Yeah, now Mina is going to be putting this one to the test. She knows about the girls’ animosity, and she DOESN’T know about the fire-eyes, so this should be fun.
The one who will be a hard sell is Tehk. He’s enough of a butthole that he’s not gonna let it go, and if Te Fahn can recognize Sarnothi Echo componentry then Tehk probably will too.
I’m still wondering about who in the government thought it was a good idea to immediately send the girls free in the wild after all of this. I still think that having the girls spend some “homeschool” time with the grandparents in a quiet rural area would have been a better idea security wise. Keeping the parents in contact of course, but still allows the parents to work while they get the control and story issues fixed with the girls. Grandparents since the girls share grandparents and the parents have work (while grandparents are normally retired), so the kids still have family/guardians there. This mayhem of just releasing them to the wild just makes me think that they have given up on actually trying to enforce the NDAs.
I half-expect Avery’s spent the last day or so screaming because of COURSE you’re not going to get them to keep a secret, have any of you ever MET an eight-year-old, that if any of the sarnothi (Pohl, Scar, Then) have decision-making input here they might be assuming more secrecy is possible just because they’re USED to Echoes being raised knowing they act for the public good and of COURSE that means keeping a secret (and of them, the only one who we know has kids has very YOUNG ones who may not be out and about all that much, certainly not unsupervised,) and that the feds as a whole are caught up in so much blue tape and chaos that even if someone else there RECOGNIZES it’s a bad idea, they haven’t managed to intervene. (I don’t think it’s been established how old Benny is now or how old he was when Carrie and Avery started seeing each other, but since he reads to me at least more in the early-mid teens than older, I think it’s at least POSSIBLE Avery met him when he was still around Selkie and Amanda’s age.)
On a more meta note, Amanda and Selkie being pulled from school would further cut down on seeing their friends (who I at least miss seeing,) and staying in some rural area away from their parents under government supervision would probably skew way too close for comfort to the ‘adopted kids get taken away from their parents’ situation Dave’s specifically said won’t happen. And given both girls’ abandonment trauma, and the larger support networks they’d be removed from (therapists in particular, and I wouldn’t bet the agency has a child psychologist cleared for this situation,) I cannot imagine this would be a particularly good experience for the girls even WITH their parents in regular contact and Theo and Mari on hand.
Honestly my suspicion is the feds were COMPLETELY unprepared for having two elementary-school-aged Echoes, neither of whom has any training or the experience with Sarnoth as a culture’s attitude towards Echoes that emphasizes responsible use of their powers. I’m betting if they KNEW Selkie would eventually start manifesting fire-eyes, especially how powerful hers were, they’d have been a lot more careful with her and that suppressor. So now that they’ve got two very young Echoes, one of whom should be impossible, the one who’s sarnothi apparently having had very little contact with Sarnothi culture as a whole* BEFORE living in human culture nearly half her life, and they’re fumbling. (* I’m not certain it’s been fully established, especially given how young she was, but given Te Fahn and Tehk explaining how things are different in Sarnoth, her memories about living on ‘a farm’ that couldn’t actually be Scar’s, and Plo Quar’s bounty, it seems likely they were pretty isolated.)
Yeah, now Mina is going to be putting this one to the test. She knows about the girls’ animosity, and she DOESN’T know about the fire-eyes, so this should be fun.
oh the inhibitor is not lasting the day.
Selkie is now a wizard?
Oh right, we didn’t actually settle on an ALTERNATIVE lie…
For maximum hilarity, I could see it becoming a fashion trend around school, with everyone wanting sarnothi tech decorations.
Changing lies midstream is even worse than have an insufficiently detailed lie.
She’s agreeing that it’s garbage, and that you made it. That’s not exactly praise, Selkie.
It’s still NICE, though.
The one who will be a hard sell is Tehk. He’s enough of a butthole that he’s not gonna let it go, and if Te Fahn can recognize Sarnothi Echo componentry then Tehk probably will too.
“… And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t ask any more questions! Uh… Miss Afkhami. Ma’am.”
I’m still wondering about who in the government thought it was a good idea to immediately send the girls free in the wild after all of this. I still think that having the girls spend some “homeschool” time with the grandparents in a quiet rural area would have been a better idea security wise. Keeping the parents in contact of course, but still allows the parents to work while they get the control and story issues fixed with the girls. Grandparents since the girls share grandparents and the parents have work (while grandparents are normally retired), so the kids still have family/guardians there. This mayhem of just releasing them to the wild just makes me think that they have given up on actually trying to enforce the NDAs.
Think of the difference in potential hilarity between the current version and yours! I am, as always, with Dave.
I half-expect Avery’s spent the last day or so screaming because of COURSE you’re not going to get them to keep a secret, have any of you ever MET an eight-year-old, that if any of the sarnothi (Pohl, Scar, Then) have decision-making input here they might be assuming more secrecy is possible just because they’re USED to Echoes being raised knowing they act for the public good and of COURSE that means keeping a secret (and of them, the only one who we know has kids has very YOUNG ones who may not be out and about all that much, certainly not unsupervised,) and that the feds as a whole are caught up in so much blue tape and chaos that even if someone else there RECOGNIZES it’s a bad idea, they haven’t managed to intervene. (I don’t think it’s been established how old Benny is now or how old he was when Carrie and Avery started seeing each other, but since he reads to me at least more in the early-mid teens than older, I think it’s at least POSSIBLE Avery met him when he was still around Selkie and Amanda’s age.)
On a more meta note, Amanda and Selkie being pulled from school would further cut down on seeing their friends (who I at least miss seeing,) and staying in some rural area away from their parents under government supervision would probably skew way too close for comfort to the ‘adopted kids get taken away from their parents’ situation Dave’s specifically said won’t happen. And given both girls’ abandonment trauma, and the larger support networks they’d be removed from (therapists in particular, and I wouldn’t bet the agency has a child psychologist cleared for this situation,) I cannot imagine this would be a particularly good experience for the girls even WITH their parents in regular contact and Theo and Mari on hand.
Honestly my suspicion is the feds were COMPLETELY unprepared for having two elementary-school-aged Echoes, neither of whom has any training or the experience with Sarnoth as a culture’s attitude towards Echoes that emphasizes responsible use of their powers. I’m betting if they KNEW Selkie would eventually start manifesting fire-eyes, especially how powerful hers were, they’d have been a lot more careful with her and that suppressor. So now that they’ve got two very young Echoes, one of whom should be impossible, the one who’s sarnothi apparently having had very little contact with Sarnothi culture as a whole* BEFORE living in human culture nearly half her life, and they’re fumbling. (* I’m not certain it’s been fully established, especially given how young she was, but given Te Fahn and Tehk explaining how things are different in Sarnoth, her memories about living on ‘a farm’ that couldn’t actually be Scar’s, and Plo Quar’s bounty, it seems likely they were pretty isolated.)