"They have to be pretty."

"Well now I'm definitely going to show off."

"I suspect I'll approve. The city's very nice."

"I'm proud of my city! Have you seen all the best parts yet?"

"I haven't seen everything, so maybe I have missed the best parts."

"You should watch the sunrise from the garden on the eastern edge and visit the library on the northeast edge with the stone windows. I'm also very proud of the palace, especially my own wing, but I don't know if you want to get any closer to it than you have."

"I don't feel like that would be ideal, no. I'll make a point of the sunrise and the library."

"I hope you like them! The sunsets from the west edge are also pretty spectacular but there aren't such lovely gardens to sit in and watch them."

"Temporary oversight or deliberate choice?"

"Temporary but not exactly an oversight. The airship docks are in the west right now, which means if I build the island to encourage gawking in that direction then people will tend to crowd the area to watch the ships, and it'll make a mess of traffic. When I've expanded the island enough to displace the docks, I'll shift them north and put in a sunset garden on the west edge."

"Well thought out."

"I've had a while to pick up on that kind of thing!"

"One picks up a lot of things after enough time."

"Yes. Anyway, if you want wings right now we should probably go somewhere a little more out of the way than a concert hall."

"Will I be able to be rid of them later if I decide I don't like to always have them? And will passersby and audience members know where I got them?"

"They'll know you made a self-dedicated friend, but I'm not literally the only person who can do wings. —I could take them off for you, or a very good healer could take them off for you, or you could take them off the messy way and have any old healer clean up after them."

"All right."

"Thoughts on what you want your wings to look like?" he asks, opening a shimmering portal that leads to a currently-deserted garden near the southeast edge.

"Well, they have to be beautiful. Are you looking for a species of bird, or a color, or...?"

"Colour, species of bird - or bat, those also work - or any miscellaneous detail that you think you might like."

"Bats aren't as pretty, on the whole. Blue jays have lovely wings... Or something, hm, iridescent and pearly in a hawk's wing shape."

"I can do a pearly hawk!"

Out through the portal he goes, beckoning her to follow. The garden is quiet and understatedly pretty.

"Which elements do you need to make portals like that?" she wonders, stepping through.

"It's probably possible with just the full second tier, but I've never seen anybody else do it, so it might need all nine."

"I'm - a little surprised so many people try self-dedication, given how dangerous it is."