Gamesa nods.

"Thanks. Goodnight, Eeferi. It was nice to talk to you."

Gamesa heads home just as the first pale tones of astronomical dawn paint themselves across the sky.

The village is silent, the lake quiet and still, for another few hours.

The figure dissipates from the smoke, for a time.

A record of names is compared to memories of faces.

From the smoke, form dioramas.  Villages atop winged ships.  Villages atop turtles.  Villages protected by cloud-bottomed castles.  Craters.  Signage.  Obelisks and grand bells.  Rope and ladder and stairwell, stretching high above or deep below.

Satenag is the first one up.

She wanders out of her house just as the sun starts to crest the horizon, munching on some of last night's bread. She walks to the village square, hunched against the pre-dawn chill, and blinks at the sight of the dioramas.

"... good morning," she says, with the hesitation of someone reassuring themselves that if there's nobody to say good morning to, nobody can overhear them saying it without cause.

A figure forms from the smoke.  "I hope it is for you as well."

"Last night, I discussed with another- when need no longer ties the people to the land, how do they stay together, if they want to explore?  And an idea was had- what if the village itself flies the people?  Though I did think afterwards- if this happens, there should be some signifier, on the ground where the village once was, to tell that no great disaster befell the people."

"Would you like some breakfast?" she asks, handing them their own cheesy bun.

"I'm not sure whether I would want to leave the lake behind," she muses. "I've been swimming in it all my life. I wonder if it would be possible to let the village fly, but to ... leave some doors behind, maybe, so we can come back. Or make it so that half the village is flying and half is by the lake, and you can walk between them to visit."

"Thank you, I would."

..

"I think both options are possible."  The dioramas of the land regrow missing parts of the village and freestanding archways or doorways.  The dioramas of the traveling villages lose some buildings and in their place form counterpart structures.

She walks around the dioramas, taking in the little details.

"I like the turtle," she says. "But how would we steer? Turtles aren't—"

Đani comes running into the square, cornering hard.

"Satenag! I was thinking about it in my sleep, and we made a terrible mistake," she exclaims, panting. "You need to use your second wish, now."

Satenag grabs her shoulder.

"Deep breaths. What's the emergency?"

"You should wish for 'all the people everywhere to as quickly, blah, blah, become potentially resurrectable by future magics'," she explains. "We didn't go for it because we were trying to figure out how resurrection should work, but that's not the important bit. The important bit is that resurrection works, and Eeferi said it couldn't be retroactive."

Satenag sucks in a breath.

"Okay, that's a good point. But we need to do this correctly, which means doing it calmly. Just breathe, for a moment."

She turns to Eeferi.

"Do you see a problem with the idea of the wish Đani proposes?" she asks. "Or is it not possible to just wish that resurrection be possible, without yet specifying the mechanism?"

"We wouldn't know the method, nor its limitations. It wouldn't reach to other worlds without further effort. It might be there are people no Wish can ever resurrect, even preemptively, though if that's true, the attempted Wish should fail outright."

Satenag taps her fingers on her chin.

"Okay. That last point isn't too much of a problem, I think — we can try for a wish that gets everyone, and then if it doesn't work try for one that gets everyone who it's possible to get. But the others are good points. I don't feel comfortable spotting more problems on my own, though. Đani, can you go wake Penþa please?"

She nods and jogs over to Penþa's house.

"Let me try to think of a wording ..." Satenag mutters.

She speaks softly to herself, trying to think it through. "'I wish, as quickly, harmlessly, durably, costlessly as possible for it to be the case that everyone who could theoretically be made resurrectable with a wish, including people in other worlds, be made ... as easily and costlessly resurrectable as possible ... with the method or methods of their resurrection made known to me without harm to my mind, body, or sense of self ...'"

She trails off. "Shoot, that might not cover those not yet born. Uh. '... everyone who could be made ressurrectable with a wish, including anyone who becomes included in that category in the future, including children not yet born, including people in other worlds, be made—'"

Đani and Penþa emerge from their hut, Penþa rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

The dioramas are consolidated from many to a few.  A stone pillar rises up from the ground, each side with .. attempts .. to pictographically depict 'ensure resurrectability.'

Eeferi lightly whispers. "Apologies for the interruption - I suggest not saying 'I Wish' when something is urgent, especially if that makes your statements malformed."

"I said 'wish' not ... uh. Yeah, that's probably good advice," Satenag agrees.

"Good morning, Eeferi,*" Penþa says upon reaching the two of them. "Satenag, Đani has explained a little bit. You agree with her that this is too urgent to wait for consensus?"

* Cultural translator's note: since Penþa is helping Satenag, getting right to the point is a polite way to start the conversation. But politeness still requires them to greet Eeferi, as a guest.

"How many people die per day?" Đani protests. "It's, like, four people per year here, which is one per season per village, and there are way more than two and a half thirty-sixes of villages, just in Marnesi."

Penþa raises a hand. "Yes, I understand. But it is best to do the thing well. And Satenag is not actually required to save the life of anyone outside the village, even though it would be impolite not to."

She nods.

"Presuming we can find a good wording, yes," she agrees. "I was thinking something like 'I ... the word Eeferi advised me not to say ... as quickly, harmlessly, durably, costlessly as possible, for it to be the case that everyone who could theoretically be made resurrectable with a wish or who becomes a member of this category at any future point in time, including those yet unborn, including people in other worlds, be made as easily and costlessly resurrectable as possible, with the viable method or methods of their resurrection made known to me without harm to my mind, body, or sense of self.'"