"...that's not very many."

"It is less than thirteen billion. It has never really felt like not enough."

"Yeah, sounds like you don't have the same problems as us."

"I guess maybe eventually we will because we do not stop existing permanently for no reason when we are only forty."

"Yeah, that'll overpopulate you eventually even if everybody only has two."

"The Valar will probably fix it."

"I'm not sure I'd want them in charge of population controls."

"I mean fix the space, not say people can't have children. People wouldn't have children if there wasn't space for them."

"Gotcha."

"Anyway since we don't randomly stop existing for no reason we would not mind waiting until they got us more space."

"Sounds nice."

Snuggle.

Snuggle! "So you're pretty low-tech, if glass and the wheel are new. But I guess you have magic doing a lot of the things technology does for us."

"What things does technology do for you?"

"Get us around cities and between countries, let us talk to people far away, let us build really densely so we can fit more people, cure and treat diseases, go to moons, handle data in all kinds of useful ways..."

"I think magic does some of those things and some we don't really need."

"Yeah, sounds like. Are you all one country?"

"The King of the Vanyar is Ingwë and the King of the Teleri is Olwë."

"And your king is your dad and is that it?"

"Yeah. Some people who didn't want to have kings went down south I think."

"Only three countries on a whole planet isn't much."

"How many are there here?"

"Almost two hundred, I think."

"Wow. Do people pick their favorite one?"

"No. Most don't allow immigration because of population problems - the ones that were nice would soon get too full, and then the people who lived there first wouldn't get to have as many kids as they could otherwise. You can switch countries if you find someone who wants to trade with you. In the same caste as you, so the balances of different jobs don't get too off."