Pretty Ponies

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So, to set the scene here: I've got my brother Gerude in the games room.  He's helping his best buddy Erynn find some notecards so they can play a dice-and-word game.  Something Erynn just learned while training in the Poet Hall.  I'm actually playing with my ponies.  Daddy gave me ponies, and Mommy gave me a little brush so I can keep their manes done up just-so, and I play with my ponies in their little stable and paddock nice and quiet when I'm here, and Mommy and Daddy go off in their room and have sex (and pretend I didn't figure that out three months ago when I picked their bedroom lock for the fourth time).  Mommy and Daddy are funny people.

So, Stevane comes in too, to see if she can get my ponies to stage an attack on "marshmallow tower", which she has glued together with toothpicks and gumdrops, and is really a respectable work of architecture in that you can eat it.  And I don't really like sharing my ponies with Stevane, but if I let her then I can blame eating all the marshmallows on her, because she started it, technically.  'Technically' is a word that I learned a long time ago, when I was two.  Daddy was so proud.  Anyway, Stevane is a great sister because I can get away with pretty much anything or get into pretty much anything when she's around, so it's kind of a shame she's 'at her mother's' so much, or 'at the Poet Hall' so much, or 'confined to her room so we can have some peace' so much, or 'well I don't know where she is' so much.  I'm pretty sure they know where she is when they say it, and I don't know why they lie, but right now I've got marshmallows and my sister's claiming that Paisley can totally ride Poppy's back if you kind of smush the marshmallows just like that.  So anyway, then Daddy comes in, looking for Stevane.  He walks up to us and kneels and looks Stevane in the eye.

"Honey?"  He sees the marshmallows and...on-purpose looks away with that weird expression he gets when he's trying very hard to ignore something.  "Daisy-girl, your Mommy just got here.  Do you want to go with her or stay and play for a little bit?  She's...not in a hurry."  He's got that got-to-poop expression on his face again.  Actually, every time Stevane's Mommy visits, Daddy needs to poop.  I wonder if she brings bran with her.

Stevane pokes out her lower jaw to make her thinking-face.  "Huh. I was just teaching Jenny about glue, Daddy!  About horse-glue."

Daddy looks mortified.

"See, glue is made out of horse-bones.  Gerude tol' me that and Jhe 'hLete said it was totally true.  So I decided that you can't glue horses, 'cuz it's mean.  They'd know, you know?  And that's bad.  So, I showed Jenny how to use marshmallows, and then it doesn't hurt their feelings."

Daddy can't close his mouth for some reason.  I like when Stevane talks to Daddy.  He always looks funny when she does!

"So anyway, I just wanted to make sure it worked.  I can come real soon!  I can go get you!"  Stevane grins, then pats Daddy on the head with an only-slightly-sticky hand.  It sticks to his hair a bit.  He flinches, but still smiles.

"Yes, dear.  You two...play nice."  He stands up.  He always looks so worried when we're together!  Like Stevane and I are gonna do something.  But after that one time I almost stomped her head in, and that one time she sealed me into the closet with 'a totally cool mommy vortex I just wanted to SHOW her', we've been totally cool and not fought hardly at all!  Daddy is weird.

He's about to leave when Stevane does that thing where she causes a scene again.

"Hey, Erynn?  Are you 'Rude's boyfriend?"

Erynn looks up from a box of boardgames, dust coating his hair and nose.  He looks totally confused, like Stevane just asked him if he had snakes in his shoes.  He sneezes.  "Uh...what?"  He looks over at Daddy.  He looks kind of nervous.

Daddy looks all not-having-an-expression right now, and I never know if that means things are bad, because it usually means things are gonna get pretty funny.

Gerude opens his mouth and closes it again a few times, to check if it's still working.  "Uh..." He looks over at Erynn.  He's horrified.

"I asked if Gerude and you are boyfriends."  She turns to Daddy, hands on her hips.  "Daddy, is it okay if Gerude goes out with Erynn?"

Daddy's starting to look like he's gonna sneeze, or maybe he's gonna cry.  Nah, sneeze.  Daddy doesn't cry.

"I mean, Erynn's pretty nice, and he says he's not gonna marry me, so I guess that means he's gay, right?  So Gerude can go out with him, right?"

"Uh, no."  Erynn bites his lip, hands straight down at his sides, like he's in front of a firing squad. "I... don't think Gerude likes me that way.  And I um... I like girls, Stevie, I just um... you're a nice girl, but you're... you're... you're too... shorter-than-me."

Stevane looks confused.  "But Gerude and you are the same height, so it should be okay.  And Gerald says Gerude hits like a girl, so that's the same thing, right?"

"He WHAT?"  Gerude squawks.

Daddy isn't listening too much to all of this.  He's doing that squinty-eyed stare at Erynn.  It's the same one he makes when he's aiming a gun, so that's kind of weird.

"I um..."  Erynn looks to each side of him, like he needs a hiding place.  "I... it's not like that, Stevane.  Why don't... um.  Why don't you go see your Mother?  I'm sure she misses you... very much."

Stevane pouts.  "You should go out with him, otherwise he's gonna fall for some silly whore."

"Stevane."  Daddy pinches the top of his nose, like it's got a leak.  "Did you sneak up by the training grounds again?"

She looks downcast.  "Sorry, Daddy."  Her voice is soft.  She shifts her feet, already impatient with staying still this long.

"That is no language for a young lady to use, no matter who said it front of you.  Now, get your things ready to go to your Mother's.  Nobody is getting married to anybody.  Ever."

"Yes, Daddy."

He casts a final glare at Erynn, who just about shrinks into the wall.  Then he leaves.  I sigh, and play with my ponies.  It takes me forever to clean off the marshmallow goop, and with Stevane gone Mommy blames all of the marshmallow stuff on me.

It's two weeks before Erynn visits the house again, and when he does he talks very loudly about how he has a girlfriend now, and she's very pretty, even prettier than Gerude.  Then Gerude clubs him over the head.

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