Ha. Okay, should I ask him for birds directly or through you?

Either way is fine with me.

So Kib goes looking for Tyelcormo, Aly's magpie on his shoulder.

People can point Kib to him; he's flopped in a field full of horses, and stands up readily enough to come say hello.

"Hi! How're you?"

"Lovely, you?"

"Pretty good. I've been thinking about acquiring more birds. I am sort of retroactively used to having this one around, Aly got him, but he's coming up on the end of his lifespan unless Valinor messes with it, and the data's not in on that yet. Thing is I can't actually catch them."

"I can get you some birds, sure. Magpies specifically?"

"Nah, doesn't have to be magpies, just, not, like, cassowaries."

"You know what I should also do is get you a baby dinosaur."

"Dinosaurs being those things I shouldn't approach because I would be more inconvenienced than an Elf if I died and even if I wouldn't Aydanci would probably have flashbacks regardless?"

"They range from, like, vicious dog-sized to perfectly benign but house-sized - " he sends mental images - "and yeah, I've nearly died fucking around down south once or twice, and at least I knew I was just chancing a little tweaking by Mandos into a better citizen. But if I get you a baby then you can do your thing with it and it'll grow up and you'll have a dinosaur."

"Cool. I will defer to your judgment on what kind of dinosaur I ought to have. Ideally something that will be able to find its own food around here."

"Yeah, and something that's happy as a loner or among Elves because I don't know if their needs go away when you do your thing to them."

"I don't actually know, I'm a golem specialist - you're welcome to ask Thief, that being the magpie, if you like, but I think he's still mad that I had to tell him to stop eating people's hair, it was the one bad habit Aly let him keep but it wouldn't go over well here."

So he tries reaching out to Thief with emotions that should be usefully communicative - dislike of a crowded noisy environment, is that familiar? Is that a language we have in common?

Sure, familiar. 

And he does the stitching-together of thoughts in a familiar language to ask - what do you want? What makes you happy?

Aly! Food! A nice place to live! Aly is a nice place to live. Nibbling on hair is nice, can't do that, that's terrible. Aly's hair is short now, too.

Uh, seems to modify them to make you a thing they're happy about, so they might be okay without the stuff they normally need, but I don't want to bet on it, I'll just get you a dinosaur who's not a pack type. And it doesn't make them want whatever you want or anything, it's still basically a magpie that wants magpie stuff. And it is sour about the hair.

Thought so. Poor Thief, so inconvenienced by Elf social taboos. Kib strokes magpie feathers.

Aren't we all. I hope he doesn't age here but either way I will get you some birds and a dinosaur. 

Thanks! Also I don't mind petting stuff for other people, I can get them to do what other people say too. If multiple people want dinosaurs.

So, uh, there's nothing in Tirion except Huan who could stop a dinosaur under intelligent direction on a murder spree, so maybe make them follow non-murderous directions from other people, unless they're all people you trust?

Yeah, I can hand 'em out with safeties.

And I wonder if I can get ones big enough to fly on.

Ooh! That's probably safer than riding flying puppets or golems, those have an awful accident rate... my husband would probably panic anyway, but somebody ought to have fun with it.