Ovali checks whether there is something wrong with their drinks.

"Do you? I just think that... those are the people you get when you have long lasting culture that lacks incentives to be better towards others? Not to mention high standards of what they considered acceptable luxury, which I honestly think correlates."

"Mm yeah," she says, thoughtfully.

"Was that your hypothesis then?"

"Approximately. I am thinking that... we're pretty segregated, in general. Blues live in blue neighbourhoods. Rich blues live in rich blue neighbourhoods. They've never really interacted with most other castes in any situation where the other castes weren't providing them a service, so it's easy to slip into a certain—pattern. And not all blues do politics, and land-owning blues have more money on average so the richer blues are more likely to be land owners, and those don't actually even have to stop to think about other castes in the contexts politics blues do, it's literally just service. You end up with a nasty combination of insularity, typical mind fallacies, and unpleasant habits of thoughts towards other people."

"Eloquently put. And yes." Looking at her differently.

She beams at him. "I perhaps spend more time than I strictly ought to thinking about the ways the caste system screws us over."

"Well, so very few people do that you're helping even that out."

Giggle. "I'm sure lots of greens spend a lot of time and paper on it."

"Last I checked, Ovali's half-sister was one of them."

"She is more of the amateur activist type."

"Anyway, everyone else complains so little about how blues and the caste system screw them over."

"...I think you're very sheltered if you think people don't complain about blues."

"Let me amend that: I think people complain very little about blues compared to how much they should."

"How much do you think they should, then?"

He thinks for a moment. There is some mild magic activity around him. "Well, I don't know how to quantify that besides 'until things change for the better' which, is not really an answer."

"It's not," she agrees. "I don't think complaining is gonna do much, though, especially when most complaining is pretty myopic about its subject."

"Complaining isn't exactly the thing that is needed. But it's sure demotivating how little it happens."

"Again, I think you just need to hang around more people of other castes. While pretending to not be blue."

"Oooh, now that is an idea."

"I have those, yes."

"I'm willing to help, but please let's not have some sort of international scandal or an OOCI violation."

"I would never intentionally commit OOCI violations."

"Just don't get an income, should be easy enough."

"I must ask," Ovali says in a stage whisper, "is this an excuse to get him on set?"