[Ortus has spent so much of his life around people who already knew him, often seemingly better than he knew himself. It is a very new thing to find himself speaking to people he cannot help but still think of as outsiders. It is even newer to discover, to his great surprise, that he seems capable of doing so in a way that does not alienate or isolate.

These are many words to say: he notices the mild alteration of her expression, and it evokes a fluttering gladness in him that has nothing to do with intoxication.]

Story telling is meant for recalling that which would otherwise be forgotten. The incarnation of memory outside of oneself. [He gives her a gently appraising look.] I do not doubt you have impressed memory into the world, here and elsewhere.