black bats flying round and round

[colorshapes]

They're not really colors or really shapes, but Addy's tastes aren't really tastes, so Kerron thinks it's okay to call them like that anyway. Addy does too and they talk about colorshapes every week. He likes Addy. She has simple colorshapes that are easy to understand and he can help with lots of them. Other people have more complicated colorshapes but he's getting better at reading them while they fly through the air.

He's on his way back to the quarters he and Mummy and Daddy share, and he's just pushed open the door that usually leads to the right building in the Forks compound.

It doesn't.

Kerron has only opened this door twice before in this direction, but he sure remembers where it used to go. Probably Mummy or Her Majesty did a magic here. He wants to see what kind. He goes in and lets the door swing shut behind him.

Comments

[colorshapes]

"Witches are the kind of magic that Aurum had to start with," Kerron says. "There's lots of witches. Like me, and Daddy with his timer, and Her Majesty has something that makes a lot of other powers not work on her, and Alice can see the future, and Jasper can feel other people's feelings and push on them, and Addy copies other people's powers - that's why she's my magic teacher - and the Princess tells the truth, and like that. And ingots are a kind of magic from the same world as mints. Like witches sort of. People have powers that do stuff. But not exactly the same, Addy says, so I can have both."

[pythbox]

"Lucky you," she says, amused.

[colorshapes]

"Yeah!" agrees Kerron. "Addy wants Mummy and Daddy to have more kids so she can see if they're witch-ingots too. Addy likes figuring out magic stuff. She's got really simple colorshapes and they're pretty much all about that."

[pythbox]

...Despite her best intentions, she finds herself asking, "And what do Mummy and Daddy think of that idea?"

[colorshapes]

"They haven't decided yet!" says Kerron. "I think they're gonna wait a little while before they have more though. I was an accident. I heard them talking about it when I was a day old and now I know all the words and Jasper thought I was gonna have complex from it but I dunno what a complex is or where I'd find mine if I had one."

[pythbox]

The bat lady laughs.

[colorshapes]

"What's funny?"

[pythbox]

"You'll understand when you're older," she assures him.

[colorshapes]

"Awww, man."

[pythbox]

...fine, fine.

"Some kids," she explains, her smile fading, "if they find out their parents didn't have them deliberately, can start feeling unwanted and unloved, and sometimes that feeling lasts for a long time. That's what Jasper meant by a complex."

[colorshapes]

"Oh. I know my parents love me," says Kerron. "There's all these colorshapes about it and they're easy to read when they're about me! So I'll be fine," says Kerron.

[pythbox]

She smiles again. "That's good."

[colorshapes]

Kerron nods.

[pythbox]

The colourshape for never seeing Kerron's parents ever again is a tiny bit smaller than it was.

[colorshapes]

"You must really not like Mummy and Daddy," Kerron says, peering at the colorshapes. He starts to trace the path with one finger, then he stops and picks up his synthetic again for a big swallow. "You sorta explained about Mummy, but why Daddy?"

[pythbox]

"Your daddy doesn't like me," she says, and there's something else she almost wants to say to him, but she doesn't.

[colorshapes]

"Daddy likes most people," says Kerron quizzically.

[pythbox]

"He doesn't like me," she repeats firmly.

[colorshapes]

"Why not?"

[pythbox]

"I think you might have to ask him that."

[colorshapes]

"You don't know?"

[pythbox]

She hesitates for a moment.

Then she says, "I don't think I understand your father very well, either."

[colorshapes]

"Can I help? I bet I can help!" says Kerron. "Daddy's simpler than Mummy. Mated vampires are kind of like that. Most of his colorshapes are about wanting her to be happy and safe. Most of the rest are about me. Some of the ones that are about me are about her too."

[pythbox]

"Does he have any about... other people your mother... loves?" she asks, slowly, like the word 'loves' is causing her serious trouble.

[colorshapes]

"He's fine about me, and she loves me, I'm her favorite munchkin," says Kerron brightly. "I'm not sure about anyone else. It's harder to tell who a colorshape is about if it's not about somebody who's close to me. I could tell that yours were about Mummy, but I can't tell when Henry has a colorshape that's about his mummy because Rosalie's not close enough to being a part of me for the witch part of my power to help."

He thinks. "There was this one colorshape that I couldn't read because I didn't know what it was about at all, and I asked Addy for help with it and she said -" He switches into a higher register, generic Midwestern accent with a trace flavor of German in place of his forty percent Manx to sixty percent assorted American - "'it means your dad is insecure and everything would be much simpler for him if your mum would just turn already' - but then she didn't explain what that means. Is she in love with somebody besides Daddy? ...Is she gonna fall out of love with Daddy? Humans can do that and she's mostly one! Then what would happen to me? All the hybrids I know with broken-up parents are grown up already but I'm still little! And Daddy would be so sad!"