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absolutely love living in this household. Something exciting and bizarre is always going on. For instance, I brought up to Zvi that I was doing a research project on Zombies for school, and since she’s obsessed with the Underground she was instantly fascinated and eager to help. The ads went out for the yearly Survival event, where Zombies try to collect volunteers to increase their numbers, and she signed herself right up.

Rakover was, of course, horrified. I mean, I know she’s technically a kid, but he’s a bit over protective of her in my opinion. So what if she wants to become a Zombie? That’s her choice. Also I was able to take excellent notes as her body slowly turned into plant matter. It’s fascinating how the different Zombie strains affect our bodies in different ways, and the strains only seem to be morphing and multiplying every year. I got really good grades on that project.

Meanwhile, Zvi eventually returned to normal. She knew she would. She told Rak and myself that not only has she purposefully infected herself with things here in Subeta (darkmatter, whatever the Zapper does), back home her Dad was paranoid about diseases and intentionally exposed herself and her siblings to weakened strains of various diseases, as well as sewing them through with magical barriers against such things. So basically, once her immune system has worked out what’s happening, it kills whatever’s invaded her body. Rakover was both relieved and fascinated by this - I, not being overly concerned with consequences, both in this situation and pretty much ever, was merely fascinated. Queue the subject of my next project!

or now, I am sitting on the front porch, sipping coffee with Ntseni and trying not to think about my exams. They’re a week away, and I feel like I have to hold my sanity like a precious gift while I still have it. I still haven’t decided what I’m majoring in - magical specialty doctor, paranormal researcher, potions master… there’s just so many fascinating subjects to choose from! While Arlo messes about with transformations, I’m more interested in invention. I don’t feel like we’ve explored the full potential of what magic can make. Sure, Vanya animates toys, Euclid makes abominations from radiation, and there are potions that can turn you into various species and subspecies… but what if there’s more? What if you could mix together certain ingredients in a cauldron and something crawls back out, what if you could take corpses and stitch them together into something new and then breathe life back into it, what if, what if, what if! I’m haunted by these questions, come alive with various ideas - but I need a research and experimentation partner. Everyone does. You have to have someone watching your back for when things backfire. I think Zvi could be that partner - she has my same curiosity and is about as unscrupulous as I am. She just needs to go to university once she’s old enough (we’re going to have to figure out how to give her an age) and then we can go into business together! Convincing Zvi to go to school, however, is going to be a trial. You can’t just tell her that she should do something, unless you want to be sure she never does it. So I’m trying to groom her into going. I involve her in my projects and tell her fantastic tales of my classmates’ antics, and subtly weave in suggestions of how this sort of education could be very beneficial for her. We’ll see if I’m successful. If not, perhaps I can at least use some of her genetic material for my experiments. Somehow, I am going to make being friends with a foreign dragon child very useful for myself.

tseni and I jointly choke on our coffees as Zvi comes exploding out the house, howling gleefully, Nathan skittering after her with his tongue lolling out. Her hair is in white spikes, she’s got red eyeshadow striped across her blue eyelids, her crop top is yellow while her shorts are pink, and her cardigan, which flies like a cape behind her, is grey. Oh, and her shoes are green.

“Zvi,” Ntseni snaps - and then, helplessly, “My dear, your clothes don’t match.” Helplessly, because we both know there's no point in mentioning it.

She looks down at herself as if she hasn’t noticed (she most definitely did it on purpose), shrugs as she looks up with an impish grin, and then cups her hands around her mouth (Ntseni and I grimace in expectation) and hollers at the top of her lungs, “TORRRRRIONNNNNN!”

Tor comes slowly slinking out the house, ears pressed back against his head. Zvi is prancing in place. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!” Nathan is prancing in place too, though he won’t be invited on whatever adventure it is that Zvi has planned for the day. He’s too much unpredictable chaos, even for her.

“Good luck,” Ntseni mutters to Tor. He’s slowly standing upright and shaking himself out. He looks tired.

“What are you getting up to today?” I call out to Zvi.

She shrugs. “Gonna go harass some townsfolk, take an icy ocean swim probably and then check to see if the Rift will spit out anything interesting.”

Typical. If she actually does any of those things it will be impressive. Zvi tends to march out into the world, invite chaos, and see what turns up.

he tosses a treat to Nathan as she climbs over the gate (which has a working latch) so that he won’t try to follow her, Tor makes the low fence in an easy jump, and they’re off, around the bend in the lane and out of sight. Ntseni tisks softly, finishes her coffee, and then goes back to her shop. I roll onto my back and stare at the picture perfect clouds above me. I can hear the soft laughter and chatter of the customers at the coffee shop out back, Namesake humming old sea shanties to himself as he gets ready for work, and Absolum’s creaky bones as he finally rises for the day in his canopy on the side of the house. Somewhere, there is homework waiting for me to finish it, and somewhere, Zvi is off having an adventure, and as I frown at the perfect sky I think, if I can make a Uni student out of her, that really would be a miracle, wouldn’t it? I laugh to myself, a small ironic huff in the back of my throat. A miracle, indeed. Or a bit of dark magic. Either would do.

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