"Does everybody join the army?"

"Pretty much everybody, unless they're blind or crippled or something. It's a much better deal than working your whole life."

Nod. "The pension applies to your kids but not indefinitely?"

"Until we turn eighteen! Then we can enlist or find a way to support ourselves."

"What do people who don't enlist tend to do?"

"Work for the Elves, mostly. They pay well. 'specially if you're pretty."

"If you're pretty?"

"Elves get, like, soulbonded forever when they sleep together. So they hire Men. Elves are pretty, it's good pay, if you want to avoid the army you're set for life that way."

"Oh. That's interesting. A couple species from my world have a thing like that but they don't have to have sex first, just see people."

"...that sounds super inconvenient. What if you ended up with someone you couldn't stand?"

"Depends on which species is doing the thing and who they're doing it with. Two vampires, it's always reciprocal in the first place and filters for personality compatibility. If a vampire mates to a human they can turn the human into a vampire and then it will be, although my mother made it illegal to do that without the human's consent so now they have to be very careful to make a good first impression. If a vampire mates to a part-vampire like me though, it's all down to the personality filtering and that doesn't always work. Werewolves don't have personality filter at all and there's no reciprocity guarantee no matter who they're stuck on but they'll try really really hard to be good for that person, whatever it takes; I have a wolf back home. It's still awkward sometimes if they imprint on a lesbian or something though."

"Huh. I don't think there's any of that at work with Elves - like, if one Elf forces another, they're still soulbonded, they don't need to be compatible at all. That's punishable by death, though, and doesn't happen too often."

"Well, it would be strange if they were exactly like vampires."

"The vampire way sounds kind of terrifying but at least it doesn't end with anyone alone and magically in love, I guess."

"It does if somebody dies. Vampires are pretty hard to kill but it's not impossible."

"Oh no. Elves whose partner is dead are pretty mopey."

"I bet vampires are worse."

"Yeah probably. Especially since Elves don't die forever."

"In some really limited circumstances vampires can come back but it's not something most people can expect."

"Elves have it really good. Lucky them, yeah?"

"I really like being a half-vampire, personally, but the extra immortality fallback would be nice."

"Is the thing where everything you say kind of rings a half-vampire thing or a you thing?"

"Just me. I'm a witch. On my world a bunch of vampires and hybrids and some humans are witches and have unique powers. Mine's telling the truth."

"It makes you seem really - nice, I dunno. Trustworthy. I bet the Elves liked it. They're weird around humans because we can't promise we're not lying. Or we can, but we could lie with the promise."

"I can't swear oaths like they can either, but maybe they did like it particularly for that reason. I found it really convenient that they could read my mind. My dad's witchcraft is mindreading and it makes it easy to communicate. The Dwarves can't be affected by my magic at all but they seem nice for other reasons so I'm going to go there."