Hilde peers out from behind Teja's cloak, eyes puffy and mouth pouting.

"The King says so, too," she declares. "But he splashed him all over! And he is, too, small and from the south."

"Which is," Teja says, "merely relative, as you are from the far north. Guppy and his children are from Britannia, not even that much further south. And no matter what your father may say at times -- the south is not a worse place than the north! Some things are much better, even."