"Yeah."

He doesn't seem to know what to say to that.

"We wouldn't have actually gone back even without the possible genesis, not once you showed up, but if you hadn't been able to produce fertile soil we would have been on a very tight deadline to get out of here as fast as possible."

"Yeah."

"If none of us can go back where we came from and we're going to have as many people as a genesis will ultimately produce we're going to end up founding a civilization whether we want to or not. Maybe we should think about how we want that to go."

"Maybe you should teach me your language first," Tiro suggests.

"True. I mean, if there's a better way to do it than talking about things I'm not sure what it is, I've never taught a language before, but things like that should probably wait."

"Talking about things will do it! Talk about more things!"

"My name is Aduva. I am the daughter of Saerltes, an elf, and Arka daughter of Aduva and Jaken, a frost giant. I am the sister of Amalta and the sister-in-law to be of Kaleith. I was born in the nine hundred and twelfth year of the settlement of the nation of Arshalei, and in the thousandth year the queen was murdered and her brother and son began to war over her throne. Each claims the other killed her."

"My name is Tiro se Fara. I am the son of Kelten, a human, and Alyne se Fara, daughter of Fara, another human." He has to borrow in 'human' from his own language. "There are no hybrids with us. Athrai don't die or have children."

"That is very strange. They can't be killed at all?"

"I don't know how to kill them."

"And you've never heard of one dying?"

"Never."

"I don't know what to make of that."

"They are very magic."

"Doesn't seem fair, if they have lots of magic and you don't have any."

Tiro snorts. "Yeah."

"But you have your--language thing?"

"It's from an athra."

"I guess that's better than them not sharing, if things are like that but they can share."

He snorts again and shakes his head. "Yeah," he says, somewhat ambivalently.

"Need more words?" she guesses.

"Yes!"

"I can't really think what we should be discussing right now that you have words for. Maybe I should just tell stories for a bit."