"Is that 'bleah' like 'yep, your brother is terrible' or like 'I was hoping for something juicier'?"

"He sounds quite terrible!" says Cricket. "I do not hope people are terrible, I am just disappointed over and over."

"I have no idea what's wrong with his sense of humor," she tells Iobel. "I used to think it was grownup stuff but now I'm a grownup so maybe it's just classified stuff."

"Huh. Anyway, you'd want to be a spellbinder if you could? Not everybody likes their spirit animal..."

"Yep, no question. Magic is cool."

"Can't disagree with you there. Maybe one day we'll be able to do spirit animal transplants, you could take one somebody didn't want."

"Can't do it even with a cubed hex?"

"Haven't gotten any charts for it to click."

"Gem's still down on wishing for knowledge?"

"Yeah. Wasn't within the tolerances the evil fluffs were using so she can't be sure it's safe."

"Bet you'll figure it out someday." And she rushes off to chase down the human Tyelcormo, who doesn't mind being called that at all and who Mitros growls at not to hit on her. 

(He shoots a betrayed look back. "I didn't even know that Elf stuff was alcoholic -")

"...what Elf stuff, I seem to have missed this anecdote -"

"Telars got really drunk at one of these alt meetup things and hit on one of my alts."

"Oh no. Which one? What'd he do?"

"Space, and I think he mumbled something about consent issues - Telars was in fact super drunk - there's nothing in principle wrong with it but on the other hand."

"I suppose in principle it's not any more anything than alts together, but it does seem weirder to me for some reason."

"Anyway, if my brother hits on my alt-sister I'm going to teleport him to the middle of the ocean even if in principle there's nothing wrong with it."

(Telars and Lári have a perfectly pleasant conversation.)

Cricket hops down from Iobel's arms and goes to see who here has not yet been judged.

Has he met a Rúmil yet? Scroll is talking with Boots and Kib and Island.

Cricket has not met a Rúmil yet. He goes over to this group and rubs against Boots's leg until she picks him up and listens judgmentally.

"So the bit we're ironing out now is how they can bring their whole kingdom through and then have its people answer to Bella and T'Mir."

"Yeah, ideally while maintaining enough of the internal structure of the kingdom that people aren't flailing in confusion when they need to escalate a complaint or going straight to us with everything."

"They seem very easy to work with so far - which was Compass's read on his Nolofinwë as well, so that's something - but it's still a lot to attempt all at once."

"At least the mana bottleneck's sorted?"

"And the architecture one!"