The kids dash off.

"Hard to say?  If they're down here at this hour I doubt there's anyone making 'em do lessons- over to the left here."  She gestures for the others so they don't have to wait for a translation; the vehicle they heard earlier is heading towards the lift with a crate.

The triplets take directions. "Well, now my brothers are going to want to know what sort of systems you have to help orphans and then try to come up with plans to improve them."

"A lot of those kids do have parents, they just... prefer to spend their time down here.  For- various reasons."  She takes a careful breath, and stops talking for a moment so the sound of the crate settling into place doesn't drown her out. 

"I'm not sure what the government does about actual orphans- usually they'd get taken in by relatives, and I think it varies by ward, haven't needed to look it up lately.  They can use the free clinics, same as anyone, and some places have children's kitchens.  ...that'd be the most straightforward, if you could get more resources there."

Thomas nods and translates. "Okay, that sounds like a good plan that doesn't involve them adopting every orphan they come across."

Peg snorts.  "Please hold off on that at least until you're not living in my grandmother's house, we have room but not that much room."  The loader is heading back towards them with another crate. 

"I figured."

They are mindful of the loader.

She looks like she might be about to add something, but then just says, "We maybe wanna hop up on those, dunno how many they're bringing up on this run."  The crates are shoulder-height and more than twice as wide; Peg is ready to give anyone a leg up, though she doubts they need it.

She really doesn't. They don't even appear to be using magic to do it, just sheer strength.

Peg doesn't have any trouble with it either.  "The other thing is- maybe you know this and I'm teaching the author, but- they'd have to trust you.  That you're- a better option than being on their own, better than the places they could go to and haven't."

"Yeah, that much I know. Or at least I know that there is not one size fits all solution to things. We used to help at our grandparents' temple, so we have some experience with that sort of thing."

"All right.  Thanks."  A floppy-eared mutt trots up and sits down just to one side of the lift, out of the way of the loader.  It's glowing bright blue with some yellow and orange patches on its face and tail.

"We try to keep an eye out for them as much as we can, but- they move around enough, they're skittish enough, we have enough else going on, s'usually about all we can do to meet the new ones sooner or later and make sure they know where the clinic is."

Shrug. "I will hold off on coming up with plans before we know the situation better. But our magic at least makes healing far more pleasant than getting vaccine shots and swallowing bitter medicine. You can literally poke someone into health."

That gets a chuckle.  "There's some changelings can do that, but- not so much you see them at the free clinic."  Return of the loader!  This time it's carrying a very large pump of some sort.

Felix asks something and points at the glow-dog.

Thomas translates. "What's up with the glowing dog? Also, do the changelings that can do that have... limits or something? In the sense of how often they can do it."

"Uh, it probably wants to get up to the hab levels, same as we do?  Or, you don't have glawgs where you're from, do you- they're engineered, same as the algae and the glow-fungus."

The pump was evidently the last item in this load, because the lift makes a couple of clanking noises and starts ascending just as slowly as it came down, still two-thirds empty.  The dog hops on, sniffs curiously at the crate they're sitting on, and then settles down on the other side of the lift.

"Changelings are- I don't entirely understand what's up with them, but yeah- it's not exactly a time limit, but I think a good healer could do one or two serious injuries in a day?  More if they didn't need to sustain it indefinitely, and they've got weird loopholes sometimes but I dunno if healing's one of them."

"This sounds potentially useful, if they synergize with sorcery."

Fernando says something and Thomas sighs and starts translating.

Peg hops down off the crate and lets the dog sniff her hand while the translation is going.  Once Thomas seems to be done, she adds, "There's an employee lift a bit further down, but it's usually pretty crowded at this hour, so it would've been really weird that you don't speak Standard if anyone wanted to chat."

"No worries. They are just annoyed."

Fernando quietly observes the interaction between Peg and the dog.

Peg doesn't move into the dog's space; it comes over, sniffs the offered hand, backs up a bit and ducks its head, then comes back over once Peg doesn't chase it.

"Won't be too much longer, once we get up there."

Thomas nod. "Any tips, so we don't stick out of the crowd like three identical sore thumbs?"

The dog heads back over to its side of the lift and Peg stands up from her crouch to hop back on the crate.  "We can go around back most of the way- you'll look like offworlders, no way around it, but we get plenty of them here... people might assume you're synths, but identical triplets isn't that much stranger."

"Synths?"