be discreet

[msmage]

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

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

Comments

[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?"

[eclipsi]

"Sort of, yeah."

[mrmage]

"What is your metadata?"

[eclipsi]

"Times, places, emotions, people who were present, subjects I was thinking about, weather, all kinds of stuff."

[mrmage]

"And what changed between before and now?"

[eclipsi]

"I have it more systematized. Like, the places and times - nest."

[mrmage]

"Nest? Like, a tree structure or something?"

[eclipsi]

"Yeah. If I'm thinking of a particular Tuesday, now that day's noon and four o'clock and so on go inside it."

[mrmage]

"Wow. I'm. Kinda jealous."

[eclipsi]

"Psionics is cool!"

[mrmage]

"It really is! After we take over the world and make everyone immortal and fix everything we need to find a way to share magic."