2022-12-17 - A Christmas Guest - Part Two

Did Jules manage to let Della know about their surprise guest? Maybe. Maybe not.

If not: surprise! There's a Tui in the kitchen, finishing up the remains of a cinnamon roll, with another plate (and mostly untouched roll) sitting opposite her, plus coffee mugs. Mikaere's ma is in a summer-weight nightgown and a pair of fuzzy slippers, and though she's been abandoned by her son's girlfriend(?), she seems calmly at home, casting thoughtful glances around the quiet kitchen as she eats.

Everything is fine.

Blame it on the cinnamon rolls. The scent of cinnamon rolls.

Della pads down the hallway, hair loose and daywear pleasantly rumpled in a way it isn't when Mikaere's expected, even now; there's a cat on her shoulder, the distinctive slender silhouette of her phone in one pocket, and her warm voice lifted playfully arch: "Back so soon? Don't tell me the hospitality was unwelcoming, Una -- "

(Because (a) it takes Una to make cinnamon rolls and (b) they may have some stashed in the freezer but those aren't for any old morning and (c) apparently Della herself was in some state of unreachable and do-not-disturb involving a shower, work, or... no, surely not a combination of the two.)

"--!!" It's not even a word, that tail-end of their housemate's name; Della's midair like she's levitated, and if she had fur it'd be all on end.

She lands, flat-footed. The cat doesn't; the cat's vanished. She's rubbing her shoulder accordingly, squinting into the light and -- "Tui? Tui?!"

Incoming Della, arms out for a hug as much as chair and table (and Tui) allow.

Tui glances up in time to see Della's approach: to see the shift, the loss-of-cat, the landing.

It means she's prepared for the hug, and well able to open her arms to return it, all warmth and hospitality (never mind that it's not her home, or that she's not really dressed for warmth after all).

"Now I want to know about this hospitality your secret third housemate might be— no, no, never mind that. Hello, Della. You're keeping well, I hope. There's coffee in the pot, and I'm afraid... actually, I have no idea if the door to your basement is in order or not. Jules has disappeared quite mysteriously to track down my wayward son."

Hi.

The door -- Della glances that way. But. "That could take hours," she says with a glint in her eye.

"Maybe I could go collect some summertime," but for now, she's rejecting the nibbled roll in favor of nosing into the oven for one that's fresh. "Do you like a flat white? More coffee?"

Speaking of summer -- "A blanket?" Not that it's a hospitality war or anything.

"I'd never experienced one of your Doors before," says Tui, conversational but with an edge of thoughtfulness that speaks to her academic mindset. "But this one was certainly insistent I noticed it. I'm sure it woke me up deliberately. An interesting experience."

She sets down her fork, gesturing towards her empty mug. "A proper flat white? I could be persuaded. A blanket, too. It gets colder here than I'm used to."

Her gaze fixes on Della, and there's something to be read in it: something turning over in the older woman's mind, even if she's not verbalised it just yet.

"Insistent," is somehow pleasing, enough so to draw out Della's smile; "What did it do, flap at you? --And I can't promise a proper flat white. This is America, after all." In other years, she might have joked about America tending to be improper, but... not now.

What she sees, what she doesn't see, she doesn't so much as arch a brow... well, not more than a fraction; even then, she's off to collect a couple of the crocheted afghans from the couch and start on Tui's drink.

"An improper flat white will do me just fine," promises Tui. "I'm not my son."

She waits to answer the rest until Della is back, those helpful afghans tucked about her shoulders and lap, not quite so careful as to be precise but certainly with consideration. "It woke me up," she says, then. "Enough to get me out of bed. There was a light on, in the laundry— you remember my laundry, I'm sure— and... it's one thing to walk through a door and find yourself somewhere else. It feels quite another to be drawn in to it in the first place. Clearly, I'm where I ought to be."

"Did it creak to wake you, did it clamor? Before the light -- and yes, I remember." Della adds, more professionally than wistfully, "Is our laundry still there, did you happen to see?"

Right before the milk begins to bubble, when it's not yet a shriek, "And if we're being improper... would you care for syrup?" If Tui will go this far... "Presumably you're where it wants you, at least."

"I don't remember," the older woman admits, easily enough, leaning back in her chair to watch Della at work. "It was more the sense that something had woken me, rather than the actual event. I'm sorry to say, I didn't see your laundry at all... admittedly, I didn't look!"

She picks up a crumb of cinnamon roll with her fingertip, licking it free. "Syrup, yes. I expect I am, at that. Ara tātai... destiny. This is where I needed to be, and so, where I am. I wonder what you think of recent events, here."

"Mmm," murmurs Della in acceptance; she stirs, layers, pours. "Luckily, I don't have anything in the machines right now, but I would prefer them to be available."

And not to assume, but also to check for Tui's priorities, "Which in particular?" It's inquired with a smile as she sets down mug and spoon, soon followed by a judicious selection from the household's massive collection: blackberry, chai spice, and... why not, lavender. It's summer back there, after all. "I'd have poured it in first," before the milk, "but I wanted to give you a chance to see before you choose. If you don't like any of these, there's more."

"My son has bemoaned the need to use a public laundry," acknowledges Tui, by way of reply on the subject of unavailable (or entirely absent) washing machines, though she's cracked a smile anyway.

"You have an impressive collection... more than I would have imagined. Let's try the lavender, then; I've never had such a combination." But she's fearless, is Tui: undaunted by the new and interesting.

And, because she's not forgotten: "Anything and everything. Jules spoke of doom and destruction; what would you say? Is there more positive news in Gray Harbor?"

"Tragic," says Della, most somberly.

The bottles are of varying sizes and varying sources, from major brands to smaller companies, but many sport handwritten labels (often with version numbers), and the lavender Della's picked is one of the latter. She's judicious, now, with the pouring -- and with a spoon, something she often doesn't bother with on her own, but maybe Tui will be here long enough (or again!) to want to be able to replicate (or avoid!) another time. It's a process.

She stirs, but at an angle, careful to preserve the milk. Her loosened hair falls about her face, but not into the drink, and it's no cloak: too easy to see the new skew to her mouth, less a matter of angle than tension. Tragic. "Positive news, to be sure. In the short-term, the current term, but nothing that's overwritten what we were given to see."

"Do you want to meet him?"

It's a process, and one that Tui watches with interest, those dark, intelligent eyes studying each movement the other woman makes.

"Him?"

"Bill." -- "Bill Swift." Sound familiar?

Tui can have her mug, anyway -- 'World's Best Granddaughter,' that had somehow crept into the collection courtesy of a yard sale -- while Della turns to collect her own. "Our gracious host, back when we met the fire spirit, to the detriment of his decor."

It's the mug and its message that draws Tui's mirthful smile: she, who certainly has a 'World's Best Grandmother' mug somewhere in her cupboards. Her nod is one of gratitude, though there's a distraction, there, because: "I hadn't heard that name. Jules didn't get so far into the detail, and I suppose my son wasn't there to experience it. Jules was going to invite her grandmother up; I would certainly like to meet her."

She adds, after a moment: "You can feel how close everything is, here. The thinness of the ārai."

"In that case," Della's much swifter about prepping her own mug, just a simple lungo with chai-spiced syrup and black pepper ground over the top. "Think of a room full of interesting things, with a fire spirit wreaking havoc. Una was able to help the carpet, at least; credit to him for not being as... peeved as I would have been." Della would have been pissed. "We'd gone to him for help, and then havoc. But then, I can't imagine he didn't know the risks."

She hasn't forgotten: "How does that closeness feel? Frightening? Invigorating?"

Tui's wince is genuine, and is followed by a sharp shake of her head. She forestalls further comment in lieu of taking a sniff of her coffee, and then a cautious sip that is not quite a sip: too hot.

"The poor man," she muses. "I would certainly not have been best pleased. It feels—" again, she pauses. One finger taps her lips, thoughtful, before she concludes, "Both. I can feel my power, so much more here than in Auckland. But I know what my power can do; and I know what opposing power can do. I don't know that I'm frightened, as such, but... cautious, shall we say. Aware."

Della's smile is lifted over her own mug -- some advertisement or other in a now-vintage font with sunflowers and a ladybug -- "When are you not cautious?"

"Why, Della," says Tui, laughing. "When I am bold, of course."

Such a sunny smile. So very heartily amused.

"And never the twain shall meet?" Della sighs, nearly a laugh, and consoles herself with cak -- cinnamon roll. It sweetens the coffee further, and the coffee adds tang to the treat.

"Bill was very much, 'This is your quest, I am going to sit back and look wise,' as I recall; did Jules happen to include that?"

"She did not, though I own, that approach does not surprise me. That's the way of quests; you can have a wise mentor, but he's not supposed to interfere, not really. The archetypal hero's journey, of course."

Tui takes another sip of her coffee, adding, "This is good. Not a combination I would have imagined, but very good. I wonder—"

That's when the ground moves, shuddering beneath them.

"Which isn't particularly practical, since it would save a good deal of time if they'd only talk," says the science major. "But no, there always has to be drama."

Della has a quick, pleased smile for the lavender working, and she has another sip of her own before --

-- a gasp, or maybe an oath. "THEENA?!" the woman bellows, snatching up her phone, half using the table for balance and half holding it down to less than complete success.

The contents of the table manage not to travel too far— the same cannot be said of the open shelves, where some of Una's carefully arrayed herbs, spices, and pretty glassware choose to take flying leaps onto the kitchen floor rather than resist the shaking earth.

Thud. Crash. Shatter.

Throughout the shaking, Tui remains still and calm. She is, after all, child of a land that has more than its fair share of earth movement— though she surely cannot have anticipated this.

As quickly as it all began, it all goes still again.

"Theena?" wonders the older woman, as if nothing at all had happened.

Della can't go anywhere --

Everything's still except for Della's frantic-fast breath, her eyes flitting back and forth, her, "...Theena?" pitched higher than Tui's. Except for her anxiety, rising with it, palpable to whoever might listen.

(Next door, someone shudders: a sip of unexpectedly cold coffee, or a goose walking over a grave.)

Anxiety, and more: ashes falling, swirling, on some unseen wind.

Tui's not her son, able to calm and reassure. Her healing is physical rather than emotional, and she's powerless for this, except in the way that anyone has power.

"Della," she says, sharply and with authority. "Everything is fine."

It's not fine. There's a... there's a set of eyes, watching them from atop one of the shelves, blinking, golden and glinting.

That too is a power that matters, that has its effects; and some part of Della wants to calm, doesn't like being shaken, much less more than she had with Pompeii itself. She turns --

-- paws pitter-patter --

-- laughingly, "You sound like Una." The ashes don't just blink out of existence, but no more fall. They're gritty to the touch. Only when they're unobserved (at least by humans) do they disappear.

"Do I?"

It's a distraction Tui doesn't move away from. If she's noticed those eyes, watching them from high atop that shelf, she shows no indication of it.

It's a pity she has no control over what comes next: the blinking of a creature with more than one set of eyelid, and, following that, the burst of flame— and the emotion that comes with it, more instinctual than determined: fear and uncertainty and shock.

It's still fire. There's fire in the kitchen.

Look. Una is a fantastic cook. The rest of them, well, they do okay. The last time they needed the fire extinguisher was...

...well, they haven't, all right?

At least they have a fire extinguisher! It's around here somewhere!

(Maybe Athena's running off to get it? Or to get smith-y reinforcements in the form of her brother? She's certainly running. Away.)

Della was doing so well, even if that laugh was more frantic than anything, but that burst of emotion... it's as though it's hers. This time it's a real gasp, and she's shoving her phone into her pocket, twisting, looking --

"Oh no! Tui! What happened?!" At least there's no ash. Not like before. It's a kitchen, surely she can splash it. If there's still water in the kettle when she grabs it, once she (if she) makes it across that minefield of broken glass...

Hephaestus would be the appropriate cat in this moment, but... alas.

At least the fire is aimed towards the middle of the kitchen, and not its cabinets and their contents... but it is still fire.

"I don't—" begins Tui, who stops herself as the culprit unfurls itself and peers out, all wings and tail and dark bronze hide (and definitely not scales). It exhales another burst of flame, but again, and thankfully, nothing alights.

<< Afraid! >> insists the creature, dragon-like but too small, surely, to be a proper dragon. << Hurt! >>

... hungry?

That's a squawk from Della, right there, as she picks up speed away from the fire and thuds into the stove. Her hand goes for the kettle and...

Della twists again, this time to stare at the creature, her dark brows particularly expressive. You what now?!

There are many books with dragons, including baby dragons. Many, many books with many, many dragons, and some have scales and some don't and does Della even notice? Can she even tell that it's dark bronze instead of dark gold or dark baby-excrement brown? At least it isn't rainbow with a unicorn horn.

"Did you hear that, Tui?" Glass chitters wetly underfoot as she shifts her weight. "Hello?" Hello?

<< Hurt, >> repeats the creature, tail flicking, eyelids twitching. It leans forward, intrigued by the person talking back to it: by Della and her kettle, and the glass beneath her feet. << Lost. Hungry. Are you safe? Is this home? >>

There's a radiating of its feeling, now: hurt/lost/so lost/confused/hungry/HUNGRY?!/so confused/so lost.

Tui's expression is a little bewildered, but her voice is calm enough: "No, no I do not. What does it say, Della?"

"It's my home," Della notes -- It's my home -- and waves her spread fingers in the air, as though disentangling spiderwebs, or at the very least puzzling out which emotions belong to whom.

"A home that I want not set on fire, thank you." -- "It's hungry," this to Tui, though with her lack of fine-tuning, she may well be still speaking along the creature's bandwidth as well. Back to the beast: "What do you eat?"

While she's at it, Della tilts her other hand, less emphatically: just enough to tilt the base of the kettle to be ready as a shield, its contents a low slosh. Just in case it eats people (and is foolish enough to announce it).

"What do tarākona eat," muses Tui, as if Della hadn't just asked that of the creature herself. Well. What do they eat? It's a mystery.

The poor dragon (tarākona? firelizard?) doesn't seem to know quite what to do with Della's words, mental or verbal, because it tilts its head to the side and hesitates. It also burps— and lets out another little spurt of flame, though smaller, this time, and not sustained enough to cause any immediate damage.

<< Home, >> it repeats, more a concept than a word, since it comes with an image: a place of warm and sand and sun and comfort and... and a big hole in the world out of nowhere and and and... and now here.

While we're talking food, mind, it sniffs delicately at the air. Evidently cinnamon rolls don't count as food (or coffee), because it lets out a little despondent snuffle. Woe.

Any more flame seems enough to startle Della, the kettle going up -- but then, oh. Oh. "It comes from summer," might be to Tui as well to herself. "Beachy summer." -- "Hang on."

If the fire spirit had been this cute, is just for Della herself, or mostly. Though 'cute' isn't quite the right word... Letting the kettle settle, she crunches her way across the floor (just as well if the creature hasn't taken a liking to what's in there, all mixed with broken glass) towards the refrigerator, sparing just a wistful glance towards broom and dustpan along the way. There's the nice salami for charcuterie... slices of nice smoked ham... no, definitely not.

Next she unlids a palm-sized can and wafts it around in the air, "How's this smell?" Something's fishy around here: namely, the rest of a can of cat food.

Tui is going to stay safely where she is, her sock-covered feet avoiding the glass-strewn floor. Besides, it's interesting to sit there and watch, hands steepled in front of her, eyes sliding seamlessly between small draconic creature and taller, industrious Della.

Whatever the creature is, it's a little shy: it, too, watches Della, more cautious than intrigued, though it holds back on further flame-creation (for now; they're all certainly on notice, and don't forget it for a moment).

The cat food, though... that's the moment it lurches off of its shelf, sending another piece of glassware on a shatter-inevitable path to the floor. Wings spread, it is a handsome creature, turning on a wingtip effortlessly as it swoops down towards Della and that amazing, perfect, glorious smell. << Hungry! >> it bleats, as it aims— success to be determined— to drop to Della's shoulder for convenient feeding.

Call it a firelizard, if you like: same size, same (rough) shape.

Thoroughly inevitable, given how Della's too busy wincing away to stop it. Broken glass (more broken glass) is not good, but it isn't self-directed (probably). At least all that gloriousness must be reassuring, though her eyes are already widening as the creature (in all its handsomeness) stoops towards her, her hands going up.

water sloshes (but at least doesn't splash)

look, the can!

shoulders, two of them!

Somehow, somehow, a landing is secured, but Della's hissing, "Careful with those claws!" ...clawssss!... "All right, easy, easy, not so fast. Here. The edge is sharp." She tries to guard it with her fingers, sort of, but if those fangs are coming her way, the fingers are leaving. "How about I get a spoon."

Which will mean setting the kettle on the counter; maybe she should go for a knife instead?

Claws! The creature can't retract them, like a cat, but it does seem to have the intelligence to avoid sinking them in to soft shoulder flesh: it perches, instead, somewhere between a cat and a raptor, its tail beginning to wind around Della's shoulder with proprietary contentment.

(Some of that is likely due to the co-location of the food, which it nudges its head towards in great interest. A spoon, though? It may not entirely know what that means, but— as it seems to express, wordlessly— if that's what Della thinks is best!)

"You seem to have made a friend," declares Tui, not hiding the laughter in her voice.

Della accepts this; fire is not, after all, being blasted into her ear. (Currently.) And the tail does help with balance.

(And, somewhere, Young Della is all: omg a baby dragon! a baby dragon!! here, with me!!!)

"Mmm. We'll see," says this Della, scooping out a moderate spoonful and offering it towards the creature's muzzle. "Eat this nicely," and she does have a firm grip on the handle, "and I'll give you another bite. Please avoid dripping on my hair or blouse." Look at you look at you look at you.

Wings.

Wings.

If nothing else, the promise of food has tamed the more excessive urges of this tiny creature, whose wings are furled carefully about itself, talons and tail positioned so as not to maim. It leans forward to sniff at the spoon, and then that maw opens wide to allow the food to enter, spoon and and all.

(Working out the spoon is not part of the meal may take a moment or two longer, jaws clinging on even once the cat food is gone: tasty!)

Its thoughts are shared openly: pure joy, plain and simple. This! Food! Yes! Yay Della! Yay food! Yay, yay, yay~

"I can see perfectly well," remarks Tui, eyes glittering about the rim of her raised mug. "I think I'm going to enjoy Gray Harbor."

Joy makes for joy, Della's cheeks flushing, her eyes soft; not that she doesn't laugh, either, when it comes to patiently-make-that-playfully extricating the spoon, imagining -- loudly -- its getting to have more. Yes, another bite. Yes, wonderful. What a lovely creature!

"You know, the broom's right there, in the corner," Della remarks back to Tui, only she can't make it anywhere near as dryly because yay~

(Just wait until Athena sees you, Della. Just wait.)

"Oh, I see how it is," says Tui, laughing. "I've been here five minutes," closer to an hour, surely, at least, "and now I'm being put to work."

That's not to say she's unwilling, drawing herself to her feet to walk gingerly towards the aforementioned corner: at least the socks Jules provided are thick enough she's not in any real risk of glass fragments.

The dragon allows the spoon to be withdrawn with the promise of further food: it radiates such enormous contentment. Isn't Della amazing? SO SMART. She knows just what to do!

"Do you think you're stuck with it now?" Tui wonders, across the room. "Or will it disappear again in short order?"

"Thank you," says Della, dulcetly; and, "Be careful."

Except, even then, it's softer and sweeter than her normal tone -- caramelized, really -- because dragon. Certainly its survival mechanisms are serving it well; not so long ago, Della would have suggested that Tui take the broom by way of armament. "That's a good question," says Della, feeding it. "I'm not there yet. At least it can be fed," and maybe petted? Would it like that? Her hands are busy, but she turns the can-holder a little, so that perhaps it will brush against her hand's back when it goes for the next spoonful.

"Aren't you distracting. So, so distracting." That's the dragon, not Tui. Probably.

"Hard to conceal, but then the Veil helps, doesn't it, yes." Della, the cosplayer, walking around with an animatronic dragon on her shoulder? That sounds safe.

"No doubt it will decide for itself," says Tui. "If it wishes to stay. If you wish it to stay; that helps, of course. I imagine the rest of the world will see..." There's a smile, there, lurking about the corners of her mouth, so very much like her son's, "just another cat."

Poor Athena.

She knows how to use a broom, of course: Tui, master of her own domain. She sweeps up diligently, casting only occasional (well, probably more than that) glances at Della and her new friend.

The new friend does want to be petted, even if it is nothing more than the brush of hide against skin. It... doesn't purr, per se, but... but.

Here Tui, their (uninvited (well, not strictly given their 'Come by sometime!' but certainly unanticipated)) guest is working and Della is just lounging around with the not-cat. Even if it does (maybe) help keep the place from catching on fire. And even if 'lounging' involves more work, along the lines of feeding a very self-motivated baby with all sorts of potentially-poky claws.

'Just another cat,' though: the younger woman's face falls -- not entirely, because of empath-happiness -- and she sidesteps both out of Tui's way and so she can glance down the hallway. Not a whisker in sight.

(Just you wait.)

(Maybe she has Hephaestus playing watch.)

Right, next bite: don't want dragon to run out. Lovely, attentive dragon-creature. "I'll have to ask Una what she wants replaced, when she gets back." ('Una,' she pictures to the dragon, along with more good feelings.) "Have you ever seen the like?" And for that matter -- she leans a little, watching Tui with new eyes, seeing how much space she gives the dragon, how much attention she gives it, whether she's wary or wishful or what.

"It won't stay if you decide it shouldn't," says Tui, very quietly: quiet, aside from the sound of glass and broom. "You could probably send it home now, if you tried hard enough."

The cats will (probably) forgive.

(Probably).

The dragon, though? It is seriously adorable, enthusing delightedly over the cat food; isn't Della so terribly impressive for providing all of this?

"Exactly like this? No. Creatures of this kind... yes, perhaps. He's a handsome fellow, that's for certain."

So delightful. It's probably only habit and training that has Della wondering, as she glances between them -- more towards the dragon, admittedly -- "Do you know of a reason? I imagine that if you knew it to be a Destroyer of Worlds," without the mental imagery, thank you, "you would be speaking up. What's 'this kind'?"

"And what's your name, little buddy?" What do you like to be called?

"A reason for you to be playing hostess to this kind of creature? I suspect he's— I'm assuming 'he', though perhaps he's a she?— has fallen through some kind of crack. I suspect he's entirely harmless: just a creature from another kind of world, eager to be fed and cared for. Missing, perhaps, its mother."

Tui doesn't know for certain; she won't pretend.

"He's likely harmless. To you, anyway. He could..."

She hesitates, regarding Della thoughtfully. "You could keep him here indefinitely, if you so chose. He'd accept that, I think. But if not, he'll return home in due course, fed and reassured. Harmless."

Does the dragon know his name? He doesn't seem to. He's very much male, but beyond that... his answer to Della is utterly quizzical. What would she like to call him?

The brief tilt of her head suggests that wasn't exactly what Della meant -- but close enough. "Mmm."

"'Accept.'" It's hardly an endorsement, ringing or otherwise.

"Let's just get -- him -- comfortable." It has the overtones of comforted. "We can figure things out then." Della cranes her neck, not too close, to peer at the creature. Marvelous creature! Out loud, for Tui but mostly because it's easier, "We can figure out a name, too, as long as you're here. In the meantime, how about 'Buddy,'" with all its fondness and friendliness, "so you know we're talking about you, to tide you over. Another bite?" The spoon's scraped metal: there isn't much left.

How much time is left...

There's a lift of brows by way of reply, a query that seeks to clarify, but is not followed up by any verbal questions. Tui's turned her attention to her broom, in any case, methodically sweeping up the remnants of glass and herbs and spices, though the floor will certainly need a good wash as well.

The creature doesn't seem to object to 'Buddy', acknowledging it with a twitch of tail and shuffle of wings, and somehow the resonance of thoughts: as if in accepting the name he's taken it on internally as well.

Yes, Buddy will certainly take another bite; thank you very much.

"He doesn't belong here," muses Tui. "But then, he'd not be the first. I wonder what happened, to draw him in. You don't think he arrived deliberately?"

He gets it! Buddy gets it!

(For a moment there's a glimpse of a ruddy dog, its head held high, standing like a ghost right atop -- and through -- that broken glass that Tui's about to sweep. It turns soulful eyes on her, and its companion turns her head in a flash of red -- but then gone, all gone.)

Scrape scrape scrape and then the bite after that is, "Last one for now. We have to rinse out the can for recycling," smart Buddy, understanding Buddy, "but there'll be more later." Her murmur is so warm, so matter-of-fact, so pleased with him and his (gradually) getting it.

Della lifts it for, "Another good question. You have me wondering, too," even as she imagines in her head what she's about to do with the sink: turning the water on slowly, slowly, murmuring what she's doing to the dragon-creature. "I don't get that sense, no; but then, would I? -- Here, I should be able to help too in a minute."

While she's at it, "We have got to check the batteries on the smoke alarm."

Buddy's a good boy, of course he gets it! But he's pleased, too, though this time he manages not to show his pleasure with flame, just another flick of tail and mantling of wings. He's preening, clearly: such a good boy.

(Not too busy to eat the rest of what's on offer, though, oh goodness no. Later food is also promising.)

"I'm fine. You look after your friend there." She glances up, considering the smoke alarm with thoughtful surprise, as if this had never occurred to her until just now— though of course, it should have. "Well. At least he's not burning anything down, nor breaking any more glass, now that he's settled. Handsome creature, though."

Jules is walking into her own house on her own two feet, thank you very much. There are limits to the help she’ll accept when it isn’t strictly necessary (and when other people can see). “I’ll be okay, I promise,” she tells Mikaere when she opens the passenger side door and propels herself out before he can stop her.

The doorknob still sticks in her palm, and she has to pry her hand loose.

The floor shudders just a bit when she walks down the hall towards the kitchen, like she’s stomping.

“I found him,” she calls before she appears, and the weariness is evident in her voice.

It’s gone when Jules stops in the door and stares. “What the hell?”

"If you're sure," says Mikaere, largely without dubiousness: look at him, trusting Jules. Besides, he's got his own worries: his Ma, for one. No big deal.

He's on Jules' heels, metaphorically, not quite slamming in to her when she stops, but just barely avoiding it (aside from the brush of one hand), and: "Fuck me."

Hi, Tui. Hi, Della. Hi, mess. Hi... baby dragon?!

"If you're sure," doesn't deliberately resonate with Mikaere's, all that distance away, and does come with a direct look at Tui: "If that changes, tell me." Which is to say, Della's taking the other woman's word for it, trusting her to mean what she says and say what she means. (At least in this.)

And since by then the can is clean (let's not talk to Buddy about all that nice fishy water going down the drain), she's turned her attention to the little dragon himself: is he okay? Any scrapes or injuries? She pets him, examines him: look how fantastic and wonderful he is. Stretch out that wing, please?

"Sounds like someone's here -- " and shortly thereafter, there they are. Matter-of-factly, as though they'd only just wished a good-morning, "Careful, broken glass." It's quite as though Della's prone to having dragons on her shoulders any old morning. (Maybe that's what Athena is... albeit a furry one, her wings invisible.) "We could use some fresh coffee."

"I'm not so old as yet I can't sweep up a floor," promises Tui, lightly, paying more attention to her task now than Della and the dragon.

The dragon, who is beautifully dutiful, stretching out wings and showing himself off. His hide's a little dry in places, as if he's still growing, but throwing glassware at the ground at least saved him from any cuts or abrasions. (He rather enjoys the attention, too, and don't think he doesn't: even Tui can probably pick it up, given the physical pleased trills, not to mention his delighted thoughts. Della's hands feel good! Oh, he likes this!)

Tui turns, lifting her chin to consider the new arrivals: Jules, and behind him, her son. "I haere koe ki hea, e taku tama?," she wonders, low-voiced. "He aha te mea i tupu?"

“Oh my God, a dragon! Is he friendly?” Not tame, never tame. “Hello, sir,” Jules greets him, oh so formally. Nevermind the giant grin.

It fades, though, with the mention of the glass, and as she considers the scene more fully. Tui with the broom. The cabinets open, contents spilled. “So, I’m guessing the earthquake was felt out here, then.” Now she sounds grim.

Jules steps into the kitchen, light as she can be on her toes, stepping aside for Mikaere. The extra care isn’t just for the glass.

"Ki ora, Ma." Mikaere inches around the other side, keeping to the very edges of the kitchen, his hands uneasily shoved into his pockets. The dragon's not the main attraction for him; instead, he murmurs, "I mau ahau. I waenganui i te waahi me te wa, ka whakaaro ahau. Kei waho o nga ao. Me toia ahau e Jules ki waho... Me whakaatu ahau ki a ia. I puta mai he rū whenua. Ki taku whakaaro ka puta he paanga.."

He probably doesn't mean for the intent of those words to flow through to Della, but they do: It caught me. Between space and time, I think. Outside the worlds. Jules had to pull me out... I had to show her. We caused an earthquake. I think there'll be repercussions. .

Well, then, he needs more attention. Della's fingertips linger on the dry bits, smoothing them, possibly soothing them: "What do we do here, hm?" Does he have his own ten-step skin care routine? No coffee to speak of, and she's still buoyant.

Not that she doesn't slide a glance Tui-the-not-too-old's way -- don't think she didn't notice, speaking in a language they can be counted on not to know -- but it's not a worry; she's smiling.

"Yes for the earthquake." Though, when they go around the rest of the house, will they find damage there too? Or was it just here? "Reasonably, so far," except to glassware. And don't think Della doesn't notice the difference in the way this dragon got greeted versus their cats... but, again, she's smiling. "Buddy, this is Jules. She lives here, with Una and me." He'll meet Una later. Won't he? "Would you like to sniff her fingers? Please be carefu--" Careful --

Abruptly she's looking at Mikaere. "What kind of repercussions?"

Tui's sweeping stops sharply, with a thud of broom against solid ground. She looks up, eyeing her son with dismay. "Mikaere! He pai ake to mohio ki tera. Ko te arai kua pakarukaru i konei; e mohio ana koe."

It's a pity her words don't get a convenient mental translation, though the intent is likely clear enough.

Buddy wriggles slightly, expressing to Della exactly how he feels: it itches! It's most unpleasant, and she should do something about it now, and stop worrying about all these other strange people who certainly don't matter.

It won't stop him from giving Jules an inquisitive glance, though. Maybe she'll also have food for him?! (She may not be able to hear his thoughts, but the way he looks at her is probably universal: he's been starved!).

So everyone understands at least some of the exchange except Jules? Fine, she sees how it is.

Not that she seems bothered by it in the least.

Not when there’s a dragon.

“Where did you come from?” she inquires softly, approaching with her hand up in a loose fist, a hand to sniff. Alas, she had no other gifts to bring.

“I think he means repercussions of me breaking the world,” Jules says just as softly, in the same tone, still looking at the dragon on Della’s shoulder. “Maybe he’s one.”

"Of us breaking the world," Mikaere says, correcting Jules but acknowledging Della, though the latter gets a slightly red-faced glance: he clearly did not intend for that to escape.

"It wasn't intentional." He's dropped the Māori, now: Tui is just going to have to speak English like the rest of them. "I was trapped. We had to get me out of there, and there wasn't another way. We'll deal with whatever comes. It's not like things weren't broken already."

Which means that Della wrig... twitches, shoulderblades going back: yes, yes, she can feel it. Hang on, hang on.

"How on earth did you -- " a short laugh, but Della doesn't rephrase, "...'break worlds'?" Mikaere's provided the 'why,' so that's something, though she takes the fact of the escape as much in stride as though he'd been speaking English all along.

Another glance at the creature who didn't seem attracted to water-diving, and then hesitation, and then Della's murmuring to Buddy (complete with mental description) to hang on -- gently -- because she's going to reach for the cupboards and pour a little oil in a little dish and see if a pat of that helps him feel better. Canola oil, or something blandly similar. No EVOO, he's not a salad.

Buddy wriggles with obvious delight at the application of oil. He may not be a salad, but this is evidently the equivalent of a day spa for him: it feels sooooooooooo good. (In a show of pure drama, he lolls back on Della's shoulder to demonstrate. Death by oiling!)

It would make Tui smile, were she not otherwise distracted. "Indeed," she says. "How did you break worlds? Jules, you'd better go first. My son seems intent on defending himself."

Jules drops her hand (moisturizing is more important; she gets that) and retreats to the table with her unfinished cinnamon roll. Hopefully the glass shards didn't make it that far.

Do they feel how the floor trembles?

She glances at Mikaere after his mother's sling (ouch), lowers herself into her chair, and then speaks. "I punched it." Simple. "And broke a hole to get Mikaere out."

"I fell through, somehow," says Mikaere, picking up from Jules' thread and deliberately not looking in his mother's direction. "I managed to reach Jules via my phone, even though she otherwise can't hear me. That meant I could direct her to find me, too. Otherwise, I'd be stuck in a void."

Forever goes unspoken, but the implication is there: is that really what you want, Tui? Really?

He must be used to the floor trembling by now; he doesn't so much as blink.

Della's whistle is soft -- "Hulk out." Also pitched near one of those dragon trills. Speaking of whom, she has to physically adjust some to that lolling, just in case; no, she isn't stopping (look how his hide glistens, like a very fine oil-rubbed Craftsman lamp) exactly, it's just that she's momentarily a little dizzy. Maybe it's to do with sensing where he needs it most, and not that chattering glassware (what's left of it) at all?

Of more immediate importance than the shivers -- she can deal with all that later -- "That is excellent, the phone working that way. Like we talked about! Did it feel like you'd teetered off a cliff? Or like stepping into a pothole? You weren't grabbed, were you?" Abruptly, this more to Jules as well, "Did the hole close up again?"

Tui leans on her broom, looking troubled.

"I don't like it. Why was I brought here now, today, just for this— No te aha i teie mahana? It should not work that way. None of this should."

Buddy is oblivious to the rest of what's going on, focused intently on the oil, and Della's soft hands; his brain is not so large that multiple conflicting emotions can co-exist nicely, and really, who wants to worry about the world when there's oil to be had? He's warm on her shoulder, and lets out another low little hum, perhaps even intended to be reassuring.

He's here. She has oil. Everything is fine.

Jules flashes a quick grin at Della before rearranging her expression into one that’s properly serious. “I tried,” she answers the latter question. “It was a little rough, but it’ll hold for now.”

She picks at her cold cinnamon roll with her fingers. It’s still good. “The spirit was there,” Jules says somberly. “I think it engineered the situation. It used us to get what it wanted.”

Out of the blue, Jules’ phone rings, and she fishes it out of the pocket in her sweatshirt. “Hey, Grandma. Yes, we felt it.” She grimaces, but that expression quickly turns to one of surprise. “You’re coming here?” It’s voiced for the benefit of the others, as her gaze goes from Tui to the dragon. “Uh, you might want to have Grandpa drop you. We have some unusual visitors.”

And that makes three.

"It'll hold," says Mikaere, firmly: he's sure of it, whether or not anyone else is.

His eyebrows raise as Jules takes her call, surprise shifting in to resignation, accepting the inevitability of a family meeting, all eyes on whatever it was that he and Jules did. (Joy.)

"Well," he says. "More coffee?"

"'For now' gives me such confidence," Della says to Jules more than Mikaere, but with a little of the humor left from that grin. And there's the dragon -- she can help, directly help someone, and so she does. Though her gaze does drift to where the mop is kept: soon, surely.

"What exactly does it want, is my question," one of many, though they seem less important right at the moment with all-minus-Una of them here and the soft humming being on her shoulder. She should text Una; she should also clean up. Soon, soon.

Sounds like it had better be sooner.

But coffee? "Please." Soonest.

“Okay. See you soon,” Jules finishes up, looking rather resigned herself. A wry look for Mikaere as she puts down the phone. “Please. I’m just going to sit here and be useless, if that’s okay with everyone.”

And not break anything else.

“Destruction, doom and gloom, the apocalypse, the Veil tearing open—take your pick?” she offers Della. “A new start. We done fucked it up.” Oops, swearing in front of Tui. Jules looks momentarily abashed.

It can be hard to tell, with Mikaere, whether he intends things as requests or offers, though he's been getting better at that... or at least accepting his request turned back on him with grace. The corners of his mouth twist up slightly (Tui gives Della an approving— and wicked— grin) as he draws away from his convenient counter resting place to dutifully get to work.

Jules' language doesn't bother Tui, it seems: if anything, she just seems additionally amused, and says, "Well. How very convenient. I had so wished to meet your grandmother. Nothing," she adds, musingly, as she leans down to start collecting swept-up glass in the dustpan, "is broken forever. Or if it is, there are ways to mend; ways to live with what's happened. There's no use crying over spilt milk, isn't that the saying?"

Buddy is beginning to drift off to sleep, snoring in a way that is utter adorableness.

"Glory," says Della to Jules dryly; her eyes might show their whites if it weren't for the snore-beast, but as it is... she flashes a half-smile back to Tui -- "Though sometimes it helps to cry a little to get it out," -- and shuffles stickily towards the woman's son.

"Sorry," for putting him, unlike Jules, to work? for having taken his comment as an offer? for, "If you said what falling into the hole felt like, I missed it. If it grabbed you or pushed you or what." Her voice is quiet, and not just because her buddy's sleeping.

“I’m sure she’ll like meeting you.” Future tense, not conditional; it’s happening.

If Della can put Mikaere to work, so can she—“Would you stick this in the microwave for me while you’re at it?” A warm cinnamon roll to go with the coffee, almost as if the early breakfast with Tui had never been interrupted.

Jules might say more about the doom and the gloom, and living with it, except that Della’s prompted Mikaere a second time, and she falls quiet to listen for the answer.

One thing is certainly true: Mikaere now knows where all the coffee things are kept, and can get the pot percolating without too much effort. Della's approach draws first a lift of brows and then a twist of his mouth, and a shrug. "I took one step forward," he says, "and then wasn't in the world anymore. I said 'fell', but really, it wasn't anything so dramatic as that, at least not physically."

He crosses to Jules to take her plate, wordless in acceptance of this task (maybe it has to do with the presence of his mother; who can tell!).

It's Tui, who's knees creak a little as she stands again, dustpan full of debris, that murmurs, "As if the ārai simply opened a hole. Like my Door, perhaps."

"Like a -- " Della cuts off her near-simultaneous hypothesis, Tui's hypothesis, to smile at the latter and offer open hands. "This, yes. But here, let me take that," because Mikaere knows where the coffee things are kept, but Della knows about the garbage can. "Crouching might disturb him but this shouldn't," or perhaps she just thinks too little of the potential rattle of glass.

She may have glanced wistfully in the direction of Jules' soon-to-be-warmed cinnamon roll, but doesn't ask the same question. Instead: "Perhaps the Doors," when they ran rampant, "were a test case."

“Thanks,” Jules tells Mikaere in passing, letting her fingers touch his hand when he takes her plate in quieter appreciation.

She stays quiet for a moment, lost in her own thought as her eyes settle on the small dragon (have we mentioned that there’s a dragon here?!). She comes out of it with a frown for Della’s hypothesis. “Well that’s a terrifying thought.”

Brrrrrrring! goes the front doorbell.

With Della's help, Tui disposes of the remnants of glass, and this does not disturb the sleeping Buddy.

Nor does the sound of the microwave, or the low rustlings of coffee prep.

That doorbell, though?

It might be a roar, except for his size; it ends up more of a horrified meeping sound, and comes complete with another burst of flame (surprise!) that is, at least, once again not aimed at anything flammable... though the smoke detector still has not gone off, which isn't great.

And; "Or perhaps," muses Tui, ignoring the noise (and fire) with the utter calm of the parent of three children, "it's simply that reality is getting thinner."

It's all very comforting.

He meeps, she squeaks, reaching for the tendrils of hair by her ear with a, "Careful-careful-careful," turning to peer at him with her eyes getting far too close to his little muzzle. "Someone's at the door," Della tells Buddy. Which could be good -- but they don't know yet. Without looking away, "Could that be your grandma, Jules? Or are they further away, would it be someone else? Una wouldn't ring -- I should text her -- could you see?" Even if it's not being useless?

She pets the little dragon by way of trying to reassure him, and possibly herself, her voice dropping into a soft murmur: why is it always the hair. At least it's only singed, this time.

“Yeah,” Jules agrees, though it’s with a little grimace that has nothing to do with the burst of flame. Rather, it’s foreknowledge of what happens when she gets up and goes to answer the door—the shuddering of the floorboards, the one that cracks despite her care. It’s an old house, and it cannot take so much abuse.

Murmurs from the hall. It is Ada who returns with Jules a few minutes later, carrying one of her big woven basket-bags. And Ada who shuts the door behind them, though it’s Jules who returns carrying the doorknob, which she ruefully puts down on the counter.

“Well, hello,” Ada says after just a slight pause as she sees what’s on Della’s shoulder. “I see it’s been quite the morning.” The slight older woman puts her bag down without any fuss, then steps forward to offer Tui her hand. “I’m Ada.”

Introductions first. There will be no skipping over it just because a dragon’s on the loose and her granddaughter is causing earthquake aftershocks.

Pleasantly, Ada adds, “Hello, Della, Mikaere. Nice to see you again. We’re just down for the day for some Christmas shopping and thought it would be a nice surprise to drop by. Though I take it this doesn’t rank too highly on the list of surprises before breakfast.”

The door. Buddy seems to understand this concept (more-or-less), or at least the fact that Della's not too concerned about it, and hopefully that means that he doesn't need to be either, good guard dragon though he absolutely is. (Her hair, however, will largely escape his notice. Sorry.)

"We should put her in a chair and keep her there," muses Tui, watching after Jules, though her interest is more academic than active: it's not her house. It does send her gaze towards Mikaere, though, with a thoughtfulness that suggests she's not unaware that he, too, may be suffering some kind of backlash.

If he is (and he is), he avoids her gaze, and watches after Jules instead, waiting for her return. Della may hear his thoughts, and Ada too, as he rubs the back of his neck and tries to clear his head: everything is fine stop worrying about it, Mikaere, we're all fine, oh look, it's Ada. Shit.

"Tui," says his mother, taking Ada's hand and clasping it firmly in her own. "I've heard a lot about you."

She's still not dressed for the occasion. She still doesn't seem to care.

"It's... been a morning," Mikaere allows. And a half.

Absolutely he is. "And what do you think would keep her there," Della murmurs back to Tui, still petting.

Except then there's Ada -- and relief -- and then something between a chortle and a choke and, yes, Della's looking at Mikaere (but quickly!) before it's back to Ada (and a wave hello!). A soft murmur to Buddy -- who's whose grandmother, who's whose mother, aiming for a sense of connection even if he doesn't get the details -- and then she pipes up, "It's wonderful to see you." And not some Bad Guy. "I'm... just going to text Una now." For real.

Unless something else blows up, catches on fire, etc. (She eyes the doorknob.)

Tap tap tap. Did you feel the earth move? Della texts Una (unless, see above). Tui and Ada are both here. Here, at home. There's more.

“Oh you have, have you?” Ada replies with a touch of mirth. Her own grip is just as firm. “I’m afraid you have the advantage over me, then—Jules can be a little tight-lipped when it comes to keeping her poor grandparents in the loop.”

(Poor grandparents. It’s not as if she were some doddering old lady.)

Her reproving tease is immediately met with protest, as Ada undoubtedly knew it would be. “That’s so not true!” Jules looks wounded. “You know practically everything, I told you about the Doors…” She falters. “Though maybe I did forget to tell you Della and me went to New Zealand, but in my defense there was a lot happening.” She’s just going to go slink over to Mikaere now, ostensibly to retrieve her warmed cinnamon roll.

Ada just looks after her grandchild with lifted eyebrows. That gaze lingers on Mikaere, brows twitching higher.

I heard that. Ada doesn’t even need to expend the mental effort; it’s pretty plain in her expression. It softens, though. “Steady,” she says quietly to him before letting her gaze pass on.

“Della. How are you faring? You’ve made quite the friend.” Unspoken: a friend, and what else? Ada’s looking for signs of backlash in her, too.

Oh shit. Mikaere looks abashed; he even goes so far as to blush, ducking his gaze away from Ada after a moment to (ostensibly) study the coffee. It doesn't mean he's stopped thinking, of course, though for the moment it's a very firm litany of: don't think, don't think, don't thin—

Tui merely grins at Ada. "My son never tells me anything, either," she promises. "But I had the joy of an overnight visit from your granddaughter and Della over the win— summer, I suppose, for you, and that gave me quite a bit of insight."

There's more she could say, but Ada's got Della to greet as well, not to mention the dragon to inspect (the dragon that curls up protectively about Della, but seems to take her reassurance as truth, and not lash out at the newcomer).

For now, everything is calm.

Whatever Una's doing, at this moment, whether that involves earth moving of a different kind or not, she's not on her phone: there's no read receipt, let alone a response. No matter: at least she's in the loop.

Would Tui tell if Mikaere did tell? Della glances that way, bright-eyed, then finds another smile for Jules' grandmother. "He just showed up today! Ada, meet," her, "Buddy." There's all sorts of warmth in that name, the more so since she's being curled up around and not strangled, and she rotates a step so that Ada can see -- admire -- him better.

Those bright eyes of hers are reasonably clear, a touch glazed perhaps -- dragon! -- but not bloodshot; but then, she isn't the one who did the world-breaking work around here. 'Backlash' will be when Athena-and-ally return to argue possession, though with all these humans already in the kitchen...

For the rest of Ada's question: "I'm starving," says the almost thirty-eight-year-old, plaintively. "Please excuse the horrific nature of the actions that I am about to undertake." With a murmur of explanation to her buddy -- moving now! -- she seeks to thread her way between people, to reclaim what was supposed to have been her breakfast and clear the microwave so that she can nuke the cinnamon roll atop the espresso, crumbs and all. (Jules' cinnamon roll may have made fresh coffee, but there's that much more for Ada now.) HUNGRY.

Jules tilts her head up towards Mikaere, questioning. Even without all the details, there’s enough there to make her forehead crease. “You okay?” she asks in an undertone.

Ada’s not here to embarrass Mikaere. She politely ignores him and his spilling thoughts in her turn towards Della and the dragon. “He seems content,” she observes thoughtfully. Ada doesn’t try to touch; she likes her fingers, thank you very much, and he’s Della’s little buddy, not hers. Solemnly, she adds, “I won’t get in your way.”

While Della seeks food and her granddaughter devours her cinnamon roll (the non-metaphoric kind, and with her fingers, no bent forks please and thank you), Ada turns back to Tui. “Well, I’m especially glad to have picked today to come down, given your unexpected visit. Though I suspect there’s something else at work conspiring to bring all us visitors together under one roof.” A glance goes to the dragon. She’s including him.

Ada’s lips thin as she thinks. “Perhaps we should go look at this place down by the water again,” she suggests. “Not you, Jules.” The firm tone of a woman not to be countermanded. “You need to stay put. You probably should too, Mikaere. Someone needs to stay with her until the effects die down.” It’s not about him, oh no.

“Besides,” she adds with what would be mischief coming from someone younger, “you can’t come all this way, Tui, without seeing the town. And I would love the chance to hear your perspective.”

Mikaere makes a face, but gives Jules a rueful little nod, acknowledging her query without drawing further attention to it. One hand lifts to rub at his temple (he's probably got a clanger of a headache to go with it all), but he otherwise manages an upwards twitch of the left corner of his mouth; reassurance, perhaps.

Buddy's consideration of Ada is more of a mental sniff than a physical one, which clangs merrily: << !!! >> and << ??? >> and an undeniable burst of joy and contentment and... ah yes: DellaDellaDellaDella, though it's less her name and rather more... well, just her, coffee and cinnamon-bun scented and perfect.

"Yes," agrees Tui, answering Ada without hesitation, her agreement punctuated by her nod. "Though I may need to beg a coat off of someone," something long that will disguise the fact that she's not got much else to wear, "And some shoes. Alas, I did not have much warning, and I would hate to try and go home to change only to be unable to return."

Mikaere, don't think you're off the hook for some mother-son bonding time, oh no.

Even through the hunger -- which may have been partially satiated when her dragon's was, but only in illusory fashion -- Della can spare a glance of pretty-well-surprise for Ada, or rather Ada-and-Buddy; it doesn't stop her from inhaling the goods once they're heated. Figuratively. (It's all right, Buddy: the little box does it all. You don't need to reheat it yourself.)

Upon resurfacing, "At this rate, you'll get your own drawer here, Tui," perhaps before her son officially does? Della glances between the other women, Jules definitely included, and gets with the problem-solving. "I might have a coat that could pass." It would be a rare exception to her close-tailored preferences, if so -- or, suddenly, the idea comes: "We could check Una's stash for a skirt, maybe slacks; I doubt she'd mind, for the cause." The cause. "There are a couple little stores that could do, even, once we're downtown," or what passes for downtown. "I'd be happy to dri--"

Then she looks at Buddy. Hm.

Jules looks unconvinced, but she doesn’t pursue it. Instead, she offers, “Want some?” Mikaere could probably get his own, but it’s the intent of sharing that counts here.

As for Ada and the dragon, well, it’s hard not to smile with that kind of positive energy.

“People will see what they want to see,” she says thoughtfully, considering Della’s dilemma. “A giant iguana might still get you plenty of looks and requests to leave the store, but you could always wait in the car? Or if you’d prefer not to risk it, I can ask Charlie to come back and take us where we need to go.”

“What about Una’s garden clogs?” suggests Jules. See, she’s helpful.

"I'll just have coffee," Mikaere reassures Jules, and it's coffee that he'll get himself since it has happily begun to percolate into the pot; mugs and milk and spoons are assembled, too, along with that mental thread of: if I just keep busy then I'll stop... shit.

Yeah, that's not going to work, is it? At least there's coffee, on offer to all with a gesture of pot and mug.

"I put myself in your hands," says Tui, amused. "I don't mind being the peculiar old lady," not so very old, really, "in whatever garb might be available. I suspect I might entirely cover for your little friend with my oddities, Della— just like the... Veil, wishes."

Della's quick to nod for clogs, at least for giving them a try. For the rest, "I'd hate to inconvenience Charlie." Or miss out. (Was that out loud?)

Besides, "In my hands," comes with a brilliant smile slanted Tui's way. "Peculiar only in the best of ways. Maybe I should cosplay to diminish even the iguana-ish-ness... I was thinking more about his going outside and getting lost," she admits, and it's got to be the Veil in combination with the dynamic duo that's leaning on her, since she doesn't proceed right into 'Getting lost, running away, getting eaten.' "And getting used to the stimuli of riding in a car." With flame. "But if we could properly prepare him... I'd rather not wait in the car, if it's all the same to you." You and the Veil.

Though while she's at it, "Are either of you hungry for something more substantial? E-g-g-s and b-a-c-o-n, even? Yogurt, toast? I could conjure up something quickly, take the edge off," and the way she seeks to catch Ada's gaze, and its subsequent glance towards the other duo, suggests Jules and Mikaere might be persuaded not to starve either.

While she's at it, she checks for a read receipt again.

It's too bad (for Jules) that she can't hear the stream of consciousness mental chatter. Just think! Bonding experience!

"I ate before I left," Ada assures Della. "But if you need to eat first, go right ahead." This to Tui, though she includes Della as the originator of the suggestion with a small incline of her chin. "As for your friend...I see what you mean. I can just see us running through the center of town, coats flapping, chasing the flying iguana. Then we'd really be peculiar old ladies." Ada finds this image highly amusing, smile materializing. "I leave it up to you, how you want to handle it. Maybe try a little walk around the block first and see if he's happy to stay put on your shoulder? Bring treats? He's not tame, so I wouldn't suggest trying to put him on leash, though."

"That cinnamon roll," which was delicious, or so implies Tui's glance towards her plate, "was plenty, but thank you Della. No: why don't you show me where I might find a suitably sartorial ensemble, and then we'll venture forth. You can take your friend there for an exploratory walk while I dress. And you," the glance is mostly for her son here, "can stay here and recover yourself. I can see that line in your brow, don't think I can't."

Mikaere's expression is mulish, unhappy with being left behind, though he doesn't seem to have a good argument to the contrary. This is so unfair. Yes, Mikaere. Yes it is.

(And there's still no read receipt.)

"Who's a cute flying iguana," Della teases her shoulder-occupant in a low, low murmur. Or maybe half-teases. More seriously, "Not a leash, no," though abruptly her smile's flourishing again. "At least, not a conventional leash. Perhps something more like treasure. Or to mark me?" She'll have to check with Buddy, but later.

"Clothes it is, then. Properly alliterative if we're lucky." She casts the refrigerator a wistful eye -- she'll also have to settle for grabbing some nuts, later, something not flesh-scented -- and puts away her mug. After a soft-murmured explanation to Buddy (who hasn't gotten to see any other rooms here on Earth, that she knows of), it's, "Onward!"

On to dear Una's stash. On to the closet door. On to... the nineteen-seventies walked the three hunters. (Not Della's dramatic cape-like coat in said closet, it must be noted, but a couple odds and ends that might have been, "Her grandmother's?" wonders the younger woman hesitantly, fingering an option, letting Buddy sniff it. It's very very polyester, and not for little dragons to nibble on, not one little bit.) Maybe there's something more comfortable elsewhere, though, or it's a matter of being creative.

(Along with the explanatory text to Una, there's one for Jules: Get you something while we're out? Stay safe. <3)

Jules steals a glance up at Mikaere to look for said brow line when Tui points it out, then presses her lips together to conceal her smile when she catches the rest of Mikaere’s expression. Her own rearranges into one more serious when Ada comes over to look her in the eye. Ada looks at her searchingly, then briefly touches her cheek.

Whatever passes between Ada and her granddaughter goes unsaid, because then Ada’s turning to venture onwards and explore this treasure house of Una’s.

“My.” Is this a fringed leather jacket? Yes, yes it is. “I remember when Charlie had one of these,” she reminisces, smiling.

(From Jules, so very careful when she pulls out her phone, voice dictating lest her fingers mash the screen too hard: Thanks, I’ll let you know if I think of anything. Keep us in the loop please!)

"At least," mutters Mikaere, loud enough for Jules to hear, if only barely, and only once the other trio have abandoned them, "your grandmother can stop hearing all my thoughts now." Hopefully.

(This is probably mostly the case. As long as he doesn't have thoughts that are too strong.)

Buddy seems more intrigued than concerned by their change of location, as if this is no big deal— and perhaps it simply isn't. He made it between worlds after all, right? The polyester is not to his taste, given the unhappy little sneeze (maybe that's dust, come to think of it), but at least it doesn't result in flame, which... would be bad.

"This takes me back," agrees Tui with a hearty laugh, grinning across at Ada who is, after all, not so dissimilar in age. "Sadly, there's no chance I'd fit into those." The bell-bottoms? Alas, no. "In my youth... ah yes, here we go." Tui pulls out a long, heavy skirt and an over-sized heavy wool dress that Una probably intended to cut up and make something else out of, but hasn't gotten around to yet: layered, the two look a little ridiculous, but they're more suited to a Gray Harbor winter than her summer nightgown.

She strikes a pose: "How do I look?"

Poor, poor Buddy. It's not his fault Della's blushing; it's her own, with the size gotten wrong, and likely she'd like to think she'd know better, but...

"Captivating," the younger woman is glad to assure, afterwards glancing at Ada for -- confirmation? reassurance? Something not entirely clear. Then, "If for whatever reason you want something else, have at. And I'll find the clogs, and take care of a few more things, but I'll try to be quick."

'A few more things' start with her own semi-change of clothes in her own room, as long as Buddy seems comfortable (look at those, those windows! we'll be going out there!), hairbrush, hair clips -- must look less unraveled -- restroom (there's going to be a loud water-sound, that's okay, it's part of the plan) and lipstick. Definitely lipstick. Outerwear, clogs included. One more snack from the kitchen that's more cheese-y than meat-y, that Buddy can taste now and have more later when the humans get food (even if they don't need a full-on meal, surely there'll be something sometime), stored in a ziploc bag. Pocketbook and purse. A careful hug for Jules if she wants one, if she's still there, if she's not hiding out or making the world fall apart any more than it was already.

Maybe there'll be time for a short walk. Maybe the short walk's only over to the car (stay together, Buddy; this blanket here and the strap will make a front-seat perch for you, and please keep your flame in yourself). Guests get the back seat, this time at least.

“Oh is that what’s going on,” Jules says after she breaks off watching the trip depart. “Fun. Not fair, you should have to be babbling aloud like I was, I want to hear all of your wildly inappropriate thoughts.”

She isn’t helping, is she.

Ada’s all bright laughter and amusement, enjoying the oddness of it. Yes, there’s world-breaking to be addressed, but isn’t playing dress-up with dragons fun?

“Astonishing,” she tells Tui, and look, when she smiles, there’s glimmers of where Jules gets it from. An optimism, a readiness to love and see the good, gentled through the experience of time. “You will let us take pictures, won’t you? For posterity. So you have something to remember your stay by.”

And when they’re off, Ada bundled into the backseat with Tui, the smile’s still there, even as they head off to more serious things. “I have so many questions for you,” she tells Tui. “I hope you don’t mind my being nosy.”

(Jules likes hugs. It’s a struggle for her not to hug back, with the whispered apology for Della’s ears: “I would feel like shit if I broke your collarbone.”)

"You already here most of my wildly inappropriate thoughts," says Mikaere, teasingly (though if any of the others were in the room they might hear more of the !!!! oh no, no, that would be the worst, nope, nope, NO that accompanies it. He's a liar.)

There's no concern from Tui, not about sizes, and not about her appearance: she's so comfortable in her own skin, so utterly unfazed by anything. She will even do a twirl, just because she can, along with her promise, "There will definitely need to be pictures."

But in the meantime, there are things to do, things to prepare for: outerwear, procured snacks, another long, searching glance at her son for good measure, and— of course, the short walk, to the car and beyond and then back, where she's perfectly happy to settle in the back. "Where do you want to start?" she wonders in answer to Tui's nosiness, with a glance up the front to Della and Buddy, amused rather than anything else.

Buddy's curiosity at the world is tempered by caution, which has him gripping tight to Della's shoulder rather than jump in to attack mode— how lucky they are that he's not an aggressive little thing! In the car, however, he hops straight down off of Della's shoulder (before she starts to drive, mind) and settles onto the front passenger seat, curling up in comfort (it helps that there's a rare bit of winter sun shining in his direction).

("Oh. Oh." That's a hard no on the bone-breaking, but Della's paused, examining Jules' expression, her own eyes wide and dark. But then, all right, goodbye to her housemate and to Mikaere too, and on the way out with the doorknob she examines the poor door as well.)

"And where do you want to near-literally start, you two?" Della chimes in, now that all three are settled (sorry, lil' buddy, they're going to move in relation to the sun soon). "Hardware store's on the list, but for the rest, say the word. My treat." She says it easily, seguing into low-voiced 'going to move'-style explanations for Buddy, turning off the radio before leaving park. There's driving, there's explaining, and there's listening.

“Oh goodness, where do I want to start? — Yes, let’s run the hardware store errand first, get that out of the way. As for my prying questions…” Ada pauses for drama, for pondering her options. “The tactful thing to do would be to ask what you honestly think of Gray Harbor. How you feel about our children living here.”

That’s tactful?

“But what I’d really like to ask about is your experience raising a child with power. I understand your son started to come into his own while still fairly young? I don’t suppose you know anything about Jules’ mother.”

Ada speaks in a normal tone; it’s not her intention to shut Della out of the conversation, even if the questions are directed at Tui.

"I'll go where you take me," Tui declares. "As long as we end up wherever it was where— it happened."

Ada's questions draw a smile... and then a grin, albeit one that fades, thoughtfully, as she considers. "Mikaere needed to be here; I know that much. I can't predict where he will need to be in future, but for now— he needed to be here, to solidify his power. He needed that outside influence, in a way that perhaps I didn't. He was comfortable with his power from such an early age, I think it became entirely mundane. It may end up being the same for his niece— neither of her parents have power, but she has me, and him, and... well, we shall see."

She's staring out of the window as she speaks, but glances back now to wonder, "What is it about Jules' mother?"

Buddy doesn't much enjoy the way the sun disappears, but there's still warmth in the seat, and that will have to do. His thoughts send a ??? to Della, so intent on the explanations. What a world!!

"'End up' is only a trifle ominous," Della remarks. She doesn't break into the conversation otherwise, though she does briefly pull over (using her turn signal and everything!) to angle passenger-side warm air towards Buddy: is that better? (For that matter: is that what he wondered about?)

Gray Harbor isn't that big, as places go, and it is rather gray, given the time of year, even with marginally festive lights hung here and there. If there's a beribboned Yule tree all waiting for its fire and sacrifices, it's in someone's backyard. Still, she's lived here long enough -- just about a year, all told -- to take them along a relatively scenic route. (And if it takes longer than strictly necessary on top of that? It's designed to not interrupt.)

Ada nods along to Tui’s assessment of her son, with a little ‘hmm’ as she follows along. Then the question returns to her, and even when she’s ready for it, prompted it, she lets out a quiet sigh.

“Sylvia was also very powerful when she was very young. Her gift is similar to your son’s. But I couldn’t teach her control when she was so young, and she attracted the attention of those beings we prefer not to invoke. It was a cruel game. They fascinated her at first, encouraged her to reach out until the effects of it consumed her mind. It’s a terrible thing, watching your child suffer like that and not being able to make it stop.”

Ada isn’t looking for sympathy; she’s made her peace with it, in as much as she can, and it’s offered as explanation only. A small shake of her head. “It makes me wonder if it would have been different, if Sylvia had been raised somewhere else. We know ourselves to be connected to this place, but I can’t help but wonder if it broke her.”

Ada admits a wry smile as she adds, “I can’t help but worry for Jules and her friends.” That includes you, Della.

Truly, this world is magical. Buddy's little croon is one of utter contentment: Della turned on the sun. One might as well imagine the heart symbols that encompass his thoughts.

"I'm sorry," from Tui, is not intended as overt sympathy: it's acknowledgement and dismay, but matter-of-fact in as much as, yes, Tui knows this kind of story, if not this story specifically. "We were lucky. Auckland has its thin places, but it's not a place of intense power, like this is. Where I come from, my family home, is more, but— we have been in the privileged position of being able to band together against such threats. Not always, but for the most part."

She glances at Della. "They have strength in numbers, I hope. And have learned the lessons we attempted to instil in them. I do worry about what is happening here, though. It feels... unstable. The stillness before some kind of parawhenua. Some kind of disaster."

Sweet Buddy, to let her know what he enjoys.

Della's driving, just driving, quietly gentle with her acceleration and deceleration. This region. Auckland. Sylvia. The rear-view mirror doesn't hide the slight wry turn to her lips: the not-quite-her-name, the they.

"We did see that, at Bill's," is quiet too. "A disaster. It's been easy to..." drive past, "focus on what's right in front of us."

This time, when the car stops, it's not at a sign but an unmarked corner: for the pedestrian now pushing a stroller into the street. The adult's head turns to gauge their distance, the rain bonnet no longer obscuring the inhumanly long jaw, the snaggled triangular teeth. But it's no attack; the wide, green-sheened dark eyes are concerned, protective, it's just someone trying to get by.

“They’ve happened before, and they’ll happen again,” Ada says, grimly matter-of-fact. “We’ve always known that, and now the science exists to confirm it. They’ve been warning of ‘The Big One’ for decades now—but without the political willpower to actually make communities ready to withstand it out here on the coast. If you drive around long enough, you’ll see evacuation route signs here and there, but it really isn’t enough. When Jules told me what you’ve seen, Della—“ She lifts her voice to directly include their driver, here, “—I have to assume the worst. Better to assume that, then be pleasantly relieved, than the other way around.”

She catches enough of a glimpse of the pedestrian while looking forward to engage Della for it to occasion a quick inhale. Ada touches her brow, then her breastbone, in some kind of respectful greeting, lowering her gaze when the car rolls past.

“My daughter will be home for Christmas,” Ada resumes. “It will be interesting to see what she sees.”

"The world is changing," agrees Tui, whose eyes have flicked up to watch the rain bonnet-clad being, though she chooses not to comment. "But also not, too: they've happened before, yes, and they'll happen again. But here— that does concern me." Their children.

"What disaster, exactly, did you see?"

And what, indeed, will Sylvia see.

Della does not look away from the road, from its occupants, here and in the distance.

"Will you ask her?" she asks Ada. "How much will you tell her?"

Her hands aren't white-knuckled on the wheel; she keeps her ten-and-two. "Tui: less exactly than approximately. Since I'm driving. 'The Big One,'" as Ada said. "A quake. Destruction." She spares the smallest glance for Buddy, enough to soften her voice. "Seattle falling into itself," might just as well be, 'Look, there's the store,' right before she turns into its parking lot.

On her cue, right between the lines, the whisper of the electric motor... stops.

"Ashes." Ask --

“I will,” Ada answers Della’s first question. She hesitates to answer the second, quiet until after their driver has summarized the impending disaster and turned the car off the road. “There will be a tsunami if the earthquake’s strong enough,” she tells Tui quietly, filling in the details. “Communities such as my own will have ten, maybe fifteen minutes to get to higher ground after the quake. Which assumes that people are in the position to evacuate quickly—and, well, the buildings built to withstand the earthquake magnitude we’re talking about here are few and far between.”

She allows a sigh. For that, and for this: “I won’t hide anything from my daughter, but how much she’s able to hear always depends on her.” Ada is quiet a moment, deciding how much more to share. Then, “It isn’t as bad now as it was when she was younger. Living elsewhere does her good. And when the kids were young, I had someone come to the house fairly regularly to…well, I guess cleanse it, you’d say. Try to put in place some kind of protection. Keep the spirits at bay. I was so relieved when neither Jules nor Alex showed any signs of developing a gift, not after Sylvia’s showed itself to be such a curse.”

Earthquakes are nothing new for Tui, nor tsunamis; volcanos, though not referenced directly, would not be either. None of it is comfortable, though, and she's silent in the contemplation of it.

It's that last remark of Ada's that draws her low exhale. "And then Jules did. But not until adulthood. And not that kind of gift. Still."

Still.

"People are going to die. Knowing my son— knowing Jules, too, at least a little, I can't imagine they'll be willing to walk away to save themselves; not yet. So what can we do to support them?"

How can they keep their children safe?

For that, and for that, Della doesn't unbuckle right away; she reaches out for Buddy's soft hide as she listens, twisting in her seat to look back towards the women despite her belt, despite that it would be so much easier to use the mirror. (There was that mirror-land, once.)

Staying prepared?

He might feel -- anyone listening might feel -- her sharpened attention for that talk of cleansing. She keeps her own, matching exhale silent. She stays silent.

Until, matter-of-factly -- protectively, says the subtle emotional resonance -- "Jules has done a lot with her own gifts, and not all willy-nilly, either. She has her cougar with her. Today was an anomaly -- in strength, I think, as well as substance."

And: "Before we get to the next steps, let me say that I'm... concerned... with how thoughts of the disaster have slipped past. Maybe it's natural, minds' self-protection, the practicalities of dealing with the here and now instead of the unknown end times. I'm also thinking of all those people who sold off their things back when because they thought the Second Coming was nigh."

"And, how can you stop a quake?"

“A good question.” It could be an answer to Della or Tui. There’s a lot to respond to, and Ada takes her time.

"ّI don’t think there is a way to stop a quake. I’m not even sure that’s the right tack to take. The earth will do what it needs to do, and delaying it wouldn’t be good, ultimately. I think the focus should be on mitigation, instead. Is there a way to lessen it, or divert the worst of it, and spare the most lives.” She goes ahead and unbuckles, collecting herself, though she doesn’t make a move yet.

“I’m proud of Jules,” Ada notes mildly. “I suspect she’ll make me even more proud in the days to come.”

She looks across to Tui, expression considering. “This is new to me,” she admits. “As a parent,” grandparent, “there’s a certain amount of ‘get out of the way and let them shine.’ While being there when they need advice. What are your thoughts?”

Tui's thoughtfulness keeps her silent as Della, and then Ada, speak. It's the former to whom she glances, though: attention flickering in that direction with an expression set into her features that is just short of quizzical. "The ārai protects itself," is what she says, in time. "It's there in the name: whether you say ārai or Veil, I think both have a sense of secrecy, protecting themselves. That's why it slips past. I suspect the hole, if that's what it is, is getting bigger, though— it will be more difficult to forget."

She tugs on her seatbelt, not releasing herself from its grip but certainly easing the pressure off of her body, glancing at Ada. "I imagine that's all we can do," she agrees. "It's not our fight. Della, what do you think?"

Buddy turns his head up to bump it into Della's hand, his mantled wings quivering in sharp attention, though he's soothed enough by the woman's presence not to react instinctively. << Safe, >> he insists, firmly. << Della safe. >>

Stop, divert, mitigate -- the tilt of Della's head implies same same. She might say more, particularly now that Ada's gone on, but with Tui --

"'Ārai," she attempts, but not hesitantly: more like an underscore, like the flattened press of her lips that follows.

It's relieved, somewhat, when she glances down. Della safe, she agrees, she hopes, and there's the twinge of surprised happiness that he says her name. Della safe, Buddy safe. Together. Athena safe, too, yes?

But as to getting to that 'safe': "I don't see how it is not everyone's fight," Della says. She rubs Buddy's neck; her voice stays relatively calm. "For everyone who lives here, anyway. For those who can, who aren't too fragile." Is Ada fragile? "The scale is too great. This isn't my sister's teaching my niece 'natural consequences.'"

Ada, fragile or not, lifts an eyebrow. “And what would you propose?”

Is Tui aware of an undercurrent, in the conversation at hand? Yes, yes she is.

All she says, mildly, is, “Yes, of course. But are we lieutenants, or commanders?”

(Buddy? Buddy is pleased and content. Buddy, beware (to quote a Millie-era song). Nothing ever stays calm for long, does it?)

"Working together," is Della's immediate answer. "Isn't that what we're called here to do?" It's hard on her neck to look at Tui; she does it anyway, a side-glance of a full-fledged look. "We don't have to subscribe to that dichotomy."

“Or,” says Ada, “a nature-society dichotomy. As if we’re not part of nature. Natural consequences, as you termed it, is a neat and tidy way of denying responsibility. Consequences come from our society, the one that is entwined with the world around us. Including the world we often don’t see, the one you call the Veil. And there are consequences.”

She pauses, letting the silence grow heavy. A silence for each of them to weigh themselves within.

“Assuming that we’ve been called to fix things is a very human-centric way of looking at it. You could just as easily say that the land calls out for our disappearance. For relief from the pain we inflict upon it. For a cleansing fire—or earthquake, as the case may be. How is that any less true? Or how can you know that the things that call you aren’t those that wish you harm? Like the things that have called my daughter since the time she could walk. Be careful, Della, how you ascribe intentionality.”

Ada, the small older woman there in the backseat, gives no quarter. “This is not our apocalypse,” she says flatly. “This is one that comes for the settlers who have ripped the world to pieces in their arrogance.”

"Or so we can conclude," is what Tui puts on, having listened placidly— or at least, as far as her expression is concerned— to Ada's words without interruption.

"We don't know anything for certain. Though... I cannot say it would surprise me that all of this is a repercussion for something, done by someone."

Della's brows draw together; she hears Ada out. Her expressions change, and steady, and change again. She nods to Tui, her slantwise glance speculative.

Descendant of settlers, descendant of those they settled down upon -- though not here, not this land, Ada's land -- she says in the end, "For the record. What I meant by 'natural consequences' was not to deny responsibility. My sister will let her daughter touch a hot mug of tea, to hurt for moments so she can learn. She will intercept her before she touches a live burner, something that will leave her to ooze and weep and scar. That, that burn wouldn't be 'unnatural,' no; but leaving her to it would."

She exhales, leaning back, untwisting a little (careful of her buddy) even if she can't see Tui as well. "I've heard," she says, "of a series of smaller quakes relieving pressure without being as destructive, as all-or-nothing. Which would be a benefit. There's also a series of books by Anne Bishop that portray a situation something like what you both describe... You're right; I can't know that what calls me doesn't wish me harm. But I've sought to circumvent harm everywhere I've found it. For me, for my friends, people I know and people I don't know."

"Are you saying that this apocalypse wouldn't take you down with it?"

“I’m saying something more complicated than that,” says Ada, and if she was channeling the voice of her people before, now she’s gentled, grandmotherly again in her own way. “I believe our apocalypse has already happened. And I certainly don’t want anyone to get hurt. If there’s a way to relieve some of the pressure, like you suggest, that would be wonderful. But I’m afraid that absent other changes—changes in how the people here relate to the Veil, the land, and each other—it won’t solve the underlying problem, just delay it.”

Ada offers the both of them a small, tired smile. “Shall we?”

Tui's expression has turned thoughtful— more thoughtful— and more thoughtful still, but she holds back her commentary, choosing instead to acknowledge Ada's tired smile and suggestion with actual movement, sweeping her way clear of the car in all her ridiculous array of clothing, blithe and (allegedly) unconcerned.

Buddy launches himself from his position upon the seat, reclaiming his preferred place upon Della's shoulders, those talon'd limbs carefully avoiding damage as his tail slinks around her shoulders protectively. He lets out a low keening sound, then settles.

"All we can do," says Tui, musingly rather than with great emphasis, "is our best. To help those we can help. To educate."

More complicated— Della's mouth curves, just a little, fingertip pausing behind the crook of Buddy's wing. But then she's leaning forward, about to ask --

But. Tui's already getting out. Trained to get along, to not demand too much -- or perhaps it's that these are women she's not decided to brace against -- "Just a moment," in the tone of hold that thought. Which is to say, tap tap tap.

Even when she's out, that sound from Buddy has her startling a moment, then praising him for settling. Will she settle? She locks the doors, anyway, and follows the other two in without further comment. Except, maybe, that slide of her eyes toward those teachers.

Inside, past the 'Caution: Wet Floor' sign that guards a drip-catching bucket, it's just a normal hardware store. Mostly just. It hasn't been taken over by a chain, yet, and the owners have put up shiny foil garlands (some of them red, white and blue); there's an endcap of locally themed tchotchkes, so if Tui really wants a refrigerator magnet with an orca on it, she can have one. Also a towel, or a ball cap, or cheap sunglasses. A license plate holder claims, 'Gray Harbor / It's Wharf It.'

“Mm,” is Ada’s low sound of agreement as she comes alongside Tui as they head from car to hardware store. “I’d like to get a sense of how close we are, if we can. And then start working on evacuation up in my community, heading inland. I’m hoping the tribe will be more likely to listen, given the givens.”

Inside, she browses the front displays out of idle curiosity while waiting for Della to take the lead. “It’s too bad you aren’t here in the summer,” Ada remarks. “Summers are beautiful. Though better now than not at all. It’s so nice you’re able to visit.” As if this were an ordinary trip.

"It's a sobering thing, realising that even people who ought to be easy to talk to about these things... aren't always." Tui is not attempting to disparage Ada's attempt, given the way she nods, but there's a resignation there, too: she's very likely imagining what she would do in a similar situation.

It's hard to tell what Buddy looks like to the uninitiated, but whatever it is, it's nothing noteworthy: a few glances skip right over him without incident, more focused on pre-Christmas hardware requirements (replacements for broken bulbs, perhaps, and batteries for the inevitable unwanted noisy toys— sigh) than on an unusual trio of women. It's a good thing, too, because Buddy is fascinated, his thoughts jumbled full of pops and bangs of idea, sound, motion, and sheer joy. << !! >> and << ?? >> and << !? >> all at once!

"From what my son says, your summers are not so dissimilar to ours, particularly down south where my whānau resides. Utterly beautiful, yes. Still, I'm glad to have the opportunity to be here, winter or no winter. It's—" she's staring at the tchotchkes and garlands, amused. "An experience. And important to my son."

And thus, important to her, too.

So much to keep track of, and the pops and bangs -- interrobangs! -- mean Della has to focus; her fingers go to her temple for a moment, but then she works on using that antic energy for good, guiding Buddy to look-don't-touch and yes, she'll hold up this and that for him to sniff. Perhaps those people only see a woman muttering to herself, letting her feet take her past the others --

past where one metallic red garland doesn't cast Tui's reflection back at her, though it does everyone else's --

to where the screws and such she needs for the doorknob belong. Except, they aren't there. There are... lightbulbs. Plain, ordinary (though most of them are LED, at least) lightbulbs, clear and frosted and opaque to all but brilliance.

She sighs. Yes, Buddy; we're looking for something else. And then, after a glance at what passes for signage, Let's find someone.

So she walks around the aisle, and in the meantime, three feathered ornaments in the front display open their plastic mouths and sing. A-da. A-da. A-da.

(Sadly, not in unison.)

Ada’s quiet sigh is response enough as she imagines the task ahead. “I’m not above a little push,” she admits, “but I also have to be realistic, and something of that magnitude is beyond me. But there is an ongoing push for relocation on appeal with the federal government. I wonder if that might be used in our favor. It’s not as if anyone is ignorant of the dangers.”

She’s picking up on Buddy’s mood too, enough for a faint smile to appear even as she talks through this most serious subject. “Maybe I can ask your son for help. I’ve only met him a couple times, but from what I understand, this is precisely where his gifts lie—Jules told me he was in politics?” Ada hasn’t seen the video.

The ornaments wipe her smile away. Ada looks at them with narrowed eyes, like she’s trying to determine what kind of spirits inhabit them. “There’s always a joker,” she sighs, then moves along.

<< ‽ >> projects Buddy (just for emphasis, here, because interrobangs are available in html, and why not!) whilst faithfully promising, in a non-verbal way, to be good, to smell-and-not-touch, though his eyes are whirling with fascination and his tail flicks enthusiastically at Della's shoulder. Distracting? Without question. Adorable? Oh yes.

That the thing-Della-needs isn't where it ought to be is a tragedy; that she needs to keep exploring, find someone else? That's worthy of celebration. It's a great day in Buddy-world.

"He was," allows Tui, with the minute hesitation that suggests she was not necessarily wholly on board with this part of his career. "It can be a... tricky position for a person with his skills." Exhibit A: the video Ada hasn't seen. "But he would be an asset in this, I think. Carefully utilised. I have no doubt he would be willing to help."

The ornaments draw a twitch of Tui's mouth, by contrast, though her own gaze narrows at that lack-of-reflection. She draws her lips together and murmurs, as they continue, "You can feel it here, can't you. All the layers. An onion of a place."

As Ada moves along -- out of range? -- the three ornaments drop silent. Silent, that is, but for one little neck that cracks

as overhead the radio plays a cappella,
<center> ...all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied 'round their throats
to keep their little heads
from falling in the snow...</center>

That's Christmas in Gray Harbor. (The high school's drama department keeps pushing to reenact the mass slaughter of infant boys, but it's been deemed too religious.)

Meanwhile, Della sighs and rubs her cheek against Buddy's soft hide. Focus. She's got to focus. Which means walking quickly down the back wall of the store, her stride longer than it ever was in the little kitchen though it's nothing approaching flying, looking and looking -- there.

But no, asking what should be a simple question doesn't get a simple answer, and the white-haired person -- in their seventies, maybe -- just walks away from her. Not just walking: moonwalking. Della hesitates, then follows... but leaves a good amount of space.

And those garlands? As Tui leaves, they slurp up the fine threads of her reflection for themselves. (All except for the outlier who refused.)

Ada’s keen enough, observant enough, to catch the hesitation. She nods acknowledgment, then says, “Before anything else, I need to speak to the tribal council. Hopefully it won’t be tricky with the holidays.”

She follows Della at a slower pace, keeping her in her sights but without the attempt to keep up, giving Della her lead to complete her task at her own speed.

“Yes,” she agrees. “That’s a good way to put it. It’s not so obvious, on the reservation. The spirit world is still close, but there’s more distance. I like to think of it as respecting each other’s space. We’ve long considered this town a bad spot. People coming here and turning to alcohol or drugs, girls going missing. For some people, it’s just part of our history of colonization, and that’s certainly true, and it happens all over. But for people like you and me, we know there’s something else at work here, too.”

"It feeds on it," murmurs Tui, as much to herself as to Ada, because of course Ada knows this. "Or rather, the parts of the— spirit world, as you put it, that choose to feed on misery and mayhem do. Not good, not evil: both, perhaps, but all layered in the complexities that are inevitable in this world, and probably every other."

The moonwalking draws a lift of one dark brow, but this, like the garlands and the ornaments, seems to have been accepted by the Kiwi as simply par for the course in this town.

Buddy's comfort (and joy, comfort and joy) is returned to Della in the low, sweet croon, and his jumble of effervescent and positive thoughts: she can do this! Soon they will fly free! Everything is fine!

Fine! Fine, better than fine! Of course it is! (Fly?) Della's expression smooths, or rather curves, the arches of her brows and the inverted, deepening arch of her mouth. It's fine. It's good. And when the moonwalker finally leads them to the doorknob gear, she thanks them as brightly as the lightbulbs.

See, Buddy -- she doesn't expect him to see, but she's explaining -- there are doorknobs and door levers (if the thought bubbles up that the thumbless might like levers, it bubbles off and away again) that look like silver and gold and brass, and that Una-the-house-owner probably wants it the way it was but Una is also not answering texts so Della can't ask to confirm, and Della can buy -- it's like trading, sort of -- individual parts and she can buy sets of parts but this time, the calculations show it's more effective to buy a set and if there are some extra screws that's not the end of the world, they're usually useful for something, and Della likes useful. Also pretty. Also compatible, which this is, unlike that set over there that looks very much like it but the escutcheon wouldn't fit...

...at least, she explains these things if his little head doesn't spin around, even if all he takes in is the warm tone of her murmur.

Then it's off to find the other two, who weren't far away, were they? If they didn't get distracted --

“Precisely,” says Ada, agreeing in this and likely more besides.

No distractions here. Ada’s not the type, especially not when tasks await. Besides, she’s seen Gray Harbor before and the things it contains; she’s more interested in human affairs.

“So apparently Jules is bringing your son home for Christmas,” she says out of the blue, casual as can be. Does Tui know this already? “You’re welcome too of course, if you’re still here, though I imagine you likely have your own plans to get back for.”

'Doors' and 'levers' don't mean much of anything to Buddy (why would you block things out?), but it's interesting in an abstract kind of way: this glimpse into her world, and its peculiarities. There's something about the shiny that appeals, though, and though he doesn't let off more enthusiastic flame, there's a whiff of it in his thoughts, a happy little burble of sulphur.

"It will be interesting to see," says Tui, lifting her chin to glance at Ada with a sudden shift in her expression, amusement lurking about the wrinkled edges of her mouth. "How the spirits play my absence, if indeed they do. When Jules and Della visited me, they returned through a different door to their arrival; I may disappear at any time, then. But the time they were gone was different to the time they spent."

All of which is to say: "If I'm still here, I would be delighted. Perhaps I'll get two Christmases this year."

Or none.

Ada lets out a little laugh at the imagined scenario. “If that’s the case, then hopefully it’s a pleasant surprise, instead of one that leaves the rest of your family worrying.”

She’s still vaguely shadowing Della back towards the cash register, chatting as the younger woman makes her purchase and giving her the space to do so unencumbered. “So what did this visit entail? Since my granddaughter conveniently forgot to mention it.”

"I have to assume there will be no opportunity for them to worry," says Tui, after a moment. "None of them would... only myself, my son, and my granddaughter."

But that's said distractedly, as she trails after Ada (and Della), her head tipping now to the side. "She never mentioned? Not at all?" It's rhetorical, apparently, because she continues without a pause. "They showed up in my laundry last winter— your summer. June. Six months ago almost exactly, it would have been. I showed them around Auckland. Jules," there's an abrupt smile, there, "slept in my son's childhood bedroom. It was Matariki, our new year: the rise of the Pleiades, and they accompanied me to the dawn ceremony, and then... disappeared again."

“Ah. Yes.”

A shake of her head (bad Jules!), but it comes with open amusement. “How wonderful,” Ada says when Tui finishes summarizing the trip. “Jules always wanted to see more of the world—she did tell me about visiting Paris, and she was practically gushing, then. My granddaughter’s never been shy, but she is a little more reticent when it comes to things that matter. I made her promise to talk to me—really talk to me—when she moved here.” With vehemence, Ada states, “She is not going to end up on Gray Harbor’s casualty list.”

"Another thing we can agree on without question: neither of our children are going down that particular path."

Tui lets those words hang for a few moments, her expression as determined as her tone was. And then it softens again, and she gives Ada another thoughtful glance, this time with a little reluctance.

"I like your granddaughter very much. She's good for my son."

Do you hear that, Gray Harbor? Denizens of the Veil? These women are not to be crossed.

Tui’s latter pronouncement hangs between them for a moment. Ada regards Tui just as thoughtfully. “I’m glad to hear it,” she says in the end. “Of course, everyone wants to hear good things about the children they raise. That said, I’m perfectly aware that she isn’t an easy woman. But she is a good one. From what I can tell, I think your son is good for her, too.”

"Good," says Tui, though there's an edge to it. She may not even need to put it into words, that elephant in the room, but she does anyway: "I wish I knew a way for them not to be caught between two— three, four— worlds. I know it is their problem to solve," the twitch of her expression suggests she's well aware of her propensity to interfere, "but— I still wish."

Ada smiles as if to communicate that they’re not at odds, though they could be. “Yes,” she agrees. “So do I. So much of what we’re given in life is difficult. It would be nice if at least one thing were easier.”

(Back home, a vibration in the Force—The Veil—and Jules wonders, “What do you think they’re talking about? How much trouble do you think we’re in?”)

("Your grandmother and my ma? So much trouble.")

"It would," agrees Tui, with the edge of a sigh. "I'm still glad they have each other."

For now. For however long it is. For this.

Ada has nothing to add to that; Tui’s said it all. Her expression remains thoughtful, with a not-quite-smile. Bittersweet, or sweetbitter.

The stocking stuffer gadgets and gewgaws near the checkout register suddenly spill to the floor, clamoring for attention. Pick me, pick me, they beg, but with a mischievous undertone. Instead of pounding nails, that mini hammer will pound thumbs; the wind-up toy won’t stop; the level will always leave things hanging awry. Ada frowns down at the little mess. “Behave, before I buy you to dump in the bay.”

"She would, too," Della says conversationally, and if the cashier gives her a second, confusedly-concerned glance... well. Payment made, she sweeps the doorknob-kit and a few other odds and ends -- is that hand lotion or hide lotion, Buddy? Such a good Buddy, who'd made her smile and not-quite-sneeze over the sulfur smell-not-flame -- into her capacious purse, and off they can go again.

Della's taking destination requests; failing that, there's got to be a parking spot on the main street over by the fun secondhand clothing shop, and once there, perhaps even a moment in which she can text Jules-and-Mikaere (because they're hyphenated today) and find out where by the water. For later. Because their grand/moms want to know.

There's nothing more than the quirk of eyebrow, the twist of mouth, from Tui: not their children and grandchildren, this time, though there's something of the maternal threat in Ada's response, isn't there? Those poor gewgaws.

She holds back on commentary, though, and has no particular destination requests: main street, wherever it was it happened... though the squelching remnants of the earlier wave make it clear enough, even if the water is receded, now. Even if it was 'just one of those things', the crowds now moved on, the clean-up commencing.

Tui brushes her fingertips across a piece of seaweed abandoned to the earth. She's not her son, to read a resonance on it, but it wouldn't be difficult to catch the power anyway: she picks it up, coiling it between solid brown hands. "Near here?"

It's not really a question.

The wind-up toy stops its clatter with a few final forlorn clack clack clacks, the bobbing air bubble of the level resignedly settles in place, and the hammer—well, the hammer lies still, but then it already did, and everyone knows better than to trust a hammer. It’s enough for Ada to nod satisfaction, though, and then out they go.

She’s ready to see the epicenter.

More than that, to feel it, in her relatively limited way (at least by Gray Harbor standards). She stands still, concentrating with a faraway look while Tui touches the kelp.

Della, by contrast, keeps her senses contracted -- well, except for an underlying careful careful careful for her buddy, stay with me that escapes what had been bubbly enthusiasm. The wind whips at her dark hair; she pulls up her collar and then her hood in case he'd like that much more shelter.

She's watching Ada.

She's watching (over) Tui.

She'd watch behind them if she could, where people occasionally still come and go, but she can't do that and also keep tabs on the water and its depths. The sky.

It's all quiet, now. There's nothing lurking here, no beings in the kelp or hovering in the air above them (none, that is, except for Buddy, who launches himself into the air rather than lurk beneath Della's collar and hood, wings outstretched and gleaming against the leaden sky: careful, yes, but stay? No, no, not when there's open air and sky to enjoy). There's... something, though. The jagged edge of something, as if the world has been stuck back together, scar tissue visible out of the corner of a gifted eye.

"Hm," says Tui.

“Well,” says Ada. “Whatever was here seems to be gone.” She sounds a little disappointed. Foes are better faced head on. She tilts her chin up to watch Buddy in his element, then tilts it again in another direction to squint at the tear.

“Well, that’s new.”

It was worth a try. With the unaccustomed weight gone, Della flexes her shoulders, stretches her back -- yes, he's beautiful (so beautiful), just... careful.

And as he flies up, she lets her perceptions fly out, until she's looking too -- Ada, yes, the sky, yes, but also approaching that same piece of kelp. What Tui's just touched, what she still has. And with them thinking it's gone... "Here, I'll try too."

To others on the boardwalk, perhaps Buddy is just another bird, likely scavenging remains of Christmas treats from unsuspecting small children. For Della, his renewed glee is impossible to miss, and with it, a sense of shared vision, layered on top of hers but from a different angle; it's most disconcerting.

Tui offers out the kelp, idly, her gaze having followed Ada's towards the tear. It's only visible from the corner of one's eye: looked at straight-on, there's nothing there at all.

The kelp can't, in and of itself, feel anything... and yet.

And yet.

The wave that washed it ashore lurks in it, not just water but also power, spilling in in a tsunami of its own, flooding the town. It lingers.

It lurks.

Ada tries looking at the glint of world-gone-wrong from different angles, head turning fast like maybe she can catch it before it skitters out of sight.

She’s frowning now, lines that crease in her skin and show her age. She waits on Della’s verdict like that, gaze turning towards her, towards Tui.

Odin-sight. Does Della say it aloud? She laughs, a half-laugh, and almost drops the kelp --

-- well, no, she does, and even as it smacks the sand (and the toe of her shoe, poor shoe), the wave crests again in her eyes.

"It's still here."

"How," wonders Tui, turning her attention to Della. The kelp does't matter, and neither do the locals, passing on their way to this store or that.

Above, Buddy squeals— and then stops. He's gone?

He's gone, his sound cut out part way through.

Suddenly Ada’s looking up, away from the other women, eyes squinting as she tries to track the little dragon against the sky’s glare.

“There it is,” she breathes, caught between discovery and concern for Della’s newfound friend. “So it affects other creatures too, not just us.”

Buddy? << Buddy‽ >>

From giddy effervescence to gone -- Della should know better, but she's not thinking, and there's all that power -- she reaches out and yanks.

It's not that the world rips, because that would be ridiculous. It's just... it's just that it's all so fragile, tissue-paper thin not to mention still healing itself from the events of earlier this morning. Della's yank tears off the scab, and beneath— there's Buddy, bronzey-brown against the grey sky, screening unhappily as he circles and circles and then dives for his person's shoulder, heedless of damage along the way (sorry Della).

So that's good?

But the world is thin, and thinner still, and... it gapes, and sways. More power seeps in, leaking through from... wherever it is leaking from.

"Oh," says Tui, a little faintly. "Well then."

“This place.” Ada says it like it’s a curse. “I don’t know about you,” Tui, “but this makes me think of those stories where brave warriors or maidens set off to save the people, and, oh, I don’t know, climb a star staircase or a tall peak into another land, kill the giant whose footsteps are breaking the world to pieces, but are transformed in the process and can never return.”

She looks nauseated.

Thud and ow, her hair but Buddy, Buddy-Buddy-Buddy -- she's got you, you found her -- and Della's not looking at the sky, she might not have even seen that side-eyed tear; she's sensing that lurking power and pulling, pulling on the power lapping through the town, channeling the water as best she can to try and spring a protective bubble around all two-no-four of them before they, too, disappear --

Sensible Della has left the building.

"Hell no," is Tui's contribution. "We are not letting that happen. We're all getting out of this as we are. Do you hear that?"

That last is addressed to the sky, and who cares, now, if that makes her look even more peculiar to the world around them? Tui doesn't have to show her face here next week... and even if she did, why should she care?

She does start, however, as Della draws that power around her: it's impossible to miss, and though the Māori wahine opens her mouth, she doesn't utter a word.

Around Della, the power— the water— rises. It arcs over them (and who knows what that looks like to the normals around them), becoming the protective barrier Della intended. For a moment, maybe even two, all is well.

And then the wave breaks.

Buddy squeals.

And something, as the water begins raining down upon them, begins to laugh.

“Oh, no,” is Ada’s mild imprecation where her granddaughter would be yelling fuck! right about now.

Her arms come up to shelter her head, in case the barrage of water carries concussive force. There’s nothing to do except stand there and withstand it as best she can, though her mind casts out, seeking, questioning.

<< Who are you? >>

Della's hair. Della's hair.

Is singeing not enough for one day?! And is that a clam?!!

Her arms go up too, though it's more to shelter her buddy whether he needs it or not -- maybe this is fun! -- as she hustles towards the other women, and if Ada doesn't do her part for his education, well, Buddy will get to learn more curse words from Della herself. Phrases, really. Improbable ones.

It's not so much water, in the end: a heavy rain rather than an actual flood. It's still enough, given the chill in the air.

Tui gives the other two women a look of sheer bemusement, her dark hair plastering itself to her face. It can't be any darker than it is, but it can be damp (wet, outright wet), and that's not especially pleasant. Still.

<< What am I, >> corrects the being, whoever— whatever— it is. << I am power, I am chaos... I will take your children down with me, and there will be nothing left. >>

Della can hear that, too, as long as she can focus above Buddy's unhappy noises. Poor Tui: left out entirely.

“Well, that’s not very nice of you,” Ada says both aloud and in that inner, mental voice. Her hands float down to her hips.

“If there’s nothing left, then you won’t be left either, now will you? It’s hard to create chaos when there’s no more lives to upend.”

Presumably Tui can follow along given this single side of the conversation. Ada’s gaze slides over to her, eyebrows arching in silent statement.

Well.

Ada can take this in stride, at least by the looks of her. Tui, likewise. Della? She's cold and she's wet and she may be sheltering right by the other two, now, but she's also trying to soothe Buddy while not letting his upset spike hers (any further, anyway). Her low murmurs are wordless except for his name as she continues to pet him, the side of her hand a strigil to slide the water off his hide; she's listening. Or trying.

Certainly her brows have gone up too, with less deliberation and more interrobang.

Buddy lets out a little miserable hiccoughing burst of flame (and luckily does so staring balefully out, rather than tucking his head in): and that's what he thinks about that, Mr Chaos Creature. Della's hand helps, that strigil as much soothing as it is functional, sliding water away though his hide is so very warm to the touch in any case.

<< Good, >> says Chaos. << It will be the end of all things. It will be glorious. >>

"I don't know what it is saying," says Tui, conversationally. "But I know I don't like it. Let's see if we can't— ah yes."

Can Tui mend holes in the world in the same way that she can mend flesh and blood? It's debatable. She's still going to give it a try. If nothing else, call it... reinforcement.

So much for Ada’s reverse psychology. She looks frustrated, expression clouded over. “It can’t be reasoned with,” she translates for Tui. “I can try to make it go away, but it won’t last.” She’s not powerful enough to send the kind of mental reprimand she’d like to give, a smart tap on the proverbial nose.

“Who hurt you?” she questions Chaos, a query that could sound rhetorical, but isn’t.

Careful, Buddy. Except that's not just for Della's muffled, mid-burst gasp, for her placing a finger to his warm cheek that encourages that out; it's also for how she balances him as she crouches, as they talk, as she begins to gather any decent-sized pieces of shell or rock (and hopefully not broken glass, but she'd cautiously take that too) that might be in easy reach.

Not that she looks at what she's doing, beyond little peripheral glimpses. No, she's keeping an eye on the other women, and whatever might seem to be the origin point of Chaos Creature(tm)'s voice, as she listens in. There's one point where she might speak, perhaps a single hushed word, but -- no. No. She reinforces Ada's question with her silence.

It's hard to tell where the voice comes from. Nowhere, everywhere? It's without form, void of substance but powerful anyway. And it seems... surprised by Ada's question. << Nothing hurts us. We are mighty; we are infinite. >>

(We deserve a punch in the face.)

Tui's power smooths over the rip in space and time, attempting to heal over the scar tissue though if it works, it's a subtle thing: some scar tissue never disappears. She's not displeased by the outcome, though, giving it a quietly thoughtful nod as she glances back at Ada and her words; Della and her shells-and-rocks, of which there are plenty, drawn in by the wave from earlier, not to mention the winds and rains and general movement of life.

<< Go home, >> says Chaos. << You don't belong here. >>

The rebuke writes itself.

“Neither do you.”

And then, because Ada is curious, because this is a riddle that remains unsolved, she tilts her head and asks, “Where did you come from?”

A faint smile, like this Chaos Creature has an imperfect grasp of the world it seeks to destroy. “Child, everyone is hurt by something.”

Mega maternal energy, Della mind-whispers to Buddy -- hopefully just to Buddy -- admiringly. Still crouched, still with her gaze flitting about -- that nowhere, that everywhere, though has she even seen the sky-rips yet? -- she makes of the rocks and shells (but not that damp wrapper, ew) a rough circle. It's a little circle, not around her or around much of anything, really, except air and wet sand (and possibly a clam further down, or some other critter), but it's a little piece of Order. We're experimenting.

Even if it's rearranging desk chairs on the Titanic.

<< No? I belong wherever I please. And I... >> One can almost hear the smile. << have colonised this place. It's mine, now. >>

Answering actual questions? No. Just no.

Chaos doesn't seem to have noticed what Della is doing— or doesn't care. Nor is it bothered by Tui's attempt at healing the hole... chances are good there are more.

Buddy holds back from further flame, though there's a radiant tension in his body that Della can surely feel. << How, what? >> he wants to know, eager to see and understand, in his limited way.

Ada refuses to rise to the bait. (Jules would. Jules doesn’t have Ada’s decades of life experience.) “You really are a child,” she muses, “aren’t you? It’s not that easy to get a rise out of me.” She’s raised teenagers, thank you very much, and knows how to ignore these shallow attempts at cruelty.

“This place isn’t yours. It doesn’t belong to any of us,” she declares with the force of conviction, buoyed by the corresponding sense of assurance—and denial. “We belong to it, and you have yet to learn respect. Someone should teach you.”

As she speaks, she’s simultaneously questing—who else might be out there? Her presence lights up like a beacon as she struggles to extend herself, to beckon.

Here, here. You’re needed.

Who, she doesn’t specify. It’s an act of faith that Someone will hear and respond.

Della -- at least, the Della who has emotions living outside of her body -- might have risen to the bait. As it is, listening (to Ada), she winces. Listening (to Buddy, emotions-sharer), she murmurs quickly back, possibly too much for his little brain but it doesn't feel little, not to her: There's a lacuna, small-space-hollow-nest-gap. Room to do things in. Things that are not-Chaos.

But then --

She's still listening, listening, and can he hear through her when she offers? Ada's call, that has Della reaching back for Buddy's warm shoulder from where she crouches, almost kneeling. She lifts her mental voice, not as a descant but a quieter, lower harmony: a step to amplify Ada's voice if she can. Hoping. (Almost, but not quite, trusting.)

Buddy doesn't understand, not fully, but he does grasp this much: Della— good, perfect, noble, smart Della— knows what she's doing, and she'll keep him safe. It doesn't mean he doesn't still quiver a little from that position upon her shoulder, nor does it mean there's not a quiet radiant heat that suggests further flame could not be far away; but for now, he is soothed.

Tui's, "Oh," is perhaps the first indication that Ada's efforts, and Della's amplification, has worked: she's positioned just so to see the curl of tentacle rising up from the waters beyond the pier, the shift in the air.

(Did the Grey Harborites know there was a giant squid lurking out there, living amidst the sirens and those odd fish the fishermen always throw back as if they hadn't seen? There is. Or... at least: there is now.)

It doesn't speak, but Chaos hears nonetheless: the twang of a bowstring, the susurrus of something.

The world holds.

Oh.

Oh.

Ada has her own intake of breath as she turns a little and sees what—who—she’s invited. “Welcome, friend,” she greets, claiming that friendship to make it real. “We could use a little help here.”

"...Welcome," Della murmurs half-disbelievingly, less harmony than momentum; she's followed Tui's oh and now, and now...

The tentacle. The shift in the air. (Along the way, finally, the tear in the air.)

See, Buddy: Buddy and Della (those doubled consonants! that consonance!) figure things out together, and they help Ada, and Ada gets help -- hopefully help, hopefully not a tentacle that will tie them up too -- to make the world right, to make the world a place to play and fly in -- oh, please.

Friend.

How is it that it is possible a creature like this can acknowledge this in such a way that the acknowledgement is felt, but is neither word nor emotion nor physical sensation? It defies classification, except in this, this one thing: it just is.

What happens next is even less neat and tidy.

One moment they are standing there, damp but not drowned.

The next moment, the water is everywhere, invading everything, choking and drowning—

And then things change.

Eyes open, perhaps. Hands feel. Legs, warm and dry against something cushioned-but-solid. Feet, flat on the ground. Dry. Dry.

The bowstring tension in the air is gone, and in its place is a perfect peace... and the scent of diner coffee and pancakes, sticky with maple syrup and oozing with butter, as plates are set down on the table in front of them.

"Just this once," says the waitress at the local diner, infamous for its lack of table service, before she turns her back on them and walks away.

How does one make sense of it? The fearful exhilaration of being swept up by a more-than-human force, legs out from under her like in those younger years when she’d wade into the cold summer surf—

She invited this. So be it.

From panic to acceptance, in the space of a breath (a held one, given the givens), and then—

Ada looks bewildered as she looks about her, from the waitress to the pancakes to the rest of the diner.

“This,” she says after a time, “is new.”

Della has far less aplomb. She's focused on trying to breathe, somehow, and also to help Buddy, reaching out to keep him in one piece and not washed away like those little rocks she'd much more temporarily collected, together-together-together, they need air --

-- dry again, and wings in her face, and wait. Peace.

Pause.

She sneezes whatever she'd inhaled but at least it's not over her pancakes (or the women beside and across from her). Sorry, Buddy. Here, have some butter.

Tui's solid brown hands grip the edge of the table as she regains her equilibrium (we don't talk about the surprised and more than a little fearsome roar that preceded this), her eyes lifting as she too takes in their new surrounds.

(Buddy's little snuffling noise is muffled by his face being tucked tight into Della's neck, her sneeze only re-emphasising his unhappiness. CONFUSING!)

"I've never had a pancake rescue before," says Tui, not outright laughing but with a hint of something dry and mirthful all the same. "I can't argue it. Or anything, not without any facts to explain things. That was... unexpected."

“I’ve never done any of that,” answers Ada, reaching for the mug that’s set before her so she has something warm and comforting to hold on to. Tea, not coffee, by the looks of it. “I’m afraid my experience has been downright tame compared to whatever that was.”

Bedeviled Mentalist daughter notwithstanding.

Della has something warm and... let's just go with warm, to hold onto. Her shoulders rounded about the little creature, her murmur lower than the other women's, Oh, ba--buddy. Buddy, buddy. It's okay. Is it? It's okay right now.

She reaches for a napkin, to dab away any of her sneeze (on him) or any potential snot (on her), and just holds him. Meanwhile, more for the other two, "What other rescues have you had?"

The big question: are their pancakes getting cold.

"I met a Tuniwha when I was a girl," remembers Tui. "A storm was rising and I wasn't aware. It nudged me home again. But that—" for all that she has a smile that is fond in recollection, "is nothing compared to... this." Ada's reach for a mug has the Kiwi doing similar, wrapping both hands around it as she considers the pancake bounty, though she's yet to look for a fork.

Buddy, soothed once more by Della's attentions, and thankfully mostly sneeze-and-snot free in both himself and his vicinity, curls into his person. (Oh Athena, you aren't going to enjoy this.)

"It begs the question... was that all it could do, or all it chose to do? For that matter, what, exactly, did it do?"

“I haven’t,” Ada just says with a shake of her head, then settling in to listen to Tui and recover. The tea helps, fragrant and citrusy. She reaches for a fork as she contemplates the final questions.

“We likely won’t ever fully know,” she says, applying syrup to her pancakes. “We can go back and look,”again, “but I don’t know about you— I feel like I’m only ever grasping at straws when I try to make sense of these things.”

Della, too, has a small smile for the story, though it might be partially hidden by Buddy-tending; she shifts enough that she can keep one arm around him and, with the other, follows suit with the fork --

-- but pauses, head atilt and dark hair fanning across her shoulder --

-- and then just, after a second look at her (also clean) hands, digs in. There are no pomegranate seeds here. (Unless there are.) Once she's swallowed, "'It' meaning the one who plonked us here? As opposed to the one harassing us." Also, more practically, "We will have to go back for the car."

Her car. Her not-so-mighty but at least hybrid steed.

There's no fruity aftertaste to the syrup; no tell-tale seeds in the pancakes, or on top of them. After a moment's hesitation, Tui picks up her own fork, stabbing at a fluffy pancake with a thoughtful expression.

"The whole who plonked us," she agrees. "And—" her chin juts towards Ada, acknowledging her words. "I think we need to retreat. Collect the car, and retreat. For now. I for one don't fancy another encounter just yet, not without further information. Planning. Will he," this time, it's a gesture towards Buddy, as little of him as is visible at this point, "want some sausage?" Bacon?

Diner food really is the best.

A small nod from Ada in agreement, but no words—she’s too busy recalibrating via pancakes.

At Tui's words, Della glances at Ada, to see if she's on the same page.

Only then, after both women have weighed in, does she likewise nod. And, afterward, half-smile. "I'm sure he would." And it'll keep her occupied, getting the sausage squared away, fed to Buddy (and some to herself, plus pancakes) without getting them all greasy -- Try this, this special treat. After a moment, Tui, only it isn't so much the word as replete with overtones of Della-perspective-flavored Tui-ness, thought of it and look, I'm giving it to you. And some being got it to begin with. (But, sigh, it seems bacon requires sitting at the counter. Maybe next time.)

Good job, Buddy, coming back to me.

But as she begins, with less affect than before, "Did the sky look... ripped... to either of you. Like the membrane, when you're peeling a hard-boiled egg."

Has Buddy died and gone to heaven? Is this the Good Place? Wherever he's come from, by the looks of it, sausages do not appear to exist (this is probably not surprising, let's be honest, given sausages do not, sadly, grow on trees), and oh, oh does he like them. Good Della! Best Della!

Ok, fine: best Della, but also good Tui, for thinking of it.

His 'sense' of Tui is of curving lines and the smell of the air and sea; of song and melody and green.

"Ripped?" prompts Tui, who has watched Buddy with his sausage with great amusement, while beginning to clear her own plate with no less vigor. It's not a no, not given something in her voice, but it's also not a complete yes.

Ada’s primary attention might be on the pancakes, but she has a smile to spare for Buddy and his enthusiasm. And a frown for the question.

“Nothing was exactly right.” Which is neither yes nor no.

Through the careful feeding (him and her), Della abruptly gets this expression, not like she's thinking of multiple things -- because she usually is -- but something more; she glances from Buddy to Tui and back again, breathing in that sense, that new-to-her sense (fascinating! fascinating Buddy!). And Ada? is all she has time for, less words than concept, before words catch up with them.

Where were they -- "Like a contact lens," Della begins. "Or plastic wrap," she pauses to hear Ada.

Her brows tilt. "It seemed pretty much un-right." Also known as, 'Go on.'

Buddy wouldn't recognise them to look at, or know what to call them, but the sense of it is immediate: Ada is huckleberries, warm and ripe in the sun, with a hint of loamy earth and the acknowledgement of misty rain.

"Like the barrier between the worlds was too thin?" Tui wants to know, curious, her fork hovering mid-air as she considers this. "Which we know it is. But— a more visual, solid manifestation of that?"

A bit of a smile -- no more than a mist, really -- lingers on Della's lips. She glances again at Ada, but leaves her to her pancakes.

And takes up her pancakes, between sausage-bites, between sentences. "Perhaps. I mean, that would make sense; but I only got a glimpse, really. If it is that... is that a sign that it's worse, because it's tangible to," sort of, "see? Or helpful, because we can watch out for them? We can, anyway," and here her gaze roams out beyond where they sit, the diners, the staff.

Now Ada looks up, gaze lingering on Della as she picks up a piece of bacon. Her smile is a little amused. “Della,” she says, “I appreciate your desire to know. It seems clear to me that that’s one of your gifts — being able to ask good questions, break something down in order to really understand it.”

There’s a but. It comes after she crunches through her first bite of crispy bacon. “But I don’t believe it’s the nature of the world we inhabit that everything can be broken down like that. There will always be mystery in the world.”

"That's true," puts in Tui, setting down her fork to consider first Ada, and then Della again. "But science tells us that many— perhaps not all, but certainly many— mysteries can be solved. I don't think it hurts to try, in any case. And,"

This time, she's nodding speculatively at Della, "I think it's worth keeping an eye out, certainly. There are always signs, indications of things. We may never know, but hopefully there's a bigger picture to be built up towards. I think that's a worthwhile endeavour."

First the 'but' (and she was waiting for it, watching Ada with that tilted little smile and that tiny dragon in her arms), then the 'and.'

Della doesn't thank Tui in so many words, but she stays sitting back as though at rest, and there's openness in the angle of her body, in her confirming nod. "If it helps," she returns to Ada, carefully, "I've no desire to break things to bits. Understand, comprehend, yes, of course. We have eyes to see. And, as you say, there will always be mystery." Beat. "Please pass the coffee?" Not the tea.

“Of course.” It isn’t exactly clear which remark Ada is responding to—Tui’s input, Della’s reply, or just the request for coffee, which she slides into closer proximity.

“Excuse me a moment,” she says once that’s completed, scooting out from the table. “And leave me one more piece of bacon.”

"I think," says Tui, glancing down at their plates, loaded as they are with all things delicious and fattening, "that won't be a problem. So everything I ever heard about American eating habits really is true."

Della's, "Thank you," probably -- no, definitely -- is for Ada. For the coffee. As for Tui, with a wry look, "Yes, we eat this way all the time. Three meals a day; elevenses don't count." Even after she's poured, her gaze roams the table once more, Ada's vacated spot, the spot that never was filled. Her voice drops. "This is... refreshing. If it's all right with you, I'd like to hold hands on the way out. Just in case there's a Door."

She shifts enough to look, briefly, behind her. Just in case...

She blinks once. She doesn't look back again. "And I plan on tipping extra well.... But first: what do you make of Ada?" Della's eyes are warm, warm as their maple syrup and far less sticky; she's smiling. "Now that you're here." Now, not just texts.

Three meals a day. Of course.

"Having been through one Door this morning, and ended up... here, with whatever that was, I think that's a valid and even exceptionally sensible approach," Tui tells Della, gravely, but with the faintest hint of a smile about the corners of her mouth.

She lingers over answering that question, though, taking her time to slide a piece of sausage through the maple syrup; to swirl it around, then wipe it somewhat clean before she eats it, chewing thoughtfully.

"I like her very much. She's... practical. More grounded than her granddaughter, which is," might she add, "neither good nor bad; just something. I think I would enjoy hearing more about the cultural practices of her people."

It's not that Della glows -- exceptionally sensible! from Tui! -- but one might not need to be a mentalist (or Buddy) to know people, to recognize the brightness in her eyes. Well then.

Which doesn't mean she doesn't watch the sausage-manipulation with a tinge of bemusement, at least when much of that swirling gets wiped off. Bemusement's followed by low-key satisfaction, then by humor, though she doesn't need to add how low of a bar that might or might not be. Jules. "Beware," Della says lightly, "she might ask you about yours." Less lightly, "I'd like to be in on that too." And while she's at it, "I imagine you'll like Charlie too. Not just because everyone does. Then there's Bill... would you rather breadth or depth, Tui? If you had to choose."

Speaking of Buddy: he's curled up tidily about Della's shoulders again, lounging with the satisfaction of one that is safe and well fed and warm and... really, what more could a small dragon want?

Tui, though: she smiles, a knowing smile, a lingering smile, and says— at least in the moment— nothing.

Instead, she chases down another piece of sausage, this one going without its syrupy treatment. And then: "Sharing is important. Stories. That's how we preserve memory. And— well. Where do stories come from, in the first place, but through the sharing of them? Spread, from one person to another. From one culture to another."

More thoughtfully: "I'm never certain. I have breadth in some areas, and depth in others, and... there is a balance to it, I think. To be focused too intently on one thing to the exclusion of others is not necessarily for the best; then again, to never focus your attention and truly hone your craft... that, too, brings problems. What do you think?"

If this keeps up, Della may need to investigate shoulder exercises. On the other hand, a small dragon, who practices weight distribution, might be worn as readily as a cowl... and it's not as if it's summertime. In this hemisphere.

The other hemisphere's usual resident gets Della pursing her lips, eyes laughing, a silent harrumph. That sausage, though -- a different treatment! -- must remind her to have more of her own food while it's there, while they're there. A little of this, a little of that.

She listens. She near-laughs, when the question's turned back to her. "I agree," she says frankly. "For the very reasons you give. Focused on one thing, one doesn't see how the others... click. Or rather, how they interrelate in sometimes subtler ways, and affect each other. If I had to choose," deserves a bite of that fluffy, fluffy pancake with its warm glaze, a moment to swallow, "I'd answer with having had depth, to know inside and out... and then rapidly add breadth at the edges. Now, ideally, before then there'd have been breadth enough to know to pick a good depth, but that wasn't in the scope of the question," sigh.

Sigh. "I'd love to talk more like this," Della admits; she tips her head, cheek pressing briefly against Buddy's warm hide. "Although I suppose we'll have to go? The sensible thing might be to get back to what happened," in discussion, dissection or otherwise. But. But.

"And that," says Tui, gesticulating with her fork, and ignoring the last of what Della says in lieu of focusing on this instead, "is a challenge. I see so many first years coming through my classroom who already feel they've had to specialise; that it would be too late for them to just explore things, instead of focusing on whatever area will net them the best possible job after they graduate. Find your focus, yes, but never let it constrain you."

That's serious, but not intense, and the words that follow, circling back around, are gentler. "I enjoy this kind of conversation, too. It's a pleasant distraction from... well, it's been a weighty morning, hasn't it? To think I was safely in my own bed on the other side of the world just a few hours ago. We shouldn't tarry, you're right. But perhaps a little more of that coffee before we go?"

"Absolutely."

All right, maybe a little glow -- students and exploring and comparative university educations and financing said educations and, and, and -- but somewhere in there (of course, more coffee! and what had Tui planned for her day?), Della fishes a quarter from her jacket pocket and rubs it between her fingers, rubbing into it some of that feeling as they talk. It's possible that waitstaff might later side-eye the simple coin until they see the rest of the tip, but whether or not anyone picks up the good vibes before it's lost in the proverbial couch cushions, at least it can be out there for now, out in the world. So will they, the four of them: fueled by the diner's little miracles.