THOTH & MORVEREN
It was easy to forget that Nimueh was Tristan's grandmother, although Thoth wasn't sure why it should be. She was definitely the grandmotherly type. Maybe it was just weird to think of her looking after a young Arthur. Eesh.
Tristan's light-hearted comment didn't draw much of a reaction from Thoth, who had never quite understood the running joke about intelligence. He was no cleverer than Tristan or anyone else was, so the joke didn't make much sense. Sparing his friend only a vaguely bemused expression, he was glad when Tristan started to speak again – althoughthat relief dropped away a little when the question was asked. How was he supposed to answer that?
“I just didn't want...” he started to mutter, and was still casting around for what to say when Tristan wished him happy birthday. “that,” he admitted, kicking Junebell into a walk. “I don't want to celebrate. It's just a day. Just like any other day. Why is any day any more special than any other? Why do we attach significance to certain days anyway? It's cultural. Not every culture celebrates the same days of note, so there's nothing objectively unique about any day except for the fact that the date only occurs once, which it does for every other day in the damn calendar. And if there's nothing objectively unique or special or good about that particular day then why schedule a celebration for it? That makes no sense. The weather might be shit that day. The weather doesn't give a shit about what day it is.”
Thoth had kicked his overly verbose habits a number of years ago, but he still slipped into them occasionally – most notably when he was distracted or nervous. The old habits were more than just talking lots: it was the way he talked. At high speed, bombarding the listener with information and unnecessarily complicated words with increasingly long sentences, and taking breaks for air at random points in the sentence rather than at traditionally punctuated areas in order to make it more difficult to be interrupted. When he spoke like that, Thoth reverted to sounding like his seven year-old self. Or at least, a swearier version of his seven year-old self.
His rhetorical tone suggested that he didn't really expect an answer, and it was a bit of a relief when Tris changed the topic. Thoth was dimly aware of bucket ball from the way the other kids at court talked about it, but as he'd never asked or been asked to join in a game, he wasn't sure of the rules. From what he'd gathered from the other teens, Tristan was the one to beat.
Tristan's final comment did, at last, lift Thoth's expression a little. “Okay,” he grunted. “But only because I know how lame you are with water.”
They plodded along companionably for a while, heading for the moors where Sneezewort usually lived. Under hoof, the grass became thicker and harder, and patches of heather started to appear interspersed amongst it. Before long, the distant peaks and rocks began to loom into view along the horizon. Left at the upcoming tor would take them towards Poppy's cottage in a little bracken-covered valley, near to Hippogriff Falls; right would take them almost directly towards the rock-dragon which gave the moor its name. Sneezewort could be anywhere in between, but Thoth was fairly confident in his tracking skills. He'd read a number of books on the subject.
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