(no subject)
Aug. 9th, 2006 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
river_meimeiThey meet at Milliways. Simon and River and Kaylee enter, closing the front door behind them; Gabriel and Regan are waiting, and they open the front door in turn to reveal the upstairs den of their Londinium house. It's quick, and efficient, and infinitely easier than traveling days into the Core by ship.
There's a plate of assorted tarts -- tiny and light, because the younger Tams have already had one birthday dinner and most of a large birthday cake, but there's one fruit tart with a candle in it. (Hodgeberry and lemon.) River blows it out, and very carefully upends the candle in a spare bowl before turning her attention to the tart with great delight.
Crowley comes an hour late, pleading late appointments. No one's fooled -- he was giving the Tams family time first, whether or not they thought it necessary -- but except for a tolerantly exasperated look from River, everyone pretends they believe him. "I saved you a tart," River informs him, and points to the plate, which still contains at least a dozen of them.
Presents come afterward. River's parents give her a golden puzzle locket on a long and intricate chain, fashioned to look like the closed bud of a tulip; when the hidden latches are pressed the right way, the petals unfold delicately to reveal empty frames for six pictures. River immediately makes Simon fasten it around her neck. From them, too, comes a pocket-sized black holocube. At a touch it plays soft chiming music, and multihued fractal designs drift across the cube's surface and float three-dimensionally through the air around it. From Crowley come a set of sleek designer pens with more than a dozen colors of ink, the kind of pens that write in space and under water and upside down and look damn stylish the whole time.
("Don't abuse those, now," Crowley tells her sententiously, with the kind of tolerant look that means I know full well you're going to write all over my stuff, but try to keep it off the really expensive bits of furniture.
"Never in life," River tells him, trying for innocence and achieving pure impishness, and she's too cheerful to even notice the verbal slip.)
The evening finishes with games, Chinese checkers and mancala and a complicated board game ruled as much by luck as by strategy. River and Crowley team up against the married couples, and manage to win at least half the games in spite of River's total lack of a poker face -- or perhaps it's that her everpresent grins and laughter serve as well as one, and Crowley's snake-eyed CEO's stare is certainly enough to make up for a great deal.
And it's more than okay. Very much more. It's laughter, and it's the second of River's two overlapping families, and it's a very, very happy birthday.
There's a plate of assorted tarts -- tiny and light, because the younger Tams have already had one birthday dinner and most of a large birthday cake, but there's one fruit tart with a candle in it. (Hodgeberry and lemon.) River blows it out, and very carefully upends the candle in a spare bowl before turning her attention to the tart with great delight.
Crowley comes an hour late, pleading late appointments. No one's fooled -- he was giving the Tams family time first, whether or not they thought it necessary -- but except for a tolerantly exasperated look from River, everyone pretends they believe him. "I saved you a tart," River informs him, and points to the plate, which still contains at least a dozen of them.
Presents come afterward. River's parents give her a golden puzzle locket on a long and intricate chain, fashioned to look like the closed bud of a tulip; when the hidden latches are pressed the right way, the petals unfold delicately to reveal empty frames for six pictures. River immediately makes Simon fasten it around her neck. From them, too, comes a pocket-sized black holocube. At a touch it plays soft chiming music, and multihued fractal designs drift across the cube's surface and float three-dimensionally through the air around it. From Crowley come a set of sleek designer pens with more than a dozen colors of ink, the kind of pens that write in space and under water and upside down and look damn stylish the whole time.
("Don't abuse those, now," Crowley tells her sententiously, with the kind of tolerant look that means I know full well you're going to write all over my stuff, but try to keep it off the really expensive bits of furniture.
"Never in life," River tells him, trying for innocence and achieving pure impishness, and she's too cheerful to even notice the verbal slip.)
The evening finishes with games, Chinese checkers and mancala and a complicated board game ruled as much by luck as by strategy. River and Crowley team up against the married couples, and manage to win at least half the games in spite of River's total lack of a poker face -- or perhaps it's that her everpresent grins and laughter serve as well as one, and Crowley's snake-eyed CEO's stare is certainly enough to make up for a great deal.
And it's more than okay. Very much more. It's laughter, and it's the second of River's two overlapping families, and it's a very, very happy birthday.
