be discreet

[msmage]

It's not much later, in Isabella's room, that she asks:

"So... is Alex really a dom?"

Comments

[mrmage]

Sadde starts alternating between girl voice and boy voice:

"Should we found a country or colonize another planet?"

"Well, interplanetary travel and terraforming are prohibitively expensive if you don't already have a country."

"But on the other hand there's lots more real estate on Mars for an arbitrary number of countries."

"That still doesn't solve the underlying problem of needing funding."

"Of course, but is founding a country the best way to get it?'"

[alicornucopia]

Giggle.

Previews!

[mrmage]

Previews! And then movie! It's a cute animation with talking animals, heartwarming moments, good orchestral music, and cheesy life lessons.

[alicornucopia]

Jackson steadily consumes popcorn and absorbs cute talking animal plot.

[mrmage]

Something sad happens, and then there is a journey during which people learn important things about something or other.

[alicornucopia]

How edifying.

[mrmage]

The movie has some jokes and moments that would probably sail right past a child's head but are funnier to a more mature audience, and then the main characters solve the problems and everyone's implied to live happily ever after, however, implausible that may be.

[alicornucopia]

Hooray.

Jackson's all out of popcorn. When the movie ends he checks the time on his phone. "I better catch the next bus."

[mrmage]

"Yup. I'm gonna go check something out and then go back to school."

[alicornucopia]

"Bye."

And Jackson gets a bus and goes off to see his master.

[mrmage]

"Bye! Have fun!"

And the thing he's going to check: is the cactus museum open?

[alicornucopia]

It is closed. It closes at four thirty.

[mrmage]

Drat. He'll have to return earlier tomorrow. Oh, well. He can go catch a bus back to school.

[alicornucopia]

School has all of its usual properties.

[mrmage]

Including, amongst them, Isabella, on whose door he will knock after showering and brushing his teeth.

[eclipsi]

She's already in her pajamas. "Hi, lovely, how was the movie?"

[mrmage]

"It was really cute! It had talking animals and important life lessons."

[eclipsi]

"And what important life lessons did you learn?"

[mrmage]

"That family isn't about who's related to you but rather about who cares for you, or something." Pause. "Which, I mean, I knew already from quite extensive personal experience."

[eclipsi]

Hug pat pat.

[mrmage]

Hug!

He doesn't seem to be depressed or anything over it, just sort of matter-of-fact. "And how was your afternoon?"

[eclipsi]

"Uneventful. Lots of sorting my memory out, I think I got a good efficiency jump."

[mrmage]

"Really? What happened?"

[eclipsi]

"Mm - does it make any sense if I say I streamlined the metadata by which I call up a memory?"

[mrmage]

"Lemme parse that," he says, and thinks for a second. "You made the... associations... or whatever-it-is that's information about which memory is which more organized or easier to read or something along those lines?"