"What an image," he says, giggling.

"Do you have - if I'd run into them I'd know the word, do you have things that you set on fire and they fly up and explode in colors?"

"We do have those! Fireworks!"

"Simpler spaceships look a little like that when they take off but don't explode afterwards."

"I imagine they wouldn't be very popular if they exploded!"

"Except with a few people who wanted to try getting reembodied!"

"There have got to be easier ways to try that!"

"Sure, but explosions are pretty."

"Well. True."

"We're really quite obsessed with pretty."

"I noticed that."

"Orcs like to cultivate deliberately un-Elven aesthetics but their cities are still nice in their own way. Dwarves make things that are again differently beautiful, and then there's here. But we're the only ones who really just suffer if things around us are ugly."

"Humans generally don't suffer if things around them are ugly! What are orc and Dwarf cities like?"

"Dwarves like to live underground in dizzying cave systems and orcs like to live in dense angular skyscrapers all packed tight. Dwarves go for less organics - gems and marble and metal where we'd put fishtanks and ivy and wood, not that we don't like gems and marble and metal in our own way. They like really legible layouts, even if you've never been to a particular Dwarf city before and don't have a guide you can often find things by pictogram or just going where it seems the path wants you to be. Orcs like steel and they have a lot of monochrome greys and a lot of bright bold colors for children - they usually avoid more jewel tones and pastel sorts of things, too Elfy. They also don't sing for the same reason - some instrumental music, some non-melodic chanting, little overlap. They don't like sunlight, their cities are pretty shaded and don't have many plants though they do live aboveground, but they have thirty-story playgrounds for their little ones."

"Wow, that's a lot of playground!"

"They have so many children and they're very sociable!"

"It sounds absurdly cute."

"Well, they're very ugly, but the babies are ugly-cute."

"Aww!"

"Tusky and grey and pudgy little orcs."

Immensely endeared giggle.

"If you want any of this drawn I'm passable at sketching, not really an artist but it might give you an idea."

"I'd like that!"

She has paper to hand. She draws a little orc baby with a lopsided underbite and one tuft of hair and beady eyes.

"Awwwww!"