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Jensal has a lot of work to do. Her house is going to collapse; nobody had better be inside when it does. She is briskly bundling adult miracles into groups who have at least one decent job between them, she is writing to agencies that handle adoption for the ultimate disposition of kids who don't get picked up because she's reasonably sure that they will not all get picked up, and when parents do drop by to collect their little ones she is signing papers for every set of them with slightly gritted teeth. Lots to do. Her hand is cramping from paperwork and she doesn't care.
Good for her.
A larger than usual rain of letters drops onto the coffee table. Finnah goes to look through it. Most of it's for Mial; she dumps those in his lap. She has one with a Pra Verian flag on it. She opens it.
She shreds it to the best of her ability with her fingernails. "Mial I want you to pull a miracle out of your ear or wherever they come from and make my parents stop sending me letters I'm sick of it!"
A larger than usual rain of letters drops onto the coffee table. Finnah goes to look through it. Most of it's for Mial; she dumps those in his lap. She has one with a Pra Verian flag on it. She opens it.
She shreds it to the best of her ability with her fingernails. "Mial I want you to pull a miracle out of your ear or wherever they come from and make my parents stop sending me letters I'm sick of it!"
shrennaki
"...I can, actually, miracle it so that letters from your parents are destroyed before ever reaching you," he says thoughtfully. "That wouldn't be hard at all. There, done. Have I not told you where miracles come from? I think I can tell you where miracles come from. It's actually kind of hilarious where miracles come from."
"I could use something hilarious," she says, flinging the shreds of letter at the nearest wastebasket and getting about a third of them into it and then flumphing to the floor and putting her chin in her hands.
shrennaki
"Miracles," says Mial, "are made out of pain. The size of miracle that can fix a shren or resurrect a dead person comes from about the equivalent of twenty-year esu. Before the miracle workers found shrens they hadn't even ever seen that big of a miracle before because they were all ordinary otherworldly humans who had serious trouble with even a tenth of that."
shrennaki
"And I, of course, have no problem with it at all," Mial continues, "because I'm fucking shrennaki."
The jet girl perks up, pleased and alarmed and intrigued and confused all at once.
"I like that word! I like that word a lot! Why don't I like that word? I like that word!" she says.
"I like that word! I like that word a lot! Why don't I like that word? I like that word!" she says.
"Draconic has opinions about what words you should like," says Finnah, wiping giggle-induced tears from one of her eyes.
shrennaki
"Um. You can switch your primary language to Reform Draconic and then Draconic's opinions will not affect you so much," says Mial.
The jet girl tilts her head, and blinks, and then launches herself at Mial and tackle-hugs him.
"That's much much much better! Thank you!" she says.
"That's much much much better! Thank you!" she says.
Although it may seem impossible on the face of it, the jet girl is actually capable of hugging Mial even more enthusiastically. She does that.
"You're the best person!" she declares. "You're the most shrennaki!"
"You're the best person!" she declares. "You're the most shrennaki!"
shrennaki
"I am definitely the only shren in the world right now, we have actually checked," says Mial. "With actual magic."
"Oh. I was a shren but now I'm not," says the jet girl. "Being a shren hurt a lot. And I was locked in a horrible little box and it was very boring. Do most people who are shrens get locked in horrible little boxes?"
"Not boxes, no," says Finnah. "Usually they grow up in houses all together and when they're twenty some of them go home with their parents."
"That's when they can shapeshift," says Finnah, "so that they don't infect any dragons with being a shren also."
"That makes sense I guess. Because being a shren hurts a lot and most people don't like to hurt a lot so they probably don't want to be shrens," surmises the jet girl.
"I mean, they wouldn't want to be shrens even if it wasn't going to hurt them a lot," says Finnah. "Because, Draconic. Mial's the only person shrennaki enough to stay put when the miracles turned up."
shrennaki
"If you're going to be hugging me so much I may as well become something more huggable," says Mial, and he shifts to snow leopard form.