"- definitely bigger incisors, not sure about the rest of your teeth. Whenever you're ready I think the blues rustled up some doctors who'd be really curious to get a closer look at what else might be different."

They share a glance.

"I would be happy to receive them in the morning," he says, "but I think we should retire to our rooms, for now."

"I've got that seam ripper," says Mihent, "and the nightclothes are all unwrapped and laid out on the beds for you."

She'll nod. She still doesn't expect one purple to be enough, but so far Mihent seems competent.

Mihent will accompany Isidonia to her room and seam-rip her free. If Isidonia needs help getting the nightclothes on she can do that too. She might not be used to stuff you can just pull over your head because it stretches.

She is not used to stretchy fabric, but--even so, she's also not used to dressing herself.

"How should I summon you if I need you?" she asks, once she's changed.

"I'm going to sleep in the next room over and should hear you if you call my name - do you wake up in the night a lot?"

"Not often, no. That will be all for now."

"Sleep well!" And she sees herself out of the room.

Isidonia will walk to Felip's room.

Felip is seated, eyes closed, thinking. He looks old. It is one of the pieces of magic he kept up his sleeve.

Some magicians are tricksters, playing fast and loose with the minds and trust of others. Felip is repulsed by those sorts of enchantments, even as ones that soothe and straighten his mind, and the minds of his allies, are his most trusted tools. The ability of magic to read minds is useful for security the world over, though he has stopped relying on it Cheliax, given their recent oppressive history with it. (He couldn't cast the spell himself, which made it easy to abandon.) But the ability of magicians to change shape--well, there's really no use for that besides trickery, and these Amentans would undoubtedly become suspicious if he demonstrated it.

Well, except for this spell. Rather than letting him take on an arbitrary shape, it lets him switch through the three stages of life; youth, adult, and elder. And not as he actually is or was or will be, but an idealized version of it. As the Father, he is smarter and wiser than his base form, even though his base form is also a literal father.

As the Grandfather, he is even wiser, and he is sifting through the implications.

She has still not adapted to their new dynamic. For decades, she has been his intellectual superior, the two of them splitting areas of responsibility and trusting each other implicitly. And now, overnight he has become her equal in many ways, and she cannot expect the same deference. But also she does not need to take the same leadership. She sits on the bed, watching him think, and thinking herself.

"I see three avenues," he begins.

"The first is our road home. To walk it ourselves, my magic must deepen to the point where I can breach the planar boundary on my own. Even then, we may lack the tools we need to find Golarion among the cosmos. To deepen my magic... they do not have monsters, they likely do not have dungeons. I can throw myself into their politics and their wars, and hope the strains that puts on my magic is enough to stretch it."

The second is our rescue. We need to attract the attention of the gods, if they can rescue us, or to trust that President Cotonnet is coming for us, one way or another. We perhaps can light a beacon for the gods, but I do not see how to do so for the archmage.

The third is Amenta. These people... I do not know if they need us, or if they need the gods, or if they are teachers for us. But I think we must embrace this world wholeheartedly to make the most of it, both for our eventual return and in the case it does not happen."

She nods. There's a melancholy about her.

He turns his head a bit; looking directly at her is too much, at the moment. "I know I have spent much time away from our children, and you little, and they need their mother yet. But Caterina and Felip are old enough to survive our absence, even if permanent, and they will not abandon their siblings. Our loss will be keenly felt but we never planned to live forever."

She nods, and looks him in the eye. "Tell me you will never give up on returning to them."

"I will not. How could I?"

But as he says it--he sees how. He would not stay in this land for ease or comfort, not while Cheliax suffers still. But if they are unknowingly marching to the Abyss--thirteen billion souls--to fix that he would sacrifice his whole line, and perhaps all of Cheliax. With tears streaming down his face, with his mind racing for alternatives, but he could not turn his back on that many strangers in need, even bound as he is to Cheliax and his children.

But the choice is not in front of them, and he does not expect to face it. He expects to find a solution that satisfies all ends, even if it takes him years of work, even if it takes unexpected luck and providential serendipity. It has happened before; it will happen again. He will be ready to be a vessel of the goodly gods when the opportunity arises.

They confer a bit more; she returns to her room to sleep and he prays earnestly and long, then he goes to sleep.

Desna's boon still operates--or he is too used to it to dream of anything else. He sees Fraga stretching before him, he teleports from place to place. He sees the news spread that the duke is missing, that the new Duke is staying in Westcrown for the convention. It is viewed as an ill omen everywhere. He sees their suspicion of the boy, their ambition growing; he sees the bandits that he talked into legitimacy wondering just how long their leash is now. He sees everyone whose loyalty is personal, and how many of them decide that their other responsibilities are more pressing, or that they should focus on finding him and rescuing him, instead of rescuing his duchy.

The visions are not real, he says to himself in the morning. There are what could be real. He prays again to clear his mind, and then spends fifteen minutes concentrating on his magic. At least his spells have returned to him.

When they emerge for the morning Mihent is up and ready to show them how the showers work if there is any sign they might not have availed themselves of this knowledge already. New clothes are ready for them to change into after that, and Muim has lists of possible appointments they could choose to entertain - various candidate attachés for Isidonia, and while she's busy with that Felip has lots of greens who want to know about magic, and culture, and the other sapient species on Golarion, and the business with the afterlives and their magical governors, and of course he can summon an expert on anything that strikes his fancy if the three already-resident greens can't answer his questions. They've also got a yellow PR lady to talk about the possibility of announcing the aliens' existence if he wants to move ahead with that. Mihent whips up fluffy banana pancakes with chopped nuts and cherry syrup for breakfast, and sides of sausages and pickle chutneys and toasted sprouts.

They eat their breakfast together on a patio overlooking the grounds. He wishes he had broadsheets or reports to read, but knows he would be better served by tales told to children. They ponder the list of possible appointments, more to stay connected than to add their expertise together.

Felip elects to see their healers first, so they can determine just how close their biology is, followed by their scholars of magic, followed by their scholars of the afterlives. Afterwards, he will consult with their tutors about Tapa's government, the other governments of the world, and their communication systems. The yellow will likely be pushed to a later day, unless everything moves more quickly than he expects.

For breakfast he changed into the new clothes provided him, but is unused to the fit, and a glance confirms Isidonia doesn't like it more than usual. Yesterday's clothing was his party silks, a level of ornamentation beyond what he would normally wear daily. But today is more like "meeting diplomatic delegations" than it is like a usual day, and it seems appropriate for that.

Besides, it seems like they benefit from seeming alien, and the local clothes don't help with that.

She would not wear the same dress two days in a row, and so is trying on the local clothes. She is spending breakfast relearning how to move with the clothes instead of against them, as well as considering her options.

One of the candidates she rejects out of hand, but will meet the others with a thirty minute break in between each.

Here is the first single young ambitious blue, who has to be female for some reason but fortunately half the people meeting that description are! She looks at the hair, she beams, and she offers a handshake. "I'm Ninpa Nenwa, delighted to meet you, your grace."

"Charmed." The handshake is not part of her Avistani repertoire, and so is less graceful than her other movements. She'll gesture towards two chairs, oriented with a comfortable angle between them; easy to look at the other party, and also easy to look away.

"Tell me about yourself." Isidonia is a long and practiced observer of people; she's interested in the choice of topic (and will ask her own questions later). How does Ninpa move? Where do Ninpa's eyes rest? What excites her, and what is she avoiding?