"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.

"What's your home country like?"

"...Farm-y? We had a farm. Turnip farm."

"Are there any other stories you liked? I can tell a few I've heard instead, if you'd like."

"Most of the other stories are church stories or things about my neighbors. You're not supposed to tell church stories outside of chruch and telling things about my neighbors is gossip."

"It's good of you to not gossip, then."

"I could tell you about the Witches and the monsters. I guess."

"Do you want to talk about those?"

"We need to talk about them if we're gonna bring stuff to help fight them back."

"Alright."

Gren describes the Witches, using blasts of magic and bombs and bows and arrows on the Neuroi. The Neuroi will heal good as new in only a minute, so they have to beat it really fast, all at once. Neuroi shoot red arrows of light that explode things and light them on fire. If they hang around in one place long enough they make poison gas that kills humans and animals. Neuroi fights last for minutes at most. Lots of Witches die fighting them.

She doesn't seem to want to keep talking about it.

"We'll figure something out," she says, then changes the subject, to a rather lighthearted tale about a jewel-bird tricking a sandcat.