"Except for a dayful of spells, but yes. As long as we have a good place to put a permanent ice raft if it turns out to be just sort of like glass."

"Tourist attraction. Make a huge, pretty boat out of it, go on journeys to places."

"Well, I wouldn't want to make the prototype too huge to go in a canal, ideally with room to let a canoe pass by."

"Right, but it could be a good money maker."

"Are we hurting for money, or are there just - thousands of potential applications and more everywhere you look?"

"Second thing! I like charities, especially the smart ones that use their resources well."

Iobel nods emphatically.

He smiles at her.

"... Wow, you guys are a lot a like, I didn't think you were right when you said it, Iobel, but damn!"

"I told you. He sounds like a less self-centered more uptight male version of me, the way you described him."

"Or you are a more self-centered less uptight female version of him," teases Zevros.

"I suppose he is a little older, so perhaps it is that way around."

"Or you could be completely different but came to the same conclusions, I dunno."

"Also possible. They are pretty good conclusions."

"I don't know why more people don't come to them."

"Me either."

"Iobel, not everyone wants to be immortal or thinks about being efficient over every other consideration."

"I can understand not everyone wanting to be immortal, but I don't get just letting people die after living short lives and not trying to fix the inherent problem causing it."

"Oh, I'm all for curing any disease you care to name! But Iobel wants to get rid of old age. And I think - it's the natural cycle of life. Besides, that's how a lot of progress gets made, new generations taking the place of the old ones."

"I will gladly postpone any achievement that can only be made more rapidly on the graveyards of people's lost grandparents."

"To be fair - monarch-hood you only got because our mom died. So technically you're doing that, too."

"I have not yet invented an immortality hex, and at any rate she didn't die of old age, did she? I heard she was sick."

"But we're pretty sure that she got poisoned."

"Do you know who?"