"We're not monsters, just... being a shren is bad?" Emra tries.

"At least you can look like a human. I'm stuck in Avalon with the other monsters."

"...um. Are you a weird kind of centaur somehow? Centaurs where I'm from aren't monsters..."

"Uh, I don't know what you mean by 'weird', but I think I'm a normal centaur? Um, at least of the ones I've met. Monsters just can't look like humans, we don't have shapeshifting medallions."

"And what, you just... let people call you a monster!?"

"That's what you're called if you don't have a medallion!"

"At least you have magic?"

"Trade you."

Anderson looks up from the corner where she's been soothing Ruth. "Gods almighty, you all need therapists."

"Not you, Ruth, you need literally anything else."

"Do you have one?"

"Not right now, but I've had one, yeah. I'm married, remember? I, uh, had to get through wedding planning somehow." Various Emmas nod in understanding. "My parents cared weirdly a lot about, well, weirdly a lot."

"Yeahhhh. Just... no one let our parents matchmake for you," Emarila advises wearily.

"...what happened?"

"They, uh. Kinda dropped me off a cliff?"

"Wait, what?!"

"Yours too?" Emmalina sighs. "Mine had me kidnapped by a dragon."

"No seriously, what?!"

"No wonder my parents signed up for Kidnap Teenage Girls, Incorporated."

"They didn't mean to drop me off the cliff," Emarila feels compelled to add. "The other mages just said the platform would stop, not that I'd fall."

"Yeah but, uh, they still did drop you off a cliff?"

"My parents often speak of presenting me at court, but have yet to arrange the journey to the City. I suspect I may need to refuse, if this is what their matchmaking will yield me."

"You talk funny!"