"Really, really off-type," is the first description that comes to mind. "You look at Ekador and you think sweela; you look at Sarelle and you think hunti. He's from Malinqua, moved there when he was just a baby, and his birth blessings are a couple of things I forget, and flexibility. It's hard to forget flexibility; he's adapting really well to suddenly living in a different country with a bunch of new responsibilities and also magic. I have no idea what Sarelle's blessings are, come to think of it. I'm betting there's at least one hunti in there, though. Probably certainty or determination or something."

"Huh. That's weird. You and me and Kiri are all very our things."

"Yeah. I dunno, though, it sort of makes sense to me. What people see you as and what you actually are aren't necessarily the same, you know?"

"Yeah, I just mean - if I went around acting like I was coru or something but I was really torz, I - I don't know why I'd do that and don't have a good idea why other people would, so it sort of snags me when I think about it? Just never got used to it even though I have plenty of cousins with this or that crown."

"Mm. Well, maybe you can ask Sarelle about it. Ekador too, but he didn't grow up here, I'm not sure he's got the hang of the elements yet."

"That... sounds weird. It's really handy to be able to sort people who you're going to interact with more than a little but less than a lot."

"I got out of the habit when I was in Thiyec. It didn't seem to make much of a difference. I mean - in Welce it matters what element you are; in other countries it's not a thing." He shrugs. "But maybe I'm the one who's weird. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Maybe. I'm not sure what I'd be like if I didn't have this core of - I am torz, I am so torz that I am probably gonna be the Queen Of Being Torz one day, torz torz torz. It's big in my head."

"Huh," he says. "I'm not coru that way. Well, I'm the Queen Of Being Coru, but I mean - there's not a part of me that's the coru part going around being really coru all the time. It's just that what I am and what coru is are a lot of the same things."

"King of being coru," corrects Patience.

"Says who?"

"...What'm I missing?"

"Yeah. I think I'm still different," he says. "Because - it wasn't a thing, in Thiyec. I wasn't going around being coru. I was just me. I'm the same person either way, but in Thiyec nobody thinks about elements, so I didn't either. It'd be different for you, right? If you went and lived in Thiyec for a few years you'd still be torz torz torz, you might have less reason to think about it but it'd still be a thing that you'd think, wouldn't it? Being in a different country where nobody cared wouldn't be enough to make it stop mattering to you."

"Yeah. I dunno, though, I haven't tried it."

Loel shrugs again. "Yeah. Anyway, I already knew I was all kinds of weird."

"I don't think you're literally all kinds of weird. You'd have to be... green, and have an extra arm, and stuff."

"I'm many kinds of weird. I'm weird in the head."

"So much tastier! Do you still cook? I mean, um," she coughs, "so, do you cook? Oh, this is gonna be hard, I'm sorry in advance if I screw it up."

"Yeah, I cook. I forgive you in advance, but please try not to screw it up too often."

"Yeah. You gonna make me food while I'm here?"