Wellspring Arms | Tuesday

[flourish_or_perish]

Faye had not been a little kid this past weekend, which was probably best for everyone. It was not, actually, a great thing for her mood, though, because it had gotten Faye thinking - about who she was, who she'd been, and what that little girl might have been like.

She was still pensive when she headed into work today, though at least that was easy enough to put on hold once she saw that a fair number of the guns were still transformed into water pistols.

So, she posted up behind the counter with two of them, because for once her trigger-happiness seemed like it might be kind of funny instead of scary, at least. And if she didn't get to be a kid again, she should at least be allowed to immaturely act like one.

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[1000yearstoolate]

"If that's all you sell I'm going to be disappointed," Seivarden said as she entered the store.

[flourish_or_perish]

"Just a holdover from last weekend, I think," Faye said with a smile, taking aim and shooting a stream of water about three feet to Seivarden's left.

Just to do it. She didn't want to actually get anyone wet, here, it was just fun to shoot.

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden let out a short laugh. "At least everyone was safe, then. You should see what people here give the kids when their children from an alternate show up."

[flourish_or_perish]

"Children from a what now."

Faye had heard her. She was just, like, in disbelief.

[1000yearstoolate]

"Oh, you haven't heard? Once a year children from an alternate universe show up. Usually the other parent is someone very unexpected, usually someone who thinks giving sharp knives to a small child is a good idea."

Seivarden had loved all her AU children, even if their other mother had had terrible parenting skills.

[flourish_or_perish]

"I'm that person," Faye said, raising her hand. "I'm the bad parent. Oh, wow, this sounds...absolutely terrible."

Faye had no business being literally anyone's mother, ever.

[1000yearstoolate]

"You give knives to small children?"

Seivarden, being one of the most overresponsible parents in Fandom, was going to judge you just a little bit, Faye.

"You can usually make the other parent look after them."

[flourish_or_perish]

"I mean, I never have, but I don't spend a lot of time with small children." She had spent some time with Edward, who - honestly, Faye wasn't even a hundred percent sure how old Edward was, anyway, but Ed was also not a typical kid, anyway. "So may the trend continue, because while I don't know that I'd purposely give a knife to a little kid, I probably wouldn't try hard enough to keep them away from the little monsters, either."

[1000yearstoolate]

"There is a difference between that and intentionally wanting a ten year old learn to fight with knives," Seivarden replied.

[flourish_or_perish]

"I mean, that also sounds practical depending on what's going on," Faye noted thoughtfully. "So like, your kid's other parent did that? I'd at least go with blunted knives, for training, I think."

[1000yearstoolate]

"Toy knives are fine," Seivarden said, clearly having an opinion on this. "Hopefully you get to keep the water guns until that weekend happens again."

[flourish_or_perish]

"Or!" Faye cocked a finger at Seivarden conspiratorially, "that weekend never happens at all, and I get to keep living my life peacefully."

A girl could dream.

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden snorted, amused. "How long have you lived on this island?"

[flourish_or_perish]

"Month and a half?" Faye said, thinking about it and then fairly immediately wincing. "I hadn't realized it'd been that long already, jeez."

[1000yearstoolate]

"Not long enough to figure out there are a lot of things here you can't avoid here?" Seivarden said. "I'll probably get to go back home before that happens again though."

She was starting to doubt that herself, which made insisting on it more important.

[flourish_or_perish]

"Solid plan," Faye said, giving her a thumbs up. "And I dunno, I avoided all the tiny nightmares this weekend."

That's because none of them had thought she was their mother, or woken her up in her own apartment. Made it easy.

"Are you heading home soon, then?" she added, frowning just a little.

[1000yearstoolate]

"Yes, I'm only here temporarily," Seivarden said. "Things have been quite... busy where I'm from, and now that things have quieted down a little Breq sent me and Tisarwat here on leave. We'll be needed back there soon again, though."

She would be needed again, wouldn't she?

[flourish_or_perish]

"Tisarwat I don't know," Faye noted, "but Breq's your girlfriend from New Year's Eve, right? What do you all have going on back home that's so important?"

Probably some kind of important, technical military thing, Faye was guessing.

[1000yearstoolate]

"Breq isn't my girlfriend," Seivarden said quickly. "But yes, she was here on New Year's Eve. Things are complicated, but she announced that the system we are staying in and the one next to it are no longer part of the Radch, and the Lord of the Radch can't do anything about it without breaking the treaty with the Presger and no one wants that. Besides The Lord of the Radch is at war with herself."

[flourish_or_perish]

Whatever, Seivarden, Faye was a great matchmaker! "So like a...territory dispute?" Faye asked, trying to follow along with the unfamiliar vocabulary.

[1000yearstoolate]

"That, and that AIs are to be considered citizens," Seivarden said. "Ship AIs, Station AIs."

[flourish_or_perish]

"That seems fair?" Faye offered thoughtfully. "I mean, we don't have that kind of thing where I'm from, but - they're sentient, right?"

So they should get to vote and...do whatever it was citizens did. Faye didn't know, being an undocumented, presumed-dead person from the past, herself.

[1000yearstoolate]

"They have always been considered just things, tools," Seivarden said. "I never thought much about it until I learnt that Breq is actually the ship I used to serve on."

[flourish_or_perish]

"She looks pretty good for being a ship," Faye replied with a snort, raising her eyebrows. "Is that normal? Ships...turn into people?"

[1000yearstoolate]

"Ships used to have bodies connected to them," Seivarden said, hoping to be able to avoid getting further into that subject. "The rest of her was blown up by the Lord of the Radch."

[flourish_or_perish]

Faye honestly did not even know where to start with that, but she could talk ships as she knew them with anyone. "How big a vessel are we talking here?" she wondered. "Like, the Red Tail only fits me, but how big a ship was - Breq?"

So weird to think about.

[1000yearstoolate]

"A Justice, a troop carrier," Seivarden said, then remembering she might need to clarify further. "About 200 officers and between four and twenty thousand soldiers."

Depending on whether they were ancillaries or not. The latter could easily be put in suspension when not needed.