If he's from deep in the drydark, they probably have tales of the distant lands where the sun shines. And that's true! Just, the world is bigger than it seems when you have to actually walk every step of the way.

Up ahead, a distant steady rumbling approaches.

"I made the house and the tables and the huddlebed and the sand table and the sand in it, and bowls and slates... When Siki was small I made him balls and tops and dice and pick-up-sticks." She mimes each of these. "In the past I made molds - you make metal hot so it's like water and put it in a hole in a rock and then it gets cold and hard and you take the rock away and have a metal thing. I made a little bit of the equartier path." She holds up two fingers to show thin horizonal layers of the wall.

"Now I only make slates, to write things down. People talk to me and I draw what they say and then I or other people, especially the Magistrate, can look at the drawings and know what the people said.

What would you like to make?"

"Ooh, ooh [Mom] told me how to [write]! We use, black uhhhhh, black water on white [paper] and white sand not sand on black rock. I saw a [book] that said how magic once!"

"White [paper] is thin or thick? Stiff or flexible?" with mime "Sand-not-sand... You put a thing like water on a black rock, like black water - ink - but not black, and then put white sand on top. When the water is dry there is still a thing that holds the white sand to the rock?

Is a book made of [paper] or rock?

What kind of magic?"

...clomp clomp clomp clomp CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP 

A person with flared nostrils and a streaming mane and heavy boots wait no huge hooves runs by them on top of the wall, back the way they came, holding a giant moth in a bridal carry.

CLOMP CLOMP clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp...

"That's an equartier holding a wroth. Do you know what they are?"

Wow. They must have some REALLY good green mages here.

"Black magic! Making things magic! I like it more more. [Paper] is thin and flexible. It's... Foods that don't walk. And [chalk] is like sand, it's not wet. It's a little bit wet? It's [chalk]. [Books] are made of [paper]. [Chalk] is for telling how things, like the sand table. [Paper] is for books. No I don't. Catfolk werewolf equartier wroth human elves whissopers Kaleid, um, Siki... NINE! No, TEN!"

"Mouseling, gnomunk, boark, frogold, kappa, undine, drake, liefling, tengu, drider, scoblin, bixee, apple?" Not that she really expects him to recognize the names.

And here's the courthouse. It has steel ribs and plates of stone, and an energetic fire on the top. A path from the wall slopes down to the ground and back up.

Merta leads the way through the open doorway.

Inside, the stone roof glows - the fire shines through the thin stone panels, which are engraved with images of caves and water and catfolk and werewolves and plants and gears and... Also some have angular calligraphy.

There are four sand tables. A dias at the far end.

Merta rings a bell by the door with her knuckle.

A tall solid person with a bald head, floppy ears, and an even floppier nose plods in a side door. "Hi Merta. You're early."

"Hi Meika. I have business with the Magistrate."

"Ah."

She climbs up the dias (apparently there are stairs on the back) and stands firmly.

"Merta, my faithful subject. What is your business?"

(Without moving, she pulls on her memories of Merta's lover... ah, Calsa Tabby, works at the mill, came in the second wave, adopted a mouseling pup.)

Wow, this place is pretty and impressive. Are courthouses [temples]? To all the different kinds of people, instead of to the colors? That fire must cost so much Red or a ridiculous amount of artifacts or fuel or- No, Catfolk exist. It's still amazing.

He gawks, at least until this person starts seeming like an Important Person. Then he stands behind Calsa, completely failing to be subtle about it. (He also pulls out his rock and thumbs over the spot with magic invisibly inscribed, as a comfort thing he doesn't really notice that he might not want to do.)

"I'm sure you've heard already that a child was found by the mill at the end of the last Breath shift. Calsa has taken him in. He's called Nico and is not human, despite his appearance. He does not speak our language, but we're teaching him. Calsa, you've been around him more, how would you describe him?"

"Nico, short for Nicodemus, is shy but eager to learn. He says he ran away from his family on purpose, which fits with other signs he's shown of past abuse. He likes machines and I'm confidant that he could learn a trade even if he was a human boy, and with his magic, including translation, I fully recommend him as a citizen of Kef."

"And that leads to the reason I'm bringing this to you so urgently. While we don't know exactly how he got here or how far he came, possibly using his magic, he's probably from deep in the drydark. Unless he came from Lacrimos or deep underground or something.

I presume that Kef is well-positioned to lead the diplomatic contact with his people. But I think it would be unethical to return him, and his people might not want to contact us anyway. That is the matter I set before you.

Calsa and I speculate that his mixture of weak magics and human-like appearance are both because he's the result of some other magic that produces hybrid people. He says there are five common magics. The only one we're sure of is whisshopper."

The elph stands silently.

"I need to know more about his magic and where he's from."

Calsa turns to kneel in from of Nico, still shielding him from the Important Person. "Nico, what magic do you have? Uh, red, black, green, white, blue. [book] to 'book' -" she wiggles her fingers with tiny flames popping on and off in an imitation of his fire-and-sparks illusion "- and you came here and made red and blue light...?

The place where you came from, is there light? Can you see the sun? Does water come from the sky? Is there a sky?"

He glares slightly and fidgets with his rock.

"...Do you like the Magistrate?"

"I don't really know the Magistrate... Merta likes her and I like Merta.

I like living here in Kef. The Magistrate likes when people... so, Merta works for the Magistrate. In some towns, if I said 'Faris took my food' and I was lying, the Magistrate would say I was lying, but if Merta, who works for the Magistrate, said Faris took her food, and was lying, the Magistrate would know that Merta was lying but say that Faris was lying because the Magistrate likes Merta. The Magistrate of Kef - Meikalani - does not like that. What she says to Merta, she says to me."