Shoulda thought of that before they started kidnapping children and plotting genocide.

I mean, yeah, but they didn't all do that.

...Okay, true. Do you know what the kids' conditions are like, how stable the situation is? I want to know what kind of time pressure I'm working under; putting more planning in is good but an imperfect plan implemented in time is better than a perfect one implemented too late

I have no idea. If you can be invisible you could make a trip checking that?

How far is Biyan?

Long way. I can check - he does. Three thousand miles if you go in a straight line.

Inconvenient but not impossible.

"By the way," she says out loud, mostly to the kid in her arms but relaying to Telkam so he can understand, "I've decided on your name. You're Ruby."

The kid squirms around to turn and hug her.

Have ideas on where to put them? Can you make islands or something?

Mmmmaybe. I bet Emily could make ships big enough to be close enough, at least as a temporary measure--

At least if I'm on 'em, yeah, I don't know that I know enough about ships to do something indefinitely stable on the first try but fixing-on-the-fly is doable.

Can your magic do food and supplies or do we need to somehow figure those out?

Anything made of metal I can probably do. Anything not made of metal--well, we have really good healing?

We can buy stuff, probably.

Yeah.

"Maybe I should magic you first, so we know what you get," Ruby says in perfect Anitami.

Edie blinks at her in surprise.

" - uh, sure, makes sense - why do you speak my language -"

"I've been monitoring your TV," she shrugs.

"You can do that?" Edie asks.

"Mama, how do you think I found magical girl anime?"

"...Ah. So that wasn't a coincidence."

"Magical girl anime?"

"It is a genre of television show that my pre-sophontic self imprinted on, causing the aesthetics of previous recipients of my magic to be heavily stamped by it," Ruby explains. "That's why Mama and Aunt Emily are in pretty dresses." She cocks her head. "And if we did have population controls with credits I wouldn't let them take me away from Mama," she adds firmly.

"If you don't let them enforce their stupid laws they kill you."

"They can't kill me, I can just make a new body if they break this one."

"Well. Okay. Let's do the magic powers and then figure out how to defy the government without something horrible happening."

"Okay. You get a magic name and a magic transformation, what do you want?"

"- can I have examples of each, maybe -"

"Uh, all of the ones that exist are really really magical girl anime-themed, because I didn't used to be a person, but they don't have to be now. Mama and Aunt Emily's pretty dresses come from their transformations. You said you dye your hair, I can make it always that color when you're transformed," she offers.