I've got a list of names | Glowfic Constellation

Afen is disappointed in the universe. He bounds back and forth across his room explaining why to his wife, his infant granddaughter, the end table, and a reporter flabbergasted by her good luck and cringing silently against the wall in the hopes he won't remember she's there.

"There is no reason to suppose that a species evolving independently of Amentans, with their own evolutionary history and living mammalian species likely related to theirs, would end up looking like us. None. Every explanation every scientist has ventured to the press has been unimaginative and unconvincing retroactive refitting of bad models to baffling data. Aliens shouldn't look like us but with different hair colors. Aliens that are not made out of carbon at all would be unsurprising; aliens with only as much physiological dissimilarity as exists between us and animal species on our planet would be mildly surprising; aliens with opposable thumbs would be truly remarkable. This is not remarkable and biologically enlightening; this is just inconsistent with everything we understand about the universe. It doesn't teach us new things about evolution; it should make us rethink evolution. - don't quote that part, they'll take it out of context."

Reporter nods rapidly.

"All of that said, I've picked up three of the languages and I'm working on building a good machine translator, it's a challenge with as little as they've produced in the way of electronic records. I'm absolutely going there to meet them as soon as the politicians figure out what to do with themselves."

"Do you have any predictions about that?"

"About politics? Why would I have predictions about politics? They deliberately obscure relevant information, for one thing, and for another it's deathly boring."

"- I mean, sir, surely you hear from your son about -"

"I have seven children and some of them are very dense indeed but not quite dense enough to try to interest me in politics."

"I was referring to -"

"I know who you were referring to. If you want a statement from Aitim go bother Aitim."

"Thank you for your time."

"I did not alter my activities in response to your presence and therefore you can't yet be said to have wasted any of my time though you should go before you do."

...out skitters the reporter.

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"All right. - are you sure about this, you look a bit wobbly."

wealth-of-nations

"I will be the second person in my family to come back married for the reason of defying this stupid law. My siblings are going to make such expressive faces. I'm definitely sure, you both deserve to know this."

"Perhaps the law is secretly a program to increase marriage rates," says Isaiah (?) dryly.

wealth-of-nations

"How devious of them. Well, I'll just go check the American laws, then?"

Nod.

wealth-of-nations

He goes and checks.

America like Britain does not technically oblige you to memory-wipe your Muggle spouse if you leave them - "but you probably should, dear, it's much less messy," advises the witch he asks -

And he comes back. "No, we can get divorced without any problems."

"All right then."

wealth-of-nations

"Shall we go to the courthouse then? ...if it were me I would be really tempted to tell the colorful-hair people that since they sterilized your sister you realized you'd better have as many children as you can right away before they do that to more innocent people and you told all your friends the same, but obviously platonic marriages for getting around stupid laws are probably better if they just avoid situations like that even though it really is satisfying to upset the aliens."

"I don't actually want any, seems like it'd be hard on the kids to exist to annoy aliens."

wealth-of-nations

"Oh, I didn't mean I want kids, I meant I enjoy telling the colorful-people things which might cause them to notice when they are being idiots about incentives."

"Ah."

wealth-of-nations

"Are you coming, Kitty -"

Nod.

wealth-of-nations

Off they go.

"Do you care if I use my original name?" asks Isaiah.

wealth-of-nations

"No. Don't care if you use your original gender either, unless there are laws about that."

"We have sky people marriage here too."

wealth-of-nations

"I mean, they let two men marry, I don't know if they let someone who was baptized a girl be a man on his marriage papers. - her marriage papers? I guess the marriage papers might just say 'person one' and 'person two', that's a skyperson sort of take on it."

"I don't think they have such high expectation of our recordkeeping."

wealth-of-nations

"That too." He glares at skypeople at the courthouse.

The skypeople look unruffled.

A yellow-haired person will be happy to complete the civil marriage of Isaiah Carver and Aaron Way.

wealth-of-nations

Great. They can go back, then.

Yup.

"So what's the deal?"

wealth-of-nations

"I am a wizard. I am part of a secret society of magical people who decided in the 1600s to conceal evidence of our existence from the rest of the world. - some people argue that it was because they were worried Muggles would get powerful enough to hurt us, some people think it was because they were worried about intermarriage and cultural dilution, some people argue that it was because otherwise the world would have ended up with a wizarding ruling class. I've hated the law my whole life - all the wasted potential for trade - but, uh, it was useful when the aliens invaded. I can travel between continents near-instantly on my own recognizance, I don't use the shuttles. I can track people, which is how I found Kitty, and take them with me when I teleport, which is how I got her out. I can make more of things, turn things into other things, make things with magical properties, heal injuries, stun people, kill people - you name it, there's probably a spell or a potion for it, though some are obscure or a hassle to pull off. Wizarding ability is mostly heritable. There are no skypeople wizards."