Gren goes quiet.

She finishes charging the cell - for now - and takes deep breaths and looks like she's trying not to cry.

"...Are you okay?"

"...Maybe."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"I know what I'm sad about. I miss my mom."

Hug?

Hug. Some confusion about the hug, but hug.

Sarati is not entirely sure what to do about upset child, but she does her best to be comforting.

"I'll make sure you get back, with help," she says.

"Yeah. That's- That's what we need to do."

"Do you want to talk about home? I find that sometimes helps me, when I'm missing things."

Grenadine will tell her the story of the giants! One of the creatures that roamed the Earth in the times before Witches - they were strong, fast, devilishly clever. The story tells of them succeeding at one thing and the next and the next. But they are so, so hungry, all the time, and eventually there are so many giants that there is not enough food in the world and all the giants starve and most other creatures starve too, but life recovered, eventually.

She listens attentively!

"...That's just a story though. I don't know if it actually happened. But I like the story."

"I like it, too. And stories often have important things to tell us, I've found."

"I know lots of stories. They don't all seem that important. I don't think the one about the crazy chicken is important."

"What's that story?"

"Roga was a kid who always got into trouble and did silly things. Like stealing shiny things, putting goats on roofs, making nobles fall into mud... He made a witch mad and the witch turned him into a chicken but he escaped her and kept doing crazy things."

"Well, maybe that one's lesson is don't turn people into chickens, since it didn't exactly work. But you're right, some stories aren't meant to have lessons. My old literature teacher would have a fit if you told her that, though."

"There was a guy who said the kind of stories people tell say things about them and that Ostkav folk tales said that Ostkav peasants are stupid and in-cli-ned to crime and not pious."

"I think that says more about the guy than it does about the peasants."

"He spoke Venetian, mom said. People say Venice is made of snobby fake nobles."

"Why are they fake?"

"They're just rich. Not actually noble. Don't own land and have royal titles. I don't even think there's a king?"

"Well, maybe Venetian nobles are defined differently. Nobles in Madeza don't have to own land, for instance, and there's no king - instead the Great Speaker invests them with a hereditary title, and a lot of them are the heads of merchant houses. Nobles in Bajilda are often scientists or captains or generals who've made a major contribution to the kingdom, or their descendants."

Grenadine shrugs.