mother mother I made a friend today

[elves_are_nice]

A small wooden cottage, in the middle of a forest far from civilization.

A sitting room, barely large enough for its furniture: a table (currently covered with paper and arcane scribbles), three overstuffed chairs, and a fireplace (not lit). The walls are lined with bookshelves, though, alas, they are most empty, except for the odd binder or duplicated tome.

Were it not for the heavy warding upon the place and its lonely setting, it'd look like a normal home for a woodsman.

Within this room, a boy appears with a 'pop'. "Mother!" he shouts. "I'm home!"

Comments

[aestrix]

The mother in question looks up where she is making dinner.

"Welcome home," she says, warmly. "You are just in time for me to feed you."

[elves_are_nice]

"Oh, excellent~"

He can't be bothered to walk, so he just - hops, Out and back In to the universe, over to the dinner table.

"I made a friend today!"

[aestrix]

... That is a terrifying sentence!

His mother retrieves plates, and plops food onto plates, and puts a plate in front of her tiny little reality warper, then carefully asks, "A friend?"

[elves_are_nice]

Aisilian nods enthusiastically. "Yup~! Sorry about the secrecy thing - there was a weird hole in my wards, I'm going to recalibrate them tonight - but it all went well, the only one who noticed was this nice girl about my age, we're going to save the world together!"

[aestrix]

"I did vaguely figure that this would happen once you started casually teleporting everywhere," sighs his mother. "What was the, um, nice girl like? Where did you meet her?"

[elves_are_nice]

"Oh, I was reading through the Larinyan library and she caught me at it. She was quite nice, generally sensible, though she seemed to think I wanted to marry her for some reason. Had a hard question for me about people who disagree with me, I'm still struggling with that one."

"Also, why didn't you ever tell me my smile thing was actually scary? I've been assuming that I just got it wrong, but I accidentally terrified that poor girl today."

[aestrix]

... How does one word this? She has a policy of not lying to her child. But this isn't exactly an easy thing to explain.

"In the past previous halfbloods have had the habit of making young girls marry them," she decides upon. "And... I don't want you to have to worry about frightening me. I'm your mother. You shouldn't second guess everything when you're around me. You should feel safe. But - if you like I can start telling you when you do scary things."

[elves_are_nice]

Aisilian's choice of books has been unrestricted for several years. He blanches, a bit.

"... I need to work on my word choice!" he manages, after a minute.

"... and yes, please do. Thanks for the thought, I really like it here - but I'd like to not really scare someone unless I mean it."

[aestrix]

His mother doesn't comment on his choice of books.

"All right. I'll tell you, then." Pause. "... Teleportation is likely to unnerve everyone that's not used to you."

[elves_are_nice]

He tilts his head slightly. "Huh. That... was actually what gave me away as a halfblood, wasn't it."

He groans into an elaborate pout. "It's so convenient, though~. What's so hard about it anyway, it's just a matter of being really thorough about describing your consequences~"

[aestrix]

"Well, sometimes that's hard for people, especially if they don't have the mana to practice it."

[elves_are_nice]

He pouts more, but nods. "Right. I guess I better get back into the habit of floating everywhere." He sighs heavily. "Why do points have to be separated by actual space?" he half-whines.

[aestrix]

"Because then we would assumingly all be on top of one another. It would be somewhat uncomfortable."

...

His mother can get dry, sometimes.

[elves_are_nice]

"Bhava-Agra isn't that bad," He grumbles. But he goes back to eating his dinner with a pout.

[aestrix]

"Aisilian," she says, in a very similar singsong, "I don't know what that word means."

[elves_are_nice]

Aisilian blinks. "Oh, sorry. A strange conception of a world of spirit, involving that lacks distance or really much in the way of qualia. I actually haven't seen any place like that yet, so I can't honestly speak as to its pleasant-ness or lack thereof."

[aestrix]

"Thank you. Let's not turn the world into... Bhava-Agra? then. Since you haven't seen any place like it. It could be worse than having to float places instead of teleporting."

[elves_are_nice]

Aisilian nods with childish seriousness, adding this to his mental list of "things moral people should not do."

[aestrix]

Good, she tries to keep her son from doing terrible things to the world.

"So, the girl you met, she's... Not going to tell her parents?"

[elves_are_nice]

Aisilian grimaces. "Probably. I scared her pretty badly, I think."

[aestrix]

"Ah. Okay. Be careful anyway, dear? Check to be sure. I don't want you to get caught off guard by a bunch of angry mages."

[elves_are_nice]

Aisilian nods. "Of course, of course~. Scry and don't die!"

[aestrix]

"Yes. That. Do that."

She ruffles his hair affectionately.

[elves_are_nice]

With that, Aisilian finishes his dinner quickly, and as promised, floats gently up the stairs in lieu of his usual flicker.