"Storks are golems that listen for crying babies outside of settled areas, find babies, pick them up, and bring them to creches. Creches mark their roofs with symbols that attract storks because otherwise the storks can get a little confused and leave the babies in random other parts of town, which is still better than 'in a hollow log' or whatever."

"But anyway, animals still have parents, so I know loosely what you're talking about. They usually just sort of - keep you? And decide whether you get to drink alcohol?"

"It takes nine months? Eaugh."

"Nine months, and you get enormous," Marie says, miming the size and shape of a pregnant belly. "I mean, we're genetically programmed to do it, people who found the process prohibitively unappealing didn't make it back into the gene pool, but it's objectively kind of terrible."

"Yeah, no kidding. If I decide I want kids around I'll take apprentices. But I probably won't even do that."

"Some people adopt," Marie agrees. "Sometimes people who have kids die or people who don't want kids fail to use birth control and give them away. I'm not likely to decide to have kids, but if I did I'd definitely adopt."

"People who... fail to use... okay don't explain I get the picture oh dear."

"Well, it's not a problem for us, fortunately, since it's not possible to get another girl pregnant, but yeah," Helen says.

"Yeah, I imagine that would be convenient if the alternative were getting randomly pregnant."

"We have birth control!" Marie says. "We have very good birth control. The problem is that not everyone uses it who should."

"Do I want to know what's so unappealing about it?"

"It's not that it's unappealing, it's that you get teenagers or people who don't even have that excuse who think they're not going to have sex and then get carried away and have it anyway without thinking about the consequences," Marie explains. "And, you know, some people are just idiots."

"I think I prefer the model where hikers are more likely than stupid teenagers to encounter random babies."

"That's fair, but I think I prefer to keep the model where dying of exposure isn't so much a thing," Marie says.

"I mean, it's not pleasant, but new babies aren't actually that much smarter than animals I'm willing to eat for dinner. And most of them do get found first now there are storks."

"Yeah," Helen says. "It's us and one other guy that we know of for sure, but I'd be surprised if it was literally just the three of us--the two of us and also him--under the circumstances."

"The circumstances being?"

"The three of us...were in what we're fairly certain were all of our first lives, members of two groups that interacted with each other fairly often. And frequently encountered things that have strange effects. If literally none of the rest of those groups or other similar ones were similarly affected that would be surprising. And evidence that the universe enjoys laughing at our pain," Marie explains.

"...Okay. I reincarnate too. This is life three. I had no inkling of having previously existed until I started dreaming rounds one and two a couple months ago, which I might have dismissed as weird dreams if I hadn't gone to the city my past lives lived in and found their house. I don't know if... if anyone else reincarnates, and I don't think it would have bothered me in the long run if I had - or possibly did - die a few times as a baby until I got lucky and a stork found me."

"We're fully conscious of our past lives from infancy. It is so, so awkward," Helen says. "Marie and I, anyway. The only thing I know about Gregory is that he exists. Well. The only thing I know about his reincarnating tendencies, anyway." She shudders, and a dark look passes over her face. "This is life two for Marie and Gregory, but it's life three for me. The first time I died it was an accident, but Gregory decided to blame Marie. And when he finally hunted her down for revenge, she had died too. Of old age. So he decided to take his decades of grudge out on her significantly-younger widow." She puts a hand to her neck protectively.

"My first time I died of a disease, age twenty-four. Second time I fell down the stairs. I don't remember this, you understand, I only get so many dreams a night, but second life I made a really good golem that can talk and it can fill in what I don't know from reading my old notes - I've always been a really obsessive notetaker."