"Uh, here's a grain of rice," she makes one between her fingertips, "and here's a million of 'em -"

It's a big heap.

" - people usually don't tell small kids about bad things -"

He is examining the pile of rice very very seriously. "...fifty five?"

"- they don't? Why?" Amriac asks Michael. "I think it was fifty-five. It's rounding, I don't know if it's rounding up or down."

He takes a piece of rice off the pile and studies it very carefully and then puts it on the ground next to him.

He takes another one.

" - because, like, children are emotionally immature? They don't know how to cope with stuff and they can't regulate their emotions - kiddo what are you doing -"

"I think I don't really understand how many of them so I am taking each one and imagining it a house and a family and a favorite kind of sweet and an opinion about dogs and when I have done them all then I think I will understand.

"...ooooooor they do that, I guess. I don't think most small children would do that."

"Eternal fucking void, why are you doing that, that's, no," says Amriac, "don't do that -"

He takes another piece of rice and sets it down next to the first two. He looks up, hurt - "sorry. Why - why not -"

"There's a million of 'em, you will be here for years trying to do that, and it's the saddest fucking thing -"

Nod. "But then I'll understand and I think it's an important thing to understand, a million."

"It's a heap of rice that big, don't invent a million opinions on dogs or I think I'm gonna cry."

"Don't cry," he says automatically. "Maybe you can imagine a million just from the rice but I'm trying and it's not working. I don't know if there are a million opinions on dogs, some of them might be repeats. ...it'd be better if I could know the real people -"

"I am newly appreciative that the adult one is at all functional, oh my god."

"You don't have to get a real good sense of a million, it's just, it's a lot, that's - that's all I was getting at -"

"I'm supposed to be a prince, people trust me, they can't trust me if I don't - think about things because they're big and I don't understand them -"

"How about we go flying, I bet I can carry you on my broomstick even though you're a Muggle."

Blink.

"He's got a broom that flies," says Amriac, distractedly composing another letter with the salutation Cam you fuckhead. "It's magic. It's lovely if you can't have your own wings."

"Accio broomstick." And he firmly scoops up the tiny Timothy and takes off with him. The tiny Timothy makes a not-entirely-pleased noise into his robes but that's okay - zoom zoom -

Elsewhere Cam conjures his mail and is promptly in an absolutely dreadful mood.

He's checking up on the condition of everyone who needs to die-already-so-they-know-about-daevafying and -

" - what happened -"

"Amriac, who has never met a small child in her entire life and understands them only as a sort of fictitious creature, met tiny you, and it just happened to come up in conversation that, oh, Cam killed fifty-five million people, and he didn't know what a million was and 'a thousand thousand' didn't cut it so she made a heap of rice and he was trying to go through all of the rice one a time imagining backstories for everybody before Michael kidnapped him for a broomstick ride."

"- I wonder if I should give him Maitimo's actual file..."