universal star visitor brilliant start!

[incanted]

Eventually Bella and Lexi go to bed - they have to coordinate this; Bella's a reasonably sound sleeper but Lexi's not, so if Bella goes to sleep first Lexi won't be able to drop off with all the random nouns and if Bella goes to sleep second Lexi will wake up when she's trying to sneak around. They get up, and they get ready for school.

+Morning, Brilliance,+ says Bella while she's brushing her teeth.

Comments

[cardistry]

"I'm trying!" he laughs. "It's harder than it looks!"

But no, no, he's getting it.

...

He closes his eyes and hugs the apple-minus-a-bite against his chest and wriggles blissfully.

[incanted]

"So you like apples?" Bella asks.

[cardistry]

"Mmmmmmmmlnnngh," says Brilliance.

He takes another bite and squirms some more.

[incanted]

"Okay, apples are your new best friends," laughs Bella. She takes a less overwhelmedly blissful bite of her own. "Am I going to have to explain you to Charlie just so he doesn't wonder where all the food goes?"

[cardistry]

+Why does anyone ever do anything other than eat,+ he says over magephone, because his mouth has way higher priorities than forming speech right now. +It's so good, is all food like this?+

[incanted]

"Um, apples are like this, other food is like other things, these aren't even unusually good apples?" Bella says, talking between bites like a civilized person. "Do you want to try, like, a taco, there's some leftover filling and a few more tortillas."

[cardistry]

+I would fucking love to try a taco,+ says Brilliance.

[incanted]

Bella plates and nukes a tortilla and a glob of ground saucy beef. "This is spicy, some people don't like spicy," she advises him, sliding the place across the table. "...And you fold the tortilla part in half around the filling part and try not to let filling fall out and you hold it flat and bite it, is how this kind of food works."

[cardistry]

Brilliance nods.

He finishes his apple.

...He finishes rather more of his apple than you're supposed to.

[incanted]

"The middle bit of the apple there isn't generally considered food," comments Bella.

[cardistry]

He shrugs and attacks the taco next.

+I like spicy!+ he declares immediately. +I like spicy a lot.+

There is considerable squirming involved in how much he likes spicy, but he puts down the taco first so he doesn't drop precious precious food all over himself.

[incanted]

"You like spicy like some people like heroin. Jeez," laughs Bella, and she wanders behind his chair and pats him on the head, swiveling her hand around to sit at the perpendicular seat.

[cardistry]

He closes his eyes and hugs himself and leans into her hand, making a sound that approximates a purr.

[incanted]

"...You okay?" Bella says. "Did I run into some weird device/human cultural point of non-overlap or something?"

[cardistry]

"I really like that," he sighs. "That thing you're doing. The touching my head thing. Do more of that."

[incanted]

Bella makes a bit of an awkward face. But she pets his hair. "Unused to the - what was it you called it, complex tactile information?" she asks.

[cardistry]

"Yeah," he says, nodding a little. "I get some tactile sense in my other forms, but it just - it doesn't compare at all. And I had no idea taste was a thing until just now, pretty much, mmmmm now I can't decide between more touching and more taco."

[incanted]

"I am not actually obstructing your taco-eating adventure," Bella says dryly, scritching his scalp.

[cardistry]

"But I'd have to pay attention to both things at once and that wouldn't be as good," he says, leaning into her hand again with a happy little sigh. "That is really nice."

[incanted]

"It's just me petting your hair, it's not like you're getting a shiatsu massage or something," Bella says. "Although I hesitate to name that because now I'm concerned that if you got one you would in fact explode."

[cardistry]

"I would not," he says, grinning lazily. "Unless you mean the way humans do."

[incanted]

"Humans don't characteristically explode."

[cardistry]

"They do too!"

[incanted]

"Have you been watching terrible science fiction or something?"

[cardistry]

"No, c'mon, people talk about exploding with whatever-their-feelings-are all the time, they obviously don't mean literal explosions, work with me a little here."