Lira’s twelfth birthday is in two weeks and I’m really stuck on what to get her. It would be easy to buy her a statue, but she seems tremendously judgmental about the statues she doesn’t like, so I think I’d better leave her statue-collecting to her.
9 - August
August 15
Epic Fight is Epic
So much fun. The big snow dump finally came, and First Park (as we’ve taken to calling the park between Lohn and Mara’s and Jeh, Ketz and Grif’s houses) was a fantastic place for it – we knew where the benches and rocks were, and there were enough trees for a little bit of cover, but not enough to be getting in the way. The fight was in two parts – first a massive, silly free-for-all which all the younger kids got to participate in. It was great to see Deal running about shrieking with the rest of the younger kids – and also that he went and clung to Grif when he got a bit overwhelmed. He’s still a pretty trembly sort of kid whenever anything unexpected happens, but is no longer constantly dependant on Zaranar, and has become rather possessive of his three new parents – he gets jealous if they pay too much attention to anyone but himself, Zaranar or Enna.
After the first fight, Alay and Ketzaren took all the younger kids for a snowman building competition on the patio of Ketz, Jeh and Grif’s house, and the snowball fight became serious business. Well, as serious as it can be with ten year-olds. The second game was a paired hunt, and each Setari was paired with a relative to make winning harder. Kaoren was paired with Rye, of course, and I teamed with Ys while Lira teamed with Siame until deciding to pretend that she’d been injured and going to Lohn and Mara’s to watch (and obligingly help) Mara’s grandparents prepare some of the truly massive amount of lunch needed – her interest in cooking hasn’t waned yet. The hunt was a frantic affair with so many people (all Setari on Muina had been invited, plus any relatives they wanted to bring) and though everyone was supposed to keep it light-hearted, it got rather intense in spots. It was a very close fight – Raiten’s younger brother has a strong Combat Sight and together they were extraordinarily good, and there were plenty of other excellent teams. Rye doesn’t have Combat Sight, and he was totally white with nerves beforehand because he hates the idea of letting Kaoren down. Fortunately Kaoren’s just god-like at these things, and also rather good at creating opportunities for Rye to get shots off, and though he didn’t win as totally as last time, he still brought Team Ruuel in first. He said afterwards that wanting Rye to win was excellent motivation for doing his best, and I have a nice image for my collection of Rye’s celebratory hug with Kaoren. Kaoren totally looks like Rye’s Dad in the picture (except for only being ten years older) and it’s one of the few images I have of him publicly smiling.
After that there was the snowman judging (carefully arranged for the maximum number of prizes – most creative, most colourful, scariest) and then a huge and somewhat frosty picnic lunch and some more generalised snow sculpture and then everyone staggering off to their respective homes. Nils and Zee were my bodyguards for the afternoon, and so it was a quick and nippy flight back. I did a projection of a bunch of mugs of hot chocolate and pushed to make them as real as possible, and they at least lasted long enough for us all to taste. Overall it was a great day.
Not everything was perfect of course. I’ve got a serious chocolate jones now, and Sen’s a little ill. Getting waterproof Winter clothes for everyone wasn’t too hard, since there’s been plenty of preparation put in for dealing with Winter, but keeping it on Sen is almost impossible, so we had to hunt about for the layers she’d shed, and she’d managed to chill herself enough to be running a fever the next day. Nothing too serious according to the medics, but she’s very grouchy and hard to please when she’s got a cold. We’ve poured a couple of fortifiers down her and that should be enough to kick it.
Plus, while the Setari extended family is very cheerful and happy and supportive, no-one’s cheerful and happy and supportive 100% of the time, and there were little spats of grouchiness, particularly from a couple of the elder kids. Lohn’s eldest niece is a bit of a drama queen and so far as I can tell she thinks Shar should pay her some attention. Shar has just turned fourteen and is in an increasingly complicated position since a news story about "Nuri’s heir", and is almost certainly going to have to walk an even finer line than Maze did regarding fluttering hearts. Lohn and Mara have been a real boon to him.
But not everyone in the Setari extended family is super-nice, and one of the things that underlined that was when complete details and tons of scans of our snowball fight turned up on the news by evening. It’s very likely someone sold the story, and the problem with it being someone who came to the fight is that they’re all family. Kaoren says we’ll have to think about a slightly more restrictive guest list next time, which is probably a good idea anyway, since it was a lot of people.
Oh well, it was a very positive story and all the shots of my kids were good ones - particularly Ys and me throwing snowballs at each other (and Ys actually looking like she was having fun, which she would since the thing she likes most about snow is an excuse to throw things at me – I think she finds it therapeutic). There’s a cute one of Lira sprinkling crushed nuts on a cake, and that scene of Rye throwing his arms around Kaoren when they were announced the winners and Kaoren smiling down at him. And also one of Kaoren’s snowball interceptions, when he knocks an incoming ball out of the air with one of his own. I have to agree with his increasingly frenzied fandom that he looks so hot when he does that. Kaoren’s fan club is beginning to rival Raiten’s, and all the Setari sites completely boiled over with all the great off-duty images of them. Shar and Lira both have sites devoted to them which make me tremendously uncomfortable, though, and I definitely want to avoid feeding them.
But my biggest down for the day was Eeli, who still hasn’t shown any signs of waking. She was so happy when she was first to capture me last year. She would have enjoyed this year so much.
Neither Third nor Twelfth have been posted to Muina in an age, but both are due to be rotated in soon and I’m really looking forward to seeing Zan again.
10 - September
September 20
Super-Grumpy Month
A stupid action group decided to put forward a stupid motion in the parliaments of Tare, Kolar and Muina demanding changes to the proposed laws written up regarding the use and control of touchstones. They want an oversight committee, complete disclosure of all mission tapes, committee approval for all tasks performed, and permanent second level monitoring of both Lira and myself to ensure that nothing is ever done without permission. We’ve fought so hard to keep Lira off second level monitoring, and were making progress toward getting me off it, and it’s sounding less likely by the day.
I caught the initial announcement and warned Kaoren while the kids were in the middle of breakfast. The action group (translates as Citizens for Responsible Management of Touchstones, more or less – I call them the Crummies) tried as much as possible to make their motions simultaneously on all three worlds, so there was no forward notice from KOTIS.