MHA #6, Friday Morning

[firstofitskind]

The Liam who woke up on Friday morning was much smaller than normal. Also much younger. Which was saying a lot, considering Liam was actually only six years old to begin with. This Liam, though? This one was brand new.

And wondering who this was sprawled all over the bed (... because that's what this was, right? He thought? Again, everything was new, and trying to figure it all out was a bit overwhelming) next to him.

He reached out with a tentative finger and poked her on the shoulder. Wake up!

[ooc: posted early for maximum SP!]

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[arboreal_priestess]

"If that's you, Timmy, I'm gonna kick you," Verity threatened, opening her eyes.

And then she blinked.

And then she smiled.

"It's you!" she said, sitting up. "You're back! Or I'm back? Maybe we're both back?"

[firstofitskind]

Back? No, that wasn't right. He hadn't existed, and then he'd been here. How could he be back from anywhere?

Liam blinked at the girl. He was still processing all the everything, and so didn't quite know how to put anything in to words just yet. But give him time, he'd have a lot of questions. Eventually.

[arboreal_priestess]

An older Verity would say that that tracked. Boy did that track. Liam was very curious when he didn't know something. An older Verity would say that wearing a dirty little smile, too, but that sort of thinking was many, many years (at least six!) away from these two.

"Are you using morse code?" Verity asked, trying to remember the letters. Stupid Alex would be able to solve it immediately. "Hold on, I can 'member."

She blinked back. I-S T-H-E-R-E D-A-N-G-E-R

[firstofitskind]

Liam frowned, confused by the sudden bout of blinking. Was something wrong with her eyes, or... oh. Oh. He knew morse code!

He shook his head. And then shrugged. There was no immediate danger, anyway.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Then why aren't you talking?" Verity asked, starting to look around for the closest weapons. There were knives under the pillows, but they were made of rubber. Ew.

That was just dumb.

[firstofitskind]

Because... because he was sorting through years and years of inherited memories, trying to figure out which ones were relevant and which ones weren't to what was happening right now.

Another shrug. Was that going to cause a problem?

[arboreal_priestess]

"You were more fun last time," Verity decided, crawling out of the bed. "I'm hungry. C'mon, let's go see if we can make more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

He might have been more talkative and fun before, but she wasn't gonna leave him behind.

[firstofitskind]

Last time, she'd also met him after he'd been around for a couple of days! He'd get there eventually!

Case in point:

"Peanut butter and jelly?"

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity turned a confused look on him. "Yeah. Peanut butter and jelly. You'd never had one before so I made you one so you could try it and you said it was good. And then we tried lots of things to eat."

The mice had been thrilled. Grown Verity...less so.

[firstofitskind]

Liam was... even more confused, now, because how could he have done these things? When would he have done these things?

Also confusing was the grumbling noise his stomach was making. "What kind of things?"

[arboreal_priestess]

"Chicken nuggets," Verity said, because that was the first thing she remembered. "And the mice let us eat some of their cake."

"ALL HAIL THE CHEESE AND CAKE!" the mice in the hallway cheered, summoning more from around the house.

[firstofitskind]

"I want some," he decided. Some what? All of it, obviously.

[arboreal_priestess]

"What do you think we're doin'?" Verity asked. "It's time for breakfast."

Of which cheese, cake, and PB&Js were a balanced part.

"Watch out for traps."

[firstofitskind]

"...Traps?" he gave her a concerned look. What kind of traps?

[arboreal_priestess]

"If my siblings are around, there are traps," Verity said confidently.

Antimony might only be able to toddle, but she could lay a mean Lego minefield.

[firstofitskind]

"Oh," Liam nodded. Because that made about as much sense as, well. Anything else that was happening, really.

And speaking of things and sense...

"Did those mice talk?" he was pretty sure mice weren't supposed to talk.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yeah, they're Aeslin," Verity said, like that should explain everything. "They worship my family. I'm a Priestess!"

Or would be. When she was a little older.

[firstofitskind]

"You are?" Liam... vaguely knew what the word meant. But even if he didn't, the way she said it made it sound like something very impressive. "Why do they worship your family?" he also wanted to know.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Cause my Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-Grandma saved them when she found them in the barn worshiping a chicken," Verity answered, vastly overestimating the number of greats that were required. "So they decided to worship her instead. Aeslin gotta worship something."

[firstofitskind]

"Ooooh," Liam nodded. And then, because the Kimera were anthropologists and thus always curious about other races... or maybe just because he was a child, he couldn't help but ask: "Why?"

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity just shrugged. "I dunno. They just gotta. It's...patho..parthe...important to 'em."

[firstofitskind]

And Liam understood that, kind of. Maybe it was like how he knew there were important things he was supposed to do. Somehow. "Okay," he said. "And they're nice?" They had to be, if they'd shared cake, right?

[arboreal_priestess]

Well, 'shared.' Older Verity still had to replace that cake.

"Yeah," Verity said. "And they tell the best stories. Cause they remember everything!"

"Hail to the tiny Arboreal Priestess!" cried one mouse. "HAIL!" responded the congregation. "Hail to the tiny God of Distant Stars!" "HAIL!"

[firstofitskind]

"Um," Liam said, and stared at the mice. What did they just call him?

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity was also staring at the mice. "Wait, he's a god? But he's not a Price!"

Well, she had been thinking of adopting him last time. Maybe the mice thought she had?

Especially since they didn't seen too keen on answering the implied question here.

[firstofitskind]

"I'm not an anything," Liam agreed with a frown. This was very confusing.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Everybody's something," Verity argued. "You're still a people, after all."

[firstofitskind]

That got a shy little smile out of Liam.

"I'm just Liam, though," he said. That was the only name he'd been given.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Nuh," Verity disagreed. "We decided this last time. You're Liam Price." She peered at him. "You must have amnesure."

[firstofitskind]

"Ammesure?" Liam echoed. "What's that?"

[arboreal_priestess]

"It's where you forget everything," Verity explained. "Did you get hit on the head? That makes it happen a lot."