Aileen gave him an offended look when he openly laughed at her and compared his muggle phone to ruins and excavations. She opened her mouth, then shut it again, drawing herself to her full height and tilting her chin up. He had a point: she would much rather face cursed tombs, unruly classes, and tyrannical Headmistresses than attempt to understand muggle technology. But it wasn't her fault muggles were so strange!

"I was surprised, not jumpy," she claimed, taking a sip of wine and moving past him to stand at the balcony railing.

"Forgive me if I didn't expect to see little fiendish hopping birds invade the screen. They don't even look realistic," she added, glancing back at him. 

"Surprised, jumpy," Tapendra waved a hand absently. "Either way, it's a bit of an over reaction to some little cartoon birds. Now, angry mummies, that's totally justified."

He tilted his head, watching her as she went to the railing, his laughter having subsided but his smirk firmly in place. Tapendra was silent, his fingers coming up to stroke his beard thoughtfully as he looked at her. She was certainly an odd creature...and, in some ways, a terribly predictable one. Much like himself, he supposed.

"I think them being like a cartoon character is the point, really. Throwing realistic birds at realistic pigs would be rather....distressing..." He looked down at the game, which this whole time had been happily playing its theme tune.

"You could try it," he suggested, innocently. "It's fun. And Abby would probably be very happy if you taught her how to play it yourself..." His smile was calm and kind as he held the phone out again, waggling his eyebrows.

Aileen pursed her lips, her back to him as she considered his words. At least he understood while he was making fun of her that yes, she'd rather contend with angry mummies than something as completely foreign to her as a mobile phone. Mummies made sense. Phones did not make sense. That was her logic.

The tune continued playing from the phone, completely ruining the scenic view from the balcony. When he suggested that she give the game a go, and brought up Abby to try to convince her, Aileen turned and stared at him, the barest of smirks flitting across her face. The eyebrow waggle was unnecessary, but slightly amusing.

"Why in the world would you throw birds at pigs in the first place?" She shook her head and crossed her arms, moving forward to look at the screen.

Aileen didn't agree to anything or take the phone. She was simply studying the game so she could make disparaging remarks about it later. That was all.

"Well? Any special reason, or is up there with why muggles watch reality tee-vee?"

Tapendra looked doubtful, and tried, for the life of him, to find a satisfactory answer to that question. He failed.

Why would you throw birds at Pigs? Or, rather, why would you throw birds to knock down loosely-created structures onto pigs?

"I don't think it's meant to make sense," he said, carefully. "It's like a children's book, you know - all the foxes wearing top hats and the like? It could be people in those stories but foxes are...more endearing?" He shrugged. "And being bizarre is kind of...err...in fashion? Muggles like stuff that's weird - even for them. It's...." He sighed.

"Look, whatever. Do you want to try it or not? Pretend it's little toys that look like birds, if that helps," he said, waggling the phone again.

A smug smile spread across Aileen's face. Tapendra seemed stumped by her question, and for a few moments Aileen relaxed, feeling less offended and huffy. He stammered a bit that muggles were weird, and that the game was like a children's book, which satisfied her curiosity (and stereotyping of muggles as nonsensical and childish).

"I might as well," she took the phone more calmly this time, pretending like this wasn't a momentous occasion.

Aileen tapped the 'play' button with a cautious air, staring down her nose at the phone and raising her eyebrows at every BWAK! and pig snort. She saw a short screenshot of the pigs running off to a castle, before the screen rearranged itself to show the pigs hiding in a poorly built structure while the birds queued up to launch themselves at them via slingshot. Not very smart. But very muggle.

"I see. The pigs have stolen their eggs! You could have just said that," Aileen commented innocently, paying him back for earlier.

Refusing to ask him any questions, Aileen tapped the slingshot and then frowned when the bird fell off it onto the ground. Poof! One bird down. She paused, keeping her eyes glued to the screen as she puzzled it out.

A second bird met an ungraceful end, and she finally decided to try dragging the slingshot across the screen. Aha! The third bird went flying, right into the structure, and bounced back, going poof! The pigs, still safe, snorted their laughter.

"This game is rather unnecessarily violent," she informed Tapendra, disregarding the fact that Quidditch and Wizard's Chess were just as violent if not more so!

Any small wounds her remarks might have done to his smirk were healed quickly at the sounds of her struggling with the game. He let his chair lean back again, rocking on the back legs - and quietly ignoring the hints of strain the chair conveyed as his full weight hit the back legs.

"Not really," he said, thinking of some of the other games he played. God of War would probably have scarred Aileen's oh-so-delicate psyche (Only not). "Besides, half of Wizard's Games are worse. Those pigs just get black eyes and good poof." He made a wheezing sound that matched up with the sound from the game fairly well.

"Though I suppose the bomb-birds are a bit morbid," he conceded. "Oh," he added, and leaned forward - the front legs of the chair banging back onto the stone floor of the patio. "The goal's to case as much destruction as possible, not just kill the pigs," he explained. "If you make a clean kill it gives you a low score."

Without much to do but watch her play, he picked up a piece of chocolate and ended up putting a few flakes of salt on it before eating it, making a pleased sort of rumble in his throat as he did so. "You just gotta exploit the built in physics."

"Hmm," Aileen murmured something under her breath, trying to sound and look as nonchalant as possible as she listened to Tapendra's advice and continued playing the game.

The goal was to cause as much destruction as possible? Abby would love this, Aileen thought grudgingly.

She glanced up as Tapendra mimicked the pig wheezes of all things, and his chair made a loud noise. Honestly, he acted like he was still a teenager. She was going to laugh if he fell.

Aileen raised her eyebrows and looked down at the screen again, pulling back the last bird and letting it fly towards the structure. When it crashed through and hit the pigs, making them go poof, she stood a little straighter. That was her only sign of acknowledgment that she'd made it to the next level! Of course, the obnoxious cheers from the mobile gave her away.

On level two, there were three pigs waiting to get smashed, and three red birds. Aileen studied the screen for a moment, then pulled the slingshot back. The first bird flew forward... and hit the pigs! More cheers!

"Third level already," she announced with a smug smile, then shot Tapendra an alarmed look as she realized with horror that this was almost... fun.

Tapendra looked at the back of the phone, his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together in what might have been a jealous scowl - for just a moment. So, maybe she got to the 3rd level faster than he had; that didn't mean anything. She was doing the easy levels, after all.

Besides, the moment the game introduced a new kind of bird she was sure to mess up. He just knew it! Those..white birds that poope-that dropped eggs would be too complex.

"Not bad," he said, charitably, "Not bad. Practice some and you might eventually be able to beat Mine & Dine," he said, in a way that made it clear he doubted she'd ever be able to beat those levels. They'd stumped him, after all, and who was the expert on muggle games? Not her. That was for sure. Yes.

He smiled sweetly at her expression, but as entertaining as watching her was..he hadn't brought a book, really. He folded his arms on the table and slumped forward, using them as an impromptu pillow and realizing how tired he was.

Aileen didn't know what Mine and Dine was, but it didn't matter. She was just humoring him right now. There was no way she, Aileen Reid, would get hooked on a silly little muggle game.

She'd caught his scowl earlier, and tried to ignore his gloating smile now. Aileen looked back at level three. Two red birds had crashed, and she had two red birds left to kill the pigs. A ball stood in the way that she was supposed to knock over onto the creatures, but she couldn't quite find the right angle.

As she tried again, she glanced up and noticed Tapendra resting his head in his arms. Aileen shook her head slightly. He was supposed to be paying attention to her as she proved her point! Drawing closer to the table, Aileen let the last bird fly, raising her eyebrows a fraction of an inch as the bird hit the ball! It tumbled over and killed the remaining pigs.

Quickly, she set the phone down, right next to his ear as the cheers sounded.

"Fourth level!" She announced in a cheerful, Abby-esque tone.

"You look like you're falling asleep, so I'm going to head back to my room and let you be," she told him, taking her wine glass with her, and another piece of chocolate while he was still sleepy-eyed.

"Catacombs and the temple tomorrow!" As if he hadn't obsessed over the itinerary.

Aileen turned to go, smiling.

Tapendra jerked his head up and stared at her in unmasked disbelief at her tone. All of a sudden the relation between the two sisters was much more obvious - and he laughed softly, the sound more of a cough of amusement than a laugh. It was actually nice to hear that tone from her, even if she was likely mocking him with it.

"Well done," he said, taking his phone back and trying to hide the surprise she'd gotten a higher score than he on one of the levels. He failed, betrayed by the rise and then the knit of his brow. The slump of his shoulders and the look he shot his phone did not help.

"Good night, Aileen," he said, with the vague feeling she'd won. Somehow. There hadn't exactly been a game going on, but she'd still kicked his butt at...something.

She also took off with one of the last pieces of chocolate, the jerk. She was right, though; it wasn't long until he'd headed to his own room, wine in tow, to fall face down onto the overstuffed comforter and sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day of dragging the kids through places...