"Writing and symbols - we all know this means play and this means pause and this means warning or alert, there might be lots of things like that. Still I don't think it will take you two very long."

"And then maybe Penumbra can, uh, prevent her second favorite dancer from disappearing off the show."

"Yes! Though lots of people vote. Anitam has - six hundred hundred hundred hundred people."

"...six hundred million people?"

"A million is a hundred hundred hundred?"

...she scribbles some figures but then nods.

"Yes, that many. Anitam is smaller than our big neighbors but bigger than many places."

"I'm not sure there are that many people in my whole world."

"It takes lots of science to feed that many people and keep them safe and sheltered. You probably have lots less but once you have the science and magic it will grow."

Nod.

"Science makes places nicer, too. When Amentans were poor there was - people made to work without pay, and wars for the glory of Kings, and no rules against hurting people if you were important and they were not. And then we got better. Not perfect but better."

"We have some of those problems."

"Some of the blues will want to talk with you about how the problems were abolished here and where it went well and where it went less well so maybe in your world it can be done right the first time."

"That would be nice."

"There are still people alive who remember when we ended people belonging to other people but it was long before I was born."

Nod.

He translates the dancing show.

This is useful.

He has to pick up more vocabulary to do it! Dancing show has professional contestants and civilian contestants; all the pros have grey or white hair.

"Does your hair lose its color if you dance too much or something?"

" - oh, no, dancing is a grey job."

Blink.

"Do you not have that?"

"Uh, old humans' hair turns gray, but that doesn't have anything to do with dancing."

"Elementals would not have - do humans have it that children will look like and be good at the same things as their parents?"