A helicopter flew into his chest and crashed to the ground with a gurgling noise. Ruban groaned, stepping into the flat with a sigh of resignation. They had graduated from origami models to electronic ones.
"Oww shucks! And we'd just finished that one too!" Hiya cried, rushing over to the front door to cradle the martyred toy in her arms.
"It's okay. We'll make more after dinner," Ashwin said, setting the wiring for what looked like a partially constructed plane with a dinosaur head. He sat on the couch, his body curled into the little patch of meagre sunlight provided by the setting sun, as plastic and metal toy parts lay strewn around him. "It's amazing, the things you come up with to amuse yourselves. Back when I was a kid, we could never have imagined anything like it."
"It's annoying when grandparents say it. When centuries-old Aeriels say stuff like that, it's downright creepy," Ruban drawled, taking off his coat and setting his briefcase on the centre-table. It had been a week since Zikyang, and to Ruban's immense relief, the media seemed to be getting over the hype of the four dead Aeriels and focusing on things that did not require sound-bites or statements from him. In that context, he would be forever grateful to Casia Washi for breaking the scandal of the Home Secretary's alleged affair with the Textile Minister's ex-husband. Sex and politics – or sex in politics – always managed to get the public's mind off more mundane issues like Aeriel attacks.
Ashwin hadn't come to the office with him since he had woken up. Someone needed to keep an eye on Hiya, after all, and he said he was still recovering from getting stabbed in the wing. It wasn't like Ruban was going to complain. He had never been particularly comfortable with letting a foreigner – even a delegate from an allied nation – into the Quarters. Knowing who – or rather what – Ashwin really was, was just going to make it harder for Ruban to ignore his presence. He didn't care how friendly Dawad said the Aeriels had once been; Ruban had years of training hammered into pure instinct making his hackles rise every time the guy so much as breathed in his vicinity. He could feel a headache coming on, and decided to redirect his thoughts in a less destructive direction.
"What d'you two want for dinner, then?"
"Zainian noodles!" came the shrill – and unanimous – reply.
Ruban spared Ashwin a sidelong glance that he hoped conveyed his annoyance without the need for words. He decided to add the words anyway. "You do remember that you were just pretending to be Zainian, right? You can drop the act now, really. Nobody's paying you to be the brand ambassador for Zainian cuisine."
Ashwin tilted his head to the side in that way that indicated he wasn't exactly sure what Ruban was saying, but was going to run with it anyway. "I like it. Zaini has...a way with the flavours, I have to say. A subtle delicacy not always present in the spicy concoctions of the Vandran kitchen."
"Are you trying to provoke me into stabbing you again? We haven't had anything but noodles in days." Ruban didn't like how plaintive his voice sounded in that last sentence.
"We can have chop-suey," Hiya piped up from the kitchen, browsing through the menu of the local Zainian deli.
Rubanrolled his eyes. "Fine. Noodles it is."