"Then yeah, sure. But, um - in case he gets strong opinions about Draconic before I get a chance to talk to him - please tell him not to mess with it directly," he says. "A lot of people like it the way it is, and while I may privately opine that they're a bunch of lizards, I don't actually want to pull it out from under them."

"I'll pass that along," she promises.

"Thank you."

"It's no trouble. Lazarus will probably come by to be excitable and opinionated with you sometime soonish."

"I look forward to our excitable and opinionated conversation."

She laughs.

"I'll let you get back to - whatever miracle workers do with their time, then, I guess."

"I'm more of a miracle coordinator, personally. But yes. Although - and excuse me if this is too personal of a question - it occurs to me to wonder, what do you think you would've done if you hadn't been a shren, when the miracles came around?"

"You are a very interesting person," says Libby. "I think you might get along well with Lazarus. And I have no more invasive personal questions for you, so goodbye for now."

"Yep," Finnah agrees.

"And good practice for the hundreds of reporters who will no doubt be asking me," he makes a dramatized gesture of emphasis, "why. Although I bet a lot fewer of them will ask me what I would've done if I hadn't been a shren."

"It wouldn't've occurred to me to ask. Pretty interesting answer, though."

"I wouldn't dream of judging anyone else for that - I wouldn't even let other people join in on judging hypothetical alternate Mial, I don't think, if there were any who had the urge for some reason. But I think I get to hold my hypothetical alternate self to a different standard. After all, if things had turned out differently he could've been me."

"Yeah, and if I'd hatched a degree earlier I could've caught Aurin," Finnah points out, pensive, "think his hypothetical alternate self is judging him?"

"I doubt it. Does Aurin strike you as the sort of person who would have been The Last Shren, if things had turned out differently? I think I am probably unique in my weirdness, or if not precisely unique then the next thing to it."

"He does not strike me as that sort of person," says Finnah. "But I didn't really expect it from you either till you told me."

"My mother wasn't surprised."

"Well, your mom's your mom," shrugs Finnah. "I'm not - floored, but I didn't expect it."

"My mom is indeed my mom," he agrees. "It's a notable characteristic of hers. I don't know, it seems reasonable that you wouldn't have seen it coming, but... I think I would see it hypothetically coming, if anybody we know was the type to be the same way. If, I don't know, the whole mess had happened a generation earlier and it had been my dad and Grandpa had shipped him off to a shren house, I bet he would've grown up really mad about people being lizards but I don't think he would've turned down the miracle."

"Was Aurin floored?" wonders Finnah.

"Um." Mial hangs his head slightly. "I kind of told him while he was kissing his girlfriend and he coughed all over her face. I am appropriately ashamed."

Finnah bursts out laughing.

"So he was definitely startled. But, y'know, then he walked her home and came back with 'Mial you inconsiderate ass, may I ask why', and I apologized for being an inconsiderate ass and explained my reasoning about staying a shren and we played board games for a while, he is not still sitting on his couch hyperventilating or anything."