"What was their niche?"

Magic. They knew it better than all others. Or so it is sung.

"Why didn't they come to your new planet?"

The last Diamond was the Great Mother, who always refused to reproduce. Perhaps she could not. She killed herself, intending to do some great magic to bend the humans towards peace by doing so. I have no idea if that could work. If anyone could do such a thing it would be the last Diamond, and one of the old Great Elders.

"Why did she refuse to reproduce? And - is doing your magic dangerous or draining in some way that means it could plausibly be fatal to perform some large amount of it -?"

She never gave a reason. I could kill myself Enkindling by pushing too hard... But the story implies some magic that is only possible with death.

"That seems like it would be - hard to know in advance, about something you were also confident would work - but perhaps I don't have a good enough model of magic."

No, I agree. More than half of all Draak think her sanity had left her, I believe. But it is aesthetic. And powerful magic tends to the aesthetic in ways we don't understand.

"I have noticed that, yes. Do you think you'll need to look at reds again later or are you all done?"

It wouldn't hurt, but I don't need to see them again, no.

"All right. I'm glad that went smoothly. Can I get you anything else before I hand things off for the night?"

No.

She keeps at her work with Enkindling, getting it down to an exact art. She writes memoir chapters, mostly in chronological order and showing the daily life of a Draak. Highlights include curiosity about everything and a fair number of cute misadventures like feeling attacked by rain as a tiny Draak, meeting a stone spirit who just wanted to stay in one place and sleep and later learning more about spirits, being driven out of the place where she hatched by another Emerald who beat her in a fair riddle contest, accidentally nearly starting a forest fire (some meditations on destruction and renewal are included in this chapter), how she met some of her Draak friends and what they are like, her mentor-like relationship with her father and everything she learned from him (history, the elements, beginner's magic), finding this or that shiny thing and describing her Treasure-hunting and all the warm fuzzy feelings her hoard gives her in loving detail (but also talking about how knowledge, skill, territory, and reputation can be Treasure). She covers six years in a month of writing.

She tells Ruan, I think I am ready to try the trickier hereditary version of de-springing. It should be safe to try with what I now know.

The true fruit of this work has been pollinated and now I must see if it will grow. Draak don't mass-produce anything, so I cannot help you with that part.

"I think we have that part covered."

This has been a very interesting if overwhelming time. I think my ability and knowledge has grown more in the last season than it did in the last five of your years. I almost feel like celebrating, but it would be premature.

"How do you like to celebrate things, when you do?"

It varies. I hunt up something particularly delicious and add a lot of salt and feast, or taste just a bit of a very special herb with pleasing and disruptive effects - don't have any here. I go flying for two days straight and find a high mountain and sing for two more days. Or find somewhere pleasantly empty and just abandon all responsibility and work and do nothing for a week. I brag to my neighbors. I decide to try for eggs the upcoming autumn.

"Sounds like nothing you'd need help with unless you want us to get you a nice cut of steak, then."

Her tail swishes amusedly.

You could find me a mountain nobody would object to my being on top of. And this I am less sure of but I do sort of miss actual hunting. For all that your methods are easier it eventually started to feel like something is missing.

"There are fish the aquatic ones have been taking but I'm not sure there's a land animal equivalent. I can look into it for you."

No equatorial jungle, or fatty arctic animals? Those would both be novel. (She's teasing a bit here.)

I do think I want a few days off and a mountain to go visit. The desert is lovely but variety is, too.

"I can most likely find you a mountain, but Baravi doesn't have equatorial or polar territory," he smiles.

Oh, right. Countries exist. I still have no model of how Baravi interacts with the rest of the planet but it has been accommodating to me.

"We might be able to make a deal with someone else, or there could be something people hunt domestically that I don't know about. If you see a rabbit you can have it, they're invasive here, but I think we got them all a few years back."

No rabbits. Mice and other rodents, mostly. There are a few in the surrounding area. Cats. And of course birds and insects.

My celebration not being perfect in every way is not a grave matter. 

"Still, I'll look into it."