"My . . . youthful foibles."

"No, that seems like yours to tell."

"I see.  I - "  Zarian's attention flicks towards her office door.  Sarham doesn't hear anything notable.  "That'll be Colley.  Final remarks?"

"I imagine we can talk alone again some time in the future if I think of any."

"Certainly."  And shortly Sarham can make out some (very skillful) whistling reverberating up the stairwell.  Zarian gets the door before Colley would be obliged to knock on it.

"Hi!!"

"Hi! How'd it go?" Sarham asks, getting up to catch Kyeo by the hand and kiss his knuckles.

Kyeo is silent!

"He's on vocal rest for a few days but he really liked my setrekbort - that's an instrument - " she mimes playing it in a way that clearly corresponds to some actual song, "so I'm commissioning him one!"

"- you are? How much does a setrekbort cost?"

"It would be terribly gauche of me to say."

"So you're commissioning one for him as a gift? That's very nice of you."

"Mmhm!"

Kyeo pats Sarham on the arm.

Zarian pulls her chair a bit farther from her desk and sits back down.  "You're so generous."

Now there is a Colley in her lap!  "I really really am.  - What's that?"

"An underwater air-breathing alien creature called a dolphin!"

"Wow!  Like a real one?"  Zarian nods into her shoulder; Colley tilts her head at it.  ". . . Should I be impressed with how fast you were picking up everything, Kyeo - I've learned instruments the slow way but I know a lot of instruments so it's not actually all that slow - how many did you know before today - "

Kyeo shakes his head and taps his throat.

Colley sets aside the endolphined sheet and slides the stack of blank paper formerly under it across the table.  Zarian donates her pencil.

Kyeo writes that he's never played an instrument before, only sung.

"See that's what I'd thought you meant but it seemed a little implausible!  I don't have much basis for comparison but you were picking it up pretty quickly."

The voice is an instrument.

"I agree and have in fact spent tens of hours over the course of my life arguing for that position!  I wasn't sure it was an instrument with skills that generalized that well to less controversial ones."

Well, perhaps this can be ammunition in your next argument.