I've always thought it best to celebrate before your adventures, in case you're in no condition to do so afterward.

- Varanthia of Erevan Ilesere, Mischiefmaker, 824 DR

KIIRA

(Shooting star)

3 Mirtul

Sometime after midnight, Madh got around to him with inquiring about Veldrin. He inquired in a slow clear voice, as if it were fifty-fifty that Kiira would be too plastered to comprehend otherwise. Kiira probably would have been plastered at that point if Madh hadn't taken steps to limit his consumption, such as quickly refilling his cup with soda and, at some point, putting away the alcohol in some cranny of the house that Kiira hadn't yet found. Given that he'd stopped it happening, Kiira thought somewhat fuzzily, it was a bit unfair of him to talk like that.

"Veldrin?" said Kiira, shouting over the song and the bunch of people jumping around correspondingly. "Oh. Had a bad hair day."

Madh gave him a long look but didn't say anymore, as usual. Kiira had lost count of how many long discussions/arguments he and Veldrin had had with Madh Helder a slight phantom in the background, even if he had only been with them around ten years. These days Madh had sprouted to a lanky inch above Kiira (when had that happened? Madh did these things quiet like, like how he'd made the wine quietly disappear), and put black streaks in his feathery hair, but the streaks only seemed to make him blend more. Not like Jezz Ulo, who was so determined to blend he stood out all the more. Kiira liked Madh; he was one of the friends he had in common with Veldrin even when they'd come apart for a bit.

Now Madh went off to dance as the music changed to something high and fluting and above all slow, and Kiira stopped dancing to recline on the couch with another cola.

In retrospect, starting as he faintly heard the soda splashing onto the floor from his slackened hand, and realizing how many hours he'd been up, he figured that was a mistake.

"Veldrin called," said Madh in the morning. "He mentioned your house, and the Ulos."

Kiira guessed Veldrin wanted to make sure he hadn't been over after the party pranking Jezz and Driz. He rubbed his eyes.

"He seems kind of worried." But not worried, he seemed to ask, enough to come over?

Kiira took another gulp of hot chocolate. Madh really was accommodating, what with the couch for the night and breakfast even if he said he needed to clean out the about-to-expires anyway. "A really bad hair day. So I heard you've got a complete Rizzen Elfkin?"

"I didn't know you still liked it."

"Yeah, well, I do now."

Madh shrugged, apparently buying it. It wasn't as though it was an unusual thing.

"Look here," he cut off Veldrin, holding out a hand. "I got his address. Ilithaine's."

Veldrin pushed the screen across and reached out, snatching the bit of paper. "What did you do, hack his computer?"

"No! He still had the boxes around, is all. He was using them for his old homework and stuff. Those're some big boxes. And I was just thinking, could come in useful, couldn't it?"

"Could."

"Aw, you're not still ticked, are you? Sometimes I really don't get you." Veldrin gave him his I-Could-Say-The-Same-For-You-Eyeroll-Eyeroll Face. Kiira couldn't get that either. "You could've gone."

"What?"

"It would've been cool."

"Hair falling out all over the place. Yes. Very cool."

"Well, I don't see why just because you couldn't go –"

"That's got nothing to do with it. I've got nothing to do with it. It's you off – off gallivanting –"

"Well what've I got to do but gallivant? I'm not the police or something, what else'm I supposed to do, just sit around and vegetate?"

Veldrin nearly closed the window on his fingers.

… bet hes just jealous

It was a couple of minutes, during which Kiira had moved on to working a knot out of his hair, before Mayae replied.

He does sound a bit overbearing but of course I don't have all the information.

Pause. Kiira abandoned the knot. It had been in there half a tenday, a second half wouldn't hurt.

Though maybe he thought you weren't taking a difficult time seriously?

I was taking seriously. Just got asked ok. and went. Not like im married to him or something.

Longer pause.

Kiira typed, How's your sports?

Even longer pause.

OK.

that's good.

Longer and longer.

Kiira typed, Had a dream the other night where Princess Seniadra showed and I got her number.

Pause.

Princess Seniadra?

Kiira remembered now that it was email, not phone, but same difference. Yeah she really exists. its a branch.

Does the number work?

Havent tried yet. gtg do that.

I was thinking of going to High Forest on summer holiday.

Rly? Thats too bad, I was gonna do silverymoon.

We could meet halfway.

veldrin'd think were running off together.

Is that a problem? Think he has designs on you?

ha… designs.

Last meet of Lunar Club, GTG.

That night dragons dodged in and out of his Reverie to the Thirdborn Sun he'd had pumping out of his computer speakers at top volume as he went under. "Hey, wait up!" he yelled but they just laughed at him so he turned into a dragon too, and flew with blurry quicksilver wings to catch up. They nodded as if they'd expected it, and a pair of them flew up holding the sheathed Craulnober moonblade between their claws. He took it in his hands (suddenly he had hands again), said "Hey thanks" and wondered if he'd fallen asleep without noticing.

Either way, he thought, might as well try to pull the moonblade. Wasn't as if it would kill him. But before he could do that, Veldrin and Mayae fell past, tangled up in arms and legs and Mayae's long silver hair while Veldrin's red hair just flapped about.

"Running off together?" he yelled after them as they rapidly reduced into specks.

Veldrin yelled back, "Fuck no!" At least this time he wasn't chopped up, in the past or not.

Then along came another elf, and he called Kiira Lankieral, so Kiira guessed he meant business or else was clueless. Maybe both. He looked like a goldie except his hair was silver and quite long, kind of like that one portrait of Azariah Craulnober, though not as long as Mayae's. He had on an eyepatch, like your stereotypical pirate, so Kiira said "Didn't I see you on Ruathym?"

The elf went all stiff. "No you did not."

"Friend of her Highness?"

"You could say that."

"So can I have your number?"

"No."

"Name? Since you know mine."

He put up his nose. "Lamruil Sylvar."

"Now I know I saw you on Ruathym," said Kiira, though when he thought about what he remembered of the Ruathym vacation from when he was twenty-four, he didn't actually.

"No you did not."

"I could've sworn," said Kiira, though he really couldn't have.

"Well, you would have been wrong."

"You look kinda like Veldrin when he's ticked when you do that."

He quickly put his nose back down. "The Princess is otherwise occupied, so I have the task of contacting you."

"She could have just emailed."

"As a matter of fact, she could not."

"So what was the point of –"

"Where were you last night?"

"Madh's party."

"No, I mean, when you should have been in Reverie, or at least conscious to receive my sending."

"Oh. Sleeping. At Madh's party."

"Sleeping."

"Yes, Mother."

"That joke is even older than those puerile insinuations about Ruathym."

"Well I was just asking –"

"What is the extent of your powers so far?"

"Well," said Kiira, "I can move things," and just at that moment Lamruil Sylvar's hair jumped into curls.

As Lamruil Sylvar muttered and tried to unwind the coiled tubes, Kiira remembered where he'd seen that hair last – on Theris Frost standing in Kren Auzkovyn's apartment. As he remembered, he reached a bit, more deliberately, and the hair all went from silver to black. At that he started to wonder if he hadn't been behind Veldrin's hair turning color after all.

"Lankieral Craulnober," said Sylvar, his nose tilting precariously, sounding like he was trying to sound like the wet blanket on any given show, "the only people amused by these antics are those younger than you."

"Old Mr. Florenn at the cemetery liked it when I did the –"

"And just how old is 'old' Mr. Florenn?"

"Sixty-something."

"There you are."

"If you must be racist," said Kiira, "my cousins in Old Rheith range from forty-two to a hundred eighteen and they think my –" He only had two cousins in Old Rheith, but anyhow.

"Rheitheillaethor."

"Rheitheillaethor. Sure. What went up yours and died, anyhow? You're not a Rheither, are you?"

"I simply have respect for the language."

"What, you chew people out over Rhyman?"

"Rhymanthiin."

"There you are."

"You are making this harder than it has to be."

"Could you excuse me a moment? I've got a moonblade to pull."

"The moonblade does not exist."

"Yes it does. Anyhow do you?" Kiira took hold of the hilt.

4 Mirtul

He spent a few hours on his desktop computer sorting out his contacts list, then putting in filters so he could restrict it to Waterdhavian addresses. Quite a list remained, and he spent a while longer trying to remember who each of them was. There was Tamsen, who was a third-or-fourth cousin several times removed, but being (mostly) human she was probably out and about by now, all the way to Chult for all he knew, so he put in a note to check a phone book. Same went for the Nimersyl twins, being halfers; they'd have graduated by now, most likely. And was it a college year for Lana Gil? How about Shintle?

All in all, though, counting out people who wouldn't be there and the chunk of people it'd probably slip his mind to visit, he didn't think he'd be short of social options.

So he was happily occupied imagining a proper drinking contest with Shintle when a hand came rapping at his window. He went to the window, saw the half-hidden shock of red, and opened up.

Veldrin vaulted one-handed over the sill, the hood falling off the rest of the way in the process. He tugged it back up as he said, "What do you think about going to Waterdeep?"

His face had gone all odd. Kiira mentally dubbed it the Veldrin Auzkovyn My Loved One Is Dying of Cancer Face. At least that's how he thought it would look, and he could assume that wasn't the case because if Veldrin's dad had cancer now was a strange time to find out, and if it was something more immediate Veldrin would certainly be calling from the hospital instead of jumping in Kiira's window.

"Reverie thing again?"

Veldrin answered him by saying, "Well? What do you think?"

"Well," said Kiira, swiveling the monitor, "just as long as I get to pull my moonblade while we're there."