"If they decide to intervene in things without asking whether this is what anyone involved wants then there'll be problems that have nothing to do with reds. They could - stage prison breaks or rescue murderers from execution or show up invisibly in secure facilities and make it unclear whether they're spying on behalf of a distrusted neighbor -"

"They're more likely to stay out of populated areas if they can, that's what elementals like is wilderness, but you don't have all that much of it."

"We don't. Maybe they'll frequently be interested in helping with colony projects just for the wilderness."

"Maybe. Do you know what kinds?"

"Ice, Shine, Glass, Stone, Lightning/Fire hybrid, Air, Water, Adamant," he recites.

"Huh, I never heard of a lightning/fire hybrid, wonder what it'll call itself."

"Did Penumbra decide she'd be called that? If she's the only one?"

"Part of popping with the languages, they know what kinds they are."

"So the Lightning/Fire probably already knows?"

"Yeah. Are people talking to them?"

"Yeah. Don't know if anyone spoke to that one, though, I am not an elemental and don't speak a word of Lasane."

"...they're elementals. They will speak every language spoken in the world at the time they appeared. I'm not sure if they will know mine, because there's just me and a few of you and some of the stolen elementals who speak it here and I don't know how many speakers they need, but they're going to all know Anitami."

"Yes, I know, but the people who that one appeared near spoke Lasane and wrote excited blog posts in Lasane of which I have only a horrendous machine translation."

"Ah, okay."

"None of the elementals have yet shown much interest in starting a blog."

"They don't know what a blog is yet!"

"That'd do it! - if they do start committing crimes that'll make it harder to get a consensus against enslaving them. Not for the use, just to serve in place of prison - but then once it's available..."

"I won't do it. It had to be invented. If you have mages, they could invent it but I'm not helping."

"I hope they don't. But they're a lot less likely to if we can - acclimate elementals in a way that gets them to not commit crimes."

"Could ask some of the stolen ones to go talk to them."

"Might be good. It'd - it'd be appreciated if they mentioned that going into the red districts and other parts of inhabited areas is a thing that'll scare people very badly."

Nod.

And attempts (which are not likely to succeed) can be arranged to make the argument that elementals are just too magic to transmit pollution - actual fire wouldn't - and that tracing down elementals zipping across the countryside is as practical as tracing down breezes, and just as unnecessary.

"At bare minimum if they have a physical halo and then pull it in then neither their unhaloed skin nor their new halo has touched whatever the discarded halo touched."

"If they're willing to do that I bet I can build a consensus it counts."