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"I had a perfect day with my family. Now I would like one with you."
"If thats what you want." Michael's surprised and elated at being demanded companionship, it happened less and less after half a third of Team Cockroach left.
"An architect?"
Michael echoes after her, lost in thought. "You know the customers never leave nice comments on the google maps? And the paperwork..."
"Dear, I've run charities for the UN. You don't have to tell me about the paperwork."
He holds up a pine needle plucked from the nearest tree up for her inspection. She notices its tiny sharp end, the spec of yellow, the root it used to hold onto the branch.
"This is you," Michael keeps the needle in his palm as careful as if it were her soul, then points to the tree and raises an eyebrow.
"Thats... a tree?"
Tahani looks between the pine needle in his palm and the tree towering over both of them.
"Sure."
"You're studying architecture now, hm?" Eleanor is on the sofa, seemingly engrossed in [], Tahani could tap her own memories and revive everything said in there in under a minute. She doesn't.
"Do you think you'll wait until my first neighbourhood?"
Eleanor looks up, startled. The last few times they met they've been avoiding talking of ends and beginnings and most of all, of doors.
"I... I dunno." Eleanor admits honestly.
They seem comfortably close, barely any space between her dress and his wool trousers.
"They will bully you, of course," he explains patiently, fingers tracing over some basic diagrams. They weren't quite at the 3D level yet but she would get there eventually. "You're going to be at least three hundred times slower at the job than them after all."
"Michael, darling, what a kind way to lift my spirits."
"Do not despair," he jests. "You've done remarkably well. And you're not a needle anymore — the capacity—"
She hits his shoulder (hard) at that comment. He laughs it off.
"Apologies, m'lady, your capacity for essence has increased thanks to all the crafts you've taken. That was a good start, in all actuality." Noticing how her aura shined brighter at the praise and the lines of her magnetic fields grew this tiny bit bigger, interfering with his.
"What if that's not enough?"
An old insecurity. He throws his hand around her shoulders, dropping the drawings carelessly to the floor, and pulls her closer — endless skirt layers and all. Lesson 4, hugs. She goes without complaint to rest her perfectly styled head on his suit clad shoulder.
"Just be your fabulous self," he promises with the wisdom of endless galaxies. "Everything else will fall in place."
Tahani resolves to believe him.
"They'll tell you it's verboten but you absolutely can throw in something for yourself. A little pick-me-up so to say."
"Like?"
They're on a picnic blanket, He called it an outside project, she called it a little tasteful pique-nique. With her head on his forearm, how lucky that his costume was just the perfect height for her to lounge against.
"Like your mansion."
"An ulterior motive!" She gasps, pretending to be shocked. "How scandalous!"
"Ah but where would have I debuted my tuxedos and suspenders otherwise? Not at the clown house, please."
"And here I thought the decor went well with your complexion purely on accident."
Michael was right.
She's about three hundred times slower than Val and Glenn even reading the standard documentation and building permits but she doesn't let it deter her. She graduated the most prestigious prep school of Heaven's Main Architect with flying colours after all.
When he goes, a new constellation is born. Its light will reach the Earth millions of years after they've left it.
Sometime between Michael leaving and Eleanor going through the door, Tahani hides in one seemingly endless July afternoon and cries herself to sleep.
When she comes into contact with humans after a while — people — she can see through them. Literally into the perfect approximation of human muscle and tissue and blood cells hard at work.
Tahani means to soldier on and tries that for a whole hour. The she gives up and calls Vicky instead.
"You see, the trick is to keep the concept of them around. You don't need precise details to interact with your residents."
Tahani tries and tries and tries untill shes's somehwat successfull and can see only blurry figures and feel vague magnetic changes in the space instead of messy constellations of atoms and molecules.
"What do I look like?" Unable to curb her curiosity even after all the Bearymis she asks Vicky, who's been nothing but surprisingly neutral and dare she say, accommodating.
"Like you should drink less antimatter," Vicky snickers. Then she contemplates something, Tahani can feel the energy currents changing between them.
"C'mon, I know a good place. On a second thought, one more cup wouldn't send you into early retirement."
When the time comes, she rehearses the snap in front of a mirror a million times, careful not to dislodge any space-time around. Until it's just perfect.