He makes a disapproving face at the first part. "He is going to want to apologize to your government, I am certain." His disapproval grows then he sighs resigned. "Couple of weeks is good. I don't think springing the idea on him earlier is going to hurt your prospects, but I wouldn't be happy about it and..." he waves.

"When you say 'I wouldn't be happy about it' in this kind of context, it is hard for me to be sure what you mean."

"I didn't mean the kind of not happy where I call a storm down on you. Don't worry. I meant the kind of unhappy that you get when you know a person so well that you can predict in excruciating vivid detail how their mind is going to break apart. While also knowing that while Felix screwed up so fucking royally, no one is going to admit that he shouldn't have been backed into that corner in the first place. I mean, in hindsight, I kinda wonder if your government wasn't actually trying to break him so as to make him more malleable for it's own purposes."

"They were not trying to cause this. If he'd been of a slightly different temperament this ends with all of us dead and Anitam ruled by terrifying aliens. They panicked and did something stupid because a red had powerful alien magic, and it was very negligent to fail to make it clear to Felix that they were predictably going to do that."

"My point is less that and more..." he raises his hand and then makes it fall flopped on the side table, "boy falls from the sky and immediately he has to deal with no longer being able to see anyone he loves and a government very motivated to use him as a resource and a mess that can cost someone's life. At no point at this anyone is even considering 'hey, dude. Do you need a hug?'. It does not compare with the loss of even a single life. Much less what happened to the reds, but it's not like it would cost anyone to remember there is a person beneath all that power. And I doubt you have anyone who would be willing to call aliens for socialization or something. So the job falls on me. I am at least uniquely qualified."

"We have therapists, we can definitely get him therapists if you think that'd help."

"Maybe? Probably wouldn't hurt. I don't think therapy can... allow the healing necessary. What he needs is simple person-to-person social interaction where the stakes are not measured in lives and where he doesn't have to wonder if that diplomat was gaslighting him. I can provide that, but I am also his accidental clone created after he screwed up royally. And a single individual. So, I am ruling that your dreamshaper screening should take two weeks."

"Okay. In that case I think there shouldn't be much of a public story. We're not sure what caused the mysterious thunder, etcetera etcetera."

"Well, I caused the mysterious thunder. I don't think I mind being blamed for that, but fair enough. I would hate if the story that got out was such that 'Felix, the powerful crazy magical alien' instead of 'Felix, the person lost in another world'."

"Either way people will connect you to Anitam suddenly having powerful magic stuff."

Slow nod. "Well, maybe your great-great-great-grandchildren are going to be able to see him down the street and think there isn't anything special to it. Ough to happen eventually." Shrug. "Meanwhile, want to plan the dreamshaping selection procedure some more?"

"Sounds good."

Nod. "So, pocket dimensions are personality based but the details are so hard enough to predict that I am not even sure how to meaningfully screen for less dangerous or more useful dimensional traits. Or at least anyone that is going to obviously get a bad dimension is not going to be vouched already."

"Yeah. Aitim's mostly picking real estate people instead of politicians, in order to - angle things towards 'new land for us to develop' instead of 'new power for us to have'. But even well-intentioned people can have really scary dimensions?"

"Who is Aitim again? And only blues? I think there is a lower risk for well-intentioned people, but we are already screening for well-intentionedness. A lot of the information we have is affected by the fact that recent dreamshapers were selected for being people that wouldn't be missed, plus the Dalkaila twins. And still we got some nice dimensions out of homeless people. One was like an elderly refugee that had to flee her home and her place is like... pretty villages, nice people that can control birds with song, magical fruit that makes you sing better, smart friendly birds, very idyllic. I think part of it might be outlook."

"Aitim is my cousin who came to talk to you at the capitol. He's handling the screening on our end. Do, like, artists make particularly nice pocket dimensions, we could have it be greens if that's safer..."

"The refugee wasn't a singer. She just really liked chorus music growing up. Maybe a mix of blues and greens? Probably we won't get enough of a sample size in the first batch to be sure, but if it turns out that one side is ridiculously better than the other. Or not even better, but more predictable. This entire thing would be so much smoothier if dreamshaping was more predictable."

"Makes sense. We'll get greens, too, then."

"Yeah, I suppose we could get oranges, but green artists sounds better for predictability. Less likely to get people too. Orange comes off as more prone to create people than not. I think Felix created people for orange-ish reasons."

"And people'd be more tempted to push around outrageously powerful oranges."

He makes a face. "Yeah, another factor to consider during the selection process." He frowns. "We won't be able to rely on dream-created people to vouch for candidates in the future. And I doubt your world is ever going to stop pressuring for more. Do you have ideas for that?"

"It sounded like starting new dreamshapers on the moon was an option?"

"I meant picking people that Felix and I can trust not to abuse dreamshaping magic. Or at very minimal not to steal the dreamshard. If he could have nightmares, I think Felix would dream of your governments doing a mass production version of what his abductor did. An elite of awoken dreamshapers and hundreds of never-rescued dreamshapers in hospital beds, the useless dreamshapers killed. But even if they don't go for that there still quite a mileage between that and what we would consider safe."

"That just seems less useful than making normal people dreamshapers and letting them sell rights to develop in their dimensions. I think there's a legitimate risk that someone'll go to war with us over it, which it'll take lots of caution and thoughtfulness to mitigate, but there's not - it doesn't take much steering to get people to come out against using the magic for literal torture."

Nod. "I meant that more in the sense of... let's come up with constructive ideas and rationality built arguments that address all the valid concerns and dismisses the implausible worst case scenarios of this situation."