Since they’re able to use the interface to read for them, I was half-expecting them to have finished off the book I’m reading Sen, but whether they have or not they still listened as keenly. Sen’s gone very snuggly, seeming to know that my burns have ceased to require pain meds and care, and insisted on two bedtime hugs during her story, and more from Ys and Rye between bath and story time.
I don’t think they’re ever likely to think of me as Mum, but they’re starting to believe they’re allowed to be here. I feel all over the place at times, jumping back and forth between world-saving and fumbling attempts at parenting, but in a way Mara was right – the kids are a great distraction for both of us – certainly for me, because not wanting to be all upset in front of them has lent me a certain amount of calm.
Friday, September 5
All Around
Rotten dreams last night. Over and over being kidnapped by Cruzatch – not too-real dreams, just straightforward nightmares, which are a lot harder to force myself awake from. Kaoren had nightmares too – probably communicated by me – and we figured we were most likely having a delayed reaction to the ambush. At dawn we gave up on bed and walked down to the lake (which is not strictly permitted for me at the moment, and I suspect even such a short trip meant Kaoren had to tell whoever was on watch that we were going).
It’s not Kaoren’s style to pretend that bad things won’t happen, or that he has the power to make everything okay, and so we had a short discussion about wills and making arrangements for the kids in case something happens. He thinks it’s important that they don’t end up with his parents.
KOTIS Command will probably stop quivering in a corner soon and go back to more dangerous experiments, but today’s trip to Kalasa was another attempt at visualising the past in the same room. Exactly the same result as last time, but I had the distinct impression that the device technicians really wanted me to make all the light squiggles anyway, since they were all having excited discussions about it when I came back to myself. One of the things the technicians had particularly wanted to see was how the light squiggles reacted to the malachite marble, and they found that the marble has its own set of squiggles, and seems to eat any Kalasan squiggles that come near it.
It’s pretty solidly accepted now that the malachite marbles were some secret construction related to the Cruzatch. Most of the technicians are of the opinion that the marbles interfered somehow with the platform and Pillar infrastructure set up by the main body of Lantarens and thus are the major cause of the tears between spaces. A smaller group argue that the platform and Pillars themselves would have still had the same effect on the Ena.
Plenty of theories, but no-one’s come up with any solutions.
On the good news front, this afternoon Kaoren and I held a quiet celebration over the fact that he’s started to be able to enhance himself. He can’t do it as reliably as Par, yet, and has only told me. He says he suspects he’s not the only one who’s reached this stage, but because it’s such a sensitive issue for the Setari, few are talking about their own efforts. He doubts all Setari will be able to achieve the enhancement – certainly not in the short term – but he thinks he knows why Par achieved it first. Just as my connection with the Ena grows stronger when I concentrate on everything surrounding me, it was the key Kaoren used to discovering how to focus his own connection. Path Sight and Combat Sight are a big aid.
Tomorrow is a rest day, and Kaoren plans to spend the morning off on one of the islands working on enhancement. But he’s going to come back at lunch and take me and the kids (and a suitable escort, I guess) off to visit Pandora’s first ever café.
Saturday, September 6
Out and About
I asked Raiten Shaf to be one of my escorts to the café, on the theory that the Kolaren family who runs it would be so distracted drooling over him that they’d not pay any attention to me. I don’t think Raiten’s very keen on being fawned over by fans, but he thought the idea of playing distraction was funny enough, and I ended up having an all-captain escort of Kaoren, Raiten, Maze and Ro. It still bugs me that I can’t just go for a walk into town by myself, but it’s getting better now that I’m on a first-name basis with almost everyone who gets assigned to guard me.
Ys and Rye had been in an odd mood all morning – pleased not to have to go to the school, I think, but also having some sort of argument whenever I wasn’t around. Sen obviously didn’t know what Ys and Rye were discussing, which put her out of temper with them, and she insisted on playing a game alone with me. I cheered her up by braiding her hair with ribbons, which she adored (and finally gave me something to do with them – Nenna had given them to me and I’m not a ribbon person and had just stuffed them in a pocket of my backpack).
It made Sen forget she was annoyed and she ran and fetched Ys and made her come and have her hair done the same way. Ys has quite short hair, a bit ragged and neglected, and I couldn’t possibly do it in two long braids like Sen’s, but I went and borrowed a pair of scissors and tidied it up a little and then did small, ribbon-bound braids holding back the sides. Ys endured this, and wouldn’t even look at the result in the mirror.
Rye’s hair I just neatened a little, and I did my own in a French braid (assisted by Sen) and found a Summery dress and felt good about myself. I’ve ordered more clothes for the kids, but am still waiting on delivery – and even with my lush wage I had to wince at the shipping charges, which are deliberately discouraging.
Still, we all looked very neat when Kaoren arrived back, and he obligingly changed to one of the few non-uniform outfits he brought with him. The other captains were also dressed not to stand out and I have to admit that I was almost as excited as Sen. Going out to the shops for lunch – something so normal and unremarkable for me on Earth – is more unusual for me now than flying, fighting monsters, or meeting world leaders.
Moon Piazza is quite a long way away from the Setari building, which is the far-flung southern point of Pandora, and so we had a nice walk to work up our appetites and arrived after what would count as the lunch time rush. We had the option of walking through the science buildings (the university, as I keep thinking of it), or looping through the old town, and decided to go through the old town to gawk at the changes which were slowly being made to it. A small team of archaeologists had never stopped working, even after much of the attention had been diverted to Arenrhon and Kalasa, and now that the snow was finally gone the botanical types were having a field day exploring the gardens, so we’d walk through patches that looked exactly as it had been when I first explored the place, and then a stretch of houses where all the gardens and buildings had been painstakingly restored and preserved.
Today wasn’t the weekend for just the Setari, but for most of Pandora, since the settlement has shifted to a four days on, one day break cycle, and so there were people – children – everywhere. The old town drew them like a magnet – the other major point of interest being Moon Piazza, which had lots of kids playing ball games – most groups had some kind of adult supervisor and there were some rather harassed-looking greensuits patrolling in an effort to keep the more adventurous out of any of the uncleared buildings. It wasn’t just Nuran children, but the long-serving KOTIS employees and the first wave of settler families, nervously picnicking on the lake’s bank.