"Interesting. What about psychological differences? Someone with Song but otherwise disposed to behave Amentanishly?"

I'm not sure. My thoughts on this matter are all intertwined. I think an Amentan with Song would not be very Draak-like... In fact that might be somewhat alarming, to see the truth of the world in Song and not act in accordance with it... And of course the body is not completely unimportant. I doubt anyone on this planet finds me sexually attractive no matter how shapely my tail and broad my wings, or how orderly my feathers, and the reverse is true.

"...I'm not sure I'd bet on that," Ruan says.

...Thinking on what I read again, I suspect you are right to doubt it.

Huff.

I cannot do anything productive about it, but that is annoying. Again.

"I'm sorry."

I will content myself with continued study.

Ruan nods.

Meanwhile, tree877 wants to know if Bloom's handler is nice to her and stuff.

The blue coordinating everything is fine and nice enough but not particularly a friend of hers. He does a good job not letting little details of things bother her. Her reading and writing tutor is nice. The geneticists and other greens are interesting to talk to but too impatient and flighty. She's fond of the purples she sees to get her claws painted, because of their earnestness. She doesn't talk to the greys that are always around much and isn't sure why not, on reflection.

Well, greys aren't very friendly.

Castes are super weird. She's starting to get used to the fact that they exist, but they're still super weird.

There are probably some friendly greys but ones who are working and have high profile security jobs tree877 would definitely not expect to be friendly.

They seem to pride themselves on being quiet and reliable. There was this one time with a purple kid dashing through the perimeter and this is how they reacted. She nearly hurt the purple kid out of instinct, things touching Draak unexpectedly is alarming! When she was a baby she flailed around and hissed and tried to see what was attacking her the first time it rained!

Lucky purple kid.

She should put the rain story in her memoir!

She will! Next chapter isn't done yet. There's time.

Ruan tells her the next day that he's gotten a social worker to round up some reds who weren't doing anything important and tell them to drive out here. They are to stay in their truck at all times and if they do anything that makes Bloom uncomfortable they can be shooed right away. She should stay well back in case they make sudden moves.

That seems overcautious. She really doubts any of them could actually hurt her.

...they could pollute her though.

Oh. She doesn't feel that. If it's really necessary she can breathe fire on the affected area? She's fireproof.

"If I have to consult a theologian about what needs to be done for that to count the turnaround will delay the reds' visit. You can inspect them through Song at a distance of a few yards, can't you?"

This is stupid. But this is your place. Yes. Fine. I wasn't planning to touch them, just talk to them and see the Enkindling-factors.

"All right. They'll be here this evening after all your patients are gone."

She de-springs people. She talks to geneticists about how springs work like every other day, but seems unusually irritable today.

Everybody tries to accommodate this, though one green suggests she could just come back tomorrow if Bloom is not in the mood to talk about how the this site on that chromosome affects this hormone.

My annoyance is unrelated to genetics and would not be improved by you leaving. Understanding of these mechanisms is not directly translatable to what I do but has given me more insight and I should keep learning.

So the green goes back to explaining.

And when it's down to Ruan and the security greys the truck of reds rolls up. There are two in the cab and three in the back. Their social worker follows on a scooter. "Do you need them to put the top down in the back?" she asks Ruan, who looks at Bloom.