"First time the planet got punctured the city on the far side appeared to have been attacked."

"Oh wow. Yeah, that'd do it."

"Sure did. But then we all discovered that actually the problem was the planet getting eaten."

"I bet that sucked."

"Tremendously. Hence my attempt to go looking for alternate dumping grounds and somewhere to escape to."

He laughs. "Makes sense."

"Thank you."

"Hmm," he says. "I think I wanna go back to the depressing wasteland and fuck around with my inexplicable magic powers. Wanna come and watch?"

"I'm under a bit of a time constraint. If you don't want to help and you don't want me to try to send you home either I should probably go back where I came from and get more people investigating the wastelandness of this planet."

He shrugs. "How would I even help if I wanted to? Wouldn't 'finding out what my inexplicable magic powers even do' be a pretty good start either way?"

"I guess it depends on what they do. Do you want to help?"

"Well, I dunno! Depends how!"

"If you could make this planet less wastelandy we could find another dumping ground, presuming hospitable planets no one will mind us moving into are fewer than empty ones. If you're tougher than a mage you could scout. You could introduce us to the folks back home and we could ask if they've got space."

"They've got tons of space out in Ceir if you don't mind the invading murderous aliens. But making the planet less wastelandy might be fun."

"I kinda mind invading murderous aliens but they sound solvable."

"Then maybe you could talk to my dad. —He's the king of Aluvanna, I forget if I said."

"I don't think it came up."

Shrug. "Well, he is. He's not great at being a dad but he's all right at being a king. Anyway, I'm gonna go fuck around with the wasteland."

He heads back to the portal.

Cor follows.

Once they're both back out in the wasteland, the portal vanishes tracelessly. Tias climbs the hill. He squints up at the sky, and wisps of cloud begin to form, twisting together until they pile up into a big grey blanket and a light rain begins to fall.

"Wow, it really doesn't wanna rain here," he comments. "Also I have weather powers, that's cool."

"How can you tell it doesn't want to rain?"

"I dunno, it just... feels that way? It's like, you know if you sit still for too long you get stiff and then moving is weird? It feels kind of like that, except with weather."

"Huh. It was awfully dry..."

"Yeah, that probably has something to do with it. Hmm. Wonder what else I can do..."

He surveys the land, fanning his wings to let the rain run down his feathers. Weather, check, what's the next step in making this place less depressing? Maybe some grass? He reaches out mentally, and winces.

"Oh wow, it was a little reluctant to rain but it's way more reluctant to, like, grow any plants. I'm not sure there's a single living thing within a mile of us. I'm not sure there's a single living thing anywhere."

"Can you tell what your range is?"