"This world is really weird."

"This is not a standard issue world feature! I may have appeared randomly in a wilderness location but doing so as a reincarnation is not something that just happens here!"

"Maybe it happens sometimes but usually there's not much to remember because they died as a baby, either first time or second time?"

"I guess. But I do think the storks get most of the babies."

"Then it might get more common now that there are storks? I don't know, I just - it's weird that it'd be only you -"

"Yes."

"Maybe it's something Aly did - she was supposedly brilliant, which, well, I can believe."

"And didn't tell her husband about?"

"We don't know anything about him."

"Except that apparently Aly married him, which ought to be a recommendation!"

"I would expect her to have good taste! But somehow -" Sigh. "It's not going to make sense no matter what, is it. Maybe a snake ate her memories as she died and spit them up on a new baby and that's what happened."

"We have the same personality."

"Did you start getting the memories young enough they could've been formative -"

"No, first ones were sparse and I was fifteen."

He bites his lip and nods. "Planning to go to Lapis and do investigative work?"

"Not sure. I guess I could, but what in the world do I say to the guy, 'hi, you've never met me and I don't remember you but I can sort of vaguely speak Harthanic because Aly could' -"

" - yeah. Maybe once you remember more."

"Yeah."

"I guess I should stop considering Aly a candidate for storkmaker."

"Why?"

"The storks are still coming. I was wondering if she'd faked dying, or gotten killed over it, but sounds like she really did die of the pox. And we thought one person with no life could keep them coming, but her husband's been otherwise very busy, all the medical projects."

"I don't think she had any very close friends but I also didn't think she was married."

" - fair. Is it the kind of thing you'd do?"

"Invent storks? Yes."