I am sometimes heartsick for the quiet streets of Sharlayan in that hour after dawn. I can still see windows lit by lamps hot with midnight oil, the steam billowing out of bakeries and noodle yards─forgive me, I grow old. I grow old, and shall eat a child's dish of mushrooms cold.
It is an oft-forgotten fact that Frandelont Raimdelle, famed naturalist, father of modern taxonomy, and author of the Raimdelle Codex, tried multiple times (without success) to classify the common duck─most obviously a cloudkin─as a spoken, believing their incessant quackings to be a highly developed language beyond the comprehension of mankind.