"I'm not innocent!" Laedo replies, even as he trots along receiving scritches, "if I was I would already be close to Aska, but it takes decades of training!" But now he's distracted, by grassy flagstones--letting anything grow between architecture is as alien to him as the concept of building things by hand--by the archway, so crude and simple by comparison to the mathematical feats vaunted in every doorway back home, by the other two-legged people lounging out here under trees, grooming absolutely fantastic beasts.

What follows is a stream of "what's that?" and "who's that?" and other such questions. Laedo may be trying to act the adult, but he clearly has no grasp on what that entails when it comes time to be curious.