There is a friendly looking man sitting at the bar. He is currently having what might possibly be the most fluffy, decorative piece of chocolate fudge cake the world has ever seen. It's got multiple colors of frosting, sprinkles, and some raspberries, among other things. This isn't the only thing he's having, he's quite a big eater, but the cake might be the most relevant to the little angel's interests.

"I angel," explains Pen. "Like Mommy." She notices him looking at her Kiss, and checks him for one, and finds none, and nods to herself.

"Live Samaria. This the bar, bar near everyplace."

"Huh? I'm afraid I don't understand. It's in a small town, I came in here off of the street just a little earlier. Not what I was expecting from the outside, but then again, I'm not from around here."

Pen laughs at him, and eats a big forkful of cake. "Door does magic door. Goes worlds, hides with other door, surprise! Bar!"

"Nobody know, not even the ones of Mommy."

"I'm afraid I don't understand - 'Ones of Mommy?' Are there more than one?"

"Such lots," says Pen. "And Daddy too. And two more Dars and one more Keziah and one more Ariel. Only one me anywhere, now!"

"I live in Eyrie. Many many angels, always sing songs. Mommy leading host is important and she will Archangel."

"I see! What do your other mommies do? Do they help with raising you?"

Pen looks confused. "Only have one is my Mommy. Others are other ones of Mommy."

They can be confused together, now. He thought he had it all figured out. "Other ones of Mommy? I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I live Samaria," says Pen. "Other ones from other worlds. Look like Mommy except wings and stuff, sound same except Mommy best singing, like that. Same with ones of Daddy or sisters. My mommy and daddy only ones having four kids, so, one Pen, but more others other ones had."

"And lots people! Yes."

"Dunno. One of Mommy can see thing, not me though."

"No, just if you having them. Can't find them purposely, have to waited."

"Well that's annoying. Is there a way that I could look for them?"

"Wait here?" suggests Pen. "Here is finding place."

"My wife would worry if I were here for too long," he points out. He's learned to call her his 'wife' and not his mate when he's among humans - for strange cultural reasons he doesn't understand. He doesn't pretend to understand humans, he just thinks they're interesting.

"Oh. I dunno then."

"Ah, well. So is this a common place to show up, for you? I've never seen it before, and I'm quite a bit older than you."

"I never be here before but Mommies and Daddies know it."

"That's alright. Do you know if I'll see one of your Mommies or Daddies? I'm quite curious about this place."

"Not here now. Sometimes come though, not waiting doors, just Jane."

"Jane? Who's Jane?"

"She a person who go in Belltower and be all computers, and she moves people worlds when asking."

"She ask Mommies probably. Also depending where."

"I wouldn't know where to start! But I think I'd like to see any place I could go."

"Lot of places. And Mommies not liking very much if going places and being trouble. Trouble supposing to stay home."

"I not know if you troubling. Mommies check."

"They very magic."

"They have magics! Kinds and kinds. They do anything."

"Okay, not that thing. Most anything."

"Hm. Could I meet one? I'd like to go exploring other worlds, if I can."

"A Mommy? I guess. I finish cake and show you Belltower?"

"Sure. That would be fine," he says.

Cake! Om nom nom cake.

The man eats his own food! He can be somewhat patient, when he gets something he likes. He can go exploring, soon! He'll wait.

Eventually Pen finishes her cake, and washes it down with a glass of milk that she also pays for via bracelet-wave, and then she hops down off the stool and says, "I showing you."

"A person from the bar who wants to go places, huh?" says a disembodied voice from a roughly towerward direction. "He'll have to clear it with somebell first, they're pretty clear about not wanting to open up on-demand interworld transit to the general public."

"Is there some reason any of the Bells ought to consider dropping by to clear him very important, Pen?" Jane asks the little angel.

Pen shrugs. "I dunno. He just ask me."

"Er. I'm very friendly?" he tries.

"Well, they're all busy, but one of them may be freed up soon. Where do you want to go?"

"Some place interesting to see. I'm truly not very picky, something with lovely visuals, I suppose?

"Are you planning to do anything obviously nonmagical or nonhuman or both while visiting? Some worlds aren't cleared for that yet."

"I didn't realize that there were rules to go along with these worlds," he says, somewhat annoyed. He's tempted to just reveal himself here and now, and demand what he wants. But he'll try the silver-tongued approach, first. He needs to guarantee a return trip. "But I'll do my best to look especially human."

"Course there rules," snorts Pen. "Not making trouble, I say so before! Some places being magic trouble. Home like that, we not have visitings there, we go other places for visit."

"I wasn't aware, I apologize. I'll take the one with the least rules, then. More interesting things to see," he says. Silver-tongue, c'mon... Accept the lies he's feeding you, silly child. Please?

"The Alethian afterlife subworld, Rêverie, Thilanushinyel, and Chronicle are most open to visitors who are going to make conspicuous displays of otherworldliness. If you're willing to stay put on single colony planets, Origin and Rainbow are available, and it's possible you could talk your way into Atlantis if you do pass a tourism check for Belled worlds in general."

"Hmm," says the man, pondering. He looks at Pen. "Which do you think is the prettiest? My wife likes hearing stories about places I go. I'd like to give her a nice one, when I come back."

"I not gone too many places. Been Rêverie, it has enchanted things."

"Then I'll go with that. If I get bored of it, I can always ask to go to another, yes?" he asks, reasonably.

"I'm not a taxi," says Jane. "You'd have to make it worth somebody's time if you want to make a lot of trips."

"Waiting on some Bell to be available to clear you. Ideally Rose, since Rêverie is her world."

"Rose the one Mommy has three kids so has another Keziah is Céleste and another Ariel is Hyacinthe, plus her Dars is Yseult."

"Don't close door, it stops magic if you closed it," advises Pen.

"There's no reason you can't remove medium-sized nonmagical objects that don't already belong to somebody from Rêverie if you're allowed to go there at all."

"And Rose can come give you a couple minutes' worth of checking-out now."

Here she is. "Hello. Hi, Pen, you found Milliways all by yourself?"

"I did finded door. Ate cake! Met person. He wants visiting Rêverie."

"May I ask whether you are any of non-human, magically capable, or possessed of advanced technology?"

"Flying overhead and observing things clearly visible from the air is unproblematic." She eyes him assessingly. "I'm less sure about letting you mingle with my general population. I don't know you, none of my alts knows you, none of us know any of your alts if you have them unless you are very much off-model. Is there any upside to letting you in besides... not irritating a total stranger?"

"If I need dragons, I can get them from Thilanushinyel, or Chronicle," shrugs Rose. "I have never previously encountered a problem best solved by, in particular, a dragon. Nor am I suffering any economic hardship. What habits are you alluding to?"

"It's not a matter of a toll. I don't need anything. If I had a standard procedure for inviting anyone but my own alts and their personal friends and relatives into Rêverie you would be interacting with that procedure, and not me." She tilts her head. "Perhaps I'll let you visit if you show me into your own world via Milliways when you are ready to return to it."

"I don't have immediate plans to visit. Just to plant an anchor in the world so I can find it later when mine has been remodeled to my satisfaction. The anchor doesn't have to be destructible. Or generally accessible."

Ah. What kind of anchor? And what do you plan on doing, once you have free access to my world?

"A little piece of Jane, here. My template likes to find things that need fixing or improving, and then do that. In a very general sense."

And you're asking me to add my world to the 'fixing' list, says the dragon, bluntly. What does fixing or improving entail? Would any who oppose you be put to death? If that were the case, I'd have to refuse you.

Rose looks him over cursorily. "In the unlikely event that I had to kill anyone, I'd resurrect them once I had a safe place to put them and they reached the top of the to-resurrect list. Resurrecting people falls under the category of fixing."

Hrrm he ponders. I will be honest, since you are being such, it seems. I am thinking of a dragon's priorities, here. If you want to improve the human's lives, fine, be my guest. Many are interesting and should remain so. But many of my kind have killed to get the things we want - would you try to return them? You'd very quickly have a war on your hands.

"I would not bring them all back at the same time, or put them in anything liable to become a war zone. Credit me with that much sense."

I meant the things that were stolen, or claimed, he explains.

"It sounds as though it would require careful thought. The dead would keep while I or one of my alts learned enough about the situation to make a decision," shrugs Rose. "Perhaps we'd just duplicate everything under dispute."

"I wasn't planning to tell you where it was going to be," remarks Rose. "Let alone leave an avenue for its destruction. And while just one would suffice for rendering the world accessible later, by the time we started working on anything there would be more."

I see, says the dragon who definitely has a name that no one present has asked for. Then you ask me to accept on faith alone? I do not know you. I do not know how your improvements would affect my home, or whether or not you plan simple invasion and tyranny.

"Moments ago you were asking a person who answers to me and not to you and is the sole reliable method of travel between worlds to put you in mine, which you have heard described solely and briefly by an eight-year-old who has visited a tiny part of it for less than one week in total. If you in fact suspect me of such things, your behavior would be beyond foolish."

"Your priorities are your own. At any rate, I am not disposed to destruction or cruelty unless sorely provoked."

"Provocation would have to be both severe and impossible to handle through lesser recourse. If you would like to do consult others first, far be it from me to interrupt you."

"What sort of proof would you like?"

"Pretty," admires Pen.

"Some time ago, my alts took over the management of an afterlife shared by a few dozen worlds, called Downside. People within this afterlife do something called 'torching': on suffering lethal damage, they reset to a healthy state on the spot. My alts and I can now distribute torching to anyone we choose, and for most worlds, including yours, we can also add that world to the sphere of Downside's influence by granting any person from it the ability to torch. Torchability is permanent and indelible; if I needed to get someone who was torchable out of my way, I could render them unconscious or put them far away from anything that they could influence to bother me, but it would be beyond any power we know of to destroy them outright. I'm personally overseeing only my native world at this time; others of me are managing their own, and yours would be added to the waiting list if you will allow me into it long enough to leave an anchor. Will my apprentice do or do you want to speak to someone with less of a personal connection to myself?"

"Your mate's desire to visit my world is currently my point of leverage for getting access to yours," Rose points out. "Doing it out of order so he can pick someone to interview seems like it might require more assurances. My confidence in the permanence of torching is the fact that I cannot undo it, the administrator of Downside claims that it is indelible, and my alt who can see magic and something called 'metacausality' agrees with her. To you I imagine any of those testimonies are just so many words."

"If you want only my assurance that they will not remain dead forever as the epilogue to their lives, you can have that with the anchor in your world, which I will give freely and gladly, and need nothing more except patience. We are not going to deliberately leave anyone dead forever if that is not the person's own undiluted wish; the only question is what order we retrieve the deceased in and how long it takes to make someplace that is safe and comfortable for them. If you want them rendered torchable now, as opposed to whenever your world rises to the top of the general Bell to-do list and your children rise to the top of the world's - I will need to learn more, because that would give them a striking advantage over anyone else they encounter and that is something not to be taken lightly."

Procellor considers her. Then he says carefully, Would you like to meet them?

"It would presumably help."

"Aw!" exclaims Pen. "Did the one dragon Daddy look that way when he a baby?"

"You would have to ask Ansharil what he looked like when he was a baby; I don't know off the top of my head," Rose tells Pen. "Hello. I'm Belle, or Rose, either is fine. What are all your names?"

"I'm not going to harm you," Rose assures Ilayse. "Also, I can fly."

"I am a human. On my world humans can have magic - in fact, we are the only thing that does. I am an enchantress. I also got some other magic that humans can use from other worlds."

Pen attempts to follow the hiders behind the concealing wing.

"My world doesn't have any dragons, actually," says Rose. "Pen', come back over here, don't frighten them."

"I not frightening! Am eight, have no squares, is silly."

"Come out regardless," Rose tells Pen firmly.

Pen drags her feathers. "Squares do magic," she says over her shoulder. "And most places not having dragons! My world either. Is only Chronicle and world can't pronounce name."

"Angels fly, in Samaria," says Pen, no longer crowding the shier babies. "Mommies do magic, mostly, and daddies, and when I grown up enough also me. Squares kind of coins! Triangles too but only do tiny little magic. Some shiny."

"My daddy a human. I think all the time. Other ones of him other things, some, though!"

"The worlds are all different in a variety of ways - their kinds of people and kinds of magic and languages and histories and geography and other quirks. You are actually here because your parents would like me to do a bit of magic to the three of you."

"The kind of magic in question would make you all immortal."

"Daddy must like human being, I guess. He fly too like Rose! But is secret on Samaria."

"Yes. But I can't undo it, so I have to make sure I'm careful about who I give it to."

"I know is fun!" says Pen, flapping back. "Is secret because he a mortal not angel, so, Samarians not know he flying. Goes somewhere, or be invisible, first."

"He can fly whenever he wants!" says Pen, a little more coherent with a sentence to copy in her recent memory. "Just not while people looking."

"I can only do it one person at a time," says Rose. "I would like to do it for everybody, but everybody is so very many billions of people in so very many complicated worlds. Before I give it to someone I need to know what will happen. Both what the person will do with it - if someone who was immortal got into a fight with someone who was not, they could use that to hurt the person who was not much worse than they could otherwise - and what will happen to the person. Someone who is immortal can still be trapped or hurt, and this can go on much longer if they are immortal than if they are not. I try to make sure that the people who I make immortal are harmless to others, and will have a way to ask for help, if they get stuck somehow."

"I haven't," says Rose. "I don't have any way to keep an eye on your world, right now."

"Can! Be invisible and nobody looking, poof."

"He show people not Samarian. Others of him mostly. Daddies like more of daddies."

"That's what I'm deciding now," says Rose. "I want to, but right now my friend who keeps an eye on worlds for us doesn't have any eyes in your world. If I made you immortal and you got stuck somewhere, that would be terrible. If I made you immortal and you grew up and used that to do bad things to people who weren't immortal because I wasn't looking out for the rest of your world, that would also be terrible. I'm trying to find out if it's safe to immortalize you first out of everyone in your world, before having a foothold in the world so I can fix any problems that come up after that."

"Well, in that case," says Rose, "we can go to your world now, and I will leave one of Jane's gems there, and I can put you all on the brainphone network and render all of you torchable. If you do not check in with Jane satisfactorily - it will not take much of your time - someone will come to check up on you less passively. Shall we?"

"Sometimes angels pick mortals up, fly them," says Peninnah. "Mommy fly Daddy all the time for in front of people or being mushy."

"Yes, but, Daddy like it anyway," shrugs Pen. "They mushy when she carry him. Kisses making funny colors."

"Once I have made any of you immortal, nobody in your whole world will ever be gone forever," says Rose. "It's just a difference of whether I have to fetch them specifically or if they torch."

"All right, then," laughs Rose, and she heads back towards the bar.

"My daddy pretty weird," agrees Pen. "Rose, I coming dragons world?"

"Don't go through the door to it until I've had Glass check to see if it's safe for us and Jane," advises Rose. "If it is, then you may."

"Glass can see magic and something called metacausality, which is so called because as near as we can tell it is the thing that makes other things line up in certain ways. For instance, all of my traits can be traced back to features I inherited from my parents, or events in my childhood - but they also line up much better than coincidence with at least fifteen other people's traits. Metacausality is why we line up, and it has other informative value when Glass has a chance to look at it. She will make sure your world doesn't have any traps lying in wait to harm Jane if I leave a piece of her there, or me or Peninnah if we visit."

"Okay!" says Pen. "Do you singing?"

"I can't open the door to your world for Glass to look at; you'll need to do it for us," says Rose.

"I sing! Angels all singing. Mommy best for singing."

"Is so fun! And I words easier when songs, because all writed already."

Rose taps the largest jewel in her bracelet.

"I'm her alt," says Glass, squinting through the door. "We are much alike except for being from different worlds."

"What do you do when you wind?" asks Pen.

"What's the world like?" Rose asks Glass.

"It's got its share of nastiness, which is very much concentrated in the dragons, I am not sure about this project of yours. My dragons have a penchant for treasure-hoarding too, but I think these guys are literally insatiable, which can't help. It'd be a perfectly nice world if it didn't have any dragons in it at all, but I suppose picking them all up and putting them somewhere else would be a complicated project."

"Safe for Jane, safe for standard-ward visitors?"

"The world is, nothing will happen if you just walk through the door. If you want to know if the dragons can punch through your defenses usefully, you want Aurora, not me, if you want to be sure, but - there's some metacausality I don't really like floating around them. Sort of like Callahan's attractor for invariably winning lethal contests, but toned down. They don't have to win, but if you're in a fight with them it does have to be a fight, they've got a metacausal conspiracy objecting to circumventing them completely. I really don't think I like the idea of combining that with torching when they have to share space with humans, however cute the babies are."

"With any luck there's a mutually agreeable situation, but finding it means negotiating with the reality that exists, not a fiction," says Glass. "For example, if we just moved all the humans in the world to some part of it that did not have any dragons or any avenue for dragons to use to travel there, I'd have fewer misgivings about immortalizing some dragons. Moving the dragons would also work but I think you guys would be harder to move. You can close the door now, by the way, I've had a good look at the world and you're right here to be a dragon example."

"Does the insatiable hoarding thing look like it admits of editing, or should we call Lazarus for a consult on that...?"

"Mmmm..." Glass squints at Procellor.

Procellor closes the door. He looks between Glass and Rose. "Er. I don't mind being a test subject? If it kills me, though, wifey outside will not be pleased. But if my species has an 'insatiable hoarding' tendency, which I honestly think is completely true, I wouldn't mind being free of it."

"I don't think it's attached to anything that could kill you, and I do think we could change it, if you agree - I think the agreeing is important."

"Is that sufficient to render them reasonably close to harmless, do you think? In disposition if not in theory."

"It'd go a long way. They're not inherently murderous as a species."

Procellor shrugs. "Alright then. Hit me with the magic fixer-thing, I consent if it'll let my children have immortality."

"It's not a direct step from here to there. You're the test subject for the procedure, but your kids will have to agree to the change too for them to be safe as immortals."

"That's fine. I really don't think it will harm you."

Procellor nods. "Ready. I'm thinking very consenting thoughts."

"Go ahead. There's no rush."

"Procellor volunteered to be the test subject for a magical edit that removed his impulse to hoard," says Rose, "which in Glass's estimation makes dragons a sufficiently safe target for torchability. Since he didn't want us to try it for the first time on one of the little ones."

Rose spends another hex.

"My mommy and daddy do too. And that Mommy and her one Daddy. That one Mommy doesn't have one Daddy though. She married two princesses who other people instead."

"What's this about your sister?"

"Well. Since it seems to have worked so well on you, no objections if we poll the children too?"

"No objections," agree both, in their respective methods of speaking.

Rose looks for the nearest currently unoccupied hatchling.

"Yvae, would you like to go next?"

Rose does Ilayse next. And pats her on the head.

Rose does the thing.

"You're welcome. We could proceed to your world and I could torchable all five of you now, if you like."

(Glass departs.)

"Ideally also unfrightened."

Rose does not participate. She ushers Pen, who is still accompanying the group.

"He being so silly," giggles Pen.

"Yay, flying!"

Pen takes a running start and gets into the air.

Rose lifts up with much less fuss. She lets her aura out to help keep the winds convenient for everybody.

Rose lands neatly.

Pen is having too much fun to do the same!

Rose laughs when Yvae slides. "I cannot usefully advise you on the practical purpose of a large pile of precious metals and stones. I have never had reason to acquire one. I do not recommend you dump it all on a small population of humans in a lump sum, though, there are complicated economic results."

"It's up to you. At any rate, I can render all of you torchable now, although fair warning - it doesn't look or feel like anything. You won't be able to tell I've done it unless you care to test it."

Please go ahead. I'm not sure we'd want to test it, considering the circumstances, but... I do expect it to not fail, says the dragonness. It's not a threat, not exactly, but it's incredibly likely that she will not be pleased if any of her children die and they don't turn out to be immortal.

"It will not fail. I'm sure it can be arranged if you want someone to demonstrate torching who is not related to you, but that would not prove that I'd done it for your family, I suppose." She applies the failsafe to each of the children and then to both parents, one at a time. "There you are."

"I like to think so," Rose says.

Do you like bunnies? he asks. If she says yes, he will probably love her forever.

Hugs. "I did not think bunnies were so hard to feed. Is there something else going on I don't know about?"

[My second daughter wanted a griffin. None are conventionally available as pets, so I made her one. As long as I'm here... Well, I would need to call in my husband to help me with the enchantment, but it is more likely than not that he would not mind. Though perhaps it would be best saved for when I am already about to leave, and I do not think that Pen is done flying with your daughter or that her mother would appreciate my leaving her unattended.]

"In Thilanushinyel, there are only a handful of them. There was a near-extinction and they are coming back slowly and with magical help," says Rose. "They come in various sizes and colors, but being dragons, they are of course winged and quadrupedal and scaly and much larger than a human. Several of them come to Bell parties when we throw them. I have not met a Chronicle dragon, although Glass, who you saw, counts at least one among her friends. I think Materia may have dragons, but people who are not originally from Materia are not advised to visit it. It has - unkind laws of nature."

"I do not mind. I'll go put a Janepoint somewhere, and while I'm doing it she will ask dragons if they want to come here and meet you. Perhaps they will."

Of the Thilanushinyel dragons, Elasirae is curious enough to go and visit the strange world.

Back to the dragons' cave teleports Rose. "Elasirae is a Thilanushinyel dragon - in fact, he is an alt of Lazarus, who you met earlier - and he would like to visit. Jane can bring him here now if you would like."

[Say when,] Jane tells Elasirae from her point in Thilanushinyel.

"Um. When?"

And here he is in this as yet unnamed world!

"I've never met a dragon from another world before either," says Elasirae, peering from dragonlet to dragonlet. "Although I have met all of the dragons from my world." He glances at the night-coloured dragon and adds, "None of them are as sparkly as you."

"There aren't very many dragons in Thilanushinyel," he explains. "Less than thirty."

"I don't know," he says, blinking. "I haven't thought about it."

You should, says the apparently junior member of the bunny appreciation club. They're adorable.

"They are small," he concedes. "And fuzzy. But there are lots of other small fuzzy creatures and many of them are also adorable. Like poofs!"

What is a poof? he asks.

"I haven't seen one, but I've heard about them. They are small and round and fuzzy and they glow and make cute sounds," he says. "They live in a place called the Gentle Cave in a world called Chronicle and they generate an anti-injury field when you pet them. And they're extremely cute."

"I wouldn't mind seeing some myself," says Elasirae.

"Chronicle is the world with the Gentle Cave in it, and it's generally amenable to visits. I think the little ones would fit, but I'm not sure about you, Elasirae," says Rose. "It's a small cave with small animals in it."

"I could become smaller," he suggests. "It would make sense, if I was visiting a small cave full of small animals. Although I would have to get someone to do it for me, because I don't have any appropriate kinds of magic myself."

"Magic," he explains unhelpfully, grinning. "Want to be a human, or the size of my hatchlings?"

"Would this place Elasirae's size under his own control, or yours?" asks Rose. "If the latter, it might make more sense for myself or perhaps Sarion to enchant him."

"Mine. If you want to enchant him, you can, I just thought I was the most obvious choice," he replies with a shrug.

"I think it seems more convenient for me to be able to control it myself," he says. "In case I want to fit into small spaces or interact with small creatures when you aren't around."

"I imagine Sarion will not mind helping you if you ask her when you go home, then. She has the advantage of not needing a channel. And then you will be able to visit the Gentle Cave or any other smallish locations that struck your fancy."

Elasirae looks pleased. "That will be nice."

"I'm a Thilanushinyel dragon," he says, sitting up straight and curling his tail around his forefeet. "We don't do magic ourselves, although we have a lot."

Every other dragon in the room stares at Elasirae. Pyranir is the one to break the silence that follows with, Do you just not want to?

"No - we can't use our own magic. But some of us meet people from our world who can do magic, and Bond with them, and then our Bondmates can use it."

People like other dragons? says the innocent Pyranir, hopefully. He doesn't understand dragons just never getting magic.

Elasirae shakes his head. "People who aren't dragons. Because if they were dragons, they wouldn't be able to use the magic either."

"Magic is a little easier to come by brand-new when there are kindly-disposed Bells around," Rose points out dryly.

"...er," says Elasirae, slightly embarrassed but nevertheless attempting to gently return all relevant snuggles. "It's all right, really. As Rose said, if I want to be able to do some magic, it won't be very difficult to make that happen. But I haven't missed the lack very much so far."

"I wouldn't have anywhere to put it," Elasirae says wryly. "But thank you very much. I'm afraid making a dragon from my world able to use their own magic is probably impossible. I'd have to ask a unicorn to be sure, but I'd expect them to agree."

"The dragons of Thilanushinyel have a place to live, but we don't keep - things there, generally, unless they're for someone's Bonded."

Gently, Procellor offers, Would you like us to help you with making a lair? To put the small hoard we'll give you. It won't be too big of a hoard, but - but it seems wrong to leave a dragon without one entirely.

"That would be very kind of you," he says, blinking up at them. "But, um, I don't think I need one."

"Sarion is the Bell for his world, not me, and I do not expect she would think very highly of you barging in for the express purpose of giving someone a thing he does not appear to want."

"...It's not that I don't want one exactly..." he says. "I mean, I wouldn't mind. I don't object. But I wouldn't know where to put it, and I don't know what the elves would think if it were in the Elven Lands but I'm not sure where else, and I don't need one, so I wouldn't want to put these nice people to the trouble."

"It really is completely unnecessary," says Elasirae. "But, well... your lair is very pretty. Much, much too big for me, even if I grow up to be the largest dragon in the world, but very pretty."

"You do realize that if you give Elasirae a hoard, he will be the only dragon in Thilanushinyel with a hoard," says Rose. "It really doesn't work the same way there."

"I will. It doesn't," Elasirae corroborates.

He shakes his head. "We have homes, but we don't pile up shiny things in them. I don't really want a hoard. It would be very nice of you and I appreciate the thought, but I don't need it at all."

"Er... I have a home... but it's in the same place as the homes of all the other twenty-six dragons in Thilanushinyel. We just sleep in different caves."

"I don't need more space," he says. "I think your home is lovely, but even though I could probably find a way to have someone else magic me a lovely place to live like this when I go home for hardly any effort at all, I probably won't."

"I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake in excising your hoarding problems," comments Rose idly. "I'm not sure it took."

"It might make sense to imagine the dragons from other worlds as being another species entirely."

"In most reasonable senses, we are," says Elasirae. "As far as I know."

But you look like a dragon! says Pyranir. You have wings and scales and you're not as big as mommy or daddy but I'm not as big as they are either, but I'm still a dragon!

"In Thilanushinyel elves and humans are different species and they're all the same kinds of shapes as each other except for their ears," says Elasirae.

Whaaat? says Pyranir, incredulously. But that's so similar! Are you sure they're not the same species?

"They live in different places and act differently and they can do different kinds of magic when they do magic, and I've only ever heard of one elf and one human who ever managed to have children together, and they only did that after the human one died and was reincarnated as an elf and grew up and married her elf boyfriend."

"It isn't common at all. This was a very special case. She didn't torch - torching wasn't even a thing in our world when it happened - and no other human has ever become an elf when they died, that I know of. But she was very special and she sacrificed her life to save the world, so she got to have a second life as an elf so she could be with the elf she loved."

"I think the reincarnation was a thing that just happened once," he says. "There are a bunch of different kinds of magic in my world that different species can do. Humans can be Wildmages or High Mages, elves can be Elven Mages, unicorns have special unicorn magic, the Endarkened had their own magic but now they're all dead except Aianon and he's different, and the Wild Magic is sort of like a god that oversees it all, but it interacts most with Wildmages and unicorns. Which kinds do you want to know more about?"