"A checklist! Are you aiming for another, weirder flute?"

"I don't have all the design worked out yet." Nibble.

"Did you need some test versions to work it out?"

"I thought you'd never ask." She pushes a sketch into his chest and kisses him again.

He manufactures it in the air, catches it in his hand. 

She tries it. It makes a honking noise. "Well damn. I'll figure it out."

"Later."

"Mm-hm." Smooch.

It is after all his duty to distract her from the disappointing flute.

Eventually Amina's elder toddler has some sort of problem that can apparently ONLY be solved by Mommy and his frazzled babysitter is unable to stop him from yelling at Daddy's door about it but by then they were pretty much done anyway.

The kid can come on in and get sung to. This is terrible incentives but, you know, when they're really little they don't need to understand all that.

Amina does not have a singing voice to speak of so she will have to accompany rather than sing with one of the non-weird flutes, and then she can carry off the kid to solve the problem he was having with his blocks.

After Rabiah's letter gets sent off there are a couple of teenagers at the entrance to the dome asking if they can visit their sister, who according to this here letter is one of Prince Masaharta's girls.

Security will ask Prince Masaharta about it. 

Security will allow this if they'll answer a lot of questions about whether they are secretly planning any crimes.

Neither Ilisaba nor Yahia is planning any crimes!

Then they can go in and see their sister if she's not too busy.

She is busy with the baby but that doesn't preclude seeing her brother and sister! They hold the baby in between her ravenings. They are introduced to non-busy co-occupants of the harem.

Nice to meet them! Rabiah seems lovely. How'd the family take the news.

"...our parents are not super thrilled but they figure maybe there are good influences around and she can't go too far if she goes nuts again," says Yahia.

"If I'd known he'd take her I woulda told her to apply to go here as soon as she was old enough," Ilisaba opines. "You should've seen her the time she came home from the concert on her birthday, a few years ago."

"It's a bit hard to predict who he'll take. He's talked about just doing a singing contest and taking the winner, that'd make it more straightforward."

"I would've entered that!" says Rabiah.

"Doesn't he have enough yet?" wonders Yahia.

Sigh. "You'd think. It's not like he ignores anyone mostly."

Rabiah and her sister exchange looks and start giggling at each other.

" -hmm?"

"...I'm glad she's not being ignored," says Ilisaba. And then she starts giggling again.

And they can have some tasty palace snacks and a ghost of a look around and then eventually be shown out again.