"Oh good. Earth sounds are so difficult for us space aliens."

"I'm sure I'd do worse in your language which consists entirely of clicks."

"That's not Swahili! You're thinking of... Bantu. I think. Maybe also others."

"I meant the alien language. Unless you're saying space aliens also speak Swahili."

"We do. It's a good language."

"How did it get to Earth then?"

"Oh, we learned it from Kenyan radio."

"You guys should listen to Chinese pop! --I guess," he adds judiciously, "I have no idea whether it is better or worse than Kenyan music."

"I am learning French next but maybe I will consider Chinese after!"

"A bunch of Asian pop music has English lyrics, actually." He sings a snippet of BTS's War On Hormone: "Tell me what you want right now / (Hello hello) (what!) (Hello hello) (what!) / Imma give it to you girl right now." His voice is very beautiful.

"Oh, you're a good singer!"

"Thank you!"

"Do you do lots of singing magic?"

"A little! I'm hoping I can learn more song-spells, but my affinity is visual art."

"Ooh, what do you do with art?"

"Mostly make paintings that move around, unfortunately."

"Like in Harry Potter? Those paintings can open doors and remember things they hear..."

"Maybe when I have more mana capacity!"

"That would be cool! Can you do magic sculptures too?"

"I haven't tried! I've focused on drawing. Maybe I'll get sculpture assignments in shop."

Please God let him get sculpture assignments in shop.

"You could make the prettiest constructs."

"Do we know if there are any mals repelled by things being very very pretty?"

"How would I know? They would never come anyplace near me." She tosses her head.

He bows. "Of course, xiao-jiejie. This humble one is blinded by your radiance."

"Oh no. Too much with the space alien lasers and things." She waves her hand in front of his eyes.