Simon shifts the datapad on his knee, glancing up to where River is doing her warm-ups on the barre. Father gave it to her for her eleventh birthday a month ago, along with several postgraduate physics textbooks and a membership to the local riding club. She doesn't like riding. She says the horses give her pensive dreams.
"I know what I'm going to be when I grow up," she says now. She always knows as soon as she's got his attention.
The subject of River's eventual career has been the topic of many discussions between Father and Mother. They all four of them know what Simon will become, but River is the wildcard.
"The question is, then, am I Ace or Joker?" she asks now, smirking. Simon sighs. He hates it when she guesses where his thoughts have wandered. It reminds him how predictable he can be at times.
"Nobody's played a game with those sorts of cards for centuries," he answers. "So what are you going to be?"
"A Companion."
He snorts. "Sure, and I'll be a squatter in some outer-Rim dustbowl. I love you, River, but you could never be a Companion in a thousand years."
"I could too, you liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tz."
Simon can't hold his smirk back. "Oh, yeah, you'll be a great Companion. Your charm is unrivalled. Father's going to kill you if he hears you using that language."
"Father's going to kill you if he finds out where I learned it from," River answers blithely.
Simon rolls his eyes, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at her. She makes it easier for him to finally give in by doing it first, looking like some Chinese demon painting on rice paper with her heel resting on the barre, body bent down and head upside-down. He's not quite sure if it would be more or less formidable with her hair hanging down from the top of her head instead of scraped back tight into a bun.
"Besides," she says, shifting her foot a little on the ground to twist her body and face away from him, mirroring the stretch in the other direction, "Being a Companion is more about knowing how people think than actual sex." She turns to face him again, and Simon has a familiar feeling of dread as he sees the somewhat devious smile gracing her face ever so slightly. "Who says I'm not good at that too?"
Simon grimaces, no doubt playing right into her game. "Please," he says. "Just--" he shudders. "Please."
Never one to hide enjoyment of her success, River allows herself a fully-fledged smirk. Simon's instinct to fight back is automatic. "Besides, I'm the one with the extensive knowledge of human anatomy."
River raises an eyebrow and that's all there is to it; Simon drops his gaze back to the datapad, repressing a sigh.
It's less than twenty seconds before she interrupts him again. He's never going to get his homework done if she doesn't quiet.
A tiny, treacherous voice in his head points out that he shouldn't have brought his assignment into her room if he wanted to get it finished.
"Some Companions go on to be politicians when they're older. They use all the connections and networks they've made. Do you think it's difficult, for their old clients? To have to see them in the new context all the time? I know Father gets uncomfortable when we go to the gardens and Hua's there with her sons. Do you think any of them are our brothers?"
"River!" Simon gathers his things and stands up. She looks mildly surprised at the force of his reaction. "We're not supposed to talk about that," he tells her in a half-whisper.
"Why not?" She looks genuinely puzzled. "Mother's forgiven him. He bought her pearls. I asked for pearls for my birthday, you know. Sometimes I think he doesn't notice that I'm a girl at all. Just a clever brain and a collection of clever limbs." She stretches one arm up, up in a perfect line to prove her words.
"We're just... people don't talk about things like that. It isn't nice."
River makes her patented 'I can't believe I'm related to such a half-wit' expression, which looks even crueler than usual with her hair and leotard so severe around her face, throat, and shoulders. "Who cares? There are better things than nice."
"Not if you want to be a Companion."
"Well, maybe I don't. Maybe I want to be a doctor. I bet I'd be one before you, if I wanted."
Simon forces himself to keep his own face polite. Any ground given is ground lost, and she always has the advantage on him to begin with.
Maybe she should be a Companion. At least then she'd be using her innate ability to get the measure of people for something good. Or, if not good, at least profitable.
Her too-clever eyes crinkle into a calculating smile. "Doctor Tam. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
"Why do you do this, River? Why do you hurt people?"
Her good moods are honey, and Simon knows he's one of the few in his class who can honestly claim to be friends with his sibling. But more and more lately she's been like this, a mean streak rising in her like air coming to water's surface.
The sound of her palm slapping down on the barre is a hard crack in the charged quiet. "Because I'm bored, Simon. You don't understand. Nobody does. Nothing ever happens. Nothing's ever a challenge. We just do stupid, inane things all day and grow up to be stupid, inane adults. I need something more than this life."
Simon things of his own small, bright dreams, of the life she's no doubt consider contemptibly small. His eyes narrow.
"Well," he says, words clipped. "I wish you the best of luck finding it."
She -- who is never without movement or dance in her frame if she can help it -- is motionless as he takes his armful of work and leaves her room.
As intuitive as she is, River can be painfully tactless. He knows this. He doesn't hesitate to alert her to her brattiness whenever the occassion arises. It's hard, though, when it hits him abruptly like this, when he realises that his somewhat disciplinary asides to her work on the assumption that she's being obnoxious to others; and its the thought that she knows how he feels already and yet goes on to twist her words in like a corkscrew into one of Father's ancient bottles of wine.
His room is bigger; though when hers is large enough to include a barre and wide mirror, a reasonably size bookshelf-lined alcove and sleeping platform with sprawling bedlinen, a slight difference in size doesn't account to much. She objects to the reproduction of a human skeleton on a stand in his, but not so much the hand-carved and lacquered jigsaw of human organs that stand in a skinless figure; she's grown into the habit of taking out single organs and hiding them for him to find later. A heart in his lunch pail. Intestines in his underwear drawer.
She ignores them this time, though, and her slipper-clad feet are almost completely noiseless as she pads across the rug. He doesn't turn around as she clambers onto the far side of the bed from where he's cross-legged on the edge, facing away. She drapes her arms over his shoulders and takes the stylus from where it was limp in his hand anyway, not having made any progress on the datapad since he'd left her room.
She doesn't apologise. She never apologises. Sometimes he thinks he should take offense at that, but if he ever examined that particular thought close enough he knew he'd have to admit that her sense of entitlement to his unconditional forgiveness is somewhat ingratiating. And also--
"I forget," she murmurs, and her hair is sticky on his jaw where she's used a gel to smooth down stray strands against her skull. "We're not the same person, sometimes."
It doesn't make any sense if he thinks about it, and makes more sense than he'd like to think about if he doesn't; so he focuses instead on the way her ribs point and push into his back, in a way that should be irritating. They're getting too old for this. He shrugs a little and she rides the movement to settle her pointy chin on his shoulder.
"We're quite different, actually," he says, because even though more often than not she knows what he's going to say before he opens his mouth, it's still important to him that he says it.
"No, silly," she says, and he can't quite tell if there's an edge of irritation to the affection, or if it's the other way around. She grinds her chin into his shoulder. "Not similar. The same."
And sometimes she just doesn't make sense at all. "I have to work," he says, and lets his hand rest over hers for a little longer than necessary as he reclaims the stylus. She peels herself off his back as he starts scrolling, and lies back down on the bed behind him. The blocky points of her slippers dig into his lower back.
"When I was a child," she says in a voice which tells him she thinks of childhood as a thousand years ago at least. "I was going to marry you."
"Everyone says that about their brothers and sisters when they're young," he answers. He's been thinking about marriage a lot, lately, especially since his parents' managed to weather Father's exposed infidelity. He knows that grandchildren are wanted, which will mean either a partner with no immediate aspirations of their own or else a string of nannies. Neither idea particularly appeals to Simon; he suspects that he'd actually quite like to do some of the caring-for himself.
Perhaps he'll wait until he's old, as old as Father, when his hands aren't quite quick enough to knot and plait the thread of other people's lives anymore. That might be nice, to grow ancient with little children all around him.
"Come back, Simon, you're not listening," River complains, jabbing him in the small of the back with the toe of her shoe. "I said, I used to wish I was a boy. So I could be a soldier."
"What changed your mind?"
"Your anatomy books. Your gender is ridiculous."
"Nothing about the human body is ridiculous."
"Incorrect. The epiglottis, the phalanges, and the perineum are all utterly ridiculous."
He can hear the laugh in her voice. The storm is passed, then.
"We should have named you Chow. Your moods are as quick as summer shifts. And anyway, you're just choosing those parts because you think the words are silly."
"I think we'd agreed on 'ridiculous' as the term being bandied, actually. When you have babies, I'm going to knit them hats. Green for girls, yellow for boys. Will your wife be as pretty as me?"
She may be the intuitive one, but he's hardly stupid. He smiles, knowing she'll guess his expression from the set of his shoulders, and says "No, River, there's nobody as pretty as you."
She giggles, and jabs him again. "Flatterer. Do you think I can have babies and still be a Companion?"
Simon sighs. "Not that again. You're only eleven. You don't have to choose anything yet."
"You've always known what you're going to be. You probably chose before you were born, Simon. The equiment monitoring your gestation probably caught your fetal eye."
"My 'fetal eye'? You are so not allowed to go on cortex meet-boards without supervision in future."
"I have to do something with my time. You're always studying. I don't know why. Can't you just remember it all in the first place?"
"Okay, now you're just gloating," he says, and smiles at the sound of her laugh.
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"I know what I'm going to be when I grow up," she says now. She always knows as soon as she's got his attention.
The subject of River's eventual career has been the topic of many discussions between Father and Mother. They all four of them know what Simon will become, but River is the wildcard.
"The question is, then, am I Ace or Joker?" she asks now, smirking. Simon sighs. He hates it when she guesses where his thoughts have wandered. It reminds him how predictable he can be at times.
"Nobody's played a game with those sorts of cards for centuries," he answers. "So what are you going to be?"
"A Companion."
He snorts. "Sure, and I'll be a squatter in some outer-Rim dustbowl. I love you, River, but you could never be a Companion in a thousand years."
"I could too, you liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tz."
Simon can't hold his smirk back. "Oh, yeah, you'll be a great Companion. Your charm is unrivalled. Father's going to kill you if he hears you using that language."
"Father's going to kill you if he finds out where I learned it from," River answers blithely.
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Simon rolls his eyes, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at her. She makes it easier for him to finally give in by doing it first, looking like some Chinese demon painting on rice paper with her heel resting on the barre, body bent down and head upside-down. He's not quite sure if it would be more or less formidable with her hair hanging down from the top of her head instead of scraped back tight into a bun.
"Besides," she says, shifting her foot a little on the ground to twist her body and face away from him, mirroring the stretch in the other direction, "Being a Companion is more about knowing how people think than actual sex." She turns to face him again, and Simon has a familiar feeling of dread as he sees the somewhat devious smile gracing her face ever so slightly. "Who says I'm not good at that too?"
Simon grimaces, no doubt playing right into her game. "Please," he says. "Just--" he shudders. "Please."
Never one to hide enjoyment of her success, River allows herself a fully-fledged smirk. Simon's instinct to fight back is automatic. "Besides, I'm the one with the extensive knowledge of human anatomy."
River raises an eyebrow and that's all there is to it; Simon drops his gaze back to the datapad, repressing a sigh.
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A tiny, treacherous voice in his head points out that he shouldn't have brought his assignment into her room if he wanted to get it finished.
"Some Companions go on to be politicians when they're older. They use all the connections and networks they've made. Do you think it's difficult, for their old clients? To have to see them in the new context all the time? I know Father gets uncomfortable when we go to the gardens and Hua's there with her sons. Do you think any of them are our brothers?"
"River!" Simon gathers his things and stands up. She looks mildly surprised at the force of his reaction. "We're not supposed to talk about that," he tells her in a half-whisper.
"Why not?" She looks genuinely puzzled. "Mother's forgiven him. He bought her pearls. I asked for pearls for my birthday, you know. Sometimes I think he doesn't notice that I'm a girl at all. Just a clever brain and a collection of clever limbs." She stretches one arm up, up in a perfect line to prove her words.
"We're just... people don't talk about things like that. It isn't nice."
River makes her patented 'I can't believe I'm related to such a half-wit' expression, which looks even crueler than usual with her hair and leotard so severe around her face, throat, and shoulders. "Who cares? There are better things than nice."
"Not if you want to be a Companion."
"Well, maybe I don't. Maybe I want to be a doctor. I bet I'd be one before you, if I wanted."
Simon forces himself to keep his own face polite. Any ground given is ground lost, and she always has the advantage on him to begin with.
Maybe she should be a Companion. At least then she'd be using her innate ability to get the measure of people for something good. Or, if not good, at least profitable.
Her too-clever eyes crinkle into a calculating smile. "Doctor Tam. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
"Why do you do this, River? Why do you hurt people?"
Her good moods are honey, and Simon knows he's one of the few in his class who can honestly claim to be friends with his sibling. But more and more lately she's been like this, a mean streak rising in her like air coming to water's surface.
The sound of her palm slapping down on the barre is a hard crack in the charged quiet. "Because I'm bored, Simon. You don't understand. Nobody does. Nothing ever happens. Nothing's ever a challenge. We just do stupid, inane things all day and grow up to be stupid, inane adults. I need something more than this life."
Simon things of his own small, bright dreams, of the life she's no doubt consider contemptibly small. His eyes narrow.
"Well," he says, words clipped. "I wish you the best of luck finding it."
She -- who is never without movement or dance in her frame if she can help it -- is motionless as he takes his armful of work and leaves her room.
no subject
His room is bigger; though when hers is large enough to include a barre and wide mirror, a reasonably size bookshelf-lined alcove and sleeping platform with sprawling bedlinen, a slight difference in size doesn't account to much. She objects to the reproduction of a human skeleton on a stand in his, but not so much the hand-carved and lacquered jigsaw of human organs that stand in a skinless figure; she's grown into the habit of taking out single organs and hiding them for him to find later. A heart in his lunch pail. Intestines in his underwear drawer.
She ignores them this time, though, and her slipper-clad feet are almost completely noiseless as she pads across the rug. He doesn't turn around as she clambers onto the far side of the bed from where he's cross-legged on the edge, facing away. She drapes her arms over his shoulders and takes the stylus from where it was limp in his hand anyway, not having made any progress on the datapad since he'd left her room.
She doesn't apologise. She never apologises. Sometimes he thinks he should take offense at that, but if he ever examined that particular thought close enough he knew he'd have to admit that her sense of entitlement to his unconditional forgiveness is somewhat ingratiating. And also--
"I forget," she murmurs, and her hair is sticky on his jaw where she's used a gel to smooth down stray strands against her skull. "We're not the same person, sometimes."
It doesn't make any sense if he thinks about it, and makes more sense than he'd like to think about if he doesn't; so he focuses instead on the way her ribs point and push into his back, in a way that should be irritating. They're getting too old for this. He shrugs a little and she rides the movement to settle her pointy chin on his shoulder.
"We're quite different, actually," he says, because even though more often than not she knows what he's going to say before he opens his mouth, it's still important to him that he says it.
"No, silly," she says, and he can't quite tell if there's an edge of irritation to the affection, or if it's the other way around. She grinds her chin into his shoulder. "Not similar. The same."
And sometimes she just doesn't make sense at all. "I have to work," he says, and lets his hand rest over hers for a little longer than necessary as he reclaims the stylus. She peels herself off his back as he starts scrolling, and lies back down on the bed behind him. The blocky points of her slippers dig into his lower back.
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"Everyone says that about their brothers and sisters when they're young," he answers. He's been thinking about marriage a lot, lately, especially since his parents' managed to weather Father's exposed infidelity. He knows that grandchildren are wanted, which will mean either a partner with no immediate aspirations of their own or else a string of nannies. Neither idea particularly appeals to Simon; he suspects that he'd actually quite like to do some of the caring-for himself.
Perhaps he'll wait until he's old, as old as Father, when his hands aren't quite quick enough to knot and plait the thread of other people's lives anymore. That might be nice, to grow ancient with little children all around him.
"Come back, Simon, you're not listening," River complains, jabbing him in the small of the back with the toe of her shoe. "I said, I used to wish I was a boy. So I could be a soldier."
"What changed your mind?"
"Your anatomy books. Your gender is ridiculous."
"Nothing about the human body is ridiculous."
"Incorrect. The epiglottis, the phalanges, and the perineum are all utterly ridiculous."
He can hear the laugh in her voice. The storm is passed, then.
"We should have named you Chow. Your moods are as quick as summer shifts. And anyway, you're just choosing those parts because you think the words are silly."
"I think we'd agreed on 'ridiculous' as the term being bandied, actually. When you have babies, I'm going to knit them hats. Green for girls, yellow for boys. Will your wife be as pretty as me?"
She may be the intuitive one, but he's hardly stupid. He smiles, knowing she'll guess his expression from the set of his shoulders, and says "No, River, there's nobody as pretty as you."
She giggles, and jabs him again. "Flatterer. Do you think I can have babies and still be a Companion?"
Simon sighs. "Not that again. You're only eleven. You don't have to choose anything yet."
"You've always known what you're going to be. You probably chose before you were born, Simon. The equiment monitoring your gestation probably caught your fetal eye."
"My 'fetal eye'? You are so not allowed to go on cortex meet-boards without supervision in future."
"I have to do something with my time. You're always studying. I don't know why. Can't you just remember it all in the first place?"
"Okay, now you're just gloating," he says, and smiles at the sound of her laugh.
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