2021-06-24: Colony Drops, And Other Fine Advice
- Log: Colony Drops, And Other Fine Advice
- Cast: Magilou, Lily Keil
- Where: Shevat - Aphel Aura
- Date: 2021-06-25
- Summary: Magilou searches for information on Valmar. Lily considers the problem of Solaris. One of them has experience with Filgaia, and the other...
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou, status of last name unclear, is concerned.
This isn't something she communicates easily. She had a plan, coming back to Filgaia; it's since been scuppered, replaced with a meandering quest to Shevat. Shevat, as it turns out, has some of the oldest libraries she's found so far in Filgaia, and Magilou knows how effective old books can be at remembering what is forgotten.
She doesn't bother with bothering the girl-Queen; she goes straight for the tomes.
That's why there's a Normin, carrying a stack of books way too high for him to a table. He's being helped by a small round mammal, who is carrying one singular book. "Chuuu..!" She huffs. "Bienchu must really work out..."
"I'm a prime specimen!" Bienfu agrees, with great pride. "Thanks for the help!"
"Chu're always welcome," says the Chu-chu, as she stands on tippy-paws to put her book on the desk.
That's when a dark shadow stirs, behind all those books.
"Look at the time!" The Chu-chu exclaims. (She is not wearing a watch.) "I'd better get going!" Apparently, the Chu-chus are familiar enough with Bienfu's family to know when to leave.
"Biennn..." Bienfu biens, as Magilou appears above a great stack of tomes, eyes glinting with terrible danger.
"Did you find the accounts for the next ten years, Bienfu?" Magilou asks, far too sugar-sweet.
"Y--yes, Miss Magilou!!" Bienfu replies, with all the pressured haste of an evil minion avoiding retribution. "They're all right here!"
"Great!" Magilou claps her hands together. "You know what to look for!"
Bienfu grumbles something as he hops up onto the desk and opens one of those too-large tomes. Magilou, all smiles, returns to her own book. With an entire skirt made of books, this jester -- sorry, /witch/ -- might even blend in here a little better.
... a little. Maybe. Not really.
"If I'm right," she says, more thoughtfully, "it'll be old enough to have climbed the stairs to heaven..."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil, also known as Sharon Wyatt, is also concerned. About something completely different. It isn't something she communicates to most people at all! Instead, the sorceress happens to be at the library on largely unrelated business... or rather, /heading/ to the library on largely unrelated business at the moment, because she misses the helpful Chu-Chu endeavors at first by stepping through the hallways on her way through. Maybe Magilou /could/ blend in better but--
Nah let's not pretend.
Lily steps across the library and towards a particular shelf, picking up a tome that appears to be some kind of medical encyclopedia from the looks of it and pausing, as she does, when she looks to see Magilou and Bienfu together, looking through....
"I see you're keeping Bienfu working hard."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Bienfu, on hearing Lily, flaps over to her immediately and totters on a foot, collapsing in her path. "I've been reading all morning! I haven't got one itty-bitty break... it's so hard..!"
Magilou flaps a hand, yadda-yadda-yadda. "Right, right, your torture is unending," she says, the picture of dismissal. "But hey!" She looks to Lily, with a shark-infested grin. "Fancy seeing /you/ here! And with such /delicate/ infrastructure, too!"
Does... does Magilou expect explosions to follow Lily all the time?
The books at her desk all appear to be historical accounts, much like the one she's holding up, which she releases in a moment; the pages flutter as it thuds shut. "Now," she supposes, brightly, elbow to the cover, chin all propped up on the heel of her palm, "why would that be, do you think?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Flop!!! Lily looks down to Bienfu, bemused, as he complains. "So I see," she answers. "Poor little guy."
She does not move to actually help him. Instead she looks over Magilou, and--well, truthfully, Lily /does/ feel a little like she's wrapped in extra layers of fabric up here with the need to hold back to avoid making the air explode a little. But she doesn't just say that. Instead--
"And nothing's ignited all day."
...it is not actually that unreasonable to expect explosions to follow Lily, especially considering how her magic works.
Lily looks with some obvious interest in the historical accounts there, but she knows how conversation works, so she holds up the encyclopedia first. "It's a good staging area for figuring out what we're doing about Solaris," Lily explains to her general purpose in Shevat, "...And they have a few things here that most of the world doesn't."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Nothing's ignited all day, Lily says, and Magilou golf claps, fingers to her opposite palm, thud-thud-thud. "Wowie!" It's difficult to tell whether she's making fun of Lily, or legitimately impressed, or legitimately impressed behind a smokescreen of sardony.
Let's just say it happened.
All propped up, she thus leans forward, nod-nod-nodding along. "They suuure do!" She agrees, cheerfully. "Not in /this/ world, anyway. Where /do/ you people keep your libraries when everything keeps getting unshelled?"
"I think it's 'shelled,'" Bienfu says, from the floor.
"Nonsense, Bienfu, if you're blowing a building up it's obviously not a home any more." Magilou cheerfully and obstinately insists on being wrong.
"Soooo," Magilou straightens up, lacing her hands behind her head, legs stretching out under the desk. "What /are/ you doing about Solaris?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily seems to take it in stride regardless; she isn't particularly offended if Magilou's making fun, or maybe she finds the idea funny herself. It happened. That's what counts. As for the libraries...
"Definitely shelled," Lily chimes in for Bienfu's sake(?) but doesn't actually stop to bother with ensuring the correction is taken. "Generally we keep our libraries in facilities buried underground or otherwise hidden away from the danger that someone eventually finds and makes a lot of money unearthing."
Then brightly, "You'd be surprised where people can find to live in bombed-out shells of towns."
But--Solaris, then? "This instant, a lot less than I'd like," Lily admits. "But mostly, showing up whenever I find their business to crunch it in as best I can."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"I can't believe you're ganging up on me, an innocent lady!" Magilou gasps, in horror, as Lily agrees with Bienfu. (Bienfu looks directly at the camera in the wake of that statement. How does he know where the camera is? These two have infinite power, that's how.)
Still, she's distracted soon enough by what Lily says. Head all tilting, she wonders: "Underground, huh... Bienfu, get a shovel!"
"That's still not what Digging means, Miss Magilou," Bienfu grumbles, still from the floor, a sad pile of Normin.
"That's just because you're not putting your /back/ into it," Magilou shoots back.
One might wonder at this point what sort of shovel would even be Bienfu-sized, and here in the glorious narrative we can reveal the terrible secret:
He has a trowel. It's adorable. It's also sad. Cry for Bienfu, lost and forgotten.
Magilou, who does not do that, moves on instead to address what really ought to have been the /first/ thing worth commenting on: "That's the problem with heroics," she sighs, a hand looping back under her hair to fan it out behind her. "It's all about /reacting./ You're never going to catch up if you wait around for them to start trouble, you know! Have you tried setting a town on fire, or bringing down a gate, or, I don't know, getting flung into the lifeblood of the planet itself?" Those aren't real examples. No one would really do those things to achieve their goals.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"We're truly awful," Lily answers Magilou amiably, moving around to set down her encyclopedia and step to the other side of the table, to talk without being in the middle of the walkway. The sad pile of Normin she can avoid stepping on, because she's not going to step on the poor little guy.
"Shovel's still pretty handy in a dig," Lily admits. But Magilou addresses the problem with heroics, and Lily... sighs faintly.
"No," she says, "That's true. If we don't find something to do proactively, then they'll continue setting the terms for every engagement, and that's a losing proposition. The main approach I can think of is actually /reaching/ Solaris, but short of setting part of it on fire I'm not sure what the play is from there, yet."
The examples are all ridiculous and thus don't need a lot of focus, though, "Though access to a flying city is a start."
"We've already got a conventional proxy war going on in Kislev and Aveh, anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Bienfu rolls over so he's staring at the ceiling instead. He does not bother getting off the floor. The floor expresses his eternal torment.
There's probably a /little/ room still on the table, between all those books. Magilou leans back on her chair, precariously, as Lily considers the situation. "Can't help you there," she says on the topic of reaching a floating city, all devil-may-care. "How would you Filgaians put it..? My shikigami's a single-seater!"
Is... did Magilou just imply she can fly on her paper dolls?!
She doesn't stop to explain her vast magical powers, though. "I'd say Odessa's already given you a hint, there," Magilou says, waving a hand. "How do you attack a floating city? Just drop it!" Laughing, she thuds forward all at once, clapping her hands together. "They're Solaris, so they all deserve it, rii-iiight?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The floor is probably pretty dirty. Good thing Normin don't care about germs!
Lily is entirely willing to set her encyclopedia on another book if it needs to be done, which is in fact what happens. Her shikigami...
"Well, I could probably /fly/ there myself," Lily says, "If I could find the damn place, and avoid getting shot down on the way there. Same problem with taking a Gear..." She didn't stop being able to fly, in that alternate form of hers. But she takes as interesting information that Magilou can, too.
"That's..." Just drop it! "Brutal, but effective. The lives of the whole world against the lives of the few in Solaris--it's a worthwhile trade, a lot of people would say. A high cost, but the enemy must be destroyed, and that would do it."
"And then I think... that's /exactly/ what my father would do."
"I think 'genocide' is out for our first resort," she says, shaking her head.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Oh, you're no fun," Magilou puffs up her cheeks, slumping forward, cheek on a fist. The air there blows out, pfffffhhhht. "Who cares about a couple of sky people? They knew the risks of being born in the wrong town!"
With a horrible groan, she shrugs her shoulders. "But fiiine, sanctity of life, whatever. If that's how you really feel, I shan't shake you from that stance so simply."
Her face splits like a knife's slashed her in from ear to jovial ear, glancing sidelong to Lily, eyelids half-lowered. "Or will you make a fool of me? Who knows."
Magilou yaaaawns, a hand over her mouth, not quite bothering to straighten up. "Anyway," she points out, that other hand dropping down to drum on the cover of one of those great old tomes, "the funny thing about being shot down is, it's quite difficult to do something like that without revealing where precisely your weapon is. And once one /knows/ the location of a weapon, well..."
She does straighten up in her seat, now, but only so she can crack her neck, kri-KRAK, in such a way that suggests there's a mountain of tension held by her tendons. That's a suggestion which hardly seems carried by how loosely she carries herself, but nonetheless, it's loud. "There's no /law/ that says they're the only ones allowed to shoot, is there?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily waves her hand vaguely at the matter of the sky people, though she does answer more properly about the matter of sanctity of life, and so on. No, at that she says, "Maybe I will. But not today."
After all, she knows full well--it's not as simple as 'sanctity of life'. Lily is willing to go quite far, to do what she feels needs to be done. "But there was a time when I wouldn't have hesitated nearly as much. I guess I've just seen what happens when you don't."
But Magilou yawns, and--hmm. "That's true," Lily admits. "If we can get a sense of what's up there, an assault becomes a lot more feasible... but given what we've got, I don't think a direct military assault is going to be the approach. Not army to army, anyway--they have the advantage on almost every field."
"...And I don't have the power yet to..." She shakes her head. "Well, anyway. Our business against Solaris is something I don't have to figure out all on my own yet. If you ask me, our best bet is going to be to infiltrate and go for their leadership. But until we figure out /how/..."
"What has you looking into Filgaia's history so hard? Might be something I've encountered."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"They say experience is the best teacher," Magilou supposes, far too lightly. "But if you ask me, the best teacher... is a teacher!"
Brightly, she asks, with deep currents of invectives beneath it: "How else will you /learn?/"
Who knows what that's about, because Magilou doesn't explain it.
"Armies are a tragic mesh of reason and order," is what she supposes, and there's a hint of disgust to her grin, the memory of a grimace in the flash of upper teeth. "Tell an organisation a teenager is more talented than them, and they'll fall in line, even if they don't like it. Now, if you interrupt those orders... why," Magilou smiles, all perky again, "anything could happen!"
And what taught Magilou that? Who knows. Again, she's not telling.
She /does/ consider Lily's actual question, though, jabbing a finger down at the tomes. "Just a little theory of mine. The history here is old -- so if something was a problem long enough ago, it would show up /here,/ don't you think? Tragically, I'm not as versed in Filgaian history, so I'm having to start right from zero. How terrible!"
Bienfu grumbles something about how he's the one who's been doing all the work, but Magilou, predictably, ignores him.
"But as for you --" Magilou lifts her hand, to jab a finger at Lily, instead. "I don't suppose you know much of a delightful fellow by name of Valmar?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily sure doesn't know what that's about. She just happens to be mostly comfortable not knowing what something is about, and so it's fine. She looks over Magilou for a moment--and then, that grin, the disgust in it... Heh.
"You've seen a lot of things," Lily remarks, because Magilou is being particularly cryptic. Though, there is something to what she's saying, as Lily thinks about it. "If we can interrupt their hierarchy somehow sure that's something, but that's a project itself. Logistics..."
The actual question though--and a theory of hers. Lily listens. "It's possible," she allows. Starting from zero... Lily doesn't so much ignore Bienfu as stay focused on Magilou for the moment instead. Because--
"Valmar," Lily repeats. "I'm familiar, to a degree. Valmar is an entity of darkness and destruction from the Granasian religion; supposedly, the Day of Collapse five hundred years or so ago was a result of Valmar and Granas's conflict. Valmar is basically just another word for 'evil', supposedly banished and sealed away."
"Never met him myself," Lily elaborates. "But I know there's people around claiming to wield his power. If you want to know more about Valmar, where you want to look is sources relating to the Church of Granas."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Lily says she's seen a lot of things, and Magilou just grins. Neither does she offer any actionable advice about logistics. Terrible!
She folds her arms, as Lily shares what she knows. "Five hundred years ago, is it? Then my hunch was right, either way." Magilou frowns, a shade of something more serious falling over her, for a moment. "Older than his teeth, huh..."
It's /possible/ they're older than they look, of course; but past a certain age, one becomes quite good at figuring out fellow ancients, and Magilou hasn't once gotten that impression from them.
"Well," Magilou brightens up, a hand lifting to press a finger delicately in against her cheek, "Valmar sounds like a real blast to have at a party! Good thing it's sealed away for all time, huh? Say," she asides, head cocking to one side, "how'd they pull that off, anyway?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Super terrible.
"The 'Day of Collapse', the 'Day of Disaster', whatever you want to call it--that forms the basis of our calendar. We're in 503 post-collapse." So, 'roughly' five hundred years ago now. Lily, unaware of the people Magilou is thinking about, instead just laughs faintly at Magilou's manner. "You think so?" she says. "I admit, I'd like to test myself against a power like that. But not enough to want the Day of Darkness or whatever all over everyone's business."
Lily is good at exposition; she hints at another thing, before explaining, "The Church of Granas is named for Granas, the angelic servant of God who defeated and sealed away Valmar. The strain was such that he had to leave the world, however, passing on messages for people to stay humble and not to seek to steal away the power of God..."
"So I guess if the power of Valmar is active in the world again, we've got to get cracking on a new way to handle it, since I don't know of any scriptures that talk about Granas planning to come /back/. To be fair, though, I'm not an expert on Granas. It's just popular through a lot of Filgaia, especially in Aquvy."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"You /would,/ wouldn't you?" Magilou grins, with a brief snort, and she conspiciously doesn't mention the opportunities to test her might against Valmar which could avail her at this very moment.
Well, it's not like she cares, either way. She just doesn't feel like sending her off on that chase right now.
As much as Magilou doesn't have strong investment in any of this, there's no hiding the way her eyes roll, at the mention of an /angelic servant of God./ "Real convenient, leaving everyone with an instruction manual on what /not/ to do," She says, with a broad shrug, palms to the sky.
"So everyone's lost as to how to deal with it now, are they?" Magilou wonders, head tilting up, puffing her bangs out of her face. (They fall right back down.) "People can do an awful lot in the name of eradicating evil. A good man, doing the right thing..." She forces air through her teeth, her grin split a fraction too wide. "... there's no one more terrifying to forge a path."
No wonder they're running scared, if there's no playbook and no rules of engagement. Of course, if they're the newest accessory, they're bound to be discarded soon, too.
Really, it's depressing. She's depressed!
(Magilou hasn't stopped grinning this whole time.)
"But hey!" Magilou throws up a hand, as if tossing the whole subject aside. "What do I care! You'll figure something out. Or the mega-evil ultrademon will come and eat you all. One or the other!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily grins back. She may not have made the connection that Magilou has a particular opportunity there, because she doesn't directly inquire about it. But she sure spots the eyeroll. "I can't comment much on that." She doesn't elaborate on her own religious inclinations for the moment. Instead... Magilou wonders, and--
"Seems like. Of course, it's mostly rumors as far as most people are concerned--you hear about it, you see things related, but it's not as if the armies of Valmar are on the march day by day." Eradicating evil, though....
"Yeah," Lily says. "I can see that."
Magilou is something of a teacher herself, huh? Hmmmm.
"In my experience," Lily says, "Most things die if you kill them enough. One day it'll be my problem, or it won't. Obviously won't be yours, hm? You're just passing through."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Suu~uuure am!" Magilou agrees, cheerfully, rocking her chair back and resting a knee against the edge of the table, arms thrown out around her. "It's not my problem, so I don't have to do a singular miniscule itty-bitty thing!" One might, here, reflect on the mountain of texts she has surrounded herself with; Magilou, lacing her hands behind her head, doesn't acknowledge them at all.
If she's a teacher, she might just be the sort to dump her students in the deep end to see how many drown.
"Besides, I haven't heard Valmar's pitch, yet," Magilou winks, bringing her hands forward to shoot finger-guns at Lily. "Maybe I'd rather be an agent of the ultimate evil! It's been so long since I struck terror into the hearts of men."
Magilou can't mean that, can she? She /does/ certainly seem to be choosing her manner carefully with regards to Valmar's servants. Is she really hoping for a job interview?!
Once again, she's just not telling.
"But hey, it's not like that's something you have to worry about," she shrugs. "I mean, it's not like half the people here would've helped either sky-city if they bothered to clean up and ask nicely, right?"
Magilou laughs. "Boy, I'm glad it's so easy to tell who the Dark Lords are around here!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Oh, Lily definitely reflects on the texts. But she already has it chalked up that just asking Magilou what her deal is is probably fruitless, and a lot less interesting than just listening to her as it is, so she doesn't bother. Besides...
"Hmm. Might have to fight you again if you get the job," Lily muses, as if that's just a perfectly normal thing. "Though weren't you just striking terror into the hearts of men a couple weeks ago?"
She was there!
"That..." Lily sighs, shaking her head. "I think even /these/ people would hesitate before helping Solaris, but if you made it 'the people of Solaris' instead of the government they'd be on board pretty quickly. It's part of why they need the more mercenary type looking out for them. On the other hand, without that kind of 'heart' in our friends, I probably /would/ just be trying to blow the whole damn thing up, so I can't complain too much."
Lily at least is /aware/ she's not one of the most moral of the Drifter crop.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Asking Magilou anything is pretty fruitless, because Magilou seems singularly dedicated to being frustrating and oblique all of the time.
Also, mean??? That's probably why Bienfu is taking a dirt nap. (Seraphim are immune to floor germs, it's fine.)
"That was a couple of weeks ago! I haven't burned a /single/ settlement down since then! It's devastatingly boring, I tell you!" Magilou exclaims, as if not doing atrocities is the greatest burden anyone could lay upon her.
Speaking of atrocities, here's Lily!
"You mean to say people have /problems/ with stealing someone's will and desire and making them hollow shells of themselves?" Magilou makes a thoughtful noise, tapping her chin. "... weird!" She concludes, hand coming down to her knee. "Used to be, that was the /moral/ option. Times change, huh?"
Her chuckle is more a huff of air heaving her chest up and back down again, chair balanced back precariously on two legs, "... good thing Shevat's never touched that particular thread."
(Magilou still remembers that particular line of questioning; Magilou hasn't forgiven it.)
"The problem with 'Heart,'" Magilou says, "is that those people tend to die on a tragically normal timeline, and it's the rotted-out acardia who stick around, so I hear. One minute, they're saying, 'you can't do that to a child, that's not how they learn!', the next it's, 'we are here to celebrate the life and works'... people write such fascinating things in accounts like these." She's still smiling, but there's a fey edge to her gaze, like she's at once looking at Lily and at something long ago.
"... if that's really all that's keeping you from being the sort of person who wouldn't keep yourself up at night," Magilou says, that distance touching her voice just the same, "it seems you might want to start looking into Dark Lord apprenticeships yourself."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Poor, poor Bienfu.
"I'm sure."
Magilou sure seems not to have forgiven that line of questioning. Shevat and that thread... Well, Lily couldn't say. But Shevat seems to be operating relatively on the open with them. And the enemy of my enemy, and all that. But admittedly, the talk of hollow shells, of general moral problems, that gets Lily's interest less than the matter of 'Heart' here, the fey look in Magilou's eyes. If that's all...?
"Not if I have something to say about it," Lily says of that normal timeline, with all the arrogance and certainty of youth. "Elly, Riesenlied... Jay. It's people like that who people like me are around to keep alive. I'm here to do the things they can't. And I think you're not that different."
"Besides, I've still got people to go home to. Whether there's a 'home' to keep them in or not."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Ah, well..." Magilou sighs, reaching up to brush her bangs back, eyes delicately closing, smile a shade rueful. They bounce right back into her face, of course; they always do. "If you think you can kill death, go right ahead. The Gods retreat unto themselves, and we are what is left." She means Granas, right..?
They were just talking about how Granas left Filgaia, after all.
She chuckles, shoulders rising and falling, but despite the flash of teeth in her grin, it doesn't sound warm at all. "If you have that..."
Magilou trails off, smile fading; she shakes her head. "Oh, you'll be fine. Don't worry about it."
With an assurance like that... wait, Magilou didn't address the fact that Lily thinks they're the same at all, did she?
Did she?
Home, for Magilou, was a place she learned to do the things they couldn't. Home, for Magilou, was taken away long ago. And the people she's adopted over the long centuries... what of them?
Maybe she's just too rotten to appreciate people with swords for brains and guns where their magic ought to be.
Magilou looks through her, and all her determination. "... you're a good kid, Lily," she says, without much decoration or inflection to the words at all, and the terrible sense that this is either so much MORE or so much LESS of Magilou herself. "You're a good kid."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I grew an eye back, once. I'm working up to it."
They were just talking about it, though. But while it doesn't sound warm, Lily notices it anyway. If she has that? Well, sure, the smile fades. Sure, Magilou doesn't address what she said. But Lily has the arrogance of youth, and she nods.
"I know," she answers, because she believes it--that /that/ is what makes it fine, that that is what makes the difference. Lily... doesn't have a home, these days; home is a memory, home was always something hidden under the surface of what she believed. But there are people who are like home, and that's good enough. She has not had centuries for these adoptions, though.
"...?" Lily wonders, when Magilou says that. She can't tell if it's more or less of her, and she can't tell what would be the better answer.
"You talk like that and you're going to sound old," Lily points out, waggling a finger and picking back up the encyclopedia. "...I should let you back to your research, and finish some of mine. But if I learn anything new about Valmar, I'll drop you a line."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Unlike /certain/ dark entities, I'm only as old as my teeth," Magilou responds, cheer returning to her. "Why, Bienfu is a hundred and fifty years older than me! I'm positively young!"
Bienfu sniffles, on the ground. Probably on account of Maiglou being mean to him? Maybe it's the dust.
"But go on, you've got a lot to cover in a book like that," Magilou waves her off, legs stretching out against the desk. This, given the way the chair is tilted, predictably sends her tumbling to the ground. "Gah!" Magilou exclaims, on the ground.
And yet she's still on the ground as she says, "I'll look forward to hearing from you! Ta-ta~!"
Bienfu ambles over to her, as she waves in the wake of Lily's exit.
It's Bienfu who sits beside Magilou on the floor, and says, all misery, "I miss Madam Eleanor, too..."
Whatever Magilou's response to that is, it's too quiet to pick up.