"It's - three hundred fifteen residents at the moment," says the only adult present, turning into a dwarf again to watch the babies fly.

"Quaro." He's still staring at the children.

"Well. Hi. I'm about halfway through now, I think. No one's going to complain about this afterward, are they? I suppose I could have asked everyone first, but I'm not very aquatic, and if the state of continued shrenness has any advantages I certainly can't detect them..."

"No. No one's going to complain," says Quaro faintly.

"Oh good," says Lazarus.

"Do we - are we supposed to come up with some way to pay you, or - something?"

"Not really," he says. "It just seemed like the obvious thing to do once I found out I could. If you have an irrepressible urge to do me favours anyway, I suppose I won't stop you, but I can't think of anything I particularly want. Oh, and there are other people at the other three houses already doing the same thing, in case you were worried about them."

"Yes! Barring some kind of terrible catastrophe where everyone involved dies, but that is extremely unlikely," he says. "And I suppose there might be a problem in - hmm - what's the usual dragon lifespan?"

"...Average 2500 years, sometimes as much as four thousand, it's unpredictable."

"I wonder if I can do something about that," he muses. "If I can't, there might be a miracle shortage in a few thousand years."

"...Oh?" asks Quaro weakly.

"The kind of magic that miracles are made of comes from my world, but it is extremely difficult to make it in large enough units to miracle with - specifically, it is extremely painful to do that. So of course shrens and ex-shrens are much better at it than any of the people from my world who can. But that's only because of how you grew up, so when the last person who was a shren for the first twenty years of their life dies of old age, there won't be anyone left who can do it that easily. So I guess I should try to figure out why dragons die of old age, because I suspect it is a magic thing and I am very good at figuring out magic things."

"Oh. I mean," says Quaro, "even four thousand years with no shrens - plus I guess if you can stockpile it a while after that - would be wonderful..."

"Hmm. And I suppose if you stockpiled it the right way, then after you ran out of miracles the next few shrens to grow up like that could get the magic to make more... but I'm sure there are still plenty of dragons who would rather not die of old age if they can help it, and it would be nice if there didn't have to be periodic gaps in miracle coverage."

Quaro doesn't follow all of this explanation, but he nods at the last remark.

"And now I'm done dragoning everyone in this iceberg," he adds.

"Thank you," says Quaro. He shifts his weight slightly, but doesn't go anywhere.

"You're welcome!" he says cheerfully. "And none of you can catch shrenness again now. Not that I expect that to be much of a hazard after today."

"New ones will still hatch," says Quaro. "Unless you can miracle them in the egg. Did you get the home shrens?"

"What's a home shren?"

"Sometimes the parents will keep theirs instead of destroying the egg or sending them to one of the houses. I can't tell you where they are, but the council can, they have to have a map so dragons know where not to go." He pulls out his crystal again, offers it to Lazarus.

Lazarus peers at the crystal some more. "Hmm. Well, all right then. They won't mind if I call them?"