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The light by the Bar itself is best, so that is where ten-year-old Rae Seddon settles to proudly and carefully sew her newly-earned Needlework Badge onto her hoodie sleeve, just below her Om Nom, Om Nom Nom, and Sledge-Making badges. She is particularly pleased to see how much neater her stitches are when she compares her latest badge to her first one. Occasionally, she takes a short break to sip on her peach milkshake and look around the bar room for people she knows.

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Autor drops off his carpet, tucking Regeneration by Pat Barker under his arm. He beams as he approaches, raising his free hand in a small wave. "Hello, Rae! Congratulations on your new badge."

"Thanks!" Rae beams at him, holding up the badge-decorated sleeve to show him. "Bonnie said the coin-purse I made was beautiful."

She is still glowing a little about that, the praise meaning a lot to her.

"Thank you for teaching me, too."

"Ooh, you made a coin-purse?" Autor says cheerfully, settling in on a stool beside her. "You're quite welcome. May I see your work, please?"

"Yes, yes, of course!" the girl nods, digging in her jacket pocket for the little rectangle of embroidered felt.

What she hands over to him is a small change purse with a leaf-shaped button closure. Green felt on the outside, yellow felt on the inside, the two layers connected around all edges and around the edge of the button hole with blanket stitch in bright red. On the back of the coin purse, embroidered so the backs of all the stitches are hidden between the two layers of felt, are two hand-embroidered sunflowers with bright yellow petals in wrapped running stitch, and each with a smooth, brown center of painstakingly careful satin stitch. Little whorls and spirals in yellow back-stitch decorate the purse's corners, bright against the green.

The girl bites her lip slightly, and waits intently for his opinion.

Autor accepts the purse and runs his thumb over the careful blanket stitches. He nods quietly, turning the purse over, and whistles when he sees the sunflowers with their satin stitched centers.

"Bonnie was right," Autor says, glancing up with a smile. "This really is beautiful. I like the colors, and you put so much work into this! You did very well, Rae, I'm impressed."

"Thank you!" the girl beams at him, engulfing him in a hug. "I'm really proud of it."

And only here so far does she get to show it off.

Autor embraces her back tightly, wrapping his arms around her and cupping the back of her head. He strokes her hair, and he's careful to keep the buttons of the coin-purse away from the soft strands.

"You're welcome! And you should be," he says, and stoops to pick up the book that fell when she surprised him with that hug. "How are you other than productive?"

"I'm doin' okay," she replies with a slight smile, though only after the book is ascertained to be unharmed by the fall. "Ready for Spring to get here, though. I've had enough of the cold."

"What about you?"

"Very well, thank you for asking," Autor says, and tweaks her nose. He offers her the coin-purse. "I agree with you about spring. I've taken to flying around the Caribbean inlet where it's warm. But it's almost time to plant strawberries."

Rae accepts the coin-purse back, grinning, and tucks it back into her pocket. "Oooh, strawberries sound fantastic. Is it time to plant them already? It seems so early in the year, still."

"Though I suppose that's because time's been moving slower in my world than here. I stay away for a day or two, and it seems this place shoots forward in leaps and bounds."

"Yup, just about time," Autor says easily, cheered by her presence. "They won't fruit for a year or so, though, because I'll need to pinch off all of the flowers on the first crop."

He cocks his head at her explanation. "Ah, that makes sense. What season is it in your world now? Winter?"

Rae nods. "So they put more strength into growing than into flowering and trying to make fruit, right? It's the same with apples. When the trees are little, you don't want them making fruit - the weight could make them break, and the energy would better be used for growing stronger. Some of the retired SOF orchard-keepers came to school last year and talked about growing apple trees."

"It's almost technically spring back home, but it's been a cold season."

Autor taps her nose playfully. "That's exactly right. Those orchard-keepers knew what they were talking about."

He ruffles her hair gently. "Rae, would you like to go flying today?"

"Well they should," Rae grins, scrunching up her nose. "They're SOFs. They grow the trees their stakes are made from."

"Ooh, can we? That would be fun. I'm almost done sewing on my badge," she says, looking back down at her work and trying to sew faster.

"Oh, goodness, they raise their own stakes even? Well, talk about quality control," Autor says sagely.

He waves a hand. "Take your time. The carpet will wait. Are you hungry in the meantime?"

"Of course - who better?" Rae smiles, briefly leaning her shoulder against his.

"A little hungry, but I don't know what I'd want. Maybe a muffin? Pumpkin'n'cream cheese, or blueberry-almond? Those are my favorites."

Autor leans back, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to give her a brief squeeze. He sets his book on the bar top.

"When given the choice, I always go for pumpkin anything," he admits with a shy smile. "Would you like milk with that?"

"Yes, please," Rae says with grin, half to Autor and half to the Bar as she continues stitching around the edge of her badge. "What about you? Should we order two pumpkin'n'cream cheese muffins and two glasses of milk?"

"It will be a sad day should I ever turn down anything containing pumpkin," Autor says mock-somberly.

He turns to order two muffins and two glasses of milk, and nudges Rae's to her. The boy picks up his muffin and leans on the bar, fastidiously taking the wrapper off of the pastry.

"We can even take these on the carpet. How does the inlet sound today?"

"Then no turning down pumpkin muffins," the girl smiles at him, taking her muffin, unwrapping a bit, breaking it off, and taking a bit. "Mmm. Perfect."

"Ooh, we should go flying by the inlet. Maybe it'll be pretty there, and we can spot some signs of spring."

Autor nibbles his muffin, and briefly closes his eyes in bliss. He grins at Rae. "I believe the inlet is in a perpetual state of summer. If we want to look for spring, we should fly in the mountains, even though it's chilly there. I have a blanket we can use."

"I'd like that," Rae smiles at his look of bliss. "They're the only real mountains I've seen, the ones here. There are high hills and things back home near New Arcadia, but not real mountains."

"Yeah, me, too," Autor says, just realizing that himself. "All right, we'll search through the mountains, and then warm up in the inlet. How does that sound?"

"Sounds like a plan," she beams at him, before taking a big gulp of her milk. Muffins in their wrappers travel reasonably well, but glasses of milk... not so much.

"Maybe someone could teach the scouts how to ski, sometime. Next winter, maybe, when there's enough snow. Or there could be a snowman-making competition."

Autor blinks at the remainder of his pumpkin muffin. "Rae?" he says quietly, amazed. Until today, it hadn't occurred to me that we could order pumpkin anytime we like here. I'm so used to it being a seasonal vegetable. We could have anything. Pumpkin pancakes. Pumpkin milkshakes. Soufflés. Mmm. Thank you for that."

Then he nods eagerly. "Skiing sounds interesting. I've never been. I like the snowman competition idea, too! You should set a badge."

"Pumpkin the year-round," she grins at him, nodding. "Isn't that great? Like fresh cherries and strawberries in December."

One of the best wonders of Milliways, in her opinion, is not needing to worry about whether something is in season or not.

"Scouts can set badges, too?" Rae asks. Coming up with ideas for them is one thing, but actually creating one, that's impressive.

"I will have to order strawberries in December just because I can. We'll have to have shortcake," he says, grinning.

Then he nods eagerly. "Oh, yes, setting a badge is easy. You come up eih an idea and some clauses and a picture and get it approved by one of the leaders. Then Bar comes up with a badge."

Rae finishes her milk with a satisfied "Ahhh," and grins. "Clauses like.... build a snowman with at least one eye, a nose and a mouth.... um... two arms, using whatever materials you want, and decorate it however you'd like. And there could be another badge for the winner of the competition?"

Autor drains his own glass, having neglected it until now. He nods. "Those sound like good clauses to me. And I think Bonnie already has badges for competition winners, but if you want to design a badge for that I doubt she'll say no. What will the picture be? A snowman?"

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