"Yeah. And cameras are getting cheaper all the time, and you can say a photo is fake but some people will say it isn't."

"Yeah. And you can say they altered the picture but there's just all these chances for things to line up, you know?"

"Yeah. It's scary, thinking the secret will get out eventually. And I can't think of any way runecasting could help, except maybe reinventing medallions."

"I guess how much that would help would depend on whether there's a reason they can never work for some species."

"There's so much that isn't written down, or isn't written down where I've been able to find it. Stuff that someone must've known at some point but now nobody does."

"I wonder how it all got lost."

"Maybe some of it got lost in the war, wars are pretty chaotic. Or just critters not telling their human-looking kids anything, not giving them medallions, and then dying with a head full of knowledge they never wrote down."

"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?"