Ana sits.

"Only metaphorically. Lots of religions, no provable divine intervention."

"Intriguing. I wonder if that makes things more interesting, or less. What do you think?"

Ana laughs.

"I don't know! I've never been to a world with real gods before!"

"Well," his grin is back, wider than ever, "perhaps you can visit. The kobold certainly thinks you would find it edifying."

"Hmm. I do like trying new things..."

He smiles. "I shall seek you out when my path turns homeward, then."

"I'll look forward to that, then."

"Perhaps in the meantime you would like to tell me a tale?"

"Okay. Um, let me think of a good one...oh! What about the time I found the lost Royal Crown of Alderaan?"

That smile just doesn't quit, does it. "Certainly."

The kobold finishes with the fish, and comes over to listen too; she settles next to Ana.

The planet Alderaan was undergoing a succession crisis. The previous ruler, of House Panteer, was killed in a suspicious transport crash. House Ulgo was implicated, but nothing could be proved. They moved into the Royal Palace and the head of the house Bouris Ulgo proclaimed himself king. Many of the other Houses took issue with this. One of them, House Organa reached out to Ana while she on-planet for unrelated (classified military) reasons with a lead on some evidence that would show Ulgo's guilt in the death of the Panteers. When Ana investigated, she found some undiscovered wreckage from the transport crash, including the blackbox flight recorder and the royal crown. She presented the recorder to House Organa and the crown to the last remnants of House Panteer. When analyzed, the recorder showed evidence of Ulgo sabotage, and grateful Panteer asked for Ana to be involved in bringing them to justice. So she stormed the palace and single-handedly defeated all Bouris Ulgo's personal guards as well as the man himself and brought him out in chains to face trial for treason and regicide.

"Well done," Raafi cheers. "You must be an amazing fighter, miss."

"Well. That's what they say, anyway. You can ask the kobold, she's seen me duel. And call me Ana, please."

Raafi beams at Ana, then turns a questioning face to the kobold.

"Ana's pretty awesome, yeah. I'll draw for you later, if you want."

"...and the other?"

The kobold pauses to think back through the interaction, and then grimaces. "No, Raafi. They guessed instead of asking and there wasn't a good chance to say anything."

Ana is confused!

The kobold really does not want to talk about this. Oh look, the fish need to be rotated, she'll just teleport over there and do that. (So embarrassed.)

"The kobold's culture does not acknowledge gender," Raafi explains levelly, his expression mostly neutral but his eyes betraying a bit of humor, "and from what I gather there are few physical differences either; there are only a few contexts in which one would mention what kind of kobold one was speaking of. If you had asked, they wouldn't have told you; I never did find out, in a year of traveling together."

"Um. Yeah." Ana scratches her head. "I... sort of picked up on that? But it's hard to remember all the time, Most galactic languages do gendered pronouns by default."

"Well. If they are not bothered enough to correct you, I suppose you may continue, and I will refrain from making unwarranted inferences."

He turns to look at the campfire. "Come here, kobold," he commands, and she does, and sits in his lap. He offers her one of his hands, and she nudges it sharply with her nose; he pats her head with it and begins scratching behind one of her ears as he returns his attention to Ana, grinning again.

"What all sorts of magic stuff can you do?"

"My workings have a variety of effects, though most are temporary. Healing and defense; improving and granting abilities; some small divination and summoning."

"Summoning?"

He nods. "Calling forth various creatures of the realms that intersect my world. Elementals and celestial beings and so on."

"Cool. I can't do anything like that. Could you call one here?"

He grins. "Perhaps tomorrow, if Fharlanghn wills it." He looks down at the kobold's hopeful smile. "Which I imagine they shall."

Oh good, Ana's not the only one who wants to see that.

"So, um, what do you do for fun? Besides travel around?"