The humans at least are likely to be able to fit more of them into the same space with some help.

We will fear that you will favor the humans, for their numbers, for closer sympathy to their forms and desires, for their natural organization compared to our solitude.

Those things are factors, yes. We can't value one dragon more than one human, and we understand better what humans need and how to provide it because we have experience with them, and we're better able to interact with them efficiently because they organize themselves and one conversation can lead to many of them carrying out a plan. But we don't want to let them hurt you or steal from you, at least not more than has already happened.

...The path forward lies heavy with your shadows, whatever choices are made. This is truth and reality, and wishing it were otherwise is futile. I would ask for you to turn back any dragonslaying parties anywhere in this world just as you turn back any dragons seeking to kill humans, but even this would be offensive to my kin were I to beg for it rather than you implementing such a thing of your own accord, so I am not asking for you to do that.

What of the beasts of the land, and the spirits? Have you spoken to them?

Some of the animals that have had - dragon magic? - done to them have addressed us. The spirits haven't spoken at all.

The beasts of the land who follow the true way have far dimmer spirits than those of dragons unless they are Enkindled - their spirits ignited by a portion of our soul and intent - but they feel and remember just as we do naturally. To the spirits I suppose you do not sense the Song, and may not notice them even if they did address you...

That sounds like a potential issue, can dragons relay to us what they have to say?

We could. Meaning may be lost from an alien mind to an alien mind to your own minds.

Yes, we'll try to come up with another way to talk to them if we can.

You should seek to speak to the beasts of the land as well. They merit consideration, if not so much individually as an individual human.

We try to gently phase out the use of animals for meat, and when we open up new planets to colonists, we don't put very many animals on them and particularly not ones that seem obviously bothered by settlements. Other than that on the Vanda Nossëo level we don't consider them very much. Do you think animals here are likely to differ from those we're familiar with, maybe due to spirit influence?

If you so casually dismiss the beasts you are familiar with, I think it likely. Their minds sing, if dimly compared to dragons.

I could ask someone to bring some animals from other worlds here to see if they sing to you.

I am willing to do this. They should remain out of my territory, lest their spirits be subsumed by mine as weaker ones can be.

Where is a good place?

Beyond the hill there; I will travel to the very edge of my demense. She slowly indicates a hill with her snout.

Sorturon bows and jogs up and over the hill. Here?

She perches along the hill itself, head peeking over the top

Yes, that is far enough.

And a minute later there appears a human with a perfectly normal retriever, and a petted owl from Stork, and a mouse in a cage, and a fishtank containing guppies and tetras and mini catfish and rasboras, and a garter snake.

She regards the whole group impassively for a couple of minutes, tendrils of 'aura' reaching forward.

The dog seems a feather less aware than wolves do, to me; The snake is similar to snakes I know; The mouse and fish and owl all seem... Less in a difficult to define way. I speak only of my perceptions and know well that they may not be truth.

"Huh, I was expecting the owl to be different, it's had magic done to it, just not your kind," says the human with the menagerie.

The magic is not the owl and the owl is not the magic... Or so I think. I may have to see what the magic on it does, I cannot tell.

"It follows instructions," the human says. "Sit on my shoulder," she tells the owl, and it hops up to her shoulder.

I do not see magic, I see spirit, but the owl did not understand a command and comply. It simply moved. It is a bird, and one that refuses to tell me stories, or perhaps does not know any.

"Okay, thanks for checking!" says the human, and she and her animals all disappear.