25th December 2012
13:47 GMT -7
I grin as I jog alongside Sarah, hands prepared to catch her if she
somehow manages to overbalance on her new bicycle. Beside me, Luna in pony mode canters alongside Clare as she does the same.
"You know, this reminds me of-"
Sarah wobbles and I'm
this close to grabbing her before I remember that she has stabilisers and they're fine, it's fine.
"-when I got
my first bike."
"Oh? Do they make them that large?"
"No, no, this was on Earth-. Steer, honeybun, steer!"
She turns the handlebars too far and the bike
stops, nearly causing her to tumble over.
As soon as she's stable, she looks up at me in protest.
"Daaadd
yyyy! Not meant to
do that!"
"Then why did you do it?" I reach down and turn the steering column to a more conservative angle. "Turn it a little bit. You need to keep practicing until you learn how to do it right, then you can keep up with Maeve."
"Wanna keep up with
Bethany."
"That will take longer, but I'm sure that you'll get there if you work hard at it. Now, off you go!"
She sets her shoulders with an expression of comedic seriousness on her face and
pushes her right leg down, pedalling down the trail. I had the g-gnomes come by earlier to clear off the snow because
Colorado, but the surrounding landscape is near-pristine white.
Clare actually stopped to wait for her sister, and Luna looks at me expectantly as we return to our place alongside them.
"On Earth Prime. My sister and I got them the same Christmas, and we cycled around the concrete area of our back garden. Until a moment's inattention from my Granddad resulted in me cycling into a rose bush."
"I somehow doubt that the rose bush came off the better."
"Come on, Luna. You know I didn't look like this on Earth Prime. It actually hurt, and I was moving too slowly to cause the bush any harm in retaliation."
"Didst you revenge yourself 'pon it later?"
"No, it's a
bush. Or, was. I outlived it." I frown. "Can't remember if it died before the pond got put in or if it was dug up to make way for the pond, but it definitely wasn't a going concern when I left."
I sigh at the recollection.
"The nettles were-"
"You have a call, Lantern Grayven."
"-worse. Who is it?"
"Director Armstrong."
"Ah. Your superior." Luna cocks her head to the side as she smirks at me. "Perhaps she is contacting you to wish you a merry Christmas."
"She's.. not that thoughtful. I'm.. sorry, can you look after Sarah for a moment?"
Her horn glows as a thin band of midnight blue appears around Sarah's waist.
"Thank you." I stop walking and raise my right hand to the side of my head. "
Answer."
"Grayven, what the
hell's going on in Atlantis?"
Sinestro,
location?
The Department of Metahuman Affairs building in Washington DC.
"Katarina, are you working on Christmas day?"
"America's enemies don't rest, so neither do
I."
"That sounds like a good way to have a heart attack in your forties. Look, do you want to do this in person? Colorado's beautiful at this time of year. You could do some sightseeing. Join us for tea."
"
Did you know about Arion?!"
I look around as Sunset animates a snowman to chase around a group of local children, to their screaming delight.
"Can you be more specific? I've been having the g-dwarves go through-."
"Don't insult my intelligence, Grayven. That he's in Poseidonis right
now."
"You've got sources in Poseidonis? Oh, well
done! That can't have been easy."
"Start sharing information or I have your children denied diplomatic status and your
pet horse barred from the US."
Oh, she's doing a Jonah Jameson and I'm about to get fired. But she's by and large doing a good job. So I don't point out that I can have her fired and get her job. I don't make the observation that I knew a fortnight ago and she clearly didn't because if she
had then she'd have had a go at me about it
then.
"A colleague of mine mentioned something about that. So far I'm just observing and waiting."
"You're
supposed to pass information like that on to the DMA! It's in your God-damned
contract!"
"One moment."
"Don't you
dare hang up on me."
"No, I just need to check my contract, because as far as I'm aware the wording-."
"He's the US's Most Wanted. He murdered US service personnel and your Un-Men friends."
"Y
ees, I kn-."
"And as such, your job is to kill or capture him."
"My job is to improve human civilisation. And right now, my contacts are trying to decipher what King Orin is playing at. Once I know, and know for a fact that we're not going to blunder into the middle of an ongoing operation against an
extremely dangerous magician, I will apprise you and inform you what -if any- further assistance I require. Of course, if you want to handle it differently then you are at liberty to do so. Now, it's Christmas day. If there's nothing else, then-."
"You want to carry on teaching your kids to ride bikes."
Hm.
Yes,
obviously that was supposed to be a low-grade implication-of-threat, but being fair about it I know what
she does every moment of the day. I know who she has monitoring Rifle and none of them are outside the normal psychological profile for that sort of work. Most would abduct or murder my children if they were ordered to do so, but none of them would do it for
fun. Nifty thing about having Sam in charge of superhuman defence is that he doesn't believe in free will subversion. Not having to worry about Manchurian Candidate-style attackers
is a weight off my mind.
"Certainly. Good exercise, and gets them out of the house. Plus, it gets Luna out and about. Hanging around Canterlot Palace the whole time was doing a number on her haunches."
From about half a mile away Luna's head
swivels so that she can glare at me. Luna, I happen to know that the reason why Celestia stopped wearing her golden battle armour
is that it doesn't fit any more, a piece of information Sunset shared with me for reasons entirely separate from her ongoing Celestia-related emotional tornado.
"So, anything else?"
I hear the beep as she disconnects.
"Merry Christmas. Hope you liked the pet rock."