"This seems like a reasonable concern."

"There's probably a safe way to phrase it, like 'I wish for all the knowledge about templates and alts that I can have without having it breaking anything', but then perhaps you get nothing at all for your wish."

"I have the impression she does not actually know very much about how it works, which is a pity because it's the sort of thing it'd be nice to be able to use to capacity."

"Yep. ...if we ever understand templates well enough Mitros and Iobel are going to have a kid and that sounds delightful and possibly terrifying."

"Why would them having an Elspeth be terrifying?"

"The surrounding six or so lightyears will melt of cute."

Giggle.

And across the room: "human alts! Congratulations on being human alts! The Elves have shinier hair and longer eyelashes but we've got better magic, that's how this works."

He giggles. "In my world you don't exist."

"Yeah, I heard. Still counts as having human alts - does my mom exist, do I have alt-half-siblings..."

"I have no idea, I don't think I even know who your mother was supposed to be. The Elves seem alright-"

"The Elves are great, just, super Elfy. They don't think our palace is pretty enough, they get really freaked out if you have your hair loose -"

"Yes, I've noticed, there are several of them on Warp. Including a tiny your father, who my whole family is going to have breakdowns over as soon as they get to evacuate."

"That might stress him out."

"Noted."

"Breakdowns, like...?"

"He died three times because he couldn't manage to stop being curious or stop thinking he deserved better than to be squished for it. The third time we couldn't resurrect him. We - don't know what that means. 'something powerful hates him', but not more than that. It - I don't think anyone in our family is the kind to survive Materia, innately, but it made the rest of us cautious. I'm named after him. He was everything that our world prohibits, and he was only a kid, and -"

"What did he do specifically that got him killed, or was it pure thoughtcrime -?"

"He was probably experimenting. He quite literally couldn't help himself. No one tried reconstructing what he was up to, for obvious reasons..."

"And he didn't leave notes or anything -"

"If he did, someone disposed of them without telling the rest of us."

"Safety precaution?"

"Materia is terrible. So terrible it inspired renaming evil Arda, did you hear?"

"Boots explained when she proposed the rename, yes."

Antir circles the crowd and lands on Ferardrin's shoulder and then makes a perplexed face at Mitros. "Not him," he says to her, and to Ferardrin, "you're the first Finankar alt to look exactly like him."