"There are a few sculptures of them in the west garden, if you'd like to see. Or I suppose if you're still here next time one comes through I could show you the scry."

"I want to see the scry!" says Uamok.

"We do usually only see them every few months, I'm not sure how long you're planning on staying."

"I'm not sure yet either!" she says. "I think Traveler wanted to introduce me to gnomes?"

"That's what we talked about. I'll need some time to ask around, though, and this is as good a place as any for you to stay in the meantime as far as I'm concerned - what do you think, your highness?"

    "It's up to the king, really, but I expect it'll be fine for you to stay in the city at least."

"Cool, thank you!"

"That sounds settled, then," Aatika says. "Do you want to try to learn some magic today?"

"Yes please!"

She'll pass out scrolls, then, explaining that they're for a spell called "prestidigitation" that's doesn't correspond to any of the schools of magic and will let them do a variety of small tricks once they get it, which they should expect to take a few days of work. Prince Maziar and the armsmith take their leave, and Raafi asks Uamok if she thinks they'll be okay without him for a while.

"I think so!" says Uamok, peering intently at her scroll.

And so Raafi goes too.

The scrolls will keep them busy for easily a couple of hours, with Aatika explaining the meanings of the various sections of the spell and how they work together to make its effect, and then the prince comes back to tell them that the king is ready to see them.

"We're not painted yet," says Zoi, "weren't we supposed to be painted first?"

"I could paint us with this spell if I could DO it yet," grumbles Uamok.

"We'll get painters in for you for the ball, the king knows there hasn't been time."

    "Do you have designs in mind? I have prestidigitation today."

They have all picked out designs by this point and can sketch them for the wizard. Chevrons and leaves and rings and swirls and a particular sort of splodge in various bright colors.

She can't do anything very detailed - prestidigitation just isn't that good - but they can still get reasonably fancied up.

"Did Raafi say where he was going?" the prince asks, once they're on their way.

"He might be going to ask around about gnomes for me?" says Uamok.

"I guess we'll find out when he gets back. Do you have any questions about meeting the king?"

"What do most talkers meeting the king need to know?" asks Zoi.

"It's mostly just that you should be polite, he's not going to stand on ceremony very much with you. You should use his full name or his title if you're going to refer to him - His Majesty King Nawfal al-Kaprela al-Kamar, or just His Majesty or the king, but not Nawfal. If you were humanoid I'd tell you to bow but it can be worse to do that badly than not do it at all, and I'm not sure how it translates, physically - we could check."

"What does that look like?" asks Iss.

The prince demonstrates; it's a very foldy sort of thing.

"...I don't think we can do that," Skon says.

"Don't worry about it for now, then - he's meeting you privately this time, it's not as important if nobody's going to see - and I'll ask if he wants you to do anything special at the ball in place of it."

"What exactly is a ball?" says Zoi.

"It's a type of party, with dancing and food and fancy dress - generally if we need to get the nobles together informally we'll hold a ball, and it'll let them all meet you at once."