If there's one thing the lizard-wizard knows, it's tact. No, alchemy. But if he knows two things, the second is empathy-born tact. (Like, intellectual empathy, not Betazed-born powers. The multiverse gets complicated, sometimes.)

"Indeed? My congratulations to him." A birthday is a much-needed bright spot, after all that talk of death. "Even the wisest child is still young," he admits, on that other subject. "Even those who by nature are serious will feel the occasional healthy urge for youthful mischief, eh?"