"No we couldn't."

"We could sell Macalaurë's music."

"We might be too old, you know."

"Maybe it'd be a girl this time. So tiny and squishy -"

Nertel bites her lip.

...giggle.

"That's eerie," says Cam.

"Hmm?"

"I feel like I'm watching you try to convince her to eat a cinnamon bun, only you're talking about having an entire child."

"Who might have idiosyncratic door-forcing powers."

"I mean, yes, that would be cool, but still."

"There's a substantial aftermarket for credits because people decide they really shouldn't and then they can't resist."

"I am now modeling you as a species which finds children as irresistible as dessert."

"It is honestly really weird that no one else is like this."

"I am almost a hundred and eighty years old and am not exceptional for being okay with having had zero kids in that time!"

"Well, no one's going to try to talk you into it."

"Thanks, that would be weird."

"No, no, people who don't want kids are positively encouraged! - this is a digression."

"Yeah, I'm talking about species regularities, not just like me personally."

"We know. It's just - of all the things you'd expect to be reasonably common among evolved species..."

"I think everybody else is mostly doing this solely via sex drive. Evolution doesn't anticipate birth control, you just happen to have a drive that routes around its development."

Amentans all shrug.

"And the Elves et al are not evolved at all."

"Yes, they make sense. - though we still have seven. Is that unusual for Elves..."

"Yes."