“Did you know,” Hane says, before the meeting starts, “that the title Alterna bears a feminine ending for the first time since our earliest poetry, because of you?” Alterna is a Dragontongue loanword, and Dragontongue, unlike Callish, is a gendered language. Even though I did know it, I also appreciate Hane’s bit of trivia, delivered softly and with a smile, for what it is: something between congratulations and condolence.
