"Yeah. I was adopted when I was a baby, because I died then. My live parents haven't died yet."

"It's not an uncommon arrangement," she says lightly, moreso than the subject might warrant. "Me and my husband adopted ten before Brynn and Daernir."

"Is there a way to talk to your live parents?"

"It's expensive, because they're not aligned with our plane, but I talk to them sometimes. More, when we were in Azuth."

(Brynnas is bored by this new person, but she's glad Daernir gets a boring friend to be boring with. She plays with her food.)

"What's Azuth?"

(The adults leave Daernir and Lintalai to their conversation, paying attention to their younger children.)

"Azuth is the god of spellcasting, but it's also the name of his realm! Most gods, they just spend time in their realms, but Azuth is his realm. Magic in general, but especially spellcasting, and more especially wizards. I'm going to be a wizard."

"Oh, cool! I can't do magic yet because I don't have a soul, except I can do some by expecting things of Arcadia."

Blink blink blink!

"You don't have a soul? How did you...do that? People are born with souls on the Prime Material Plane. Is Amenta even further than that? And I didn't know you could do things just by expecting them!"

He glares accusingly at his parents, who take no notice of this.

"I guess people must be born without souls there! I didn't know what a soul even was till today. Anyway I don't know how easily you can normally do that but I've gotten my pocket everything to do stuff by expecting it to, maybe that works because most people don't already expect stuff about pocket everythings."

"If that's how it works, you should tell me what to expect about pocket everythings so I'm not messing you up. Otherwise I might start expecting it to do things you don't want. Do you think you want a soul, or is everyone on Amenta fine without them? Magic is cool, but maybe you don't need it if you can look at pictures of the whole planet."

Not that Daernir is confident that he understands what a planet is, but he's learned that when in doubt, he should pretend he understands until he meets someone he can be confused around without getting patronized.

"Pocket everythings are great and can do a whole lot of stuff! I'm using one to translate right now, that's why it's repeating what I say in Celestial for you and what you say in Anitami for me. On Amenta you have to actually do a lot of stuff to make a new language work for this, but here I got it to work by expecting it to. And I'll be able to send messages to my dads and get them back, except it looks like time is passing very slowly at home - it also tells time, and once I connected it to Amenta's network it jumped back, so I think time is much faster here than there, so it will take them a while to answer, but it's still pretty good. And it can play music, do you want to see?"

"Wow, that's so many things! This isn't magic? How does it play music, are there instruments inside? I would like to see, please."

"It's not magic!" She goes into her music library and puts on some cheerful string instrumentals.

He is delighted by the little orchestra in this tiny object which can also translate from another language to Celestial and tell time.

"Maybe you don't need magic, if you have this. What else can pocket everythings do? Can they move stone or water? Do they help you find missing objects? You should show me things that it can do if it really is about what you believe, then I'll believe properly."

Or maybe it's a transparent ploy to see the orchestra machine's exciting features. She can probably tell he just wants to see more of what it can do.

"I don't think I can believe hard enough that it can move stone or water or find missing objects but I can show you everything." Here is a map of Lina, and how she would get directions from school (her last known location) to the sorbet place she sometimes goes on her way home, or her grandparents' house. Here is her notetaking app. Here is a random website with recipes. Here is how she programmed a chicken to pick up tokens.

"Daernir, dear, make sure to clear your plate. You don't want to disrespect the chef."

Daernir will grumble but clear his plate. He will also watch this chicken pick up tokens. He's intrigued by the idea of recipes as something you can collect all in one place like that, too.

"What other things can websites have?"

"Basically anything, the internet is huge. I mean, except magic since Amenta doesn't have magic. What do you like?"

"I do like recipes. I like having- instructions and things, or giving instructions. Wizardry is the best way to cast spells because you have to remember how all the different kinds of components relate to each other, and use the right incantations- it doesn't work the same in the Kingdoms of Arcadia, or else I would already be studying to be one. Instead, I'm going to learn some other, less fun ways that work faster first, so I can help people with that kind of magic while I study."

Lintalai finds a video of a purple putting together a piano from wood and wires and plastic. A lot of it is accelerated and it's all set to a jaunty piano tune, which the purple plays on the finished piano at the end.

He has a lot of questions, but he'll try to ask the ones that she probably knows the answers to, since she said it could be anything- she probably doesn't know how to make a piano herself. Mainly, he wants to know:

"Have you ever built anything like that, all the way from scratch, with no magic or pocket everythings? Why is her hair different? I thought you might just like your hair blue, or maybe all Amentans had the same kind of hair and it was very different, but hers is different. Is it like with us, where it's based on your parents and your parents' parents?"

(Meanwhile, his family is finishing up with their food.)

"She's a purple! I'm a blue. Amentans have castes, which, yeah, are based on parents. I'm unusual though, my hair changes color depending on what I eat and most people's doesn't, so I just eat a lot of blue food coloring back home. I'll have to find a blue flower or something I can eat to keep it blue here but I do have a whole bottle with me so it won't be a problem for a while. I've never built anything like that at all unless you count, like, stuff made from clay."