"I'll keep it in mind in case I run across an opportunity."

"Are there a lot of different countries on this planet?"

"I don't know how many is 'a lot' - let's see, there's the six merfolk nations, six countries on Espaal, Mryne and Pleia and Nirlan and I guess wolfrider territory on Nanela, Mekand being its own thing, Dragon Island sort of arguably a polity, eight nations of the tropics, and then, uh, some number of countries on Anaist - something in the vicinity of twenty? I think it's nineteen. Which adds up to - forty-five or so?"

"Sort of arguably?"

"It's where the Dragon Council meets, and they're... a governing body in a sense, but they concern themselves with all the dragons on the planet, Dragon Island doesn't have citizens so much as some residents and a lot of visitors."

"Huh."

"Yeah. So it's not exactly a country but it's not exactly not a country."

"I think we have more countries than that."

"Could be. I wonder how the planets compare in surface area..."

"I don't know off the top of my head. We're mostly ocean, too."

"And uninhabited ocean at that!"

"Oh, yeah, I guess people live in your oceans!"

Giggle.

"Does that make boating awkward?"

"Not especially, I don't think, but maybe it would if you weren't used to it."

"I think in my world different countries own different bits of ocean and there are rules about what boats can be there."

"Oh, my impression is that the merfolk nations aren't especially concerned with the surfaces of their oceans - I think there are rules about what exactly you're allowed to do but, not being the boating sort myself, I don't know them offhand."

"I suppose that makes sense, it'd be sort of like airspace but even less so."

Giggle. "Now, airspace, that's something of a concern now that scoots have really started catching on..."

"It wasn't before with flying people?"

"Oh, it was, but flying people are a little better at keeping out of each other's way. Generally aren't going as fast, for one thing."

"I think airspace at home is more of a territory thing than a preventing crashes thing, the crashes they handle with like... flight plans."

"Ah. Flight plans seem like they'd be a bit much for every little jaunt, and maintaining strict territorial boundaries in the air seems like it'd be a hassle, but there are rules about which altitude bands a particular vehicle belongs in and if you get in any trouble short of a catastrophic crash you can always land. And it's increasingly hard to crash catastrophically these days, the safety features keep improving."

"Oh - you probably have more altitude options with the air being all the way up thing -"

"Altitude options: so numerous!"