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The Perk, Friday Morning

Much as the past summer had made it clear to Ender that staying off-island - keeping the kids safe - had been the best option, he also felt strangely regretful about it. No, Fandom had never been home, but then neither had been any other place. To be submersed in all of that again, though-- it was tempting, in a way.

Unique experiences.

But now that they were leaving, he found himself missing little of it. Except for this: the hot chocolate. And so an hour or so before their portal was due, Ender found himself back on the island, sitting at a small table at the Perk, near the window.

Sipping a large hot chocolate with swirls of whipped cream on top.

Watching the people around him move about their lives, and thinking about the transience of it all.

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Delirium was kind of the opposite of transience, being Endless. It was appropriate that she went to the Perk. Barnabas trailed after her, his doggy face a little pinched and worried. She was quiet. A quiet Delirium was generally not a good sign.

"Good morning! What can I get you?" the barista chirped.

Delirium's head slowly tilted to one side while she considered the question and the possible answers. "What can you get me?" she asked a little warily. Who knew what baristas could cause to appear on this island?

The barista blinked. "Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, a smoothie, a pastry? Those are.. what we sell here."

"Not," Del asked with her eyes narrowed, "a sort of squiddy tentacle-y thing with really big teeth and a scream like a mechanical pig in a rusty creaky icky sort of way?"

"No," the barista said firmly, "Definitely not. We don't have those on the menu. Drinks and pastries only, I'm afraid."

"Pfft. Drinks and pastries aren't things that make you afraid. The squiddy thing would make you afraid. That's why I don't want you to get me one." A beat. "A hot chocolate please. And a be.. no, no that's wrong.. um. The thing you do for dogs?" "Puppaccino?" the barista nodded, "Sure. One hot chocolate and a puppaccino coming right up."

"You could have just ordered me a tea, Delirium," Barnabas noted. "This was more fun," she said with a shrug.

Looking around, she noted the other person in the Perk. He was quiet with all sorts of little thought swirls around his head but they weren't the colorful squiggly sort of thought swirls that she'd have to pay attention to so she just sort of watched him curiously the way he was watching the other people.

It didn't take Ender long to notice her regard. Barely a moment, actually. But he was content to let her watch him for a little while longer before he looked up and met her eyes.

"Morning," he said lightly.

Delirium listened to the word and squinted out the window for a moment. Watching the sun and the direction of the shadows, making sure they were going the way morning went and not about to, for instance, go backward.

"Yes," she said cautiously, "It seems to be. For now."

"I think he meant 'morning' as in 'good morning' as in 'a polite form of hello to someone you don't know'," Barnabas said calmly.

There was a beat.

"Oh. Hello! Good morning!" And a moment later, a little worried, "Is it? Are you having a good morning? It's only sort of a good morning for me but you're not me so maybe for you it's a really good one or maybe not a really good one and only sort of a medium good one?"

His mouth curved a little bit, but not in a way that wasn't polite.

"I'd classify it as average," Ender said, "With a faint dash of nostalgia, if you want me to get into the weeds about the specifics."

"I like weeds," Delirium offered, "Most of them have flowers and flowers are nice. Even icky slimy seaweeds are pretty in their own element underwater where they can wave around and be graceful and not a slimy clump of green on a beach."

Beat.

"Nostalgia?"

"I used to go to school here," Ender offered. "The first school I'd been to in some time that actually had weeds, go figure."

Her mind seemed to bounce all over the place, but she seemed kind enough. He didn't mind indulging her.

Delirium beamed at him. "I go to school here now! I've never gone to school before so it's my first school ever! You've been to more than one?" Now she was a little concerned, "Should I go to more than one? But I like this one. Did you come here for the reunion thingy and just stay? There were all sorts of people here for the reunion thingy but mostly people who are still here and um.. So anyway the building is nice? It's very castle-y only the ghosts don't bother people except my roommate and they don't bother him, they're nice to him, but castle ghosts are supposed to float around going 'woooOOOOOOO'.."

Yeah, that was her best 'ghost' noise right there. "And clanking chains and telling people to be nice or they don't get no Christmas and, um, ours don't. I don't know why. Do you?"

"You should go to as many schools as you think fit you, if you have the chance to choose at all," Ender said, mouth quirking more. "Some go to one, some go to two, some go to three. I think it's about how much you want to learn, and how, and where-- with clanking, or without."

Barnabas made a chuff that might have been a quiet laugh. It might have been a quiet sort of horror at the idea of more schools that would fit Delirium.

She seemed to like the idea. "Oh, it's not about learning. I already know everything there is all at once but it's always all there and not even I can look at it the right way all of the time. Like those pictures? The ones where you have to squint and tilt your head this way and that and sometimes stand on your head before all the bits of everything make a picture and you're never sure if it's the picture you're supposed to see, the one everyone else sees, or if your eyes are funny and maybe you see a different picture but, bam! Picture appears? But if you take your attention off it or if you move your eyes not exactly squinty position correct or can't find the right angle it's just all messy pieces that look like nothing important at all? It's like that. Only different because it's everything. I came to be a student here for. Um. A thing? A pear sort of thing? Lucien said it would have some pears."

Collecting her cocoa, she took a sip and licked whipped cream off her upper lip thoughtfully. "There have not," she mused, "been pears."

Barnabas sighed and made an ahem sort of noise. "Lucien," he said gravely, "said it might give you perspective. Which is not, I must say, pears in any sort of corrective eyewear. It means to be able to look at things in a different manner than your usual, and no, Delirium, it does not involve closing one eye or finding a new 'squinty position'. I believe he meant that you might get a better idea of how people look at things."

"Soooo more schools," she said after a moment, "and no pears."

Barnabas would.. just be there with his muzzle in his puppaccino, if anyone needed him. He was not engaging about the pears again. He knew better.

"They probably have pears at Turtle & Canary, if that still exists," Ender mused.

Had that whole exchange been strange at all? He wasn't about to comment.

"She's giving me a headache, and I don't even have a head," Jane complained through his earpiece, too quiet for anyone but him to hear. She's clearly an associative thinker, he told her in silence.

"You eternal optimist."

Del looked blank for a moment. "The store, Delirium," Barnabas prompted her. "Oh you mean the squishy store!" Del was so pleased she could make that association, "Yes! It exists. Um. But I don't want pears. Though they're nice. The other thing is what I'm supposed to get."

Beat.

"Do you think they sell perspective there?" she wondered, "Hm. Maybe it's in the aisle with the glitter? I don't go down that aisle. There's all sorts of loose glitter there and once it's on you it stays all over you forever and for me that's a very long time."

"Only if you want a physical representation," Ender said wryly. "But a mirror won't help you much if you don't know how to look at it. So... no."

"Yes," Del decided, "I would like a physical representation. Those are very helpful." She nodded decisively. She'd know, being a physical representation. "Mirror?" came her curious question. "A regular mirror or an Alice mirror?"

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The Perk, Friday Morning

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