Cam catches up with the surgeon. "Is this a problem I can solve by straight up replacing the kid's eyeballs?"

". . . Probably not."

"What is the nature of the problem?"

"They were already replaced with some grown in a modified owl, but due to complications during the surgery not everything attached correctly.  They were ultimately crystal-healed into place non-functionally."

"- okay, so when I say, replacing his eyeballs, I mean, surgically removing these ones and any scar tissue and then magically appearing exact replicas of his originals already attached."

"Fuzhe."  (It sounds like the first syllable of 'fusion'.)  "It would depend on how far in the scar tissue went, then."

"Do you have a guess?"

"The original procedure was quite invasive."  Markus clears his throat.  "I don't know the patient well so I'm not sure how willing he would be to try again."

"Right, I just wanted to know if it was likely to be possible at all before bothering him about it."

He shrugs.  "You sound like a miracle worker.  If he wants to try and wants my help, I will."

"I'm not going to press it today, certainly."

"That does seem wise."

"If you need any help with settling in ask Felicity for logistics questions and Mrindeh who is set up over there for material objects, she has the same powers as me and has not successfully gotten a resurrected bundle of joy yet so she's not busy."

" - Resurrected?  Do you just - you make a whole replacement body, is that it?"

"Yup. Caveats apply - it seems difficult for a baby, even a baby that is three babies squished together, to assume a set of bodies - but yup."

"They've tried that, in Verona and maybe other places.  It doesn't work with out-of-season ones."

"Yeah, the babies are of birthdays that ought to cooperate, they just can't figure out how to get into the bodies."

"Even if you keep the soulless bodies we can make alive long enough for them to grow up, stars can't attach to them.  I've heard."

"Well, stars can attach to mine, but I don't know what the difference is - are you getting them physically close to the stars?"

"I don't know, I didn't work on it personally."

"You gotta get the bodies physically close to the shell of the world. Could be that's your only problem."

"Good to know."

The younger three bird kids trot over.  One of them waves.

"Hi there! You need something?"

"Do you have clothes?  Real clothes," asks the pointy-eared one, "like jeans and sweatshirts?"