"Ooh, in, I want a nap before my shift," yawns Finnah, "have fun removing things from the flow of time."

"I'll stay in, in case you want help deciding what to do with your miracles."

"Good luck," says Koridaar. She retreats to her office.

Finnah shoos letters off the couch and flops onto it and closes her eyes. But she keeps tossing and turning and having to nudge hair out of her face, so she clearly isn't finding her nap particularly attainable.

Apparently nutritional yeast allergies are pretty common in halflings and this gentleman's daughter has had to be rushed to a light in an anaphylactic panic twice because her dwarven classmates won't stop putting it on their salads when they bring lunches to school.

"Some Thanetan wants me to rid the planet of Sand Dusk Chanters," he snickers. "Because they keep being in Iraam. I'm torn between ignoring it and sending him back a pious response about the virtues of the Generous Lord."

Finnah snickers. "Ask your mom what to do," she suggests.

Finnah cackles. "That bad, huh?"

"I quote: Do you know how upset my nephews were when I told them that finally all the shrens were gone, only to have to reverse myself on this the next morning? I hope you're ashamed of yourself, not just for being a shren, but also for being a despicable degenerate."

"Are you ashamed of yourself for being a degenerate shren, Mial?" Finnah snorts.

This one says I hope you aren't planning to breed. The fact that you've seduced legitimate dragons into associating with you by promising fancy magic unrelated to your core abhorrence is quite bad enough but if any decent person heard that you were risking contaminating children - of any species, let alone dragon children who'd have to live dawn to dusk with the knowledge that they were close to and could not possibly escape your 'miraculous' self - then they'd take it up with the social authorities, but I suspect this would just wind up with the social authorities being likewise entranced by the shiny presents you can conjure up, because you clearly consider yourself to be beyond all decency, all social order, and all reason.

"Do I wanna know?" asks Finnah.

"Some fucking lizard hopes I never have children because I'd shren at them," he summarizes.

"Fuck," breathes Finnah. "People suck, why do people suck so much?"

"Ha. Do it," giggles Finnah. "Except for like five, which you should keep in the attic for ten years until museums want them because there are none any longer."

This one wants to make sure that he knows that no one expects him to remain a shren. He does not have to do it to make his voice heard or to demonstrate to now-miracled dragons that he is in their corner or to look like a martyr when he writes his memoirs. He can just stop. Any time. Are the miracle workers making him do this for weird offworlder reasons? He shouldn't have to go through this anymore.

"You gave that one family miracle teleportation. Does that not scale up?"

"I have an entire sub-box for people who are specifically concerned about what widespread miracle teleportation will do to standard warding paradigms. I could deliberately design the mass version of miracle teleportation to be politely answerable to wards, I guess, I don't actually know offhand if the version I've been giving out will obey them or not. Might depend on the specifics of the ward."

"Seems like it'd be good to know."

"Yeah. I'm going to consult Lazarus and that garnet guy about it. When I'm done sorting my mail." He eyes the remaining pile and grabs another letter.

"That garnet guy is a prick," comments Finnah.

Finnah snorts too. "Mail system knows where shren alyemi's at, lucky you."

"Lucky me indeed. I wonder how rude this one is." He opens it to find out.

It is only an average amount of rude. Actually there's sort of a peculiar respect to it; the writer seems to consider Mial some sort of villain, certainly, but the kind of villain you have to take seriously.

Finnah fishes one out from between the sofa cushions. It is from someone who thinks the planet would be prettier if it were pentagonal and had plants on the sides and bottom. She also spots one under a chair. This one complains about how inelegant it is that the square root of two is irrational, will he please fix that, one point four would be nice.

Finnah, apparently abandoning her nap plans, turns into a bird and sits on his shoulder to witness this.

"Yes, Mial?"

"Some Thanetan thinks that the solution to the problem of New Disciples of the Generous Lord still existing in Iraam is for all of them to stop existing, and I'm wondering whether and how much it would undermine my dignity as a miracle worker to mock him. And how best to mock him, that too."

"I will take that as a vote in favour of mockery. Tips?"

She reads the letter.

"Somebody didn't do their research," snickers Finnah.

"Evidently not. Can I answer it?"

"Absolutely."

He reads it over and giggles.

Finnah reads it too. Birds cannot grin, but she tries.

This one contains psychological speculation that being an infected shren may have damaged Mial's understanding of reality because it must have been very traumatic. That one is writing because she heard from her cousin that there was a last shren, and not only a last shren but a mean shren who was continuing to be a shren at everyone, and she doesn't think that can possibly be right because she met a shren once who was very polite and self-effacing, and does he want to put a stop to this cruel rumor? This one wonders if he's been referred to a good psychologist; the writer's great great great grand nephew has a practice in Daasen. That one read in an old article that Mial's growth was stunted by potions and wonders if it affected his brain and suggests earnestly that the miracle magic seems pretty flexible and maybe it could fix that too.

"You're doing very well with the self-control of your obnoxiousness lately," comments Finnah. "Within reason."

"I'm trying to develop a policy of only being obnoxious to people if they are obnoxious to me first. Or do something really annoying even without quite meaning to, like that guy who wrote in asking me to kill my own mother."

"He technically didn't say kill, maybe he was imagining you'd turn them into caterpillars."

"Eliminate by whatever means, then, but he definitely seemed to be implying I should kill them."

"Yeah. Thanetanik," shrugs Finnah.

"Yeah. I hope he thinks twice before advocating mass murder to a miracle worker again. I like how Mom went out of her way to avoid implying that I might decide to eliminate all Thanetanik instead."

"Very nice of her."

"Anyway. You think I've successfully managed to write a non-obnoxious form letter affirming my intention to continue being a shren, then?"

"I don't know if it'll shut down people determined to argue with you, but yeah, I don't think it's obnoxious."

"People who are determined to argue with me can probably be ignored unless they argue themselves all the way to the other form letter."

"Shrennaki shrennaki shrennaki," snickers Finnah. "Shrennaki."

"Pester him, why not," says Finnah.

"Fun. Pity I didn't get my nap, but I guess this was more interesting."

Finnah checks the time and then heads off to work.

And Mial, once he has sent off all the form letters, sits down and reads the letter from Finnah's egg father. He still hasn't quite decided if he wants to write a rude response, or ignore it, or what, but he has definitely decided that whatever he does about it will be totally insulated from Finnah.

It's a day and a half before instead of (more) letters, there is a knock on the door.

Mial answers it.

It's some local-looking human with a municipal government badge that identifies him as Min. "Hello, I'm looking for Mihal - sorry, Mee-all - Mialavar?"

"That's me."

"Good, good. Did you send a letter to Amtaliwen recently?"

"Probably. Why do you ask?"

"She's pressing charges. Can you check your records?"

It's the one with the upset nephews.

"Ah, yes, now I remember. This is the one who called me a despicable degenerate. What charges is she trying to press, exactly?"

"She said that you sent her a 'vile neologism' calculated expressly to cause psychological pain," says Min the municipal functionary. "Which might or might not fall under harassment, depending."

"Depending on what? Whether it was calculated expressly to cause psychological pain? It wasn't. I would consider it more a concise and emphatic assertion that I am not a despicable degenerate."

"Since you only sent her one letter, then, yes, your intentions come into play. I do strongly advise you against sending her any more letters," says Min.

"I don't plan to. Unless she contacts me in some other capacity, but I don't think that's likely."

"I'd recommend letting a third party reply to any correspondence she winds up sending you in the future just in case," Min says.

"Noted."

"Any other questions?"

"All right. Sorry to trouble you." Min nods politely and departs.

Well, that was entertaining. It probably shouldn't have been, but it was. He wonders if there have been any other responses to his form letters, and checks the unsorted-mail box in his room to see.

Nothing quite that dramatic. Some of the more earnest people who are opposed to his continuing to be a shren feel that the form letter does not signify honest engagement with their concerns.

He reads their letters to find out if they have any concerns worth engaging with, although he very sincerely doubts it.

More of the same, basically.

Eh. Not worth a vile neologism, and not really worth drafting another form letter, let alone personally responding. He files the responses with the originals.

Meanwhile, Kaylo's appointment with Lazarus arrives and finds Kaylo on the lawn of Binaaralav Academy with two humans, an elf, a halfling, and a merman in a wheelchair with a bubble of water around his head.

Lazarus appears. He inspects the magical properties of these people.

Kaylo is still himself. One human is a light, the other a sorcerer; the halfling is a water mage assisting the merman, who is both a colorist and a shaman.

"Hello," he says generally to the group, somewhat distracted by his inspection of all of this magic. "Oh, I see what Mial meant about the problem with lights..."

"Excuse me?" says the light.

"Well, you have very nice tidy healing magic, but it doesn't work on anyone who has the same sort of nice tidy healing magic, which I imagine is probably very troublesome."

"...I mean, yes," says the light. "Part of the deal."

"It could cease to be part of the deal," says Lazarus. "The deal could change."

The light looks hopeful.

"Kaylo, can you think of anything I haven't seen that might interact with lights suddenly being able to heal each other and themselves?"

"But if they only healed themselves while actually, er, lit, that wouldn't be a problem?"

"No, make it require faceplanting - or whatever," says Kaylo. "You don't want something to explode and spray bits at several people and the light to fix somebody who got grazed and accidentally embed a shard in their face."

"Hmm. That makes it slightly less elegant, magically speaking, but I suppose there would be coordination problems with asking all of the lights in the world what they think of any more complicated tinkering I could do. I will make it require deliberate contact beyond just making the light. Is there anything else?"

"Sticking my thumbs in it would work," volunteers the light, "I don't have to do that just to manifest it."

"Cool," says the light.

"I don't see any obvious problems with sorcery or merfolk magic, those seem perfectly nice... um, I imagine most people aren't happy with the procedure for activaging magecraft, though."

"They gave me sedatives," says the halfling.

"Still. It would be nicer if mage powers could activate in some less terrible way and you did not have to be given sedatives, probably."

"Well, they could come in at some suitable age equivalency, then," says Lazarus. "Like with third-siahrs. I will think about it. And tell Mial so he can also think about it."

"Sure," says Kaylo. "Also, I did not bring a witch, but I brought some potions." He pulls out a handful of vials - headache cure, vitamin mix, pep potion.

"So I see," says Lazarus. "They're very... hmm. Very something. I think I would like to watch someone make a complicated potion sometime, but I don't think I would gain any revolutionary insights or uncover any terrible problems beyond the sort of problems that arise naturally from people being able to make magical substances that can do a wide variety of things."

"Thought so," says Kaylo, repocketing the potions.

"Thank you for finding me these magic people to look at. Thank you for coming here so I can look at you, magic people."

"You're welcome," says the sorcerer. The others nod.

"Mial also wanted to check how miracle teleportation interacts with wards. Is that the sort of question you would be interested in investigating, Kaylo?"

"Yes. Give me miracle teleportation," says Kaylo.

"Okay."

"Splendid. That will make it easier to put all these people back."

"Enjoy your exciting ability to go more places more conveniently than you could previously go."

"I will. You need anything else right now? What do you want me to do with my writeup of miracle teleportation versus wards when I'm done?"

"Mail it to Mial. And let me see..." He consults a written list. "Unless you have something to contribute to the elimination of various mundane diseases, or to the elimination of dust bunnies I suppose, I think that's it for now."

"Nah," says Kaylo, and he starts miracle-teleporting people back where he got them.

Lazarus himself does not have very much to contribute to the elimination of various mundane diseases. He says so in his note to Mial about the day's results.