"Is that a thing? And I don't care what people eat, just that they be certain that even with no resources they can find food."

"The potato place was a real thing, although it didn't last very long. Some guy sold a bunch of potato farmers on giving him free potatoes so he could do culinary experiments and convince everyone they wanted to eat potatoes. They're sort of weird looking and weren't very popular before that."

"Huh. I wonder if Valinor's edible plants grow in your world, or if they're even edible for humans."

"I don't know, but my planet sure has a lot of plants that aren't edible or at least don't taste very nice."

"It might be dangerous to try displacing your plants with ours, lest they run amok somehow. I'll ask Yavanna."

"Invasive species can be a thing with animals, I'm not sure if it applies to plants but it might."

"Worth asking in any event."

Nod.

I wanted to talk to you sometime when we were less distracted by either responsibilities or pretty faces.

Kib refrains with difficulty from asking where Maitimo last saw his other face and does he want help looking. Yeah. So, being here is way more interesting than what I was already doing, and even if I decided for whatever reason to move back to my planet I would still want to be up to my neck in dealing with the interface between worlds, it's just too interesting and high-impact to leave alone. I could, in theory, go home and find some human guy and get married and stuff. And then I couldn't talk about him at work. And I'd have to rope him into the whole secrecy thing if he wanted to know what I was doing, which, I think I have decent taste and he'd find the occupation fascinating - so the comparative advantage of Some Human Guy, besides that he might be less sideways about some things and honestly that's a crapshoot even if he wouldn't be sideways about being gay in particular, is small. I prioritize a publicly acknowledged relationship less than all the productive stuff I can accomplish. I can live with the tradeoff.

Okay. That's not the only tradeoff you're making.

Are you thinking of monogamy or something else?

That's the obvious one that comes to mind; I wouldn't even know if there are others.

That one's honestly a practicality motive if you sweep away all the 'but I really like them', not that really liking you isn't significant. Navigating all the cultural cruft is annoying and difficult and unless there's yet a third guy waiting in the wings for a suitable moment to take my comment at the dance as a reason to hit on me - my point is I can't see trying to finagle it solo and my non-solo option is you two and you're pretty great. Maybe if in the future you want Findekáno to yourself and vice versa I will have more familiarity with the webs of intrigue at work but for the time being - which is all it seems reasonable to plan for - I just think I'm really lucky to have landed in your laps. Also the not taking turns thing would probably bother me in the case of monogamy.

Is that traditional for humans? It's not typical here but I'm sure you'd be able to find it. We can try to directly address the concerns that'd typical draw you to a monogamous arrangement - stable expectations, not having to compete for affection, I don't know what else people typically worry about - if you have specific ones.

It's common but not universal, I think? I think my monogamy impulses are mostly an ego thing and I can probably train my ego to be very nearly as charmed by other stuff.

It's mostly an ego thing for me too and I've found replacements satisfactory.

Oh?

Well, I have Findekáno's undying devotion and he will do whatever I ask of him that doesn't harm other people, and this is very satisfying, but I of course wholly enjoy his goals and methods and temperament or I wouldn't have wanted him in the first place. So I can get all the satisfaction with only the occasional demand of costly signals of devotion. And while I suppose I'd love to be adored so much my lover never noticed anyone else, monogamy does not seem to actually cause that. And this way resulted in us having you.

Yeah, I have noticed that monogamy does not typically come with that. I think I'll be fine. Helps that I'm a latecomer and did not take very long to attract attention.

Part of getting a sense of people as quickly as I do is that if they are astonishingly valuable people you know it right away, when it's far too soon to be socially acceptable to express attraction even were you Aly at the moment.

Would it have been? What's the rule on that?

Well, we have a concept of 'love at first sight' whose most conventional form is 'I saw them singing and knew we were meant to be together forever', but my father would stop speaking to me if I claimed to have experienced such a thing. Straight people do not have sex until marriage - they can't, it results in marriage - and the engagement period is one Year and you're not supposed to see each other during that, to make sure you've chosen wisely.

...well, now I'm not sure I'm not glad I didn't show up while still Aly, that sounds like a mess on several levels.

Your intimate life would have to be a good deal less interesting, although it needn't have involved any secrets. Should that go on the info sheets?