetherion's face as she scrunches up her muzzle and gets very frowny, but she doesn't otherwise move. She could be resting, she's certainly watching, and she may be about to pounce, all from her pose alone. What's also likely is that she is watching with more than just her eyes, and Kainudy canf eel the draconic will resist her, tug with her, but she isn't putting up as much of a fight as perhaps she expected. Could it be Pheeny's influence, or is this another new thing to experience?
When Kainudy finishes, she knocks on the barrier, to prove that things can't get through. "Alright, I'll show how to lower them later," she tells Gweneth. "Right now, the only mental communication is through the ansible, so you will need to speak from now on to other people."
Kainudy is met... with silence. In the distance Tasha opens her mouth and lifts her hand to make hand talking pantomime gestures, which Gweneth watches. Eventually she catches on. "Why is it silent?"
"To keep you from going crazy," Kainudy explains. "You have been exposed, so far, to very few people. And to very little discipline. Look at how you reacted to my aura. You can't do that anymore. You will be surrounded by hundreds of minds soon, and lots of new and frustrating experiences."
Gweneth stares at Kainudy for a moment, then seems to remember that won't work, and so states, "I don't like it. The... " Another pause, frustration twists the girl's face, and she returns to words, "the everything-all-and-inside-out is quieter, less color and sound and... " for some things there are no words available, so she snorts flame in to her hand and it becomes a sphere that explodes and reforms to encompass itself. She holds it up, to explain for her, and then asks, "There are a hundred people? A hundred sisters? A hundred mommas? I have two. More than two sisters. One daddy. One me. One Goldie. One Pheeny." Another pause, but her head tilts,s o maybe she's just thinking. "A hundred Pheeny?" Ah, she's found the alure.
"Hundreds of different people," Kainudy explains. "Not like anyone you know. And there may be hundreds more to pass by before you even get to the hundred or so you'll be staying with." She taps her own head. "I used to leak, because I was broken. Injured. So I had to be armored to stop the leak. It meant I couldn't do certain things anymore, but it kept me safe, and kept me from hurting people. The armor is so you do not get hurt, or hurt others. Until you have trained to control yourself."
"Broken?" The fire in Gweneth's hand becomes a statue, which rotates on to its side, and then breaks apart in to pieces, then whisper,s before reforming in to a ball. "A hundred-hundred people. New people. Like Kainudy is." Then her head goes back, ears flat, eyes wide. Suspicion. She hunkers a little closer to the ground.
"A hundred Kainudys would certainly scare anyone, and I remember that vase. A gift from the Celestial Empire for services rendered. We like to say the cracks resemble serpents and therefore it's superior now," Tasha says.
"There's only one me, thankfully," Kainudy says. "You will not encounter anyone that can directly control you. But you will encounter people that you don't like, but must learn to get along with anyway. You will need help, and Kala can only do so much for you. You need to make friends and forge bonds with others."
The draconic girl listens to all of this with what is probably focus, though she is on her belly, in the dirt, in exactly the same position as her titanic dragon form had been, minus size and with a different configuration of limbs. It seems to take her a while to formulate the words, or she's trying to project again, it's hard to tell. "I don't not like," she says at length, with a hint of confusion.
"Getting her to the point of saying 'I' was a challenge, for a time, we suspected, that she identified with everything, though we don't believe she saw herself as everything. When the boundaries between you and all else are thinner, so are the barriers," Tasha remarks from where she's lounging.
"You can't be everything," Kainudy explains to Gweneth. "You need to have a distinction between you and other. Especially if you want to learn magic, or play games."
Gweneth makes a grunting snort, fire curling from her nose, at that. "Why not? Why not everything?" But then her expression changes, and then she answers her own question. "I to eye to other, and they are then there to be. Copy. Copy, with seeing is knowing, and with knowing, to me."
"Was that a rhyme?" Sophia, looking up. She nad her mother exchange glances, then resume watching.
"I you mean that you will learn from observing others, then yes," Kainudy says, and then grins. "It means having to figure things out indirectly. Which is challenging and rewarding."
"Because no face that you see will be the real face of someone, unless you've earned their trust," the dragon continues. "People wear masks, depending on who they are interacting with or what sort of impression they want to convey."
"Indirectly?" The little dragon scrambles up, kicking her legs, biting a tree stalk for extra grip, and pulling herself up with a free hand. She's dirty and muddy, but she doens't seem to mind. She then bounce-scampers over to Kainudy with startling speed, getting in very close, leaning in and squinting. "Directly to indirectly?"
"Well, even with me, you could never get directly because I'm very good at hiding things," Kainudy claims. "Indirectly means talking to people. Learning about them, listening to what they want to tell you. It could all be a disguise, or it could all be genuine. You won't learn to tell the difference without being exposed to both. You won't learn how to hide your own intentions without learning how others do it, either."
At hiding things Gweneth's ears perk up. "Hide and seek?" But she seems to think better of it and its offer and so she drops a few levels of excited. "Talk to people. Indirectly." Her head tilts, then she points at Sophia's datapad. "Indirectly?"
Kainudy mistakes the intent, and says, "Having your sister spy on people counts as indirectly gathering information, yes. She's also pretty good at maintaining a mask. Just by talking to, try to figure out what she thinks of all of this."
And so Gweneth hop, skips and jumps over to Sophia, leaning in to scrutinize her, which causes Sophia to lean well back -- though she does also reach a hand out to pet Gweneth and stroke her hair. This makes Tasha smile, and it's as honest and genuine a smile as ever there was. "HMMMMMMM," goes Gweneth, exagerating the noise, perhaps because she equates the noise to thinking or perhaps understanding, and Sophia does it quite often. She lays a hand on Sophia's muzzle, leans in to be very close and eye-to-eye, looks at her from this side and that, and states, "She is thinking about me because I am in front of her. She is thinking about making the makes--" "Building, researching, designing, construction," Sophia corrects. "Making the building, researching, designing, construction. Sophia means wisdom. Sophia knows. Sophia is knowing, the stone-man-machine, and god-statue, and momma. There is more. I don't understand. The empty place. The shiny place. Sophia wants to become, become, become, many and all and more than the rest ston-" "Annnd that's quite enough of that," goes Sophia, who reaches over and closes Gweneth's muzzle.
Gweneth says, "Mmphphng," reacts Gweneth."
"Or, you could have just asked her," Kainudy points out, then looks at Sophia, deciding to test her a bit. "Sophia, in one word, describe the difference between a 'true' dragon and a 'false' dragon."
"Essence," Sophia responds after a moment to consider. "It is the essence of the thing. Dragons are, typically, possessed of two core essences as well as a deep connection to Life and general commonality in body structure, although the specifics vary across species. To my knowledge all are magical, though I am not confident enough to state that with a certainty all dragons are, indeed, magical. Gweneth has an affinity for Light in both the literal and abstract, and another essence we have as yet been unable to determine. As I understand it you are dracoform, but not a dragon, lacking the core essences yet possessing aesthetics and many common traits. Mother possesses only one draconic essence, and is thus a partial or imperfect dragon."
"I prefer imperfect dragon, it lends me a common air appreciable to the common man," Tasha says with a smirk.
"That's quite a complicated one word answer," Kainudy says. "But the correct answer is: edibility."
"Is it?" Sophia inquires, and she sounds... slightly irritated? But, she does lean forward, and her ears do rotate Kainudy's way. "Do tell? Please."
"Please!" Gweneth, whose mouth has been let go of.
"One of them can be eaten, the other cannot," Kainudy explains.
"An unexpected answer, but I suppose that makes sense, given my mother's jaunt in to dragondom," Sophia says after a moment. She does frown a lot, however.
"I am like a pancake," Gweneth declares in understanding. "So is mamma!" This elicits a snort of laughter from her mother, who leans over to pet Gweneth as well. "Yes, we're all tragically pancake-ish. Although, momma cannot be eaten by anyone, she's a pancake in a locked box, and I think most would have a terribly difficult time trying to eat you mny silly little dragonling." And then Gweneth gets a kiss on the forehead.
"Pancake is close, pizza is closer," Kainudy claims. "Conversely, the material of false dragons can't be used to create magical items, medicines or potions."
"Even though, as Sofia noted, false dragons can still use magic," Kainudy points out.
"Many can, in fact. Magic is not unique to dragonkind, they are just predisposed to it," Sophia expands.
"I can-am-is-are-will-be-all-and-in-and-out magic," Gweneth adds, though perhaps less helpfully. "I'm made of light!"
"You're made of your mother and Gwyndrael and probably some Kai," Kainudy points out. "I you were made of light you'd experience all of time all at once and never be able to remember where you left your dreams. But then there are different sorts of light, so it's still partially true." She looks to Tasha and asks, "So she's never met anyone not in her immediate family?"
"We've taken her out to some of the safer border realities, including the desert town with dragon mind, but she tends to draw attention and there have been some incidents both caused, and directed, at her. We had one attack, some sort of vampiric conglomeration, and unsavory attention by adventuring and wizardly folk. After that we decided to wait until she was more fully developed. It remains possible our collective enemies can see far enough to have determined she represents a threat, and so now would be the time to act. As for Galactic society... We feared she'd draw the wrong kind of attention rather quickly. Unlikel my other daughters, who are in themselves attention getters and a risky flaunting of our exotic nature and connections, Gweneth is a dragon and holds an even greater cultural and genetic concern. She is also, by far, the least suited to evading questions and undesired inquiries," Tasha answers.
"Your Celestials may have a mixed reaction to her, I can see," Kainudy admits. "Still, I'll have Kai there to watch things on Caltrop. The Sifran dimensional restriction won't affect her. And speaking of being noticed by enemies, I think I've reached the time limit for my visit." She grins at Tasha, and asks, "Want me to come visit again?"
Tasha spreads her hands in a languid shrug. "Oh, why not? Grandma Demise makes me look positively indulgent by comparison, and now I can say, 'go ask your grandmother' as both an evasion and a threat. It's also nice to have another woman of similar situation around, and, well, you know I'm hopeless with small dragons." She beams a smile, and gives a wave. "Stay safe, Kainudy. Next time you visit we'll have a ski resort."
Sophia offers a sitting bow, then turns Gweneth around, holds her arm, and waves it towards Kainudy. "Good day, lady Kainudy." Gweneth wags her tail and her hand. "Please bye not-dragon!"
"I expect regular offerings of donuts still," Kainudy says, and just sort of dissolves, as if she had a gate inside of her.
"I can deliver the donuts if you don't want to deal with it," Kai offers. "Or you can send whichever daughter draws the short straw."
"Both appealing options, depends how my daughters are doing," Tasha says with a wicked grin. Sophia rolls her eyes off to the side, and Gweneth squirms out of their grasp to sniff around. "Hi Kai," she says on passing of the Kai. "I'm in a bubble so I talk."
"Yes, I know," Kai tells Gweneth with a smile. "It will be good for you. Are you excited to go school shopping?"
"I can buy a school?" Gweneth perks up at this idea, though what she would do with a school is anyone's guess. "Will it be good? For me? I'm a demi-god now. You know."
"Well, it's more buying things you will need for school," Kai explains. "And all of your sisters think they are demi-gods, but you shouldn't brag. They'll get jealous."
"I most certainly will not," Sophia says with mock-emphasis, grinning a little as she studies something on her datapad.
"I shouldn't brag," Gweneth repeats, smiling. She then walks over and tries to hug Kai. "Grandmother is full of bees and the dark places."
"Bees, yes," Kai says, hugging the girl and patting her head. "That would explain the honey."
"Yes," Gweneth agrees. She is very snuggly for a moment, and Kai is then very dirty, with one side cake in mud, grass, and of course dirt. "I'm going to go look at my ditch now. Bye!" And then she's wandering off again.
"Well, this will be interesting," Tasha says of, it seems, everything. "Let's wrap up the party. We have a lot of planning to do."
Not everyone is on this expedition to Caltrop. Mainly because the older kids already have everything they need, but Gweneth, Kala and Kai (now looking like a teenager) need to be moved into their new dorm room and get supplies and uniforms in the case of the latter two. Since Hakeber teaches courses on manual record-keeping, that means getting paper and writing implements. This is really just a cover for the later 'special' courses on keeping secret documents, but the student body in general doesn't know about that. Also along for the ride is Goldy, because she'll need to be registered as a pet in order to be allowed into the dorms.
It's enough of an occasion to take the Dark Horse though, even though it's the one ship Kala isn't allowed to pilot yet. It's still her father's domain.
"It's a shame this ship doesn't have real windows," Kai laments.
Gweneth, for her part, has taken to sitting as far as she can from the core of the ship, and it took some doing to get her off of the controls. So instead she's now seated at a bank of controls with her head in Kala's lap, who is sitting next to her, with Goldie sitting in Gweneth's lap, her head on Gwen's knee, in a very similar pose. Kala pets Gweneth, and Gweneth pets Goldie. No one pets Kala, who stares in to the long distance and considers her life choices as she says, "Space's mostly just empty anyway. Oh look, a star. Can you go see it? Yes. Better put aside a week or a month or a few years. It also wants to suck our your air and call you names."
"Most stars don't care about that sort of thing," Kai notes. "There are a few nasty ones though, that really like to throw their mass around. Demand blood sacrifices and such. Not the one the Silent Ones worship though, apparently. At least not anymore." She asks the Phin-Tasha hybrid, "Don't you like pilot spaceships though? Or is just that you want to see more than you've been allowed to so far?"
"I have a star over my head and it means everything," Gweneth tells Goldie.
Kala listens to this, blinks, shakes her head out a little, and looks to Kai. "Huh, so the Star's a... Huh. Uh, what?" She blinks, gives her head another shake, and then makes an indeterminate squeaky noise. "Ships? Yeah of course. I like going places, riding the waves of power and gravity and life. Space's not the ocean, though, and not even a lake, it's hollow and mean, and all all the good stuff's between the lines and under it. Space itself is boring. It's where you're going and the what you're riding on."
Goldy mrrps and looks up at Gweneth's head.
"So your mom hasn't told you about the Titanian's Star Sea yet then?" Kai asks Kala.
Gweneth looks down at Goldie. "It's there but it's more there when I'm big. My lower half is a snake," she informs the littler dragon in what sounds like, but is probably not, a conspiratorial tone.
The response to this is Goldy very slowly extending her long tongue, before finally making it wiggle like snake tail.
This makes Gweneth giggle, and the giggling causes Kala to look down, and then she laughs. "Yeah just like that, except ruining all of Whisper's stuff and making a big crater. Who she'd be like, half snake? What part of us is even a huge snake, anyway?" Kala shrugs with her hands, then grins at Kai. "Maybe that's you? Big snake? Biiig snaaake?"
"I haven't been a snake for ages and ages," Kai claimed. "Not since.. Corra. Nobody remembers her. Embodied life, death, fertility and the earth."
"How tutelary of you. I plan to embody Travel, Water, Irresponsibility, and Parties," Kala declares, twirling a hand. "But man, wow, you've been around, right Kai? Multiple Earths, difrrent realities, more even than mom, and maybe old Grandma Grimdoom?"
"Yeah, I'm old and was spread out a bit," Kai says. "But in the end, I was little more than a flicker before I made a contract with Kainudy. Not that either of you should be thinking making contracts with entities."
"I hope the one I make contact with is chill and its like, heeey, want to do not much, and then relax? And I'll be like, yeeeah," Kala says, grinning and winking. She folds her arms behind her head and leans back, careful to not rest her head on any buttons, knobs, or switches. "I know mom's connected to some crazy nonsense she won't tell us much about. Sophia probably knows, but she knows everything so really, why worry about that, and her father's the smartest rock in space with his own god. Gwen's mom's a dragon but, uh, you know what? Nevermind."
Gweneth, meanwhile, is butting noses with Goldie and making squeaky noises.
Goldie makes 'boop' noises instead. "Dionysus is the god for you then, kid," Kai tells Kala. "God of wine. Proper worship required a drunken orgy. Don't tell your mother I mentioned him though. Say it was Hakeber."
A chime sounds. "O-k-kay!" Kaa calls out. "Coming up on Caltrop. Check the bridge view to see it if you never have before!"
"That does sound like something Professor Drunk-With-Boys would say," Kala agrees, grinning more. "Okay, come on, it's time to see the Crystal Prison and hope ancient aliens blew it up or something, so I can not do my class project. Up, up you go, get up you condensed kaiju you--" And so Kala heaves Gweneth up, scoops up Goldie, and puts Goldie on Gweneth's shoulder. She then starts nudging her towards the bridge. "That way, that way, it's not relay a window so don't try and fly out it or something, but I bet you can just live in space anyway, but mom will get mad if you get space burns or something and I'll feel bad."
"Kainudy put you in charge of Gweneth as well," Kai notes to Kala. "You wouldn't want to disappoint her, either."
The view from the bridge, which mostly a giant hologram, shows the glittering, four-pointed-star-shaped crystal outpost, with the nebula beyond it. The system's neutron star is just a tiny dot of light.
"Uuugh," goes Kala, who rolls her eyes. "Just socially! Socially! You have to go by the exact words, that's how deals with devils work." But she shuffles her sister (and sister's dragon sister) to the Bridge none the less, nudging her along when she stops to stare at things.
"Well there it is, Caltrop, great Sifran foot-mangler of the stars. Probably, it's a death ray." Gweneth gets shuffled to a seat, where she's sat down and Goldie placed in her lap, before Kala sits next to her. "Anything new and exciting since we left, Pilot Dad?"
"There's a Silent-Ones frigate in town," Kaa reports. "Which means there will probably be a Vartan one showing up at s-some point. Maybe Lacci's clan. Vartans have nice space-fighters."
"I do love me a space fighter, even if I do not love me space fighting," Kala insists. She reaches over and grabs both dragons muzzles and gives them an affectionate shake. "Why are you two so cute? You
're even cute when you're big, which is probably unfair. Well except the loudnesss, and the melted mountain. But so cute nnnnnnnnnnnngh." More shaking, then she lets go and hugs them both.
"They're just shiny," Kai claims. "You're cute too, Kala. I'm sure you're very popular with Terrans."
The Dark Horse slides into its usual berth. "Final stop!" Kaa announces. "Especially for pretty daughters. And shiny ones too. And redheads who should come swimming more often."
Goldie blows a raspberry at being left out of the flattery.
"Dad you offended the tiny dragon, what are you even doing?" Kala sits up, and this time Gweneth sits up on her own, putting Goldie on her shoulder, without being bidden or nudged in to doing so. "Great! Progress. Man if I do better than the others with this, I'm never shutting up about it. Okay! Now we're going out of the ship and on to Caltrop. This might hurt, or sting, or, I don't know, mom said it's unpleasant for you and I believe her, so get ready for-" Kala puts a finger to Gweneth's noggin, "-head ouch."
"Head ouch," Gweneth echos in a very serious tone.
"There, you got it! Head ouch is coming. Also there will be people, don't, like, laser breath them or throw them through a wall or something. Just listen and smile and, uh, stare at them until they go away. That's easy, right? Act weird, people go away. Easy. Nice. Now lets get going. C'mon Kai, destiny awaits or something."
"Try to not act weird please," Kai says as she follows. "And if you have trouble I can tighten up your shields more."
"Oh right, act, uh... Just looks like this." And so Kala makes a very plain face. "Like that, and say things like, "Oh that's nice," and "happy to hear it". Okay come on before I lose my nerve and request to be sent to Earth." And so Kala starts walking with Gweneth, waving back over her shoulder, squekaing a fairwell to her father in the language of dolphins.
There's some novelty in the way the passage from the dock to the inner surface of the arm has conformal gravity at the last step. And at least it opens out into the relatively 'quiet' end near the tip. Still, it can be an overwhelming sight, with the upside-down zone above, the seemingly endless mall of shops towards the base and of course the donut shop with its coffee and fried dough addicts. Probably some Terragens plot.
Getting Gweneth to move after she exits takes some time. The little dragon and the littler dragon stare down in to the length of the station, then start moving their gaze to every little thing, including the floor, the ceiling, multiple people, and everything else. Kala tries to nudge, tug by hand, gently then firmly push, and by the end she's got herself in full tilt trying to move Gweneth forward with all her might, and Gweneth just stands there like a highly interested statue-turret, looking at it all.
"Kaaaai, she has like a billion muscles or something, I can't even budge her, how can she be so strong?" Kala, whose efforts are fruitless.
"She's just very grounded," Kai says, and looks to the donut shop. "Have you not learned how to entice a dragon into doing what you want?"
"Nooooo I'm the irresponsible and lazy one I thought everyone got my card and character portfolio," Kalalani notes, then she relents, heaving a breath as she calms down from all the pushing. After catching her breath, she nods, hands on hips. "Right, we have to be smart about this. Use our brains. Donuts and coffee. You uh... You keep an eye on the two of them, I'll go get some. Or wait! We could lure them there! Gwen!"
Kala slings a arm around Kala's shoulder and points at the Coffee & Donut place. "That place? That place there. It has candy. Candy toroid-- candy circle. And coffee. Remember dad's coffee? Your dad, not mine. Gabriel. Coffee. Except better, because it doesn't taste like bitter. Coffeeeeeeee. Dooonuuuuts."
Gweneth turns to listen to all of this, expression slowly perking up. She points at all that is here, straight down the station as if to say 'but look at all this!' to which Kala repeats 'coffee' and 'donuts' until Gwen starts repeating coffee and donuts and then she's heading that way. "Bingo!" Then Gweneth starts repeating bingo and Kala has to tell her there's no bingo it's just an expression all the way to the shop.
Kai has no problem letting children fill themselves up with carbs and caffeine. But eventually they have to start making their way towards the hub. They could take one of the trains, but part of this exercise is to make sure Gweneth and manage crowds. Crowds full of people trying to get her attention. "No matter what anyone offers, do not sell Goldie, or let people take pictures of you. That's if they ask. If they don't ask, I'll be handling that part," Kai instructs. "Anyone trying to sell you something is almost certainly lying about some aspect of it."
The shops nearest a mainly selling things for spacers. "Discount molecular-distortion batteries!" "Quantum power cells!" "Get the latest pocket library!" "Sex and Drugs! Get your maps here!"
"What's lying," Gweneth asks as they pass in to the bazaar. The overwhelming sights and sounds has her clutching Goldie perhaps a little too hard, her eyes wide, and there's distinct increase in the warmth of the air around her -- and her luminosity. "THERE ARE MANY NOISES AND THINGS," she states in a loud, intense declaration!
"Ohhh man," goes Kala, who just watches this with the overwhelmed look of overburdened teens everywhere as she pushes back her spikey not-hair. "She's not going nuclear, is she? Can she go nuclear? Oh, and think I'd look good with hair..?"
"Pigtails," Kai suggests, and goes to hug Gweneth and smother her in silence. "Yes, yes there are many noises and many things. Don't try to listen to all of them. Galatea will chide me about this, because when she was 'little' she couldn't understand the idea of people just ignoring things that weren't important. There's actually an entire part of your brain that filters through all the noise just for what's important, you know. So, take deep breaths. Learning to ignore things is going to be hard for you, that's what the shields are here to help with. Now, do you want me to make it so things aren't so overwhelming, or do you want to try on your own? You can pet Goldie if you need to - don't squeeze, her eyes are starting to bug out - to help you focus."
What Gweneth does is look down at Goldie, and watch her suffer for a moment. Something seems to sink in and she says, "Whisper," and stops holding so hard. "Sorry, Goldie. I'm sorry." And then she looks up and around herself as if seeing it all again, and it's still just as much, her eyes are just as wide, and her hackles are standing straight out, ears back, glow increasing.
And then she shuts her eyes. "SORRY EVERYTHING."
Kala watches this and her expression falls, she takes in a deep breath, and sighs. "Ah... I wasn't expecting that but hey, at least she seems to understand guilt or... something like it. I wasn't even sure she noticed she winged poor little Whisper. Momma told her later, right? before they left. She got really still. Then I had to get ready, but man, it's a lot right?" She looks around as Gweneth hunkers down a little, curling her wings in. "It's all a lot, I mean, when I first came here I was excited, but some of this place can be really scary if you don't have guards like we do. But it's still there, and it's a lot of noise and business. Come on, the school is quiter, fewer people, and no sales people. This way, it'll be better, momma is kind of in charge of the school, so it's a bit like home with a lot of guests." She starts nudging the dragons, and the bigger of the two starts walking.
This works well, and they reach the toys and gadgets zone, which is just before the clothing area. This means there are more actual children and teens of various ages around, especially in one of the makeshift food courts. More flashing lights and sounds indicate a game arcade. "Do you only party with other Academy students, Kala?" Kai asks. "I know Tasha took Tia to a party here once."
"Oh hell no I don't. Look the school is great, but it's a bit stuffy, right? I mean I know I'm not going to disappear in to the bad parts of society, and shouldn't, because I'm not stupid, but I mix it up with all crowds. Mostly Terragens , of course, but I've hung out with Vartan crews, Khattan merchers, and even had a drink with this bug guy who does executions when I asked about his job for a school project. And hey look, toys!" Kala points, sees Gweneth isn't looking at anything at all right now, and whispers, "It's okay just look at this stuff. It's toys. We all know you like toys. I mean, who doesn't? There's a Snow, the White Princess doll that's super popular with younger girls, and immersion game sets, I think I see the scale model battleship with moving crew and AI simulated crew board life. Man I love that one, I have the Justicar Frigate and the Sword of the Stars rotating ring ship! Dad 1 and 2 bought me that for my birthday."
Gweneth does open her eyes, to peek at toys. She immediately makes what sounds like an inhaling snorty raspberry, and heads that way immediately. With, as Kala had her hand around Gwen's shoulders, Kala in tow. "Wa- hey wait my allowance and work credit's not infinite!"
"Hey Kala!" someone calls out, and a few of the teens from the food court come over once Gweneth stops dragging her around. "What's up? Is this another of your step-sisters?" a multi-color-haired Karnor girl asks. She's dressed in deliberately mismatched and color-uncoordinated clothing, and sports a lot of jewelry. "I see a certain resemblance."
"And who is the redhead?" one of the human boys asks, preening a bit. New faces are always of interest to the Terragens kids.
There are little programmable matter dolls that a sales-Khatta is showing Gweneth, which can change into lots of different forms.
"Yeeeeeah," goes Kala, who rotates around Gweneth to a) make it looks like she's not being dragged along by her little sister, and b) to face the teens, as Gweneth ignores the teens to stares with her nose pressed to the store window at all the toys. "So uh, this Gwen, my little sister. She's kind of... home schooled you know? But not anymore, since she's our schooled now. Or will be. She's not used to people and she's kind of, uh, well different. But she's great, I love her, everyone does, I mean look at her hair it's like peach or pink or something, and she's really shiny." Gweneth gets her head rubbed, but Gweneth only has eyes for a world of toys inside the shop. The probably not actually glass begins to creak a bit, ominously. "And uh, Gwen? I don't think she's paying attention but Gwen, this is Debbie and the boy's Gar. Oh and red's uh... Kai ...lee."
"Kailee Roan," Kai introduces herself. She even uses a lilting fey accent. Which takes some of the attention off of Kala and Gweneth for a moment, except for the Vartans. They're very fascinated by Gweneth. Modern Galactic Vartans don't have the same 'shiny lust' as the backwater sorts, but Gweneth is very shiny and thus a bit overwhelming. "So, bring sparkle-girl to parties?" one of the birds asks Kala.
"Is that a doll?" the other asks, pointing to Goldie. Who is also watching the toys.
Kala runs her hand back through her spikey mane of fin-hair and exhales. "Wow a lot of questions. So right, Gwen's pretty new, soooo... maybe? She needs to like, adjust. She's not like the rest of us, not commando super people like Fiera, Ashera and Sophia, but not quite like me either, you know? So, help her out maybe, if she gets lost or doesn't know where to go? Baby steps my mans and womans, and we'll see about shiny parties if the mood suits."
"As for the little dragon it's uh... Oh! Right, it's a custom pet. You know. Fancy. Expensive. Proprietary in scary ways. The kind of thing you shouldn't look in to or ask too many questions about or mom's suited goons show up at your dorm room. But you can look at her and maybe pet her, if you're lucky. her name is Goldie. Mom... Mom got her for Gwen because she was, uh... lonely. Yeah. You know, they both look sort of dragony so there you go," Kala replies.
"It must be nice to be super-rich!" Debbie claims, despite being decked out in bling and hair-styling. "You should get her an m-box. Listening to music can help with anxiety and stuff."
"Celestial stuff is so soothing it puts you to sleep," Gar claims.
"She kinda looks like Tella-kar," one of the Vartans says. "You know, Ghostwing. He's kind of weird. Something wrong with a Vartan that always wants to be alone."
"Heyyy, good idea!" Kala leans past Kala to the window sales woman, points at an m-box, rubs her fingers together, then points at Gweneth. Then she points to some earphones. Earphones haven't been necessary for thousands of years, but the aesthetic comes and goes, and modern ones sync to digital assistants, have localized AI features, can provide massages to the temples, and emit soothing sounds when they sense wearer discomfort. Kala knows all these things, because she wants one. And, since Gweneth is the chosen one, she reasons, mom will pay for some for Gwen.
And then Kala blinks. And mom will pay for some for her too, probably!
"YES," goes Kala, who holds a two fingers to the sales feline, points at herself, Gwen, and the headsets, and tehn makes a come out here gesture. "Profit! It's nice to be rich!"
"Eh what? Ghost wang?" Kala spins around after her order, looks between the kids, then her brows go up. "Oh yeah, Ghosty! Hey maybe! Tellar-kar... Is that his actual name? Huh. But yeah, maybe. And yeah it's weird, our Vartans can't get enough of each other. Maybe Ghosty can make a friend. And you guys, be nice to Gwen okay? Let me know if anyone causes her problems or, you know, gives her the business. I'm supposed to look after her. She's, uh, important."
The headsets, like most Khattan tech, use programmable matter to conform exactly to the user. They have a noise-canceling function, only allowing voices to come through.
The sales-lynx is happy to hand over two shiny boxes in exchange for a transfer of credits. "With our subscription plan, you can get all of the latest audio and video programming in your preferred genres. Even classical programming."
Kala takes one headset and puts it around her neck, then plops the other over Gweneth's ears, causing her to look up, and up, and up, trying to see her own head top. "Bam." Kala nods approvingly, then turns to the Khattan. "Yeah get that too, maybe Gwen likes classical shows, who knows? Me too, can't tell her about shows if I can't see the shows." Behind ehr back Kala gives the other kids a thumbs up.
Kai watches the transaction with interest. It's supposedly all new to her too, but then she has shown what she can do with just diagrams of things. She seems to be paying particular attention to the progmat parts of the headsets, looking a bit suspicious. "Don't use them too much," she cautions. "They could interfere with our studies, after all."
"Khattan stuff is the best," Debbie claims.
"Mmmm," is Kai's response. "Isn't there live music here?"
"Just the Academy band and a some small amateur ones," Gar says. "Though mostly it's mixer artists. I don't know why the Academy has a marching band though."
The real answer is because Katherine Vesuvius wanted one. But even Lad wouldn't claim that.
"Interfere..? Uhhh, okay," Kala sais, sounding a little spooked. "Maybe we can like, adjust them later? And live music? Sure, clubs, halls, sometimes they throw wild stuff down out of the way, yeah lots of music..?" She looks between Kai and the others, listening, nodding, looking a bit confused for some reason. "Oh yeah, the school's boring. If you want real music hit the clubs and such."
"I'm unfamiliar with what music is popular out here," Kai admits. "I'm sure we can all go attend something on the off-days." Kala has no idea if Kai is a party person or not, and the stories she's heard of the 'out of the valley' adventures are mixed or incomplete. "Do you like music, Gweneth?" she asks the younger girl.
Gweneth, who is currently sniffing her headphones while turning them the wrong way on her head, perks up at her name and looks over. "Music? Singing? The forest sings the songs of the seasons, and everything along together in its place, like water flowing." She then looks down and tries to put the headphones on Goldie.
Kala listens to this and her posture slumps a little, hand reaching to rub at her head. "Sounds... like a yes to me? Uhhhh... " She looks to Kai, to Gweneth, and to Kai again -- for help this time. "Do you like music, Kai...lee?"
"I've danced a jig or two in my time," Kailee notes, grinning at Kala. "All Terragens like music, I think. It's easier than math."
Goldie squirms about. The headphones really don't fit her well.
"We just ate," Gar says. "Heading to the campus before the Khattan spices really kick in. But it was nice to meet you, Kailee and Gwen."
Gweneth studies this response from Goldie, then puts them back on her head. She looks at Kala for a moment, then adjusts her headphones to match Kala's, that is, around her neck in the same alignment. "Hello and good bye," she offers the departing children.
"See you -- in class, ugh," goes Kala, who offers a languid wave and a lopsided grin. "Maybe you'll see Gweneth too, eh? Eh."
"I get the impression that you aren't fond of lessons," Kailee says to Kala.
"It's not that I'm not fond of them, I just find them, uh, boring. Sometimes. And there's all the studying and reading. It's all one kind of learning, mostly. I'd rather be out doing things," Kala responds. Then she winces and adds, "And I'm bad at some of them and I'll probably always be bad at them, and I don't really like the subjects anyway, so why do I have to do them?"
"Well, there's the reward, of course," Kailee claims. "By helping Gweneth get through things and eventually graduating, I was going to give you a starship."
"If you don't graduate though, it was just going to be a vacation on Calafia, the beach planet with the high Phin population," Kailee notes. "If you fail at both, well... I'm sure your mother and Kainudy would be very disappointed."
"A w-what?" Kala leans back, eyes wide, mouth agape. "Really? A starship? Like ... Are we talking a passenger shuttle, or a star fighter, frigate, corvette, battleship? Galactic or Dark Horse-ish? C'mon, I need reward details here!!"
Gweneth, who is clearly listening, ears up, looks between the two, but either finds it uninteresting or finds toys more desirable, because she goes back to staring in to the glass while pulling apart and letting snap closed her headphones.
"D-disappointed??" Kala actually takes a step back. "W-w-what'd I do to deserve this? And mom didn't graduate! Anything! Shouldn't... Shouldn't the Responsible Twins be doing this? Or Sophia, Sophia is the obvious answer! Or, like, the others? I mean, everyone knows I'm the class clown and the screw up, why pick me? Am I being set up as some sort of fail test or something??"
"Well, that depends on how well you do I think," Kailee says, rubbing her chin and looking upwards. "Of the siblings, you are the most affable. You make friends easily, and that is an important lesson. And you're just as capable as the others. Your father is a genius you know. And having someone to help may unlock your potential. What sort of starship would you like? And it's not like failing Gweneth will mess her up for life and turn her into a rampaging monster."
"I mean... could it? You saw her she's like... " Kala holds up a hand, standing on her toes, "kaiju sized, and she melted a mountain! And I know dad's a genius! He tells me it all the time! All the time! It's a lot to live up to! It all is! Agggh!" Kala pulls at her head ridges, heaves a sigh, slumps, and then walks over and slings an arm around Gweneth, trying -- and failing -- to pull her in to a one armed hug, instead pulling herself in to Gweneth, who remains fixed on toys like a shiny statue. "Okay... okay... think... it can't be that hard I mean mom did it and she didn't know anything about anything. We'll just be... super casual. Take it slow. Easy. Yeah... Yeah maybe that'll work. Uh, as for a ship, I mean, I just pilot, I'm not like Captain Dad and Aunt Also Captain Dad. Fiera and Ashera are the Captain-types. I just make ship go brrr to location wow zam. I guess I'd want... a fun ship? Like, a party ship but I don't think I'll get that, but a crusie liner or, I don't know, something like that? I'd ahve to think about it."
"A charted yacht," Kailee suggests. "Which is technically what the Dark Horse is. And I will be there to help tutor you both. Your ability to stay in class while being bored is important to teach to Gweneth, so that she doesn't just wander off suddenly or try to eat her desk. Do you use desks, or is it more of a lecture hall situation? Either way, it's an important diplomatic skill to hone." She tells Gweneth, "If you do well, there will be more toys." Bribery generally works on draconic types.
"Ugh, I don't want to copy my mom, how lame would that be?" But then Kala holds her hands up in a warding gesture. "But don't tell her I said that! Alright, though, fine, fine, I guess I'm not getting out of this. I'll think about it. We should uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh-" Kala looks around, "-uhhhhhhh oh right she needs stuff and then she needs to get to school. And she needs to register Goldie. And herself. Yeah. Come on Gwen, lets get going before you crack the window with your nose or something. This way, thiiiiiis way, dragon your ass thiiiiis waaaay~"
Gweneth is slow to move, but does look over and perk up at the mention of more toys.
But then Kala stops. "Oh wait, three things, here can you get her walking to the next store I though of a way to make them both more at ease! And we use lecture halls! leeeectuuuure haaaaalls!" The dolph's voice carries as she hurries in to the shop.
"Come on Gweneth," Kailee tells the little dragon. "You don't want to miss your sister's nervous breakdown. It will be funny!"
"Breaking the nervous?" Gweneth sounds perplexed, but this perplexity seems to intrigue her because she actively follows along without the need for a industrial lifters, magic, or further bribery. Goldie gets moved to her head so she can see all around, and is petted.
And so Kailee goes in search Kala. Surely she wouldn't try to escape so early.
The pair find Kala with a few toys in a basket covered in sparkles, already checking out. She must have known where to look, because she grabbed everything fast. "Annnd yeah pay to that account. Yeah I know I don't look like her as much, yeah I'll sign this no I'm not an indentured servant, slave, or similarly employed custom entity, yes... And yes," she can be heard to say in an exchange with te woman behind the counter.
"I think you'd look good in a spiked collar though, Kala," Kailee comments, while holding one of Gweneth's hands to keep her from wandering into the aisles.
"Why are you sooooo embaaaaraaasing," goes Kala who walks past the two throwing her arms up. "Anyway, we're off to Central to get Goldie authed, and I forget if Gwen needs to get authed too, or, like, if mom did it or something. Student supplies can be purchased at the school store, because like, we used to have people go pick up writing supplies, but then they got ripped off. Mom's handled clothing for now, we decided it'd be best not to overwhelm Gwen with too many options too fast -- and how's she gunna know what she wants to wear anyway? She probably doesn't know what a fashion even is."
"It's a type of fungus, I think," Kailee answers. "What did you purchase?"
"It's a surprise for Gwen and Goldie! Ooooh, surprise Gwen! Shiny bag! Who knows what it is!" Kala holds the bag just out of reach, which causes Gwen to reach for it, and then she's following after Kala reaching for the bag. "Off we go, to Central Auuuthority!"
The notion of taking a number and waiting in lines is fairly outdated, even in a backwater outpost. Registration is quick, but the tracking tattoo option is passed on. So now it's getting to their new, shared dorm room on the small campus. Since these are usually four-person affairs, they have a spare bed. They're rather small, but the whole notion of 'bunk beds' is novel for everyone. Gweneth's wardrobe is already there, so it's just a matter of getting school supplies.
Kala looks around, hands on hips. "So, look. I'm usually pretty busy, so I'm going to be leaving at all hours and such, so I'll take uhh... The bottom bunk. I'm used to sharing a bunk since I bunked with Sophia a while, and Fiera and Ashera too. So I'll take the bunk next to the door, bottom. We can put Gwen in the further bunk and I guess Goldie can have the top bunk?" She ooks to Kai and Gweneth for answers.
Gweneth just stares at her in response. Kala points at the bed; Gweneth looks at the bed. "That's yours," she lifts her pointing arm, "... that's Goldie's. Bed. Sleep. Hrrrugh."
Gweneth looks over at the beds again, then walks over to put Goldie on the top, and sit on the bottom.
"Hey, fab! Great. And I got these for you two. You can see them later, after we do all the things and such. Okay up again, time for the tour." Kala points at the door.
The dorms and other student facilities (like the store and cafeteria) are in the main building, with lecture halls and classrooms in two separate ones. The fitness complex takes up a fourth, which includes Kala's favorite: the swimming pool. These all surround a quad that has grass and trees. There's also the main lawn outside the front of the academy, which isn't the only school on the avenue. "It's bigger than I thought it would be," Kailee notes. Building constraints mean nothing can be over two stories tall in this arm, without brushing against the 'no fly' zone. The flat roofs add extra space for various activities though.
"Yeah mom's pet project turned out well, she said it was small at first, but it grew quickly with Seeder and mixed couple interest, diplomats, yadda yadda I forgot the rest. It all used to be two buildings until we expanded uhhh... two? years ago, and now we have the full set of four around the quad. There's emergency shuttles on the roof, and a bridge simulator too. Not all the classrooms are lecture halls, like the bridge simulator and the... three? Four? Special studies configurable rooms. There's also a BCI jack room, for virtual," Kalalani explains, gesturing at the big white complex of C buildings with glossy windows that encircle the quad. The clean white and crisp glass lends a sophiticated yet understated look, welcoming and bright, with sleek cornerners and few hard edges. "I think Aunt Katie helped with the design."
Since classes haven't officially resumed yet, there aren't many people about. The Vykarin groundskeeper attends to the garden elements, and some Eeee hang from a tree branch. Soon enough there will be crowds though. "Special studies," Kailee says. "Those are Hakeber's classes, aren't they?"
"Errr yeah the scary stuff. The Special Studies Configurable Rooms or SSCRs are used for general and specific studies though, like, when you need to work on something but having that thing on grounds would be expensive or intrusive or what-ever. You know, lots of ProgMat, holography, that kind of thing. Professors use them when they need to do real world stuff without the real world. My last class in one was about dealing with emergency EVA procedures. One simulates zero G, another's got water in it, and the other two are dry land. The special might have one, but I've never seen it. I kind of got skipped over for the last course, which was focusing on Sophia, Ashera an Fiera, for whatever reason," Kala explains.
"Secrets of the Universe, and how to Kill Them," Kailee says in a spooky voice. "What do you eat?" she then asks the girls. "I assume not just ice cream and cake."
"Me? I eat a lot, fish, also fish, sea food, pizza... The cafeteria food is pretty good, not as good as home or the restaurants, but better than the dives and the budget places. Gwen... I guess Gwen can eat anything. Or anyone." Kala squints at Gweneth, who leans in to squint back. "Eh she probably eats what everyone eats. Who knows how she works, maybe there'll be a Special Studies class on her so I can actually know what I'm doing. I've seen her eat regular food but also, like, a rock, and supposedly she ate a tree once. Who knows what she eats in her woods."
"Rocks are an essential part of the dragon diet," Kailee claims. "I suppose the fish is brought in by the Titanians? Unless they actually breed livestock on the outpost. There seems to be enough room for it." She looks at Gweneth and asks, "Are you hungry?"
"I have noooooo ideeeea," says Kala, whose impatient looking around suggests she would rather be elsewhere doing other things.
Gweneth looks to Kai, perks, and then nods, saying, "Yes. Hungry, this place is full and empty, I can see it through the bubble, but things can be eaten. The rocks are harder; the people are different people; the air is new and still and even with the breath and scent of a thousand-thousand." She looks up at the school building, then around. "Empty place where people are, in a lake that's not, on shallow around the dense light, unliving forest of metal and pain crystal and things I don't know."
"Woah," goes Kala, taken aback. "You know sometimes I worry she's kind of dim or something but then she says stuff like this or does magic or the rest and it gets me every time. I guess she can feel the curve of space around the star? And I suppose this place does feel like a mostly dead forest of metal and... er, pain crystal."
"Sifran crystal can affect her," Kailee says. "It messes with the ansible too. Let's get something to eat, and then.. where do you want to be, Kala?"
"Me? Uh, hanging out, swimming, anything really. I'm not used to sticking with family members, I do my own thing, I know I have to do it but it cramps my style a bit. I like to be free, you know? I want to help but, like, I want to be me and do my own thing, too. Spending every day like this is going to be kind of a downer," Kala admits, still looking around. "We need to set Gwen up with some friends or entertainments and such, so she can also do her own thing. Hey, how about ol' Ghosty? Leave her with him for a bit, see how it goes? Someone new. She probably won't eat him."
"Ah, the quiet Vartan," Kailee says. "Do you know where he'd be? Do Vartan's swim?"
"Can't you like... magic-find him? Okay, okay, let me think... The library, maybe? Or the park next to the school? I think I've seen him on the roof a few times, the one that's student accessible above the dorms," Kala replies.
"You have a physical library?" Kailee asks in surprise. "I assumed only Hakeber would have actual books. And yes, I could just find him, but since you and Gweneth can't I shouldn't make it easy on you. Alright, we'll get some food and look for him, so you can go be naked now Kala.
"We just call it a Library because it has all the student terminal stations, study tables, and so on. I think there's even a few remote Library terminals. It's, you know, modern tech. There is a book in a case above the hologuide station though when you come in, like, as a decoration. A real book." Then Kala gives a thumbs up. "Cool, I'ma hit the pool and swim off my anxiety. Or bang someone. Maybe both, the cliche is real. Anyway, have fun and don't break the school-" Kala begisn to back up, then makes finger guns at the two of them, "-unless you want to! Eh? EH?" Clicky dolphin tongue clucking. "Seeyah, seeyah sis!"
"Your sister is a bit high-strung for a Phin hybrid," Kailee tells Gweneth. "Let's get some... hmmm... maybe they do have cake and ice cream."
"High strung," Gweneth agrees... or does she? She could just be repeating waht she heard, feeling it out, or something else. The girl looks around for a moment, alone now that she put Goldie to rest on the upper bunk, though not until she kissed Goldie on the forehead and told her, "Sorry, sorry Goldie." She must still feel something after squeezing the littler dragon too hard, especially, perhaps, after inadvertently wounding Whisper.
Whatever the case is, she suddenly starts walking toward one of the buildings, for no apparent reason. Curiosity? Boredom? Food? There's nothing overt to suggest why. Whimsy?
Kailee follows along. Maybe Gweneth smells something edible.
Gweneth discovers the Library. It's empty save for a Khatta librarian and some in one of the booths. "Hello," the librarian purrs. She's even got librarian glasses. "Are you new students? I see a resemblance to our founder."
"Yes, this is Tasha's daughter Gweneth," Kailee introduces. "And I'm Kailee Roan, one of her roommates."
"Yes, student; momma," Gweneth replies, who accelerates over to the hologram and then, hands on the table edge, leans over to peer at it with interest. "Hi. You're not alive." her tail wags slowly behind her.
"She's been raised free-range," Kailee explains. "This is her first time at a school, but I think she knows how to read and write, if that's something anyone still does."
"Oh my, she seems very precocious," the librarian says. "Is there anything you need help looking up?"
Gweneth, meanwhile, is trying to reach a hand in to the hologram. "Machine," she states matter of factly, as if it were some careful deducement. "New student. Be nice."
Kailee wonders what would actually happen if Gweneth was given free-reign with a Library terminal. Would she ever stop?
"Actually she just wandered this way and I followed along," Kailee admits. "We were looking for a student though, a Vartan named Tella-kar?"
A white feathered head leans out from the occupied booth at the mention of the name.
Having spent enough time waving her hand through the hologram, and apparently satisfied, Gweneth drops back with a bounce on her feet and beams a smile for some reason. Maybe she's pleased she determined the hologram is a robot, or maybe she'd never put her hand in one before.
And then at the sudden motion from her left, Gweneth's head snaps around with alarming speed to the student looking out at them. "Hi! Vartan! Hi, hello."
The Vartan watches Gweneth with golden eyes, and puffs out a bit before clicking his beak. "Yes," he finally says in a very soft voice. "I am a Vartan. Hello, strange shiny creature and Human."
"I think you've just found him," the librarian says.
"Hi," Gweneth repeats, then she's gone from the welcome desk and at the Vartan's terminal with speed that can only be described as unsettling to most. First she's there, and then she's steps and there, faster than most eyes can track, leaning in. "New student, be nice, resemble founder." She stares with a salmon-pink eyed intensity, her eyes luminescent, or maybe it's a trick of the light; it's a lot like staring at a twin dawn that stares back at you. "OWL-HAWK."
"I know what an owl is," Ghostwing claims, meeting Gweneth's gaze. "You have scales. Are you part fish?"
"I'm a dragon demi-god Universal Animal," Gweneth states with simple matter-of-fact honesty, in much the same way someone might state their species. She then points, without looking, at a picture of Tasha in her diplomatic regalia standing with the leader of the Seeders shaking hands, surrounded by children. "There is a big owl in my forest that momma loves and visits but she doesn't tell anyone. Sometimes, she watches the turtles."
"Dragons aren't real," Ghostwing says. "What's a turtle?"
Gweneth leans back abruptly, eyes wide, nose in the air, at dragons aren't real. She opens her mouth to apparently contradict this statement, but then looks to Kai instead. "I AM REAL," she insists, and Kai can feel her pushing against the bubble with enormous pressure.
"Do not get upset," Kai tells Gweneth. "Every culture has a different sort of dragon. Vartan dragons are mythical, as are most such creatures. Celestial dragons are the ancestors of the current Celestials."
"What was that you were just doing?" Ghostwing asks. On his terminal now are pictures of various 'turtles' from known space.
The nose goes up a little more at this explanation, as if the perfectly reasonable, detailed response had offended Gweneth further. That or she doesn't understand it and so if offended by anything short of yes. The upturned nose gets swung around to face the Vartan boy. "WHAT WAS WHAT NOW DOING??"
The boy pulls away from Gweneth. "You were doing something, I could feel it. Like you were inflating because you were upset," he explains.
"I AM REAL," Gweneth repeats, becoming more luminescent. It's the first time Kai has ever heard her edge in to something like anger -- or is it fear?
"Yes? You are real and you are starting to glow," Ghostwing says. "I'm also real. Why are you upset?" At least he doesn't appear to be panicking.
Kai puts a hand on Gweneth's shoulder and tells her, "Calm down, Gweneth. You aren't supposed to do this when you get upset, remember? It's going to happen often, so you must control it."
Apparently satisfied, Gweneth drops her muzzle and ceases to glow like a science fiction reactor about to explode. "I am real," Gweneth repeats, with less anger. Kai is sure she didn't deflate just because of her words, nor the arm, and certainly not due to social-political reasons, there was something in the affront and declaration. Something more than a mere inadvertent insult. The dragon gives a huff of coiled pink-blue flame, then points at the screen. "Turtle. Also real. Momma likes turtles. He can see." She points a finger at Vartan, then points at herself. "The bubble. Magic?"
"Bubble? Magic?" Ghostwing parrots. "A magic bubble?" he then asks, and looks around as if trying to see one.
"How did you make those colored flames?" he then asks. "That is not a normal flame color."
"I'm a dragon dragons make flames." Gweneth holds up a hand and horks a ball of fire in to it which molds and twists until it's a turtle walking along her arm -- a turtle made out of luminescent, heat-radiating water like flame. "See? The fire is Life, and all there is to men and animals and all of living. The light shines within and the bubble is so I talk. Talking slow. Everyone, slow. Unhearing, unseeing, unfeeling, dead forest with thousand-thousand people in empty sea around the light near the bottom."
The Vartan follows the ghostly glowing turtle with his eyes. "Talking is annoying," he agrees. "Not much wood here. I miss forests. And waterfalls. Are you a poet?" he asks.
The head starts to go up again but stops as Gweneth apparently realizes she's not being insulted, remembers what a poet is, or, one might hope, remembers she's not supposed to get upset. "I have a forest with wood and trees and waterfalls, forever and always, like a mirror that's not me. Talking is annoying." She then looks back and asks, "No bubble?"
"The bubble stays in place," Kai says. "Talking is annoying, but it how most people communicate. You need to practice, and make yourself understood clearly."
Gweneth makes a dissatisfied gruntle, then turns back and scrunches up her face. "Bubble makes the world quiet. Bubble keeps the loud inside. Fire comes from me, it is me-fire. My-fire. I am-come-from forest." More crunching. "I am come from forest, me-forest, mine, from Princess, Dragon of the Forest, turtles and waters and fallings waters and life alive with living as pain crystal is not in empty sea where the light is near the bottom." And then she points at... the wall. Kai knows she's pointing right at the star. "You are you. You are Vartan, but owl and hawk. I am me, Universal Animal, dragon demi-god. I am here, in pain crystal in... space. Station. At school. Momma-school. Silent to be... loud. In voice." She squints at the Vartan to see if he understands.
The Vartan tilts his head too and fro as he examines Gweneth. "You feel isolated and far from home?" he guesses.
"Yes. Isolated. In bubble. Cannot reach out. Have to speak. Far from home. I miss home. I miss forest. Had to leave to fight storm." And so Gweneth's face falls a little. "The storm is far away. Not big enough. Not enough-enough. Momma says I have to be here, so here I have to be, in place without forest, no turtles and trees only in unliving field. No sun. No rain. No thousand-thousand lifes. Lives. Lives. Just flow like water in empty world and people and trees like sand on lake of water."
"I don't like it here either, but I have no choice," Ghostwing claims, and reaches out to pat Gweneth on the head. "But it will pass. This place is not forever. Unless you are an instructor I suppose. There is a garden though. It has actual dirt."
Gweneth's head bobs when patted. "Place is not forever? Not forever. Not forever. Have to go to storm, then the rain stops and home I go again. Want to see dirt, Owl-hawk show?" The turtle finishes crawling around Gweneth to arrive at her head, where it waits patiently for her to open her mouth where is crawls inside and vanishes, followed by a chirping sort of burp.
This gives Ghostwing pause. "You are very strange," he notes. "Follow me." He then gets up and tries to get around Gweneth.
Gweneth at first... doesn't move. She watches him try to get around her, left, then right, then she seems to get what he's going for and steps back several steps, wings flapping out and stretching. "I am very strange?" This, to Kai, in askance.
"All of the best people are," Kai replies.
Once the Vartan is past, he gestures for the others to follow as he heads out of the Library.
"I am the best people," Gweneth repeats and... internalizes? Well, dragons aren't exactly known for limited ego, and she was born with enough self reliance and natural self-orientation, so maybe there won't be any effect. Or maybe her head will get bigger and in a few years she'll be the school mean girl bully, who can know?
"Going to dirt," Gweneth adds, and then follows along.
The Vartan leads them across the quad, to a fenced patch with lots of flowers and vegetables. And black soil, which the Vykarin groundskeeper is turning with a shovel. It's hard to tell if he notices the new arrivals or not, since his visor is cloudy with age.
Ghostwing points at the patch, and says, "Dirt."
Gweneth walks up, then hunches down to inspect said dirt. "Dirt," she agrees, and then she drops forward to lay in the dirt, spreading out and splaying out, her features visible relaxing as her eyes close. "Dirt. Alive dirt. Speaking in tiny things, little world, come to me, and me to you, and life alive." She exhales a sigh, and soft wisps of fire roll down her, trace down her body, and dance admits the soil, spreading outward and in to the soil like growing vines.
Where he fire touches, where there are seeds, life begins to sprout and grow. The plants perk up, and even unwanted, stray seeds bloom, as do ones abandoned as failed efforts. The plot comes alive before their very eyes.
The Vykarin makes a lot of clicky noises and shakes from side to side. Ghostwing's feathers puff at the sight of it, and Kai says, "Don't get your clothes dirty, Gweneth. We can purchase some house plants from the student store if you like."
"Mmmmmmhhhhgh," goes Gweneth, who doesn't seem like she's listening. She seems, in fact, like she's quite comfortable being where she is admist the rapidly growing plants and the life that surrounds her.
"Don't use up your energy," Kai chides. "It will tire you out."
"What is happening?" Ghostwing asks, and points at the where things are growing up around the dragon-girl.
"Life transference," Kai suggests. "It can be dangerous."
"I am a dragon and I am forever Life," Gweneth responds. "All of me is all of the forest is all of the forest is all of me." Bold claims, but then she is different from the other children, a dragon in truth, a Universal Animal, and something stranger still. She also ate her entire dragon form, so maybe that's it.
The Vykarin tries to nudge Gweneth with his own pseudo-wolf muzzle. "Get out of garden now," he insists.
Gweneth rolls over and snorfles, then sits up in an instant, then pops to her feet. "Dirt," she tells the three with a intense gravitas that does not fit her bouncing nor swaying of arms.
"Yes, and all over your clothes too," Kai points out. "You can't go into the cafeteria like that. Try shaking it all off."
"You are her... keeper?" Ghostwing asks Kai. "I'm Kailee, and I watch over her so that she learns and does not get into trouble," is Kai's reply.
Gweneth hunkers down and shakes out like a big dog, sending dust everywhere -- at least until she exhales a large cloud of flame. The flame spreads out like a mist, catching the dirt and even crawling with hands and arms and legs and animals pieces across the ground -- and across people -- to collect all of the dirt, where a lockstep line of dirt carrying fire deposits it back with the rest of the rest of the soil.
Once Gweneth has finished shaking off the dirt, Kai says, "You can't do that again here. You're using too much magic, and I can't keep erasing people's memories. There's no guarantee that you will be able to recharge in this environment, so you could get weak or sick if you aren't careful. Part of what you're here to learn is to hide your abilities."
Gweneth looks to Kai, then to the dirt, and then to Kai again. "Why hide?" Then she looks to the boy, waggling a hand at him. "He'll die no magic?" Then to the superstructure, and presumably, all the people beyond, "Them? Recharge? Hide magic?" Then she frowns, head leaning back, nose up a little. "Sick?"
"Because they don't know magic is real, and we want to keep it that way," Kai explains. "Only a few select people know about it. It would be too disruptive to Galactic Civilization."
At the moment, Ghostwing and the gardener seem frozen in place.
The little dragon scrunches her face up. It's not clear how much she actually knows about Galactic civilization, and Tasha admitted they had been hoping she'd figure herself out which, for a dragon, could have taken ten, twenty, fifty of a hundred years or more. It may be a lot for her to take in, especially given how quickly she changed her direction in life.
Then her eyes widen, and her ears go up. Her tail wags. "Secret?"
Kai nods. "Keeping secrets is part of being a dragon," she claims. "Because knowledge is power."
"Power," Gweneth repeats with an air of consideration. "Secrets." Less of an air of consideration. "Sophia plays games of secrets, mother too, and everyone, ever and always the word different from name. The name is the light, and the word is the dark. The light is the tree in the sun. The dark is the spider under leaf. Ever, and always, in a world of life. The rock is apart."
"Rocks can be alive too," Kai claims, if only in an attempt to out-baffle Gweneth. "Now, I'm going to unfreeze them, so decide where you want to go next."
Ghostwing blinks and the caretaker goes back to preparing the vegetable garden as if nothing happened. "I don't care for vegetables. Some fruit is alright," Ghostwing says. "But I like meat and seeds."
"I like meat and seeds! Some are eating, some are growing, some from life to death." But Gweneth looks around as she says this, then she spots something, and off she wanders without waiting for anyone. "Secrets."
"You should try nuts," Kai suggests, and then quickly follows Gweneth. Ghostwing pauses, then follows too. "Secrets?" he asks.
"Secret-secrets everywhere, in the dark, and in your hair." And so Gweneth pulls a dirt clod from her hair and, underhandedly, tosses it back to the growing zone without looking at it. It lands squarely in the center. "What is next? Where are go? And why. Moonshine rock-building with secrets life, and all-all, in the empty sea where light shines in a forever night."
"Or the cafeteria," Kai suggests. "The only secrets there are where the ingredients come from."
"Cafeteria is where life becomes pizza in a box of flame and Sasha," Gweneth... agrees? She looks around, then starts sniffing for the direction of food.
"It is over here," Ghostwing says, pointing back towards the dormitory building. "What is sasha?"
"Sasha is Gweneth's uncle, who likes to cook sometimes," Kai explains, and nudges Gweneth in the proper direction.
Gweneth, who had been looking at herself in the mirror reflection of a glossy reflective window, lifts her head up when prodded, then slowly but eventually starts walking in the indicated direction. "Sasha is Sasha and Sasha is momma too, four and one and one and four, and one and five and five are one; nine makes nine; nine makes one."
"She does not seem to understand mathematics," Ghostwing comments as they reach the cafeteria. It's deserted, but there are still the vending machines, some of which can do full meals.
"She's not training for accountancy," Kai notes, looking over the place and the automated cooking machines.
"There is a weekly menu, and actual cooks that prepare meals to order once classes start," Ghostwing explains.
"Food box!" Gweneth excitedly runs over to one of the food machines, looking it over, and then pushing it with a hand gently until it rocks a little on its foundation. "Machine food box; no life, but food and buttons." Where in all of reality did she encounter a vending machine before? Tasha did say they've had several outings, to mixed results, in other realities. Maybe some far flung fairy domain has co-invented the vending machine? She drops her hand and starts poking buttons!
Poking buttons at random just makes raspberry sort of sounds. "Gwen, you need to read the instructions," Kai explains, and then reads the instructions herself. "First, you have to enter your student ID number on this keypad," she explains. "Then you can make one selection." Luckily, the selections come with both pictures and icons for which species they are suitable for.
"Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt!" Gweneth mimics the error noises until Kai comes over to try and create order from food ordering chaos. This causes Gweneth to stop pressing buttons and listen, perhaps because noises do not equal food. "Studentid," she repeats, making it sound like a single word, "one selection. One student one--" she pauses long enough to peer at the sign, "one burger French fries potato salad cole slaw; one pizza slices with side of salad; one tater tots hash browns and eggs." She does actually study the images, perhaps confused as to why a tot is a tater, and a salad can be on the side, and what a French is. Then she punches in random numbers, gets an error, thinks, and they actually tries her school ID.
"They can't do really fresh stuff, unfortunately," Ghostwing laments.
"Fresh stuff, they can't do it," Gweneth repeats, though it sounds a bit like she's repeating it for memorization, in that considering, familiar pitch of one reviewing information. She has apparently ordered tater tots, hashed browns, and eggs.
"That smells nice," Kai says, and gestures to one of the tables. "What would you like drink?" she asks, rather than have Gweneth face all of the possibilities of the drink machine. Ghostwing, meanwhile, gets his own order from the machine: a bowl of chocolate pudding with whipped cream.
"Drink," Gweneth replies; apparently she would like a drink to drink, which might be interpreted as 'anything' or 'I'm focusing on the mysteries of the the tater tot right now' or something else besides. The meal is carried over to a cafeteria table and Gweneth sits down in what might be a surprisingly mundane fashion; Kai knows well she eats at the table at home, in the rare moments when she eats in the Base and not out in the fields, the forests, or high upon the mountains. She's also seen her and her mother stare at each other in brief and long moments, clearly communicating, during points of conflict and confusion, so Tasha hasn't been completely hands off, and this is an example. During those times, Kai could feel Tasha's dragon aura accutely.
Kai grabs a set of appropriate eating utensils and napkins for Gweneth, then goes to the drinks dispenser and gets her some tea. She just isn't sure what kind of tea it dispenses. She gets herself a cup as well, just so she knows.
More confusingly, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the tots and the hash browns, other than shape.
Ghostwing sits across from Gweneth, and demonstrates the oddity of a beaked person eating pudding with a spoon.
One tot is placed next to the hashed browns. One is eaten. A bite of hashed brown is eaten. Gweneth stares at her meal as if it were the mysteries of the universe revealed. "Potato," she declares after a long moment. "Truth in the shape; the name is the same but the shape is different and the sentence changes with shape. There is more. Extra: Sasha says seasonings. One name, two shape. Two sentences of the name in words spoken by the machine through the seasons." Her tail wags.
"Probably salt," Kai says, setting a cup of tea before Gweneth before sitting and having a sip of her own. "Hmmm. Well, it's something that's been boiled in water, certainly. We should get our own tea and just use the hot water here," she declares.
"We should get our own tea. A plant in hot hot water makes flavor in a cup; a plant drinks water and becomes flavor itself." Gweneth rubs her nose, and, having apparently finished her research in to tater and hash technology, begins eating them as she then ruminates on the egg. "Bird kit," she observes, "but not every bird comes from kit. 'Bird kit' sounds distinctly like something Tasha would have described a egg in her younger years. That, or Kala, in her current ones. "Bird--" she looks up and points her fork at Ghostwing, then giggles at the sight of him eating pudding.
"I am not a bird," Ghostwing corrects. "But I am an avian." He goes back to eating his treat. The whipped cream doesn't even get on his beak. He must be doing all of the work with his hidden tongue.
"Pudding Avian," Gweneth declares, then returns to inspecting her egg, but seems less fascinated by it. Surely she must have eaten plenty of eggs in a forest, and likely ones bigger and smaller than what produced this omelette. And Kai knows she's had omelet before. She also sips her tea, which she definitely learned from her mother, a woman who started with one setting: guzzle, and worked her way up from there. She finishes the meal quickly enough; dragons, like wolves and Tashas, are known for their healthy appetite and habit of eating meals quickly, sometimes, whole. "Done. Clean your plate club. Disk to the machine, or disk becomes forest of small life with weapons."
"There's a bin on the side of the machine," Ghostwing points out. "But not for utensils. Those go in that other bin near the recycler." For whatever reason, the Vartan takes the last spoonful of pudding and whipped cream, and dabs it onto the end of Gweneth's nose.
"That is the weakest food fight move I have ever witnessed," Kai claims, shaking her head.
Gweneth's ears go up, and for a moment they're bot threated to Gweneth's canid-draconic face lifting up in high-nosed affront as she looks cross-eyed at the whip cream -- and then she licks it off. "Nose is not food, not pudding!" She releases humph. Then, she pauses, and dips a finger to try and put ketchup on Kai's nose.
The apparent human leans back out of range. "I don't have a long tongue like things off my nose, Gweneth," she points. "And ketchup isn't a food, it's a condiment."
"This was done to me when I first started here as a student," Ghostwing claims. "It is supposed to be some sort of welcoming ritual."
"Momma sometimes talks about condiments with daddy and others because daughters won't be made," Gweneth says matter-of-factly. Then she turns to Ghostwing and beams. "I am welcome the ritual is complete." And then to Kai, "You are not welcome the ritual is not complete."
"No.. condiments.. are.. uh.. sauces that are added for flavor," Kai says. "Since you're also new, it probably doesn't work if you try to welcome me, Gwen."
"You have to be careful with humans," Ghostwing says. "Apparently their skin can be stained."
"Momma uses sauces on people for flavor?" Gweneth turns to regard Ghostwing critically for a moment, then, also, Kai, but frowns. "Must not eat the meat that thinks or you won't sleep the forty winks." That sounds like... Samael?? Whatever she was thinking about in terms of eating people, she seems to abandon it, likely because of aversion, or else opposing rhymes. She turns to Ghostwing. "I know this! Sharon is pale-white, but not like I, like Kai, and other Humans. But when she's in the berries she becomes berries-red, and herbs and spices, all to do the secret things."
"Most people taste awful," Kai informs Gwen, and even sticks out her tongue. "Texture is always off, and barely any meat on the bone, compared to proper prey animals. I doubt Vartan tastes as good as chickens or horse. And too many feathers to pluck as well."
"The food machine does not offer human or Vartan meat," Ghostwing notes. "That is probably why."
"Two names become a name name that tastes bad," Gweneth summarizes, nodding in what might be understanding. "Too many feathers to pluck. Humans have no feathers, except when they do. I'm done, clean the plate club member departing." And then she abruptly picks up her plate and silverware and peers at the disposals, but the visuals seems to help, and she puts them where they need to go with an energetic slam dunking motion for each.
Kai finishes her tea. "Well, now we know how to order food when the cafeteria isn't being staffed. Next will be coming down to eat when the place is full. And classroom etiquette."
"Eat when the place is full and classroom etiquette," Gweneth parrots as she walks along heading out, and likely with no idea wheer she's going except that she's going there, wants to go there, and has decided to go there, where ever there may be. "Food from food box, condiment on nose, plants in garden, water from hose."
Kai of course follows. She's not letting Gwen out of her sight at this point (not that she actually needs to be physically present, but it's a good reminder to Gweneth herself). Ghostwing gets up and trails behind out of curiosity.
And so Gweneth wanders back outside; with two areas down, she opts for one she hasn't been before, which Kai knows is the main classroms building. A lot of the rooms are kept locked and secured when o one's in them, but not all, and of course she has extended permission through the usual secret channels -- including just communicating with Tasha herself. "Classes are weekly, the benches in rows, Kai and Ghosty folow, where the dragon goes."
One of the open rooms is a single-level one, rather than one of the tiered lecture halls. It has desks and seating for thirty students, and a lectern and display wall. Kai looks disappointed. "No chalk, no sharpened pencils stuck in the ceiling." She bends down to look under one of the desks. "No used gum."
"No used gum," Gweneth repeats, through it's uncertain if she actually knows what gum is. She does also follow Kai in look up and down for things, copying the motion and peering where she peers. When Kai is done, she tries sitting in a seat. then, she tries another seat. And another. On, down the line of thirty seats.
"Which one do you like best?" Kai asks, as she goes to the lecturn.
Gweneth keeps sitting in chairs, until she reaches the front center. She lingers here for a moment, then she keeps going, before sitting back in the front center seat. "This, this chair. No heads like mountains rise to block the sun-board before my eyes."
"Ah, good, you're already starting to visualize a full class," Kai says. "And Humans, Eeee and Vartan tend to be tall and hard to look around, especially if they have wings."
Ghostwing stays near the door still, and looks at his wings self-consciously.
"Come to think of it..." Kai says, and studies the lectern and its control. She pushes a button, and miniature holographic version of the lectern, herself and the display wall appears on all of the desks.
It might be Gweneth's experience with her sisters -- two of which are enormous slabs of young women, with Fiera being slightly broader -- that has given her this classroom insight. When the holographic Kai appears she looks down, then tries to poke it a few times, seemingly delighted. "Kai of light casts shadow of self. I can, I can." Her tail wags furiously, smacking the desk behind her in loud thunks and slowly pushing a chair away from its desk.
Kai squirms as she is 'poked', but is obviously just playing along. "This must be how they get around the whole obstructed view issue. Where do you normally sit, Ghostwing?"
The Vartan points to the far back corner desk, near the tall windows. The outside light is technically artificial, but the windows probably serve some other purpose.
Gweneth, meanwhile, seems enthralled by the holographic person. It's not the first time she's seen one, but something is either new about this one, or has clicked with her. The desk chair continues to get swatted further and further down the isle until it's behind her tail's reach. There are growing dents beneath the desk behind her.
"Hmm, you should try to keep your tail under control, Gwen," Kai says. "Always be aware of your surroundings. If someone was sitting behind you they'd probably get a bit irate."
"Bit, irate, tail," Gweneth replies with distraction. She seems to finish whatever had her so excited, because her tail slows down, and she looks up. "Is this 'class'? I learned."
"It will be," Kai says. "You'll need to watch how the other students do things and take your cues from them, especially when it comes to asking or answering questions."
"Take Qs when asking or answering questions," Gweneth repeats, again repeating the stated lesson. She looks around, then gets up and, after putting both her chair and the one she swatted away back, walks to the window to look out and see what's out there.
It looks out across the main lawn to the avenue. Across the 'road' is another school from the look of it, and even the upper half of the spine has an inverted sports field.
"So many people, many school. Schools. Does momma school the other schools?" Gweneth leans out, eyes wide. "Pain-crystal lively for all the life that lives along the unliving paths."
"No, there were already schools here to begin with," Kai says. "She and the other Academy regents are leasing this campus, I believe. They didn't build it."
"Didn't build -- was built? By the mind or by the hand, by magic fae and creative?" Gweneth turns, back, leaning back against the window. "Lease... To lease. Lease, lease... Lease, like forest mine, from fairy lord, to bide my time?"
"A bit different, as you do not pay rent to Whisper," Kai says. "A lease means that your mother's group has use of this property for a set amount of time, at a set price. Once that time is up, a new lease is negotiated."
"Temporary. What is price?" Gweneth then holds up a paw to stop Kai from speaking, hurries over to her desk, and the sits down for the coming lesson.
Kai returns to the lectern, activates the holograms and clears her throat before saying, "I don't know. Likely something on the order of a few million credits over a decade or so. Credits are the standard electronic Galactic currency, but some civilizations maintain their own currencies as well. For example, vendors in the Bazaar are just as happy to take Khattan Shekels."
The instructor then produces a slim, glossy stick. "This is a credit stick, or wallet. It has a set amount of credits on it, which can be transferred for purchases. It involves the uses of ridiculously complex encryption algorithms to avoid forgery."
"Gold! Gold is currency, momma showed me gold. Her gold. No touch." Gweneth frowns gravely at this particular lesson; do not touch the bigger dragon's gold. "Momma spent it at elf-town; clothes, food, books, dolls. Elves stain? Pointy ears, humans round." She looks up at the credit stick. "Gold stick? How does gold fit in stick?" But then she perks up and answers her own question, "Space on inside!"
"Elves?" Ghostwing asks. And is ignored for the moment.
"Gold is a precious metal, often used for currency, but not much in Galactic society," Kai explains. "It's actually quite abundant compared to other metals, so it's value is not the same as in places where the supply is limited."
"Gold has other properties that make it valuable," Kai then says, looking at Gweneth pointedly. She probably means 'magic' when she says 'other' in this case.
"Abundan-- many! A lot! Profuse! Extensive! Multitudinous! Considerable!" Gweneth wags her tail, perhaps at the idea of a massive amounts of gold? "Other properties! Gold!" More wagging.
"Did you eat a thesaurus?" Kai asks. "Probably something you picked up from Tia. Gold is a good conductor of electricity and other energies. Which is why dragons like to sleep on it."
"What? Dragons again?" Ghostwing asks, and then immediately seems to forget that he asked it.
"Mmm, gold." Gweneth wags her tail; is it her dragon side, her Tasha side, or both combined that make her desire gold? Surely it's not for its purchase-power. Gweneth has never shown much interest in buying anything, and has lived quite contently in the woods, almost like the animals within. She is clearly highly magical, with strange otherworldy and unfathomable properties, so that's most likely it. It's also very shiny and sun-bright, and she does seem to have a connection to light, in all its froms; her mother has further been likened to the sun, which has become more literal over the years as she's also become literally radiant when she's not concealing her power.
"Actually, some of the gasses mined from the surrounded planetary nebula are more highly valued that gold here on Caltrop," Kai explains. "Water, oxygen and nitrogen all have to be brought in."
Gweneth scrunches up her face at this; what this means is anyone's guess, though perhaps the vagaries of orbital engineering and space based living are beyond her at the moment. That, or she may still be thinking about endless piles of gold.
Kai now knows how to distract Gweneth, even if it does bring out her draconic avarice a bit. She only has to deal with human avarice herself. "I'm sure there will be a class on Galactic Economics, which is not the same as Echo Gnomics."
"Not the same. What is that?" Gweneth points out the window without looking, at the overhanging track and field expanse. "Think of Fiera, Ashera, Kala... Sports? Exercise?"
"Yes, but I don't know if that the Academy has the use of it," Kai says. "The different species can't really compete together in track and field, due to biological differences. Vartan do not run, Silent-Ones and Karnors can produce bursts of speed, but cannot keep up with Humans when it comes to endurance."
"Well, speak of the devil and she will appear," says a familiar voice from the doorway as large, gray-and-black pokes inside. Femine, with long hair, but larger than most Karnor, with a amused expression.
"Ha, ha," goes a deeper female voice from somewhere outside. Standing beyond the doorway is an even bigger winged red-grey-black woman who, like the other, greatly resembles Tasha writ large. "We came to see how things were going; mother said Gweneth had arrived, and I see that's the case and the school remains intact. Promising." Fiera and Ashera.
Ghostwing shies away from the louder women.
"Were you looking for us?" Kai asks from the lectern. "Kala is probably at the pool."
Ashera catches this immediately. "Heeey, is that Ghostwing!?" The head slides in further, rolling around the corner like a fascinated snake with a wolf head. "Out of everyone to hang out with, you chose Gwen? Way to go, Ghost. I guess the rest of us were too boring and, you know, accurate."
"Don't harass the underclassman, Ash," Fiera chides, though without any heat." The larger woman walks inside, surveys the room, nods approvingly, and then folds her arms. "Is she, now? I was of the mind she was supposed to be helping in socialization, though I suppose with a social count of one, she has technically succeeded thusfar."
"Now who is harassing a lowerclassman?" Ashera.
"She's our sister, I'll harass her if I want to. It's my birthright. And besides, she has a duty to perform." Fiera counters.
"I've been going over the very basics, and doing some memory editing when Gwen slips up a bit," Kai says. "I think she understands not to talk about magic and other realities, to not to show off or use up her magic here, until we know how well she can recover it."
"Solid," Fiera assess, nodding her head slowly. "I know what people think, but she's smarter than she seems. I've seen it with my own eyes. She just doesn't think like the rest of us, and we can't expect her to learn at the same rate, in the same way, and with the same distribution as most of us do."
Gweneth meanwhile gives her big sisters an equally big, enthusiastic wave. Ashera returns it equally enthusiastically, then walks over and sits beside her sister and gives her a hug, which causes Gweneth to squeal and make raspberry noises.
Fiera also waves back, but it's mostly a slightly uncoiling of her arms to wave a hand sort of wave. "At any rate, it seems things are under control. I can talk to Kala if you feel she's under performing; Gweneth isn't the only one who needs to learn a lesson here."
"Kala handled a group situation on the way through the Bazaar that went well," Kainudy says. "She was a bit antsy once we got to the new dorm room though. And since there weren't many others around, I thought it was alright for her to blow off some steam."
Ghostwing doesn't wave back at anyone, and pretty much stays in the back corner of the room, looking out of the windows.
"Huh, surprisingly responsible. Well, I'm satisfied. I'll leave her be for now. Good signs." Fiera glances about, then settles her gaze on Ghostwing for a loment moment. The eldest sister's gaze is that of a military commander of twenty years her senior; firm, penetrating, evaluating, and not exactly comforting.
"Looks like Commander Big Sister approved, good job Gwen." Ashera ruffles her sister's hair up, gives her another hug, and then stands up. "Right, well, we have a date with the student council and then the instructional body, counselor. We just stopped by to see who things were going. Fiera was worried."
"I was not," Fiera insists.
"I'm no counselor, just a fresh student," Kai claims, smiling cutely.
"Of course," Fiera says without skipping a beat. "We know know you were asked to guide Gwen in her first hours and during her school year, and we're grateful. You appear to be doing a good job. I'll make sure they are aware."
Ashera pats Ghostwing's shoulder as she passes by without saying a word to him. "Annnd that's everything; see you around campus, Gwen!"
"Bye Fire, bye Ash! I love you!" Gweneth, more waving.
"And we love you too," the sisters say in almost unison. They don't even bother to look embarrassed nor react. From what Kai knows, they've accepted their relationship and have chosen to proceed with it, whatever may come, facing what slings and arrows may come without hesitation, nor balking. "Take care, Kai," Ashera. Fiera gives a nod, glances at Ghostwing one more time, and then they're heading out.
"Scary women," Ghostwing says once the sisters have left. Some of his feathers are even poofed out a bit.
"It's getting late, so we should probably find Kala," Kai suggests.
"The bouncing one?" Ghostwing asks.
"Does she bounce?" Kai asks, and looks to Gwen. "Maybe that's just her personality."
"Kala bounces through the waves plural," Gweneth answers, before looking to where her sisters departed for a long moment. "This is where Ash and Fire smolder?"
"Well, Ash would smolder, I doubt that Fire does," Kai says. "But this is the place where they have been growing and maturing."
"Forest of metal cold and crystal pain where wanders the universal animal, in to the universal universe." Gweneth starts heading for the door now. "Goldie will be lonely. This is new to her; to her, to me."
"Tia has been here often enough," Kai says, and follows Gweneth. Ghostwing takes up the rear of the odd procession. "It's something you need to learn as well, Gweneth: surviving in what seems like the worst place for you to be."
"This is the worst place for me to be?" Gweneth looks around again, eyes wider, head back, nose up. "Pain-crystal and sisters tall, no weather, no Fall; when all and some abide of me, becomes a ball, inside of me." She sniffs, looks around more, and then starts walking back the way they came. Maybe she can smell her own path, or others. Maybe she can smell Goldie, the only other dragon around, with the exception of her mother.
"It may feel like the worst place you've ever been," Kai explains. "But it's actually the best place for you to be right now. You'll learn a lot here, and grow like your sisters. And then you'll be ready to learn other things."
Once they've exited the building, Kai points to one they haven't visited yet; the gymnasium. "Kala should be in there. It's where the students play sports and improve their bodies."
"The vine grows and meanders, through the grass, the green, and animal danders," Gweneth confirms..? Agrees? It sounds agreeing, in a way. When they exit and she spots the building, she adds, "Track and field; a field without life, a life without a field. Track unto morrow grows, to walk, and run, where the flower grows." And then she's heading to that building.
"There are no flowers..." Ghostwing starts to explain, then stops. He understands the concept of poetry, after all, so does not take anything Gweneth says literally. Especially the bit about dragons. He barely understands the Human either, or why he feels compelled to follow along.
The athletics building is large, due to the large rooms within. There is a large hard-surfaced court with bleachers and space for various games, a room with machines meant for exercise, lockers and showers and finally a large room with hot and cold pools and a very large swimming pool.
Gweneth has halted at the hot and cold pools, staring in to the hot one, then the cold one, and back again, walking back and forth between them. "Sauna. Hot tub. Cold bath. Not shower. Pools, artificial. Not natural. Water from inside... " her tail sways idly, then she pokes a finger in the water, waters, because she pokes them both now as she goes back and forth.
"Artificial springs," Kai suggests. This confuses Ghostwing, who asks, "What is a 'spring'?" The boy has probably never set foot on an actual planet before.
"Places where water rises up to the surface of the land," Kai explains. "Hot ones usually require a volcanic source of heat, and can also bring up lots of minerals." Of course, technically, none of the ones Gweneth has encountered are 'natural' though either.
What may or may not be natural to Gweneth remains a mystery; she is a child of many natural, supernatural, and ineffable forces, a dragon, magical in nature, with powers, potencies, and essential natures both known and unknown. To her, perhaps the 'natural' world seems unnatural, or at least, limited. Not unlike how Humans can only see some of the spectra of light and considers that spectrum normalcy, and less, a form of blindness. "Like home," Gweneth concludes. Kai knows the base now has similar pools and a sauna, their mother insisted. It's one of her many favorite places and ways to relax. "Done." This, abruptly, and then Gweneth starts walking to the indoor court. She does pause, eye the pool, and add, "Later," a statement that doesn't seem intended to inform anyone so much as declare an action for everyone.
"Can you tell if your sister is here?" Kai asks. She could find Kala herself, but wants to see how strong the link between Gweneth and her half-siblings is.
"Yes." Gweneth stops, lifts her wings, and opens her eyes wide to a degree that makes her look rather arch. She slowly rotates in place, facing a door--
"Oh hey!" Kala steps out of said door with a towel on her head, wearing a glossy gray bikini with two vertical yellow stripes. "Wow Gwen, looking all wings-out there, what's up--"
Gweneth reaches out and puts a finger on Kalalani's nose, stopping her mid sentence. "Here."
Ghostwing hangs back. Kala is probably another 'scary woman' to the introverted Vartan.
"We've shown Gwen around the campus," Kai explains. "Are you still relaxing, Kala?"
"I'm always relaxed," Kala says as she reaches back over to put her finger to Gwen's nose. "It's just everything else tries to harsh my vibe, you know? I just got done with a swim with the Granister sister~-" She pauses, looks back to her sister, and then clears her throat, "What I mean is I had a nice swim with two other school ladies. Oh hey, Ghosty's still here! Incredible!" Kala leans over, "Hiii Ghosty~"
Ghostwing's feather's poof out and he hides behind his wings.
"Too bouncy for Ghostwing," Kai claims. "Well, are you ready to return to the dorm then? Or should we take a soak in the pools?"
"Adorable. Anyway, what's next? Already eat? The pools?" Kala glances towards them. "Eh we could, I just got done swimming though, and I already ate. I'm ready to head back if you all are."
Gweneth drops her finger and lowers her wings, then looks across campus; Kai can determine this is in the direction of where her dorm is, and especially, Goldie. The little dragon must also be detectable by her.
"We've used the automats in the cafeteria to eat," Kai explains. "Are you ready to get back to Goldie then, Gweneth?"
"Yes." Gweneth turns, then starts walking in that direction without further ado or waiting to see if anyone's following. Kala watches this for a moment, then turns and shrugs, hands up, to Kai as she starts following along. "You can't say she's not independent, you know?" This, as she walks after.
"Thank you for your assistance, Ghostwing," Kai tells their reluctant Vartan. "We're returning to our dorm room now, unless you'd like to follow along?"
There's a frightened noise from behind Ghostwing's wings. "That is fine I will leave you to your.. your-ness now," he caws and then runs away.
"Oh man don't embarrass him further," Kala chides, she then holds on to Gweneth's shoulders and lets her sister pull her along the slick floor for a bit before letting go. "Man if Gwen tries out for wrestling it's going to be a disaster." And then, she laughs.
"Appropriate reaction I suppose," Kai muses and catches up to the others. "Wrestling? With olive oil?" she asks Kala.
Kala gives Kai a funny look. "You look all human most of the time but stuff like that reminds me you're from waaay out there. No, like, wrestling, sports, grapple, hrrrugh, and a mat. I don't know much about it other than stretch's involved and there's grappling. But Gweneth could sumo suplex someone through the wall of the station."
"I was around when wrestling was invented," Kai notes. "Back then it was two naked, oiled up Human men. I wouldn't think anyone one with wings would want to try grappling though. You're built for wrestling though, Kala. If there's oil, that is."
"Yeeeeah no. Oil's such a pain to get off," Kala insists.
Soon they're heading through the Quad, and closing on the dorm building. "So how'd it go, anyway? Break anything, did she eat a vending machine," Kala inquires.
"She indulged in some magic when exposed to dirt," Kai notes. "I had to edit some of the caretaker and Ghostwing's memories. I'll keep a closer watch to make sure Gwen doesn't use more magic."
"Well you know how much she likes dirt. I mean, didn't you see how she lived? Big forest, surrounded by trees, everything feels like it's all more than a little bit her? Those waters are crystal, by the way. Cleaner still than the usual stuff out there. Just, no fishing. Not a park. We learned that one pretty early. It's a forest with our cute little dragon spirit guardian here." Gweneth gets her hair mussed up, which she watches while walking, eyes looking up. "But if you needed to go relax and get away, Gwen's Forest's the best."
"She'll need to learn serenity without such trappings now," Kai says, and pats Kala on the back. "Which you will help to teach her, since you are 'always relaxed' after all. Or I suppose I could teach Level 1 meditation techniques."
"Can't you just... get her some plants or something? There's gardening classes, well, terraforming and the other suite of stuff which might be a bit above her at the moment. It's above me. But yeah, I don't think you should hard stop her connection to the O Natural." Kala steps to walk beside, instead of behind, her sister. "Just a thought."
"Is there a nursery on the outpost for purchasing plants?" Kai asks. "I'm afraid to let her loose on the garden plot again. And is there a gardening club she could join?"
"Heck yeah there's a gardening club. It's uhh..." Kala looks around, then points up on to one of the roofs. "There. It's actually part of the Science building area, a big not-really-green-house on the roof with a skylight. Used in classes and lectures, but the Gardening Club helps to maintain it. This ground floor garden is used too, but like, I think it's used for culinary stuff. Anywya, mom wanted people to have a more hands on experience with life, but it's hard to import a whole planet."
"I surprised there isn't a planet set aside for field studies," Kai notes. "A club activity will be good for Gwen, so long as she doesn't use any magic."
Finally reaching their dorm room, Gweneth finds Goldie looking up from one of the beds. Which is apparently now their bed.
Looking to the other set of bunk beds, Kai asks Kala, "Top or bottom bunk?"
"Bottom, I have mine setup up with clouds and some seasheets," Kala replies.
Gweneth meanwhile bops over to her bunk beds, hunkers down for a moment, then leaps to the top bunk to land and bounce beside Goldie, who also gets bounced. "Goldie! I saw a school!" She reaches to try to hug the little dragon.
"I guess I'll take the top bunk over Kala then," Kai says, even though she doesn't actually sleep. She does look over the environmental settings though, and selects a nice forest view for Gweneth's bunk.
Goldie bounces excitedly, and sniffs Gweneth's breath. Then the little dragon gets pouty! Gweneth ate something but didn't bring any back for her!
"Goldie doesn't have student ID!" This declared in something like realization and something like alarm. Gweneth rolls over, twists, and is now peering over the edge at Kala. "Kala! Kai! Goldie needs student ID for food box. Foooood boooox." Goldie is picked up and put down beside Gweneth's head, and she points to Goldie's mouth. "Food. Box."
"There is food served there that does not come from the food box," Kai points out, having seen an entire kitchen there. "She can eat when the everyone else eats. Plus, she doesn't need to eat in the first place."
"Bah!" Goldie complains at the 'doesn't need to eat' claim. "Bah!" It's almost like a seal bark.
"But, Goldie!" Gweneth then looks to Kala, whose ears shoot up. The two sisters exchange this look for a moment; Gweneth pouting, Kala caught with her younger sister's intensity, and then Kala throws her arms up. "I'm going, I'm going. I have some leftover credits... " And then she's heading out again.
Kai supposes it doesn't matter what Kala gets, since Goldie will eat anything put before her. "Classes begin tomorrow," Kai tells Gweneth. "You'll want to be well rested."
"Rested. Sleep? Sleep." Gweneth doesn't move to her lower bunk, she seems content to curl up where she is, beside Goldie. Kala vanishes in to the faux-evening, and quiet descends upon the dorm room, with two little dragons looking down at Kai, out windows, exchanging unspoken looks of information, and otherwise nesting.
"If you fall asleep, try not to fall out of the bunk come morning," Kai says, and sets the alarm clock. "Have you ever heard a wake up alarm before?" she asks Gweneth.
Gweneth replies by making a gruff, deep, noise, somewhere between a bark woof -- or boof -- and a gurgly reptilian noise.That might be yes; it might be no; it might be sleeping now not listening, it might be anything really.
So, Kai sets off the alarm clock. It's not a jarring sound, just a very annoying undulating buzz.
Gweneth's head rises slowly over the edge of the bed, she eyes the clock, then eyes it some more. After a while of this she makes a disgruntled raspberries noise.
Kai turns it off, and explains, "When you hear that noise, it means it's time to wake up, because school runs on a schedule. And if you sleep in, you'll miss breakfast."
Gweneth lays her head back down and grunts at this information, ears canting back slightly. her tail is still and down.
Tomorrow is going to be interesting.