He remembers!

Oh good.

When her mother opens the door to their rooms, there is a moment's surprise--if that--and then she looks back behind her, and then back to the people outside, and then she says, "I'm not sure these rooms were comfortably intended for this many people. Shall we make do or convene somewhere else?"

"I have a place in mind that might be more convenient."

"Where?"

"Just down the hall."

"Alright, just let me grab the girls' father," she says, disappearing back briefly into the suite before returning with husband in tow.

And a more spacious room is found!

Cool.

"I have to say, this is all--very surreal."

"I can imagine! Our apologies."

"You know, if someone had managed to convince me a few decades ago that I would one day have children who were royalty, I would have assumed a significantly higher shenanigans-to-implausible-metaphysics ratio."

"There are in fact many less-implausible-than-this avenues to becoming royalty!"

"I know! I would still have assumed shenanigans, though, even if plausible non-shenanigan avenues existed, because, well, shenanigans...happen. A lot."

"Oh?"

"Most of the details are private, but--my mother was burned out on the idea of romance by a combination of series of shenanigans and an inadvisable relationship, she met my dads via shenanigan, I met my husband via shenanigan--and, for that matter, I'd call the inexplicable snake with a mirror with a face that brought the girls here in the first place a pretty serious shenanigan. For example."

"That does seem like an example of a shenanigan."

"Honestly, once the girls confirmed that the dreams were true I expected contacting you to be heavier on the shenanigans than it ended up being. Hence why Imliss and Inias both greeted your brother with 'oh good Idaia didn't have do do anything newsworthy.'"

"Idaia just osanwëd me in the middle of a meeting. What was the backup plan?"

"I don't think she left the house with anything so well-defined as a plan."

"That does sound like our sister."

"It seems to generally work for her."

"In this case it certainly worked fine."

"Yeah. And would have been a perfectly valid test of the reality of the dreams in the first place, it sounds like--if you hadn't been yourself the range at which she would have been capable of contacting you would have been much shorter, right?"

"Yes. Though randomly osanwëing the King is frowned upon for very good reason; if she wasn't sure it would have been wise to be well out of range for a stranger."

"Yes, that was my thought, trying to contact you from a distance sufficient for family but insufficient for a stranger.

I wish I had encouraged them to take the dreams more seriously."