"Well, 'polite' is a good sign, I guess..."

"She was very polite. I mean, we didn't have a super long conversation."

Finnah flutters off his head, shifts, and hands over the crystal. "Should I leave?"

Finnah stays put.

"Hello."

"Yes," she agrees. "Am I?"

"Yep."

"It's nice to meet you. My name is Libby. You might be glad to hear that Lazarus confirms you won't be dying of old age either."

"That is pretty nice to hear. So what exactly did you want to talk to me about?"

"Well. 'Why' might be a reasonable summary."

"I have a feeling I'm going to be getting that one a lot, yeah."

"I hope you're not tired of it yet."

"Nah. Okay, so how much do you know about Draconic?"

"Virtually nothing."

"It's a language. It's magical. Dragons and shrens speak it, sort of automatically, as part of our magic. And it really has it in for shrens. When it comes to most things, there is a wide range of vocabulary available to account for desired connotations. With shrens, the available connotations are that we are bad and horrifying and probably shouldn't exist. It's just not an option to talk about us as being acceptable, let alone positive. Despite the fact that any reasonable person would categorize us as an unfortunate kind of dragon, Draconic completely refuses to entertain the idea. There is a specific word that means 'awesome in exactly the way that dragons are awesome', and it applies to dragons and definitely not to us. And so on. I'm sure you get the picture."

"With extreme clarity, yes," she says. "It doesn't sound comfortable."

"It really isn't," he sighs. "But, look, I'm a hundred and seventy years old, I've had a while to figure out how to deal with it. And the way I deal with it, mainly, is by disagreeing with the premise. I disagree that shrens are not awesome. I think shrens are pretty great. It's kind of difficult sometimes, because, again, Draconic has it in for us, and there's not really a way to get a break from being a Draconic-speaker. But I have a lot of practice."

"...And so," she says, "now that you have an opportunity to stop being a shren, you... disagree that it's the obvious choice?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"I suspected this was going to be interesting. I'm pleased to know how right I was," she says. "And I think Lazarus might like to talk to you about that language of yours."

"...Oh? I mean, yes, absolutely - is Lazarus the really tall excitable human with strong opinions about communication crystals?"

"Yes. Yes he is."