Not with the magic. With your eyesight you might just be able to see if I put the portal high enough and let you move the perspective around, I'm not sure.

Could be worth checking, would you?

Sure, is there one you like?

He selects one. Looks like a good place to build a home, don't you think?

Mmhmm.

And shortly there's a portal. It follows how you hold it, she demonstrates, then hands it over.

He is delighted. Thank you! You're really clever with how you put this to use - hmmm -

Yay!

I think if it is even on this continent it is pretty far from the Enemy.

Sounds good. Scouts first? And once you're ready I can do big teleportation areas just right on the ice that'll take people there.

Yes, scouts next. He hugs her. Thank you.

Findekáno: has her figured out. She leans into the hug, but doesn't cling. You're very welcome.

It'll be warm and safe and lovely. We can do portals to somewhere with iron. 

Mmhmm.

...I might end up moving there, if that's okay. I think I'll get along better with you than the other host.

Of course that's okay. I'm curious why you think so, though.

Less of a cultural difference, at least I hope. The way you described them earlier... it sounds like they live very separate from each other, socially. And kobolds very much don't; we need companionship like you need beauty, I think.

Leaning on him? Yup, leaning on him.

He hugs her. I don't think we're different from them culturally. We were one people, before they left us to die. We probably do cuddle more, now, out of habit.

She grins up at him. That's important, yeah. And, like... they had a thousand questions about my magic but never thought to thank me for helping their sibling. Which, I don't mind, I guess? That's not why I did it or anything. But it's not what I want from tribemates.

He laughs. That does sound like my cousins, yeah. Well, we're happy to have you.

Good. Let's go see about those scouts.

Scouts are found and teleported.

She doesn't have any particular plans for the rest of the day - she could tell him about herself or kobolds in general or her magic or something, if he's interested and not busy.

He is extremely busy but it looks like she could use that. He would love to hear about her.

She really could, yes.

She was chief's-kin, which means she was theoretically a potential chief for her tribe when the old chief retired; her parent - she ends up having to explain that kobolds do eggs and yes, she was adopted; that's more common than not, for kobolds, and basically universal for chief's eggs - was a healer; her early childhood was pretty okay but more restrictive than usual for a couple reasons and then when she was eight and could get away with it - oh, huh, yeah, kobolds age differently, eight is totally old enough to be running around alone, they're adults at twelve - she ran off to spend the summer with a tigerfolk tribe, which was really dumb and nearly killed her but also she learned to speak while she was there - kobolds usually just don't - which meant she was definitely going to be a Speaker and definitely not going to be her tribe's next chief because that's too much power for one person to have, according to kobold culture. She mostly doesn't regret that but kind of does, the new chief - without her there was only one option unless the old chief wanted to try training someone who wasn't kin of theirs - is pretty bad at it and she bets she'd've done a better job - she hopes they're okay without her, now.

Anyway. When she was nine she adopted the tribe's existing Speaker as a second parent and learned a lot from them over the following three years; when she was twelve, they moved to another tribe - there were and are more tribes than Speakers in her area and a tribe not having a Speaker is not good at all - and she took over; she was very young for it - most Speakers don't even learn to talk until they're in their late twenties - but turned out to be really good at it, too. Then when she was fifteen there was that one awful, awful year with the tigerfolk - she clings a little but manages to get through the telling okay - and when she was sixteen she took up going and talking to them to let them know that that really wasn't okay as a project. Nineteen when she had her first egg - didn't hatch it, didn't even try, having a parent who did something as dangerous as talking to tigerfolk would have in no way been an okay thing to do to a kid, but they were well and happy and aiming to join the hunters last she heard; the accompanying memory is of a kobold rather smaller than she is, with darker fur, playing some sort of tumbling game with a group of similarly sized kobolds in various shades of grey and brown. Things were pretty okay for the decade after that - she had another egg at twenty-five but didn't keep close enough track of who had it to know who hatched from it, the tigerfolk project continued apace, she kept keeping her chief from doing anything too unwise or self-destructive, there were a few years with various more minor obstacles - until she got her Gift, which was her magic.

Gifts are this thing, usually. For magic they're this other similar thing instead, apparently. Her tribe didn't like this at all; magic as a Gift is unprecedented and also doesn't look the same from the outside even though it's clearly the same from the inside. They were afraid she'd been hexed. They were afraid to have someone in the tribe who was both a Speaker and a mage. Some of them already thought she was unstable and maybe couldn't be trusted with anything new, what with all the tigerfolk-visiting. They stopped right in the middle of traveling to the yearly meetup to spend eight days deciding what to do, with her under guard the whole time. The people who were afraid she'd been hexed ended up winning the day; hexed people are dangerous and therefore have to be exiled even though it's no fault of their own. That was six months ago.

More hugs seem in order, even if he's appalled by the idea of having children and not knowing what happened to them.

Yes, definitely hugs. It has been a rough six months and while the last while has helped she is definitely not actually okay, just holding it together.

Seems like things are turning around, though.