Technically inside the bar. Despite appearances. Hush.

[river_meimei]

Simon's upset.

River -- if she is -- isn't in the same way. It's hard to tell.

What she is is sitting on the floor near the fireplace, between couch and end table. She has a gold bracelet, spangled with bells, lying on the table in front of her. Every so often she touches it, and a soft lilting melody chimes out.

Comments

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Sometimes I make cities, and sometimes I make towers, and once I made a farmhouse! But there aren't cow-blocks."

He settles down on the floor and pushes some of them towards her, the epitome of generosity. "You can help. If'n you want to."

[river_meimei]

"They could be," River says seriously. "If they wanted."

"Got no volition."

Then her smile sparks, quick and bright, and she reaches out towards a block, feeling the air around it without quite touching.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"Guess they aren't much house-shaped, so not being cow-shaped shouldn't matter," he agrees, carefully setting the foundations for a house. "What's a volshun?"

[river_meimei]

"The question is traditionally ontological," River informs the block.

Beat.

She glances up at Mitt. "It's just an object."

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

The look River gets is very confused.

"It's a block."

[river_meimei]

"Exactly," River informs him with great satisfaction, and lets her hand drop to touch the block nearest her.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

She is weird, but clearly quite nice. So Mitt grins back at her.

"Who're you?" He asks, working on the house. "I'm Mitt."

[river_meimei]

"Hand," River says. "In selected dialectical slang."

Beat.

"I'm River."

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"I think everyone got sick of the jokes before I was born," he tells her. "Alhammitt is the commonest name in all of Holand.

There's a river through the Flate and it goes to the sea! That's what Holand's by."

[river_meimei]

"It's a characteristic," River agrees.

Possibly ambiguously, but she sounds amiable about it.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"More it's an ocean," he tells her. "What're you building?"

[river_meimei]

"That too."

River cocks her head at the block, and considers that question for rather longer than one normally might.

"It's a mystery," she concludes, sounding as if she's including herself in the people who have yet to solve it, and picks up a second block.

She doesn't do anything but hold it, and turn it in her fingers with exploratory slowness.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"Okay," he says. "I'm building a sometimes-place."

[river_meimei]

River beams at him.

This appears to make perfect sense to her.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

River has a very catchy grin.

"Have you been here for lots and ever?"

[river_meimei]

"Not today."

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

Mitt nods, understandingly. "I haven't either. But I've come her for a really long time. There're tall people."

[river_meimei]

"Get stilts."

River is sage.

Or, you know. Smug and impish.

(She prefers rafters, on the whole, but.)

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"They're not fest'val people," he tells her, "they're real tall! Not as tall as with stilts, though."

[river_meimei]

"Bump their heads on the ceiling."

River, with elaborate care, places one block on top of another. To watch the process, one might think that this was a balancing act of extraordinary delicacy.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"Yep," he agrees, cheerfully. "I'm going to be tall some day too."

Mitt is, for your information, quite small for his age.

[river_meimei]

"It's a biological imperative."

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"I don't know what a bilogical peartive is," he tells her, stopping in his building.

[river_meimei]

"Lots."

There's a pause, while River bends over to rest her cheek against the floor and examine her two-block tower that way.

"Means it's a guarantee," she adds, without lifting her head.

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"Like something won't break when y'buy it?"

He's tilting his head to keep at least in the same direction she is.

[river_meimei]

"Increased reliability."

[mitt-mittson.livejournal.com]

"Okay," he agrees, amiably.

He doesn't understand, but it seems a useful tactic.

[river_meimei]

"Yes," River agrees, satisfied, and pushes herself abruptly upright to reach for another block.