"Yes. But I think she objected to having someone treat her daughter as an animal, rather the affection."

"Yeah, the lions are kind of oversensitive about that kind of thing."

"Weird but cool. Okay, so little version of us, recap, you got here, settled in, there was a welcoming party to help everyone introduce everyone to everyone else. Then what?"

"Spent a while learning the language," Tobir puts in. "And exploring the island," he adds, "We weren't really able to go anywhere this... you know, green and lush and living, before." He smiles up at the flowering vines above them. 

"Uncle Remi started working on magic as soon as someone showed him how to do it, but they didn't let us start until we were three-twelve. So we mostly just helped around the island, played with the kids, and had lessons. You know, regular kid stuff, apart from all the magic and the dozen different species around here and so on."

"I understand that I am technically a newborn now, sort of, but that still quite young. Have you figured out what empowered crystals your produce?"

"Not yet. We are basically three-and-a-half-fourteen now." The Gabe makes a face at the numbers. "But I should get anti-magic, because I am your alt. Anyway, after that we got less Milliways visits but not none, and got a few more people, some with magic but nothing really remarkable."

"Of course, nothing can be remarkable when compared to us," he gives both Heri and Tobir a strong back pat.

He pitches forward a bit from the back slap, but he's grinning when he sits back up, "We are a pretty hard act to follow, I think," he agrees. "Not every day you find out you come in twin. Anyway, I think we'll figure out what our empowered crystals are any day now!"

"He has said that once a day every day since they started teaching us."

Henry chuckles. "Okay, okay, backtrack a bit, I don't want to lose my mental thread. You mentioned that after that particular Milliway encounter, you have been producing more clones? Why? How?"

"Ah, okay. So, before that they figured out that spikes of anti-magic crystal could slow down the cloning process. I think they got it low enough to have for each specific kind of clone to pop up only once every two years? But that didn't really stop things, and they decide to risk manipulating the cloning crystal. Haven't managed to stop the process but managed," he waves between the two of them, "to control timing to the point of pairs of you coming out at the same day and the like."

"It's only a matter of time before they figure that out, too, I think," he says again. "At least like this none of the yous get lonely. It means they've been sending out a lot more expeditions, though! And a bunch of the yous have been moving out to the island outposts on the edge of what we have mapped."

"Wow, so we get to retire to a nice beach somewhere? Well done. You guys have really figured all of this out."

"It's a weird situation, but people adapt. And they usually rotate. And it doesn't apply to you right now, right now you guys will just stay on the main island and learn the ropes."

"How far have you mapped that you haven't found any civilization on this planet?"

"Quite far? One trip lasted half a year. The one uncle Remi is right now has been away for three months, but the new ship is much faster."

"Yeah, if there's anyone besides us here, they're not very obvious. But who knows, maybe we'll get to the other side of the planet someday and find out that's where they've been the whole time. Or maybe we'll get an empowered crystal that'll let us get out of here first." He shrugs, "In the meantime," He stretches out his arms along the back of the bench, relaxing back against it, "The island paradise thing we've got going isn't so bad." 

"You guys sure are not hurting for lack of beauty," Gabe says eyeing the structure they are in and then giving Henry a look.

It's like Gabes are stuck in permaspring or something. He glances at Kenta, "I'm kind of morbidly curious about whether you're gonna be like that during spring, or if you're gonna be like that all the time and spring will just be even moreso," he comments. 

"Same, my dude. At least I have an island full of hot guys willing to help me out."

"Oh, my god. The Gabes are planning something special for that."

"You usually notice that faster. And yes, we agree that's weird, and even kind of creepy, but they are not doing anything currently, so there is nothing else to it, but to wait and see."

He is making some kind of a face, even he is not entirely sure what the face means. He shrugs, "You do you," he agrees. He pauses, grins, "Literally!"

"Indeed, I can't wait."

"I am sure you can." And before Kenta can Gabe any further, Henry interrupts with a question. "And... Roaja still hasn't figured out about the alts thing?"