"The moon seems safe so far."

"That is very good to hear." And Leareth falls silent and lets Vanyel carry the conversation. 

Did Tarinda get any news about her friends and Cory back home, along with Sing? 

"Yeah. Cory's okay, she missed me but she's got friends and she's been all right and she's looking forward to me going home."

"Aww. I'm glad to hear. I wonder if it'll be possible to do visits back and forth at some point? I'd really like to meet her and your other friends someday. And, um, probably she wouldn't want to visit here until it's not horrible anymore." 

"Sing can do magic now and there's such a thing as an interworld Gate, I'm pretty sure that'll be possible! You can come to my castle! I might throw a giant party."

"I'm sure you'd throw a really good party! I would like that." 

"And you can meet Cory and Proster and everybody else and it'll be great."

Vanyel makes chitchat throughout dinner. He does notice that Leareth is mostly quiet. 

"Are you okay?" Tarinda asks Leareth after she's had dessert.

"- Hmm? Yes, fine." He shakes his head. "I suppose I - feel rather at a loss, now. I have been trying to do - basically this, for a very very long time, and now it is over." 

"You don't have a retirement plan?"

"I suppose I had left figuring that out to my future self, who would have more time for that." 

"I guess you have time now. Were you the work around the clock type or did you have some hobbies for when you were taking breaks you could cultivate more now?"

"I mean, I had more and less restful and enjoyable work. I suppose I could - research magic, write books on things, but that seems much less interesting when it will almost certainly be duplicating Sing's work. I imagine there will be a great deal to learn, soon, that is something." 

"Sing doesn't actually publish a lot of books."

"Does it not share its scientific discoveries with people at all?" 

"Sometimes? I don't actually know what the underlying policy is."

"Hmm. I would - find it frustrating, I think, if Sing has vast knowledge of how reality works and does not share it, but...I suppose there are forms of knowledge that could not easily be shared, if it thinks in a different ontology from us, the way I believe our gods do." 

"It thinks in a different ontology but it's perfectly capable of talking, it just thinks it's bad for people to talk to it. But - in another sense it's not perfectly capable of talking, right, because it's - more firmly attached to the things it wants and thinks are good, than people are? It thinks it'd be bad for it to talk a lot so in a way it can't, even though it would become able to with enough reason."

"So if it were a good idea for Sing to talk to me, specifically, it would? - I am not sure that it is a good idea, only curious." 

"It did, remember? But it might not if you'd tell everybody it was talking to you and that'd make them fret about why it wasn't talking to them."

"Fair enough. I had meant in future, I am not surprised it spoke to me when that was the only way I would be willing to make a bigger Gate for it. I would be willing to keep it private, I suppose." 

"I don't actually know if lots of people talk to Sing privately," she muses. "Since it'd be private. I did hear once that it runs a sandbox emulation of some bits of Sugardream so that all the people who were really fond of Sugardream on a personal level can keep talking to it, Sugardream was very friendly."

"Aww. That's - sweet, of it. I don't think I especially want to talk to Sing, I've had enough of talking to god-level entities, but that's very cute."