"Kalavar's outside. She's kind of huge, so it'd be hard not to bump into anybody in here. And bumping into people would be bad."
"Apparently it's a template thing," she says, "my alts would both have enormous birds too."
"We don't have any alts. I wonder if we'd have the same animals if we did. I don't even know what we'd have. Bella said it doesn't stay put till you're - well, our age, I guess, I asked when we were ten."
"I'm not going to have any alts. Bella and Sherlock are going to tell the others not to make any."
Kiawen pats Carinna's elbow. "She's very sensitive, even though we live in the nicest world."
"That's why I tell her about foods!" says Tanalin, beaming at her sisters and raiding the buffet table for a wee pie. She takes a bite and proclaims, "Tiny apple pie! I'll check to see if there's more kinds."
"I can't remember which of Bella it is in Alethia. I mean, I guess it's the one with the soul animal, but I can't remember her peal name."
"Amariah. She's a witch," says Helen. "An Alethia witch - I guess there are different kinds."
"Chronicle has two all by itself! We're part fire-witch, just a little -" Kiawen pats the bottom of a chafing dish full of sausages illustratively. "On Sherlock and Tony's side. And Bella's a magician, which means she does all kinds of magic including witching, but not fire witching because that's a family thing."
"Witching is just about the only available kind of do-able magic in Alethia - well, the subworld I'm from, I guess I don't know about the rest. And it's hereditary. You're either a witch or you're not, and witches' kids are witches if they're girls and not if they aren't."
"Maybe her Bella is going to fix it?" Kiawen suggests to Carinna. "For boys who want to be Alethia witches."
"...I'm not sure there are any of those," says Helen. "I guess it's always possible." She looks at Carinna, and decides not to continue on to mentioning the possible negative social repercussions of such a change.
"There are cherry ones and apple ones and peach ones and ones that are a kind of fruit I don't know," she says. "The mystery fruit is mysterious and really tasty. They all have different shapes of holes in the top for what kind they are."