The kappa sits back down on a backless stool, looking down at two pieces of paper. She seems to be copying some complicated report. A constant breeze, warmer than the background but not especially so, wafts from her direction.

"I'm Tanno the drake, and that's Larian, the kappa. Don't mind her, she's - quiet. She's going to help with the farm and recordkeeping. I have to stay up here and you definitely shouldn't come up, but feel free to find a seat!"

"Hi! I'm Nico! Yes, I can do geometry magic! It's so amazing! You're writing down what the plants do? Are all those books about plants? Can I read one?"

Tanno laughs. "I am, and mostly- Some are about other things. I like books a lot, so I have a lot of them. They're kind of expensive. Can you be very careful with them? What's your mom's name?"

He half-nods at Calsa.

"This is Calsa. She's nice but she's not my mom, she's just taking care of me now. How much do books cost? I can pay you back if I accidentally break one. But also I'll be careful."

"Uh, I'm going to say no for now. A lot of it is just my own notes anyway."

"What is kaleid magic like, precisely?" Wonders Larian in a dry voice, without looking up from her writing.

"Oh, um. I can do lights and things, and I can make them obey rules. You can do shapes with it, and you can make it do math, and remember things, and stuff. I'm still learning." He glance at Calsa.

"That has potential," she muses. "Every new facet in the gemstone of magic brings light to Ansaf, and all. Do you know if the light nourishes plants?"

"Ooh, I don't! I should try it! I can't shine all day yet though. Or, uh hmm. Maybe I can..."

"That sounds like a nice experiment. I'm sure I can spare a seedling for it. One that's already sprouted, so we know it's not just a dud seed."

"Yeah! But catfolk make more light than I can. I can do it all fancy, that's all."

"It's still a good experiment."

Nico nods.

"Anyway, it's nice to meet you. What brings you two here, anything more than curiosity? Not that I'm complaining, it gets boring just looking at my plants and charts."

The catfolk seems to be mostly standing by, so he'll focus on Nico. Maybe offer her a book if this goes on for a while.

"I want to learn all about plants and animals and dustlife. Also it's sad that you can't be close to people."

"A... Heh." He frowns uncomfortably. "I'm used to it. Dustlife, huh? I usually call those by the kinds of tiny life there are- Algae, tiny plants. There's lots of kinds and they make the green stuff that grows on still water if there's a lot. Fungi, they make mold and mushrooms if you've seen those, but most of the fungi is actually tiny threads! Contagions, which can make people sick... There's a few different kinds of those too and a lot of them are harmless, or even helpful."

"I still think the classification of contagions is a mistake. It's a historical accident. If it means infectious disease, well, some so-called 'contagions' are harmless, and some tiny plants and animals can be harmful. It doesn't make any sense and it would be better to use the separate classifications! Also, the east field comparison for this cycle is done. I'll get the graph and add all the points."

She stands up and starts walking up the stone stairs.

"...Sure, Larian. You have a point, but academics like us need to be translatable into things ordinary people can make sense of. Nobody knows what a diatom is, and everyone knows what a contagion is."

Larian makes some sort of scoffing noise and lets out an especially energetic puff of breeze. He rolls his eyes and looks at the kid. At Nico. Names, important. And Calsa.

...Kid seems fascinated.

"So this is interesting stuff?"

"Yeah, it matters what you call things. Drakes randomly change stuff in plants and animals?"

"We also encourage rapid growth. And do it in contagions too, but this doesn't matter as much. They already change and grow really fast, so we don't make nearly as much of a difference. The changes are called 'mutations'... Hmm, so do you know how the plants that grow from seeds are pretty much the same as their 'parent' plants? And kids are also a lot like their parents but not quite?"

(Glance at Calsa with a raised eyebrow to see how she feels about this topic.)

Yay, Nico is talking to people and making friends. (She has no expectation that he restrict his friends to his age group. The people one gets along with might be any age, and it's good to fit oneself into one's existing community. If someone proposed age stratification to her, she would be alarmed. It sounds so lonely, especially when you get old and your friends die. And actively harmful, if a close-sewn social group goes through puberty together and has no calmer voice to chill them from the recklessness of youth.)

She considers flaming up to help with the ventilation, but she doesn't want to mess up the airflow in this unfamiliar style of drakehouse, so on second thought, she extinguishes all but the flames on her ears, and banks those down. Larian and Tanno know what they're doing.

Ah, 'facet on the gemstone of magic', is that how they say it now. Larian is an explorer. While Calsa is all in favor of having as many kinds of people as possible, living happily all across Ansaf, she was shaken by the revelation that butter-apples are not merely the cast-offs of a failed experiment, plants such as an ent might leave behind, but people, and not happy ones. Responsible exploration is one thing, but there's no need to collect every possible species.

Tanno's glance puzzles her until she remembers that most people see nothing wrong with describing explicit acts to children. She's been in Kef too long, surrounded by only catfolk and werewolves... she gives Tanno an uncertain nod? Plant mutations should be a fine topic...

"So we don't know all the details about how this works, and it gets pretty confusing at the best of times, there's stuff we still don't know here, but by looking at what seeds are like compared to their parent plants, and what children are like compared to their parents, we're pretty sure on a lot of it! I can explain why we're pretty sure if you want. Things that are alive have pieces inside of them that tell them how to be alive, sort of like a tiny tiny library. To make a new seed, two plants of the same species spread pollen into the air- The pollen has copies of these tiny books, and when it touches another plant, they get combined to grow seeds. Two different plants' books, combined into new books. Larian, can you draw a square chart for Nico?"

"Yes yes, fine. Don't be too reductive please, I don't think I could stand it." She goes over to the sand table.

(Is that what humans do. Do they have pollen.

Handholding is dangerous.)

"If you smush together two books that are mostly the same- Maybe a sentence says 'Sota stands tall and proud' in one book, and it says 'Sota stands firm and determined' in another, when they get smushed together the book still makes sense. 'Sota stands firm and proud', or 'tall and determined'. Or maybe it's 'tall and proud' after all, since this depends on luck. But it's still a slightly different book. Maybe it's a better one, or maybe a worse one. Plants and people are really complicated, I don't think you could describe us even if you covered all of Kef in books."

"You're explaining it wrong. Haploid cells are not a complete copy of an organism's genetics."