I have no idea really! I'm good at talking to animals and figuring out what plants like. If I had a territory it'd be the best territory. Diverse and flourishing! But I don't want to settle down anywhere yet.

Plants like things?

Plants like having the right soil nutrients and water and amount of shade and pollinators and things like that.

They're healthier if they have those things, but liking?

Headtilt. Ye-es? A dry plant is just kind of sad and painful, and they go all scrambled when something eats part of them unless it's a fruit that's meant to be eaten. They're not smart, not even like insects, but they like things.

How curious.

It's weird that you don't think so! Everything alive likes things a tiny tiny bit, even bacteria.

Maybe we're just using the concepts differently.

This seems important. How am I different from a fish or a stalk of seaweed? I'm bigger and smarter and I eat different things, but those beings also live.

I'm not really an expert on this. I think maybe I'd say that the difference is having a brain, but probably there are greens with much more sophisticated understandings.

This seems important and I don't know how to explain it.

Everything looks out for itself, but... Everything has its own way, its own image of what is right and good... And they feel, and they're valid, and you need to at least understand this even if you're not going to go out of your way to make a rabbit paradise!

When Amentans feel, we do it with our brains. There could be other things that do the same thing brains do, but I'm not aware of plants having any of them.

River scratches at the sand, frustrated.

A plant is fulfilling its best purpose and doing something good and right when it photosynthesizes, and consumes soil nutrients, and grows its own body, makes seeds, and spreads them to the wind. A Draak is fulfilling its best purpose and doing something good and right when it eats animals, and learns about the world, and faces challenges and grows from them, and eventually finds a mate and makes an egg or five. There is no fundamental difference.

I'm really not sure this meshes with what else I understand about the world in a constructive way. I'd be happy to find you philosophers or biologists or something if you'd like help trying to translate the idea.

Maybe not having proper empathy is why the Tailless were so terrible!

- I'm really sorry to have offended you.

I want you to understand. Maybe I should talk to someone you think might understand, yes.

I'll get you some philosophers. And biologists. And anybody who's both if we have those.

Thank you. I'm done talking for now talk to Bloom she's patient.

River runs down the beach and curls up away from everyone.

...okay. Nobody pursues her. (The people taking pictures keep taking pictures.)

I said that I was not very theological, he tells Amseli. River is. This is a theological divide which I will not be much better at explaining, and it's upsetting. She will be fine. Especially if she can explain it to someone else later.

I'm sure she'll have as large an audience of fascinated greens as she could wish, but I'm not sure they'll agree with her.

If she can explain her concern, however, she will have made clear the biggest fundamental difference between the almost-universally-agreed-upon Draak beliefs and those of Amentans. Even if you do not agree, it would probably help for cooperation.

That's worth pursuing even if it weren't likely to be intellectually interesting for many people.

Indeed.

Meanwhile, Bloom trots up to one crowd of picture-takers.

This is a way of trapping images, yes?