[ And By follows, drawing near enough to thump his fist lightly against Richie's shoulder. The gesture for buck up, there, old sport - at least when delivered by the emotionally inept - is, apparently, universal.
Of course, they don't end up in any sewers. Of course not; that's not how this pattern goes. Instead, they're in an attic - one filled with the detritus of astonishing history, fencing swords and battle-standards, saddles and - gruesomely - a healthy collection of bones and mummified flesh. The cluttered repository of a medieval war-clan, just one that happened to have been born thousands of years into the future.
Byerly is there with Nadine. There's a mattress on the floor, dressed with clean sheets, an orderly pile of ready-meals and a portable sonic shower kit and a tablet-projector that's set up to serve as a virtual classroom, cascading light for an immersive experience, a holographic teacher smiling serenely at them. The sleek technology clashes oddly with the detritus around them, to be sure. By is adjusting the settings on the tablet, playing with the teacher's face, turning the woman into a man and then making that man squat and fantastically ugly.
"Do you have to make him look like that?" Nadine sighs. She's young, here - no older than maybe nine or ten.
Byerly, a gangly and skinny twelve, doesn't quite have the smoothness of his adult self, but he certainly has the cheek. He grins, and says, "You know I can't stand it when I'm not the most handsome man in the house."
Nadine sighs noisily, and rolls her eyes hugely. But her exasperation fades a moment later, as she says, a little anxious - "You can stay up here, too."
"What, and miss the chance to spend time with our beloved cousins? Not a chance." He smiles at Nadine, but he's not the actor he'll eventually become, either; there's real worry visible in his eyes. "It'll be good for my future, you know. Getting closer to our cousins."
"Horseshit." She curses very naturally for one so young. ]
Hm. I do remember this one.
[ By's voice is level; this isn't going to turn into anything awful, it seems. ]
no subject
Of course, they don't end up in any sewers. Of course not; that's not how this pattern goes. Instead, they're in an attic - one filled with the detritus of astonishing history, fencing swords and battle-standards, saddles and - gruesomely - a healthy collection of bones and mummified flesh. The cluttered repository of a medieval war-clan, just one that happened to have been born thousands of years into the future.
Byerly is there with Nadine. There's a mattress on the floor, dressed with clean sheets, an orderly pile of ready-meals and a portable sonic shower kit and a tablet-projector that's set up to serve as a virtual classroom, cascading light for an immersive experience, a holographic teacher smiling serenely at them. The sleek technology clashes oddly with the detritus around them, to be sure. By is adjusting the settings on the tablet, playing with the teacher's face, turning the woman into a man and then making that man squat and fantastically ugly.
"Do you have to make him look like that?" Nadine sighs. She's young, here - no older than maybe nine or ten.
Byerly, a gangly and skinny twelve, doesn't quite have the smoothness of his adult self, but he certainly has the cheek. He grins, and says, "You know I can't stand it when I'm not the most handsome man in the house."
Nadine sighs noisily, and rolls her eyes hugely. But her exasperation fades a moment later, as she says, a little anxious - "You can stay up here, too."
"What, and miss the chance to spend time with our beloved cousins? Not a chance." He smiles at Nadine, but he's not the actor he'll eventually become, either; there's real worry visible in his eyes. "It'll be good for my future, you know. Getting closer to our cousins."
"Horseshit." She curses very naturally for one so young. ]
Hm. I do remember this one.
[ By's voice is level; this isn't going to turn into anything awful, it seems. ]
We were having a visit. Or a visitation, perhaps.