Presently out comes Uamok with her school things in a bag on her leg. "Hi, hummun! I forgot your name."

"Raafi. Or I answer to Traveler, if that's easier to remember. I'm not sure I caught yours?"

"Raafi's not a boy's name. Traveler isn't either but I guess it's not trying to be... I'm Uamok."

"Uamok," he nods. "Different species usually have different sorts of names, where I'm from, Raafi's a human male name. But Traveler's fine if it's awkward."

"Boy names are supposed to be short. I think it's because you have to say them more often - not individually but like if you're trying to call everybody in for dinner or something."

"That makes sense. Human names don't really have a pattern like that - if I had a list of them I'd be able to tell you which ones were male or female but I wouldn't be able to explain how I knew. Talkers with long names do usually have a shorter version you can call them, but mine's too short to need one - my friend Katrianne goes by Katri or Kat, though, for example, or my other friend Everia will let people she likes call her Eve."

"Huh. I don't think we do that. Maybe they do someplace faraway I've never been."

"I guess I'll find out eventually."

"Are you just going to wander all over the world?"

"Most likely! My magic makes that easier than it sounds, and a lot less risky, and it's a lot of fun."

"I've never gone very far. I guess to another planet to learn magic is very far."

"Definitely. And you'll get to be one of the first, that's always something special, getting to see a new place without a lot of people telling you what to think about it beforehand."

"What, would being told about it make it worse somehow?"

"Sort of! Like, if I told you the best thing about humans was our, hmm, singing, let's say, that doesn't mean you would like the singing best, it just means I do, and if you're just going to all the choir performances you might never notice that you like our paintings or something better. And there's lots of things like that, where if you think you know what's going on you won't pay attention to other things that might be just as interesting or even more so."

"But there might be stuff I'd never notice without being told."

"Sure, but you can get that sort of advice later, after you've looked around a bit; you can't go back and see things completely fresh if you don't do that first." He shrugs. "There's nothing wrong with talking to people about a new situation before you try it, it's just that the chance to do something without that doesn't come along every day."

"I guess so. Am I going to be able to fit places in a hummun city? It only just occurred to me you wouldn't have females' doors."

"You'll probably want a shrinking spell, but I have a pretty good idea where to get you one. Or if that's too strange I bet I can find a college somewhere that'll work with you anyway, and our streets and things should be all right for you, it's just indoors that'll be a problem."

She makes a face. "I don't want to be small! All my mates would leave me - I mean I have only one but I mean to have more before I go - and it'd be scary, and I wouldn't be able to move things around very well."

"It's all right, you don't need to do that, I can figure something out. -how do you feel about an apprenticeship? I'm starting to think gnomes might be a good match for you, that's another kind of talker, they're very curious and love building and inventing; they're even smaller than your males, all of them, so you wouldn't be able to fit in their buildings even with a spell, but if you're going to have trouble with that anyway they'll be the most willing to bring everything out to you."

"An apprenticeship sounds maybe less fun than a school because I'd only be learning one thing."

"A gnome town will be nearly as good as a wizards' college for that. Maybe better, if you don't care about learning from experts exactly and I go looking for an interesting one - they won't have as many people who've spent a hundred years on one thing but they'll have plenty of people who've spent twenty years studying five things and are excited to talk to you."

"Oh, they don't have to be experts at least not starting out. I'm sure every talker I could meet there knows lots I don't."

"Definitely. All right. I have notes on all the towns I've been to; I'll go through sometime when I'm not busy and see if anything looks especially interesting. Is there anything other than species design lessons I should look out for?"

"I wanted to learn magic too when you said I could do that!"