"Well. I think they spring like anyone else and will probably appreciate it."

Indeed I hope that if you manage a general treatment for springs, reds will be included in the recipients.

"Once the price comes down I'd expect it to go to them like contraception does."

I suppose money is as good a way as any to distribute things.

...I had not thought to mention this before, but Enkindling does often stave off aging and promote general health. My favorite eagle lived for sixty three years until he was eaten by another Draak. Though, I had greatly empowered him and was specifically aiming for long life and performed regular healing besides.

"...well, that seems all to the good coming as it does with milder springs and the prospect of planets, but it would be an awful tradeoff if it didn't."

I don't expect those I have worked on thus far to live more than a few years past the average.

"And it won't affect anything for a long time. We've been sending you younger people."

That makes sense. There is more benefit - they have more of their lives ahead of them, they have had fewer children. Wise. I would not have been surprised if the powerful older ones arranged for only themselves to benefit.

"Well, this is in some ways a public health and population enforcement concern - it makes more sense to send you the worst springs first - but also people don't spring as badly after age twenty."

I alone am never going to de-spring everyone. I hope Seeker will bring other Enkindlers upon his eventual return. Perhaps the Draak should deliberately have a population boom...? I think could keep one or two hatchlings each time of creation alive if I tried. We are not really near the carrying capacity of our planet even without any infrastructure and paying keen attention to conservation. And there really are terribly few of us.

"That would be interesting, though I couldn't confidently form an opinion without knowing why there are now so few."

Very small seed population. Low average desire to have children. Low survivability into adulthood. I have had nine eggs, and two children alive now. Significant death rate among adults.

"I more meant it isn't clear why you tolerate that death rate."

Most animals die. I wouldn't want to have had any sickly and inferior children, and leaving them to fend for themselves solves that. It is the way it has always been done and Tradition is comforting.

"Can't you - Enkindle them, if they come out defective?"

I could do that, if I wanted to lock down their own magical potential to set paths before they have any chance to stretch it. It would be an interesting experiment if it didn't feel weird and wrong to do that to my seeds of potential.

"Well, it seems better than letting them die."

...Perhaps. It could be tried, and if the Kin who came from that method are truly inferior or unworthy we will see in time.

"We've given a fair amount of thought to nondestructive eugenics since we're not prepared to weather a high death rate," he explains.

That could be useful. We mostly don't feel Love. We do, sometimes, but not often. We mostly accept death when it happens to other beings, though we would claw and roar against the void for ourselves. I feel like I'm not adequately describing our minds by resorting to contrasting them with yours, though.

"It's early days yet. I think we'll probably acculturate each other and be better able to understand over time."

I hope my memoirs will help. The horribly wrong stories are annoying.

"I'm sure some people will care about accuracy, but some of them are probably just using Draak as an inspirational jumping-off point."

Annoyed tail-flick.

There was one in particular that was actually very good. The first one my tutor showed me, in fact. I want to email the person who wrote it. Do you know how to do that? I also would be willing to answer questions to help make people less incorrect.

"It's probably possible to send messages between Fiction Closet accounts but I don't have one. I can try to figure it out from yours if you like."