guppy_sandhu | Guppy's 30th Birthday Party

Guppy's 30th Birthday Party

Having collected everyone from the bar, Guppy leads them back through to the house, where they enter through the kitchen.

The living room furniture has been mostly moved out of the way, and that's where the most of the party has been set up. The sofa and some chairs are around the edge of the room, and there's music playing. The kitchen is a bit small so the food is being taken through into the dining room. Also a little on the small side, but enough for purpose. All of the baby gates are open on the ground floor, but not on the stairs.

Upstairs, the spare bedroom has been set aside for any little people at the party. It's a bit quieter, with baby-sized food, some toys, and a DVD of Pingu playing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah. Like the scientists say the odds of life evolving on Earth are so small that the odds of finding it on any given other planet are next to nonexistent--there's so many factors that can keep it from happening, and even if it does, it may not be a form we'd recognize. So if other worlds have other humans who have made other sprites, they may not look like anything you'd consider a sprite."

"The closest we've found are the Autobots and Isaac."

"I've seen the Autobots around," he says, "but I don't think I know Isaac."

"Nah, you wouldn't. He can't come to Milliways. He's the Autobots' Earth's Internet. We're pen-pals."

"Oh... you send messages to him through them, then? Or is there some kind of network that you can access from the bar? I've never been able to get my computer to connect, but I'm not the most technologically literate guy around."

"No, through them. Uncle Optimus takes them for us."

"That's handy," he says. "Bet you guys have a lot to talk about, notes to compare, humans to pick on, the works."

Enzo laughs and nods.

"It's kind of weird scanning his letters. Everything he does is on a totally different scale. But he's cool. He's really smart, but... he's still just a kid. And... I don't know why, but he looks like me."

"...it's really weird to think about something like that, something intangible--that's how I see the internet--as having a consciousness of its own, and aging and growing and learning and all that. But then, just about anything inorganic is out of my range of experience."

Enzo, as a representative of the supposedly-intangible set, smirks, then utters a "Whoop!" and shifts his grip as Evan suddenly becomes squirmy.

"Is he getting heavy?" Squirrel asks. "He's... well, he's a double-armful these days. It'll be easier in the spring."

"I'm good," he half-lies. He will carry this baby! His machismo demands it! ...wait.

"Why do you guys need all that... extra for the winter, anyway?" He did hear that's what it was for, but he didn't get the details.

"We hibernate," he explains. "Normal tree squirrels don't, but we do, for some reason--mutant thing, I guess. So we have to pack on the weight so we don't starve while we're hibernating. There's nothing like sleeping for three months straight. You wake up, and the whole world's changed."

Sometimes literally.

"Weeeeird. Do all mutants do that?"

He's never heard of it before.

"I don't think so, no. Most of the mutants I know aren't like me, though--they're basically humans with powers, not human-animal hybrids. There's a sentient gorilla back home, but he doesn't hibernate."

"Do other things hibernate for winter?"

Oddly, he's perfectly familiar with the term 'hibernate'. Just not the literal, seasonal sense.

"Some do," he nods. "Ground squirrels do. And chipmunks, prairie dogs, bats, bears, bees, all kinds of things."

"I guess it makes sense. Belar told me all about how there's less food then."

"It's probably for the good of the whole squirrel community," he says. "I mean, sure, I've got thumbs and I can work a can-opener or go to a drive-through, which they can't, but those are recent inventions. In a real hunter-gatherer agrarian kind of life, I'd probably wind up eating the food supply for the whole forest, during the winter. All the stashes of nuts, gone. What would everybody else eat?"

"Dude. That does make sense."

It is a very practical sort of god that you can put away for the season.

"Strangely enough, it does," he grins. "It's not really a problem anymore; I just make sure there's packages of nuts and sunflower seeds and things for them to eat before I go to sleep for the winter. Everybody has food, and if I'm lucky, they've even left me some for when I wake up."

"Sounds good." He jiggles Evan. "Just gotta hope this guy sleeps through. You know what babies are like."

"I think he'll be okay," he says. "Coreen's gonna keep an eye on him, and have Guppy check him out if anything starts to look weird. I'm more worried about him not putting on enough weight beforehand than I am about him waking up in the middle of the winter."

Though looking at Ev, it's hard to imagine him being too small.

Enzo shifts his grip again. "Don't worry, I think he's fine for that," he says wryly.

"Here, let me get him for you," Squirrel says, reaching to take Ev. "He can get pretty heavy after a while, and once he starts squirming..."

He suspects Ev does it on purpose.

"Has Coreen seen you in this form yet? She's downstairs somewhere, if she hasn't..."

Guppy's 30th Birthday Party

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