"I'm Amriac!"

"Hi!!! Are you a demon? Cam said he was and he has wings like yours."

"Mine have claws and are a totally different color," objects Amriac. "But yes I'm a demon."

"Well I've never met anyone else with wings at all so I do not have very refined taste. Claws are cool, though. Hi. I'm an Elf. There are soul Elves and cyborg Elves and I am a soul Elf. And I talk."

"I noticed you talk," agrees Amriac. "I never met a little kid before so I guess we're even."

"Really? Never? No one has any?"

"Nah, demons start out as grownups unless they start out as humans and then they don't wind up in Hell till they're older."

"That's so weird! The first Elves started as grownups but all the Elves after that start as little babies! And then we get big! It's good because if I were big and didn't know anything people wouldn't like me but I'm little so it's cute."

"Oh, new daeva are popular enough, people like teaching even of full size people."

"Oh good. I think I'd like teaching people."

"It's not my thing but people get super into it."

"I was learning how to read but then I saw people and wanted to meet them instead because people are more important. Hi," he adds to Michael.

"Hi. I'm Michael - uh, when your parents have another kid, it will be a me. Unless all this drama changes their plans somehow, I'm not sure how that works."

"Michael. It is nice to meet you. I hope I get you as a brother."

"Nice to meet you too. My brother might be that neurotic about people liking him but he doesn't act it. What a silly thing to be neurotic about."

"I don't know that word."

"If I wasn't cute and entertaining it'd be terrible if I didn't know anything because people wouldn't want to be around me? It's the word for that thing. I have it about music but at least that's not a stupid thing to have it about."

"Neurotic," he says carefully. "Responsive - responsib - responsibity. ility. Responsiveibility? Neurotic."

" ...pretty much fucking exactly, yeah."

"Well, it is cute, though, look at him he's so little - teeny little kiddo -"

He beams at Amriac. "I like you! I like demons! I don't think Cam likes me very much but that's because I read his mind by accident."

"Oh like he has room to judge, he killed like fifty-five million people."

Blink.

"He killed people?

How many is a million?"

"Uh, a thousand thousand?"

He wrinkles up his nose in confusion.