#rienna

“It’s been three weeks! And they’re still ‘discussing’ whether or not we can even go!” Andy was obviously frustrated, and Oliver didn’t really blame him. Sometimes it seemed like the giants weren’t even talking about the same thing. One was always rambling on about the consequences of seven in excessively large numbers such as one quadrillion, two hundred eighty-nine trillion, three hundred seventy-two billion, eight hundred seventy-three million, two hundred eighty-three thousand, two hundred and eighty-seven. What those consequences were, Oliver still wasn’t exactly sure. Nor could he figure out how that related to the question they were discussing, but all the other giants had nodded thoughtfully as if they understood and were considering its implications. During the wait another giant had showed up and brought with him another set of smaller fae. Oliver had almost laughed aloud when he’d discovered that their names were Riona and Brin. He’d pointed this out to Bran, who delighted in sitting on his shoulder and ruffling his black feathers or commenting dryly on any conversation that was going on. The crow had laughed, but cautioned him from mentioning it to any of the fae. His answer to Oliver’s question of ‘Why?’ was frustrating. “The Fae have this thing about names. They are very proud of them and think they’re very important. I could be wrong, but it’s better to not risk their displeasure by comparing their names to someone else’s. It might upset them.” Personally, Oliver couldn’t help but think that maybe a bit of upsetting was really what the people needed around here if all they were going to do was argue instead of actually doing something. But he refrained from saying anything about the names to anyone. Bran, it turned out, already knew both Brin and Riona. The crow recounted their adventure out on the Flowered Oceans and how they were separated after they went over the falls. Andy ended up asking a lot of questions about Faerie’s oceans and the places where it bordered on the Human world. Oliver tuned them out when the topic swung back around to whether or not the giants would be finished deciding soon. Anyone could see that they had no intention of hurrying. With a sigh he stood up and walked out along the edge of the pavilion that had been provided for them on the island in the center of the circle of Giants. The structure contained large open areas with cushions and low tables, an enclosed tent like room with bedrolls and hammocks for sleeping, another enclosed room with large copper tubs for bathing, and even a sort pantry with all kinds of food. There was everything from herbs and fresh vegetables to boxes of mac & cheese. Someone had even included a basket of fresh avocados, and Oliver was sure that whoever was responsible for this set up was at least passingly familiar with memes because the basket had been labeled with “Fre sha vaca do” and there was no way that one was a misunderstanding. As he left the cover of the pavilion he heard the sound of wings and felt Bran alight on his shoulder. In a companionable silence they made their way out to the edge of the island and looked upon the blood red waters that churned below them. The voices of the giants could be heard like the rumbling of thunder, it was loud enough to echo through you and make you tremble, yet deep and gentle enough to be calming. If you wanted to hear what exactly they were saying you had to listen hard, it wasn’t enough just to passively hear their voices, because more often than not you simply forgot that it wasn’t thunder you were hearing. “Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies. Any live cell with two or three live neighbors lives on. Any live cell with more than three live neighbors dies. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes a live cell.” One of the Giants had begun explaining something to the others. Oliver had heard this one speaking a number of times, this time they seemed to be going on about some kind of grid with cells that changed according to whatever the ones next to them were doing. But he’d heard the giant using other systems or rules to make a point to the others, usually involving a large number of steps that they described in detail that eventually led to a solution. It was one of the most complicated things Oliver had ever heard, and that was including the arguments of the giant who only seemed to talk about things like syntactic structure, inflections, grammatical categories, grammaticalization, and irregular plural nouns (Oliver had gotten the idea that it was talking about words and languages and how they were supposed to work), or the giant who always seemed to be bringing up the names of all kinds of people and places and questioning whether they should be called by this name or that name, and whether a name still belonged to them (or if they belonged to the name), and all the possible ways that could be relevant to the situation. Out of all of them, it was this last giant that seemed like they were the most on topic of the lot. Still, thought Oliver glumly, it wasn’t exactly a high bar. He was pretty sure even a single giant could easily trump every human philosopher or scientist or logician there ever was, they were more knowledgeable than anyone he’d ever met, and yet they seemed more interested in discussing their own interests and obsessions than actually using any of their knowledge to actually come to a solution.

The Owl Corps line-up so far

Owl Corps: Parumpasser

Mundane Shenanigans I