Yay!

He likes being under a tree. He can feel the tree, just barely. (He sends this extrasensory impression out.)

That's really interesting! Can he feel anything else from there?

Here's what the egg's shell feels like! It feels like being hugged all over by an object that's somehow capable of love.

Awwwwwwwwww!

When he comes out of the egg they can hug him if he'd like that.

That sounds nice but also vaguely scary. (A lot of things sound vaguely scary.)

...He will decide after he hatches.

There's no hurry.

A tutor arrives later that day. Hello, I'm Sonin Mahikne.

Hello.

He is an egg. He is mostly not thinking in words. Is Sonin Mahikne a tutor?

Yes, I am! Your - hosts? Foster family? I'm not sure how you prefer to think of them - said you were curious about science.

A Draak being taken care of by an Amentan has never happened before. So he's not sure which way is right. Measuring things seems interesting, you don't just feel everything! And knowing things is nice. He's not sure what 'science' is, exactly.

Science is the process by which we come to know more about the world. We go out and look at things - including by feeling them - and make guesses about how they might be if we look closer, and find ways to look closely that let us tell the difference between our guess being right or wrong. Then we can make new guesses.

...So there's no way to know something absolutely definitely for sure?

Well, that's getting into philosophy more than science.

He doesn't like the idea that you can never be sure of things.

But knowing more things is better than knowing fewer things, even if there's a small chance they might be wrong.

I think so too.

...Measuring things sounds interesting. And it feels nice and definite-ish. Can he explain how to measure temperatures please?

The tutor has been warned that this is a subject of interest and has a lesson on the history of thermometers loaded up to "read" to the egg.

Wow, that's pretty neat! He's really interested in how to make glass and where to find mercury and so on now.

The tutor can find stuff on this too! Mercury is poisonous to Amentans; it might not be to Draak but warrants caution till that can be reliably confirmed.

He will be vaguely scared of mercury too.

(The Draak doctors aren't sure since they're more like therapists and cosmetic surgeons. The Seeker sends a terse email that reads 'Besides the following exceptions assume poison to Amentans is poison to Draak possibly with higher dose tolerance'. Mercury is not on the list of exceptions.)

...He gets tired fairly quickly.

The tutor will plan to return tomorrow.

The egg in the national park has an active imagination which she broadcasts by default and loves hearing about all the weird things mushrooms do, as well as learning about anything else that's alive.

The mycologist is utterly thrilled and will tell her all about the mycology he is doing and the incidentals of other things he encounters in doing it.

Nature and biodiversity is great! She's going to try Very Hard to remember not to start fires that will spread. Even though fire sounds great too.

Maybe they can have campfires and roast marshmallows when she is out.

They don't need any wood for that when they'll have her! Sounds fun.