warm front

[cumulonimbus]

After Mathilde has left (and Stormy has her schedule for the next few days all written down), Stormy goes aprowl through the house again to make sure she's clear on the layout and see if anybody else wants to talk to her while she is still novel.

Comments

[whipstitch]

"I speak Tradertalk and I'm learning Namornese from Sedge and Rook speaks about a million things and he teaches me bits and pieces sometimes. And I can curse in way more languages than I can speak properly, and sometimes I teach that stuff to Rook because he doesn't always know it all."

[cumulonimbus]

"Are you a Trader?" wonders Stormy. "Or do you just know the language?"

[whipstitch]

"I was born one," he says. "But then I ran away. So I can cook the food and I can speak the language but what I am is just - me."

[cumulonimbus]

"Oh."

[whipstitch]

He shrugs slightly. The spinning wheel continues to spin, slurping up fluff from his lap and turning it into thread.

[cumulonimbus]

"Do you not like talking about that?"

[whipstitch]

"As much as we've said is okay, but if you ask me a lot more about it I'll get sad."

[cumulonimbus]

"Okay." Stormy writes this down.

[whipstitch]

"Whatcha doing?" he asks, since he has to keep his eyes on his fluff as much as possible and her notebook is out of his line of sight that way.

[cumulonimbus]

"Making a note of that so I don't forget and accidentally make you sad."

[whipstitch]

"Aww, that's nice. Thanks."

[cumulonimbus]

"You're welcome," giggles Stormy.

[whipstitch]

He grins at his fluff.

[cumulonimbus]

"Is it hard to learn to do that for people who aren't thread mages, do you know?"

[whipstitch]

"I don't know. It was pretty easy for me, but that might be because I'm a thread mage. I've never been not a thread mage so I could check."

[cumulonimbus]

"Maybe your teacher knows. But she's probably a thread mage too, I guess, so maybe she'd only know if she's taught people who weren't."

[whipstitch]

"She probably has. There aren't that many thread mages. More than most other kinds of ambient magic, but still not so many that she could go her whole life only teaching spinning to people who have magic with it, I don't think."

[cumulonimbus]

"I think I should probably sometimes learn some things that aren't magic and weather or I will get really tired of them," explains Stormy, "so I'm trying to decide what things."

[whipstitch]

"I think spinning is fun but I don't know if you will think spinning is fun. You could try it, though, I bet Finch would let you sit in on my lessons and help you if you got stuck. So would Maple if you wanted, but the Hub kitchen's really busy most of the time, I don't know if you'd like that or not. Some people can't handle it for long. I like it fine. And you could ask Niva if she has anything to teach you. Me and her did some braiding wire one time, it was fun. And Sedge could tell you all about rocks, and I already told you he's teaching me Namornese... you could learn things from Rahi but I don't know if I can really say what things. She knows all kinds of different bits of stuff, I don't know where she gets it all. And I'm not sure about Elyth because I haven't known her as long, but there might be stuff you could learn from her too."

[cumulonimbus]

"When there's a lot of people running around I'm more likely to fall over, and sometimes it gets too stuffy, but that doesn't necessarily rule out busy places, it just means I have to know more about them first. What's braided wire for?"

[whipstitch]

"Making jewelry. That's what we used it for, anyway. I think Niva can do magic with it too, but I don't know what kind."

[cumulonimbus]

"I guess I should ask her sometime."

[whipstitch]

"Guess so!"

[cumulonimbus]

"Maybe I will do it right now while I'm thinking about it."

Stormy wanders off, leaving Mercy to his fluffs and thread-in-progress.

[calendarofcrime]

One of the twins is upstairs, sitting at the little table under the little window, reading a book.

When Stormy reaches the top of the stairs, she looks up from her book and says, "Niva is out with her teacher."