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“Whatcha doin’, kiddo?” Ed asks as he opens Alma’s door.
“Reading.” The empty room responds.
"Er, right. May I come in?"
"I guess."
Ed enters the room, searching of the young girl. He stops short when he sees a blanket fort constructed between one side of the bed and the desk. Alma is pushing aside a shawl "door" from where she sits cross legged on the floor, hunched over her book to keep her head from brushing the blanket roof.
"Thanks." Ed says, wiggling into the space carefully to keep it from collapsing.
Alma hums her acknowledgement of his presence and continues reading.
"Whatcha reading?" Ed asks after a moment.
Alma sighs. "A book about merpeople."
"No shit! That's awesome! I've got a mermaid tattoo-" he lifts his sleeve and her unimpressed reaction is correct. "Anyway," he hastily rolls his sleeve back down, "is there a main character?"
Alma eyes him shrewdly, "Yes." Ed waits, looking at her expectantly, "They don't fit in with the people in their pod."
"What's a pod?"
Alma's eyes glow and she begins talking a mile a minute about the characters and the locations and the relationships and the tiny little jokes-
"Sorry. I'm rambling." she apologizes after a few minutes of a captive audience.
"That something you hear your dad say?"
Alma shrugs and looks down, picking at her book.
Ed sees the rest of the series stacked up next to her. "Can I read the first one? This book sounds fucking awesome!"
"Ok." she concedes tucking her chin down and avoiding his eye as she hands him the first volume. "We aren't supposed to say fuck."
"Oh. Right. My bad." Ed nods, flopping down onto his front, bending his knees so he can kick his legs through the air.
"We all make mistakes." Alma said primly, laying down next to Ed and copying his pose. "No talking allowed." she tells him sternly.
Ed gestures zipping his mouth closed and throwing away the key.
They read in silence for a while, Ed getting lost in the story until he hears a soft, "Sometimes I don't feel like a girl."
Ed's heart skips a beat but he continues to stare at his page, just like Alma is, though her legs have gone still, resting against the rug.
Ed kicks his feet in the air a few times before he responds, eyes still on the page.
"That's alright. Sometimes I don't feel like a boy."
"Really?" They gasp, turning to look at Ed, their eyes obviously appraising him. They open their mouth, pause, then say, "You do have very pretty eyes."
"Why thank you!" Ed exclaims lightly, battering his eyelashes at them.
They giggle, then sit back up into their cross-leg position. Ed flips onto his side so he's facing them.
"Why do people call you he if you don't always feel like a boy."
Ed looks down at the well-worn cover of their book, gathering his thoughts for a moment before looking up at them. "It's just what feels right. Even if I want to put a dress, I still feel like me, and I feel like me is a he." Ed waits again, suddenly nervous. "Who do you feel like?"
Alma has their chin in their hand as they listen to Ed talk and seem to be thinking on what he said. "Alma." They look down at their book once again. "Could you try calling me they?"
"Sure. Hey Stede! Alma will be down in a second, they're finishing up their book!" Ed pretends to call, watching a tiny light spark in their eyes as they gently rubbed at their heart.
"I think I liked it." They said with a smile. "Can you keep doing that?"
"Sure."
"Ok. I want to read again. No talking." They remind him as they settle back down on their stomachs.
"Well well well, what do we have here?" Stede chuckles down at them some time later. "I've been calling you both to dinner for five minutes!"
Ed looks back at his book and realizes he's over halfway through.
"Oh, shit. Sorry, Stede. They distracted me with amazing merpeople stories." Ed explains, holding the book up as if its not obvious what he's doing.
Stede blinks and widens his eyes at Ed, who simply shrugs while raising an eyebrow back.
"Right, well, they do have excellent taste in literature."
Alma beams, giving their dad a squeeze around the waist before heading out the door to dinner.