"Maybe."

"Did you learn about critter history in school at all? All I know is from random library books."

"They do a little, but not a lot. Most of the critter history is small scale stuff you can't justify putting all of into a class, and if you only do some of it some people yell about speciesism."

"Makes sense, I guess. Now that you mention it, world history has kind of a similar problem. Too much history to teach it all, just teaching some of it leaves people out."

"Yeah. So they teach American history, and even Massachusetts history, but if you try to teach the history of this Avalon - well, it's just so small..."

"Right. And you can't talk about what critters in general were doing during some part of American history because it's so disconnected, and different critters were doing different stuff."

"Exactly. It's not even like, uh, black history or whatever, where there were movements, and public figures everybody knew were black."

"Right, there are historical figures who nobody is even sure if they're part of critter history or not."

"Yeah."

"I should go home soon. Is there anything you need from me for the website yet?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay. You've got my email; let me know if there's anything you need or you get the rings ready."

"Do you want any special kind?"

"I did some tests on the one you gave me and it should work fine. If the stone gets scratched or the wire gets scraped up it stops working, so if you don't want them enchanted for durability you might want to use sturdier materials. Speaking of which, do you want that copper and amethyst one back? It's pretty beat up but still in one piece."

"I guess I could put the amethyst in a new setting, how bad is it?"

Margaret fishes the ring out of her backpack. The amethyst has a couple of scratch marks on it, but they're both on the same side such that they could potentially be hidden by a setting.

"Yeah, I can turn it around and put it in something new."

"Oh, um, now that I think about it you might have a hard time with that, I enchanted it for durability after I scratched it and I don't know if you'll be able to get the wires off the stone. Try it and tell me how it goes, I guess?"

"...okay."

"Yeah, sorry, I didn't really think about how to take the durability enchantment off. I should start on a disenchantment spell."

"I mean, it probably won't matter most of the time."

"Probably not, most things if I want them to be durable I'll want them to be durable for a long time, but there are lots of ways I could end up with something enchanted that I would rather not have enchanted forever and don't want to damage to get it disenchanted. So a counterspell would be a good thing to have."

"That makes sense."

"Yeah. I'm going to go home and get some sleep; I'll start on the counterspell tomorrow."

"See you later," says Brenda, and, impulsively, she tips forward to hug her.