"How did you learn?" repeats the psychologist.

"We're trying to figure that out," says the theologian.

"What does that feel like, the water coming out of your quills?" asks the zoologist.

...The Flowermaker tells me what I am supposed to do!

...My name is Forever. Bloom named me so that she would remember forever the lesson my existence represents.

Like digging.

"Is it difficult?"

"What is that lesson?"

"How is it like digging?"

...I do things wrong sometimes! You ask hard questions that aren't about what I saw.

Don't force something against its nature. It just causes pain.

Feels good to do.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"What makes something against something's nature?"

"Oh, good. How old are you?"

I am supposed to answer questions!

I don't have a simple answer to that. Is it similar to things the animal does by instinct? Rabbits do not hunt.

Not-magic cousins born and died many times since my sisters became magic-sisters.

"Are you always working?"

"But you do?"

"Do you miss your cousins?"

I don't understand the question.

No. My body wants to, but my mind is horrified.

Not-magic cousins are not important.

"Do you do things - when you're awake - besides track things for Bloom?"

"And this can't be - fixed -?"

"Why not?"

I keep track of things the Flowermaker doesn't care about sometimes even though I am not supposed to tell her about things that she doesn't care about!

Bloom would fix it if she could without unmaking me. She can't. Too much of me is magic instead of flesh now.

...Sisters are important. Plants are important. Bloom is important. Other things are not.

"What things doesn't she care about that you track?"

"- hm. Do you remember before she worked on you?"

"What made you decide those things were important?"

I follow a bug until it dies and then I eat it. I count leaves. I decide which of her feathers is prettiest!

Very dimly. I have learned about the truth of memories. I cannot be confident it's not imagined.

The porcupine thing holds still, deep in thought...

"...which of her feathers is prettiest?"

"Can you tell me what you remember, even if it might not be accurate?"

The zoologist waits.

Her prettiest feather is the longest green one on her head. It was one of the purple ones for a long time, but the best one got bent when she fought someone the other day so now a green one is the best.

I remember many brothers and sisters. Never any specific ones, but so many, and that was good. I remember leaving a burrow being surprising and awe-inspiring every time. I remember seeing Bloom and knowing that I was like nothing in comparison, and holding still instead of fleeing like my siblings, and talking with her.

...I don't know.

"What makes it best?"

"Do you remember why you didn't run away?"

"What things about the important things are important?"

...It's the best one!

Part of me wants to think I was curious to seek some truth, or self-sacrificing out of love, but that 'me' was a dumb animal and couldn't have reasoned either of those things out. I truly do not know.

It feels bad if important things are hurt.

"Do you have favorites of other things?"

"You seem like you're probably a person," says the theologian. "Do you understand why we're checking for that?"

"Have those things always been important?"

Clouds! Leaves! Bugs! Pebbles!

Your kind has some aversive instincts that our master feels like accommodating.

...I don't remember things much.

"What is your favorite pebble?"

"Right. Has she explained what will happen if it seems like that applies to you?"

"Does that bother you?"

The bird flies off, presumably to fetch the pebble in question.

Both other animals say 'no'.

The theologian summarizes the cleanliness protocols for Forever.

"Are there things you do remember?"

The bird returns with a small lump of copper in its beak! This is my favorite pebble.

...I don't really care.

This is a new place. I remember an old place. I remember kinds of plants.

Eventually at some length the three greens confer and determine that Forever is almost certainly a person, and the other two probably aren't, though they're a little concerned about the bird's ability to make aesthetic judgments.

Beings Enkindled as heavily as Forever the rabbit are very rare. If I worked on my bird for a season or two more, with more power and mindfulness slowly gathering, at what point would he become a person by your reckoning? Would it be a judgement call? This clean dividing line is strange to me. I see all of them - on a spectrum.

"Our discernment is imprecise, so we have uncertainty about where the line is crossed," says the psychologist. "But that's different from expecting the actuality of personhood, rather than some subcomponents that contribute to and indicate personhood, to be spectra. The subcomponents aren't the thing itself. Even a very disabled member or infant member of a species that is generally people is - at least for the purpose we're concerning ourselves with here - also a person. We don't think you've somehow upliffted the entire species whence Forever came, but otherwise it's much like the reverse of that case."