"I am only counting original founders in that. The fact the kingdoms are then invariably passed on to men has an obvious cultural explanation."

"Huh. Yeah, that is weird, I think it's close to fifty-fifty for humans. Maybe some different governance style, although I never know how seriously to take those assertions, they tend to come from the same sorts of people who go found radically segregationist villages."

"Well, if my daughter turns out to want to inherit a kingdom I suppose she'll have to fill it with people who think that she can." He shrugs.

"Is she likely to encounter very much disagreement on that? Like, are there women Elves who are making serious bids to inherit kingdoms to compare here?"

"Well, there are eight people ahead of her in the succession, that'd be a bigger problem. To my knowledge there are no women who've made a serious bid to inherit a kingdom."

"Ahead of her...?"

"The rule, which should never really be relevant again, is the current King's oldest son, or brother if he has no sons, or his sisters' sons if he has no brothers."

"...and not his sisters themselves, that's blatant. Here I was thinking it was more a 'the king's pool of apprentices is people he's related to', I guess I got an incomplete explanation."

"That'd also be a reasonably good analogy, but the constraints on his pool of apprentices are much stronger than 'people he's related to'."

"How did this rule get canonized?"

"It was one of several approaches to succession in place at Cuivienen, and became a topic of political debate after my father'd remarried and we'd settled in here. The King didn't feel strongly about the general principle as long as it left it clear I was his heir, and it's not likely to be relevant, so it ended up being one side of several political compromises I was mostly indifferent to."

"Huh. I guess it's not a huge deal if everybody's immortal but it rubs me the wrong way, neither I nor Aly went into politics but I wouldn't be, like, better at it or anything."

"If it ever looks like it could touch on relevance it might well be revised. As it stands the first eight people in the succession are the same either way, so it'd take quite a catastrophe for it to start mattering. Perhaps if Maitimo's firstborn is a girl he'll do something about it."

"Birth order being a consideration is obviously also weird to me."

"I favored that one, for the obvious self-interested reasons, but I'll agree it's not very meaningful as a general principle."

"Why would you even want to rule the place? You seem to have plenty to do."

"I have not the slightest desire. I'm going to pass it to Maitimo. I do not want it to fall to my half-siblings."

"...That's an interesting word, half-siblings... What's wrong with them?"

"It would be rude of me to influence your judgements on that front."

Blink. "Okay."

"Anyway, the laws are mostly a formalization, though not the best possible formalization, of the fact everyone knows Maitimo will make a very good king and my father wants him to eventually succeed him."

"It does seem to be his skillset. Although I do plan to beat him at Governor eventually."

"I have no doubt that it is in principle possible. And I think it's a waste of his skills, too, though maybe less of one now that there's something useful to mobilize Tirion towards."

"What do you think he should be doing with his skills?"

"Politics doesn't actually matter. I'm sure he could find something that does."