“Yeah, That would be Lovely”

as told to Rover Three, then translated into English for Earth audiences

On the planet of M'li there is a central settlement called C7, from which an inland sea sprawls away to the southeast.

The sea is new, you see, and Space Grandma visited in its early days to celebrate the creation and birth of this body of water (since ze had a few friends in the M'li equivalent to a Public Works Connective overseeing the surface sea-shaping operations). Ze also had a few friends from the Loalo water workers, and a few more in the Oraean tree consultancy crew. Space Kitten soon introduced SG to some of her friends, becaue that's just what she did with friends, and SG and SK soon discovered they knew over half the crew.

​SG and SK stayed to celebrate, then to visit friends, then find tea ingredients, and then to hear the rest of the news from the breadth of the Pleiades. Near the end of their visit, late on the last night (or was it early on the last morning?) they settled in with three friends for a tea party. The three had raked the sands and prepared the space while SG prepared the tea and SK laughed and laughed as she spun them the news of the new sea's many near-disasters on its way to this calm, present moment. Triangular clouds drifted out from the dawn, the trailing tail-wisps of their downward points brushing the horizon. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, moving in. As light in the east blossomed, the easkana swooped slowly lower in the night sky, able to drift their metre-wide bodies as if they weighed no more than but centimetre-wide leaves. 

Six cups there were, but only five had arrived. A sweet breeze whispered over the party as they enjoyed the tea and company alike and very much [so]. Then a bedraggled but cheerful young man ambled over, his outfit somehow able to hold the double-act of hiding the Chronoan Clown he so clearly hoped to be under a veneer of ordinary.

Barefoot, he wore all black but for a bluenight-dyed undershirt. Carrying an empty bag, he generally looked the rough that comes from having been out the night long. SG thought ze heard him mumbling something about magic and a show. "Oh, you're a magician?" ze asked. The grin that smoothed the young man's tired face slid into place with a perfect ease, practiced gaze calculating across SK, SG, and the three as he said, through that smooth grin and with a perfect ease: 

"I am THE Magician."

And as dawn blossomed behind him, the easkana soaring lower, clouds becoming canvases for the dawn, he began to juggle and conjure with balls and fruits drawn from his seemingly empty bag, making them fly, appear, disappear, shrink, expand, balance, and levitate, and everyone in the tea party was impressed and enjoying his play when he asked: "But if this uses these fruits of the Pleiades," - and here he paused, savoring his pitch, - "what about the fruits of our imaginations?"

First he made the fruits and balls vanish. He mimed several of the same tricks but with imaginary objects, SK laughing most of all, and laughing more still as he threw the objects away bemoaning that they didn't understand the gravity of the sitaution.

From SK's left ear he pulled a small fruit, while from the right he drew a large one.

And he continued on like that in recovering all the vanished fruits and balls from the five via their pockets, ears mouths, even eyes, including a few new of even stranger shapes and size, until at last his bag was full. Grinning, he bowed to them. Just then, SG noticed that a cup of tea remained unclaimed.

"Hey," ze said, "you're doing great, and that was really great, but you seem like you've been out and up all night. You're welcome to our tea party, if you like." His shoulders slumped, their veneers cracking from the weariness he had kept at bay in performance. "Yeah, that would be lovely."

He sank down to sitting between SG and SK and shared in the tea. SG and SK put their arms around him, he put his arms around them, and they sat together there as the easkana began to dive into the sea, the birds staying under for surprising length.

They watched one wheel in a wide arc, then swoop down, down, down into the sea.

"How long do you think it'll be down there?" The Magician asked, voice gentle.

SK had a last sip of tea. "I bet," she said, "it will come up when the sun does."

They sat together, gazing out at the serene scenery: at the sea and its soft waves, the other celebrants scattering the beach, the 'cumulations of triangular clouds, the minutes slipping by until they lost measurement or meaning.

The sun smiled over the horizon - as the same easkana rose out of the sea, glistening in the dawn. 

They looked at each other as they melted into smiles, marveling at this perfect moment.