"I don't know very much about the Kingdom of Night, but I know they do things differently there. I'm not sure what you mean by political subdivision. There's all sorts of folk; most people you meet in the Kingdom of Day will be corvid or feline or ungulate or fey, although there's other kinds of bird-folk too, the corvids are just commonest."

"I mean—cities? Do you have, like, people who are not the King but also rule places?"

"Towns have mayors and so on, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, that's what I mean."

"Well, there you are then."

"You mentioned outworlders are always understood. So this has happened before?"

"Yes, long before my time."

"Do you know anything about where they're from?—I'm sorry, am I being very rude, should I be asking someone else these questions?"

"I may not always be able to answer you but I'm not offended to be asked," she says. "I don't know anything about where outworlders come from besides 'outside of the world'."

She nods. "Does this world have any magic?"

"Yes, of course," she says, slightly surprised. "Doesn't yours?"

"Nnnooo, not at all, my world has a set of mathematical rules that everything ever follows and nothing beyond that."

"I can't begin to imagine what that would be like."

"Not knowing what magic you have, I can't really compare, but you'd be surprised how much stuff we can accomplish with just maths."

"I suppose. It still seems very strange."

"I won't say it's strange that you do, it's downright expected, the world being flat and all."

"Is that the sort of thing that leads you to expect magic? Well, it does seem like it would lead you to expect something other than your very own mathematical laws."

"It's, hmm... Yes, at least that, but there's also certain kinds of things that point to 'complex enough mathematical laws they might well be magic' and a flat world surrounded by a dome of sky is one of them."

"I haven't ever considered what mathematical laws the world would follow if it had those. It almost doesn't make sense as a question. The world is the world; it needn't answer to our descriptions of it."

"Yeah, that's more or less what I mean by this being very suggestive of magic."

Up ahead, there is an inn with a colourful woven basket hanging above the door. A pearly-white unicorn is just leaving as they approach.

"That's my friend's inn," says Stormcloud, indicating it with a wave of a large white paw.

In she goes, pun intended!