he's such a prude though

[if_at_first]

Sylvi settles in very thoroughly. She makes a point of going out on her wooden horse and wandering the city every day or two, even if she has no specific errand to run (although she does also place orders for lenses and very fine-tipped pens and new notebooks). She hugs Avedan when he has bad dreams and he hugs her when she does, if they successfully wake one another despite the long pillow between them on the bed. And she plows through piles and piles of old notes, and condenses her childhood for inclusion in the same library for future 'bels.

As of this moment she is up to her specialization in shines. Write write write.

Comments

[if_at_first]

"Thanks," she says weakly. "Uh. Anything else you want to know?"

[do_over]

"... What do you do?"

[if_at_first]

"Servantmaking, again, theoretical instructional research - I mean, I can make pets and puppets and I've actually built golems and programmed shines in the course of theorem-proving but it's mostly theory."

[do_over]

He nods. "That's interesting. Thanks."

[if_at_first]

"You're welcome. I - bet the slavery thing takes up most of your time?"

[do_over]

"A - bit, yeah. So my servant education's a bit lacking."

[if_at_first]

"Well - that's okay, Charp will recognize you regardless, and it talks. And you'll remember what Aydanci knew if you wait long enough anyway."

[do_over]

"Yeah, that'll be nice. Problem is, I've caught a lot of the later stuff that doesn't make sense without a more basic education."

[if_at_first]

"I can fill you in," she said. "If you want."

[do_over]

"Sure. That'd be nice."

[if_at_first]

"Okay. Um, now or later?"

[do_over]

"I - think it would take a while?"

[if_at_first]

"Yeah, but - do you want to start now?"

[do_over]

"Sure."

[if_at_first]

"Okay. How basic do you want me to start?"

[do_over]

"Reasonably basic, please."

[if_at_first]

"So there's pets and puppets and automata and golems and shines - shades are basically a kind of shine. If you've got anything with moving parts around I can show you how to turn it into a puppet as a start, otherwise I can make you a shine to play with."

[do_over]

"Shine sounds fun."

[if_at_first]

"Okay." She finds a patch of light and peels it off for him. "Do you know how to take it as a puppet or should I start there?"

[do_over]

"I know how to take it as a puppet," he affirms.

[if_at_first]

"Okay, go ahead and do that. Predictably, I have paper, and this is a nice big shine, so I can write it some instructions longhand and they'll work just fine." She flips to a fresh notebook page and writes a short program that will fit within the shine's area, and walks him through each line in it, and then puts the program down where he can move the shine onto it.

[do_over]

Kidan focuses on the shine, and gets to taking it as a puppet, and then making it do things.

"Thank you," he says, smiling at the little shine.

[if_at_first]

"You're welcome. I like shines. I had a bunch of colored ones on the ceiling in a pattern in my room growing up. Left them for the next kid when I moved out, though."

[do_over]

"That's extremely cute."

[if_at_first]

Lu ducks her head and smiles. "Thanks."