"Kobolds don't do blessing coins - probably only this world. Use things, sometimes, for communicating. And kobolds don't do trade."

"Less specialization. Much less. And they have to self-motivate a lot - this also because they don't have a concept of property and can't rely on keeping anything they aren't actually holding right then, and the whole tribe would fall apart if they only ever swiped stuff from each other and never gathered or made anything. But, yes, also less material variety and abundance. Less inequality too though - everybody sort of hovers around something you'd probably categorize as 'at least they're not starving' most of the time."

The kobold takes a minute to work these words out; she gets most of them, eventually, and nods. "Tribe is happy, usually - if trouble, no, other time yes."

"Material variety and abundance is - having lots of choices of different stuff, and lots of stuff. Inequality is some people having more stuff than other people. Specialization is getting good at one thing and not knowing as much about how to do any other things."

She considers this (kobolds have plenty of variety and abundance, she thinks, but compared to humans, yeah, less; inequality: ...um? the only thing in kobold culture that's even close to that is when someone pisses off their tribe enough that people start hassling them when they go to take things from the tribe's supplies, which is a mid-level to fairly severe punishment... presumably there's some kind of system to keep that from getting out of hand, here; she wants to check on that later) and nods. "Kobolds do many different of humans," she tells Aleko and Jayce.

"Yeah, I'm getting that."

"...Inequality is very complicated," Kiri says. She doesn't have to explain it right now but she doesn't want the kobold to start making faces before she's finished explaining it later.

Well, the kobold can make a face now if Kiri prefers, given what 'complicated' meant last time. But she lets it go for the moment.

"I don't think it's that complic-" Jayce pauses. "Okay, it would be really complicated if you didn't even have 'property' as a concept."

"Speaking of not having property as a concept..."

"The kobold is not going to steal your stuff."

Nod.

"Okay, good, my twin in my head is one thing but some of my stuff is private. Or hard to replace. ...Do kobolds do 'privacy'."

"Privacy is when you don't want anyone, or only want some people, to know or see a thing. Most people consider their thoughts very private, which is why I'm careful about standing near people."

"Personal bedrooms are a normal human thing. Sometimes people who are very close share rooms. Mostly - couples." Is that clear enough? Does she have to explain pairbonding?

"From what?"

"Danger," she shrugs. "Animals, tigerfolk, fire," monsters, apparently her world has monsters, "...big things like animals. Few kobolds watch, other kobolds sleep; if trouble, watching kobold do noise, other kobolds do awake."

Aleko gets up and bolts for the bells, then hollers, "Third from the left!"

Kiri disappears.

The kobold takes a piece of twine and starts working on a viewing-portal. After several minutes, she manages it, passes the result to Jayce, and starts working on a second one for Aleko.

"What is this f- oh," says Jayce, peering through the portal. "Yeah, there's smoke - doesn't look like it's spread all that far. I don't see Ki- no, there she is, she must've commandeered somebody's horse. I can't see the actual flames..."