They seem to have appeared within a solar system, rather than an anonymous bit of intergalactic space. 

That’s something. 

Pity of pities, however, that solar system, as if discontent with boring astronomical entities that bother with such trifling concerns as ‘the laws of nature’ and in some manner of celestial teenage rebellion, is utterly and pervasively bizarre. 

Thirty-six planets appear to be revolving around a single sun, on the same orbital path; those planets’ visibility might be partially attributed to the fact that each planet seems to be itself orbited by a tiny, infinitesimally small ‘sun’. 

They’re within a few miles of some sort of spherical outer shell for the system, made out of an unfamiliar and unfathomably dark material, and studded with violet-tinged portals, seemingly leading to similar astronomical set-ups. They might also note the uncountable ‘stars’ scattered across the shell’s surface, each of which might be more accurately described as ‘flat, brightly luminescent surfaces which aren’t even slightly made out of plasma’. 

They are not, to put it mildly, within any hitherto known region of space.

Someone reasonably perceptive might further note that one of the planets has a bright, ludicrously large, and presumably illusory message flashing above it, in foreign characters.

Well, this is just great.

At least the anomaly dropped them somewhere inhabited. More magical than usual for a system, too - the closest she's ever seen in person is the Oheanri dimension, though she's heard of weirder.

She has the wizard currently on the bridge cast Comprehend Languages, and sends out an alert to get personnel to their stations. No one's going to be asleep yet, at least.

The illusory sign appears to say:

”Hello! This is the hekyeiyelui-“ and then in substantially smaller, if still legible, print, “We have lost contact with our [well-thought-of] parent system, and would appreciate [well-thought-of, unexpected] visitors. Our [well-thought-of] wards do not permit approach with hostile intent. No other worlds within the system are currently inhabited. Thank you.”

Well, that's definitely a sign. Likely a good one, she's not getting much of a 'trap' feeling from this.

Still, they'll be cautious, and only send in a landing party at first.

She selects the team, and hesitates over sending down their actual literal god (that was the weirdest part of this, but apparently Alean gods get bored too), before deciding to keep him with the ship - and the bulk of her crew. Besides, the away team she has selected are no slouches.

Isekura is selected as team leader, being the most diplomatic of the group and also the one with the most leadership experience despite zir relative age. 

The group decides to approach in a shuttle, rather than portalling. It's less safe, but it also telegraphs their movements, and is less likely to provoke a hostile response.

When the shuttle lands, ze steps out first, followed by another of zir species, a tall and willowy elven woman, a shifter from Oheanri, and a rather large sapient wolf. Ze has zir own translation item, and the wizard's cast tongues on herself and the other three.

They land in the central square of an enormous city.

Elaborately styled landscapes- heavy on deciduous trees, in a baffling array of colors, alongside elegant ponds and dazzlingly out of place ice rinks and burbling rivers and gorgeous flowers- seem to dominate the ground, with large homes- seemingly forged from solid stone- placed within every acre. A dizzying array of paths- all made entirely out of interviewing bricks of malachite and lapis lazuli- curl in loops and knots along the ground, connecting each house. 

In a layer above, small floating islands drift around in seemingly random patterns, sometimes gently skimming against each other. Each seems to have a single store or restaurant or other non-house building, and each occasionally lands on a designated patch of ground, with the entry or departure of a customer.

The customers, in their own way, seem just as interesting as the stores.

They seem divided roughly into ‘androgynous, human-like skin and hair tones’, ‘masculine, green to blue skin tones’, and ‘feminine, blue to hot pink skin tones’, with each of those categories then having four further sub-divisions of color. They seem to vary between nearly seven feet- in the case of the greens- and around 5’6 in the case of the fuschias, with similarly broad variance between inhuman grace and clumsiness, between inhuman beauty and aesthetic mediocrity, and so forth. Each color of person seems inclined towards wildly differing fashions- the violets in headscarves and dresses, the greens barely covering anything, the mints in something resembling formal suits, the browns- who could pass, easily enough, for human- in practical garments…

In addition to the people being terribly interesting, they seem to have terribly interesting pets: brightly colored sheep with unicorn horns, strangely levitating giant oysters, strangely slithering eels that look like holes within the world itself, softly glowing silver tapirs, brightly shining chickens with feathers made of sunlight…

And in addition to the people, and the pets, being interesting, they were also staring. Quite a bit. 

A few brave souls seem just about ready to speak up, but-

A tornado, over the course of a few seconds, develops in the sky- it’s perhaps a hundred feet across, and very loud- and someone unceremoniously drops out of it, catching themselves a few feet from the ground with some manner of levitation. The tornado dissipates, slowly.

“Hello!” chirps the someone, looking at them intently. “I’m Kadlawen! Royal Red Sorcerer of the Unclouded Flower, ruler of none and advisor to all, all that nonsense- you triggered the detection ward, see, and since I can teleport all casual like I’m the designated responder for this sort of situation. Um. Who are you?”

Isekurra zirself is a hair under five feet - tall for a dwarf - with dark pink hair and pale skin. Ze's covered pretty thoroughly, showing only zir face, with an androgynous build. Of zir companions, Malir is tall, around the height of the greens, with a feminine build, light skin, and black hair, also only showing her face and neck, though she's wearing practical engineer's clothes in shades of cream and brown rather than the complicated skirts her people tend to favor. Ateshai is between them in height, currently masculine and humanoid in shape with brown skin and hair. His sister Runla is a very large wolf with silver fur. Then, Kunali, another of Isekurra's own kind though not of zir planet, pale and brunet with golden eyes and less thorough skin covering, and also a good foot shorter than zem.

"Hello. I am Isekurra Aherinna, of the planet Amsed. A space anomaly swallowed our ship, meaning we're quite lost. We represent the Council of Worlds, a federation of many diverse peoples from just as many planets. My companions here are Malir, from the planet Veshir, Ateshai and Runla, from the planet Oheanri, and Kunali, also from Amsed. I'm head medic of the exploratory ship the Endeavor."

“... goodness,” he says. They seem to be attracting a bit of a crowd, though they remain a reasonably respectful distance away.

”It seems that you are, in fact, quite lost. Astonishingly so. And, um, not just in odd body makeup, presumably. Wow. Um. I admit that I was hoping for someone from our parent system, but that’s no reason to be rude- would you rather entertain questions some place more private, or acquire guest rooms at the palace, or neither? You have to be terribly tired.”

"Talking somewhere more private is fine. We weren't doing much before being transported."

“Lovely! Ah, this may be mildly dizzying-“

And then he mutters a few nonsense syllables and fiddles with a wand and a staff that weren’t even slightly on his person a few seconds ago, and then they’re several hundred feet in the air, alongside their shuttle, with a small, harmless little twister left on the ground where they departed, and then a much larger tornado swallows them up and spits them out and they’re somewhere else entirely.

They’re on solid, barren ground, within an unreasonably large courtyard, with unutterably gorgeous architecture surrounding them on all sides. 

“Here we are!” he beams, striding confidently towards a door.

Ze's used to wizards being odd, so ze doesn't even blink at the off-beat teleportation. Though it's interesting, implies magic here might work a bit differently than is average in the Council worlds.

Ze follows, along with zir group.

They enter an expansive hallway, with intricate fractal-carvings running over each wall- though no actual paintings- and a soft glow emanating from the ceiling. 

In short order, they arrive in... a game room? 

Tables, odd boxes with ‘chiller’ inscribed upon their surface, and bizzare contraptions litter the room, alongside several animated fiddles aggressively playing themselves. An azure man- shirtless, and wearing long pants, as seems to be the azure fashion- seems to be fencing against an animate sword, which promptly sets itself down.

“Hello, Sasha!” Kadlawen chirps. 

“Hey,” ‘Sasha’ replies, resting a sword against his shoulder. He seems a touch taller than Malir, in addition to being substantially more, well, azure.

He and Kadlawen exchange truly uncomfortable amounts of eye contact for several seconds.

He turns to stare at the offworlders.

“So, since that was, like, seventeen different kinds of unexplanatory: what the literal fuck. Could you tell us an amount of information that would make that several degrees less what the fuck.”

Kadlawen gives him a meaningful glance.

“... if you would,” he adds, insincerely.

"We're not usually slated for First Contact, sorry about the non-explanation. I'm guessing your species doesn't have contact with others? In our home dimensions, there are - we're not sure how many, but numerous worlds with numerous different peoples, who developed in many, many ways. Portals sometimes randomly would open between these worlds, and contact was historically established through those. Someone figured out how to make intentional, permanent portals, and four of the planets - which had unified governments by that point - decided to come together to found the Council of Worlds, initially to make negotiating things like hostilities and trade among themselves easier. Gradually, other worlds decided to join, or were contacted. The Council has existed for over three thousand five hundred of our years, and last I checked had members from four thousand, eight hundred and nine homeworld planets, plus an assortment of colony planets; some planets have multiple member nations. Our vessel was meant to set out from a contacted bit of space and do sweeps outwards, through uninhabited territories, mostly to survey for usable resources. We're not supposed to be making contact except in cases of emergencies or anomalies, which this counts as. The five of us represent four species from three different homeworlds."

“Thank you!” Kadlawen chirps. “I don’t formally speak for any particular polity- except possibly Bradaton’s, he should stay as far away from interspecies contact as possible- anyways, I nevertheless expect that we’ll be very interested in permanent portals. We are, in fact, only one species- twelve colors, twelve genders, I’m red and Sasha’s azure, that’s probably translating strangely if you’re using translation magic but I doubt that’ll matter- and we have seven currently extant countries, each of which was set up about a year ago when we settled here- ”

A fuschia woman- wearing a skirt and a jacket, both black- abruptly pops out of a trapdoor set into a corner.

”Salutations!”

“... what the fuck? Why- what, were you-”

“Yes, you imbecile, of course I was, I heard the tornado and decided to lurk in the tunnels in case Kadlawen had been compromised- don’t you have the slightest speck of paranoia within that minuscule thing you call a brain- Rakaskem, dear, you can come out now-“

A slender man, in human-typical coloring, climbs out of the trapdoor; he shrugs helplessly, and moves off to the side. 

“No, seriously, do I have to repeat myself in saying what the fuck, is Tashalka hiding in a corner somewhere too-” 

“If she were,” Rakaskem says, solemnly, “we wouldn’t know it”.

“In any case, now that we know that Kadlawen hasn’t been compromised-“

“I’m unshakably immune to mind affecting magic, Sira.”

“Yes, which is why I concluded you weren’t compromised when you started talking, physical puppetry could make you speak but it couldn’t imitate your intonation- in any case! This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened and I have so many questions! How do you only have an ‘assortment’ of colony planets if it’s been several thousand years- did you just start out with very small populations, or do you have a very low birthrate, or can you not do resurrections, or is your magic system or reproductive system somehow distinct such that those questions don’t make sense, to start with?”

"Those are good questions, and the answer is that it really all varies. Resurrection is usually very rare and expensive, and unless you're very good at the related spells it doesn't work well - in all but the most magical worlds only a fortieth of a percent of people can do a true resurrection, and they can usually only bring back a few people a day, for high prices. Generally longer lived species have lower birthrates, too, and birthrates in most species tend to fall as things get crowded. Many gods also won't return people who have died of old age, which is a major roadblock for now."

"There's also a - sort of linguistic issue I think we're running into? If a planet puts people on other bodies in their system, and keeps the same government or at least the same slot in the Council, the extra planets aren't referred to as colonies. Starting new governments is rare, because Council policies heavily weigh votes in favor of united entities, so splinter factions will often remain as confederacies at a minimum. I'll admit I'm not a politics specialist, though."

"The way our portal-magic filters also tends to select for already inhabited worlds. Worlds that could be inhabited but aren't are rarely found, and are one of the things our ship was designed to seek out."

“That partially resolves my confusion,” she says, in a tone of satisfaction, after pausing. “Our people do not die of old age, and our ‘portal system’, as you could call it- though the milky ways are a natural phenomenon, and a transient one, as it sounds like your portals aren’t- exclusively selects for uninhabited worlds. People who are capable of resurrections- noble mages, at the very least- are one in a million, but one noble mage could resurrect six thousand people in a day, with a sufficient supply of fatigue and virgin sacrifices. Our birthrates do fall, over time, but to a minimum of about one egg a year per seventy-two people; it- sounds like your populations might actually be fairly stable? Which is fascinating, we have to constantly expand- but what do gods have to do with resurrecting people?” 

He shivers.

”That sounds- incredibly horrifying- horses and chickens and dogs wear out over time, if you can’t get a royal mage to make them refrain from such, but having that happen to people- it seems like the Carnelian Painter is having a grand time of it-“

“No shit,” Sasha agrees, before pulling Kadlawen closer and absently patting him, in the demeanor of someone well accustomed to repositioning other people however they please.

“We can fix it,” Rakaskem says, turning so as to address non-Isekura persons.

"If your resurrections can generalized that'd be appreciated by a lot of people, yeah. Especially where I'm from, Veshir, has... A rocky relationship with the concept of deities. In most places, deities control the afterlife, and choose who's allowed in. Or out. Veshir's figured out an us-crafted afterlife, but we don't have mass resurrection and our current afterlife is literally having your soul trapped unconscious in a gemstone."

"My parent was investigating immortality solutions, as well. I still have some of zir notes, I could probably sit down with a biologist from your world and figure out how your immortality would apply to at the very least the moha', my people. We usually have two or three children per two people choosing to reproduce, over those two's lifetime, but the moha' are one of the much slower growing peoples."

“I see,” Kelsiran says, noticing that everyone else is being relatively sober and deciding to imitate them: it looks simultaneously awkward and menacing, like a giant spider attempt to tap dance. She coughs, and continues in a deeper, less enthusiastic voice: “Our deities decide which individuals gets which familiars, and our afterlives are generally decided off of that, but they don’t have any particular authority on whether someone can be resurrected, except insofar as people listen to them by default.”

“I could go ahead and try a spell for it right away,” Rakaskem says to Kunali. “If you’d like. We don’t need fine detail so long as we know the general gist of what we want, unless we decide to split spells up into more specific pieces; it sounds like your system is different. It doesn’t seem like preventing you from aging would be much harder than keeping a horse from it, or someone’s pet frog, and I’ve done those before, but I understand if you want to be cautious.”

"This is great and all, but can you go back to the 'fatigue and virgin sacrifices' thing?" says Ateshai, who's the least Nerd in the group and apparently the only one paying attention to non-nerd moments. "Our magic doesn't work like that. Resurrection takes diamonds and spell slots, not sacrifices."

Kadlawen likes the sort of person who’d ask that question.

”Um. So in order to do our magic decently, you need six things: a wand, a ring, a staff, a sigil, an incantation, and a bit of mana? And everyone has thirty-six bits of mana, and they recharge six of them at dawn and dusk and gloom and bloom and midday and midnight? And mana that’s closer to the- surface, I suppose- is precisely as large as it needs to be for you to cast, but past that it’s a little smaller, and it compensates by stealing off energy, or blood, or in the later stages limbs. And you can sort of- artificially graft those same sorts of things onto already full-sized bits of mana? And the two types of sacrifices that you can graft on are of virginities, which are, um, self explanatory, and of lives, which are also self-explanatory, and if you can stack both together you can do even stronger spells. And I mostly fulfill our sacrifice needs, because I have a royal unicorn familiar and everything, and, um, yeah.”

Reds, evidently, turn pink when they blush; it’s an interesting sort of look.

"How do familiars work? Some wizards have them at home, and some druids have animal companions, but they're not - something everyone has? Or something that having gives you a big boost."

“Um, I’ve never had to explain this even slightly- most people absorb it even by the time they’ve hatched- but there are an honestly dreadful number of gods, and if one of them likes you when you’re just a few-days old, they send you a familiar? And if nobody at all likes you you get a griffin, and if one god likes you particularly you get a common or greater or noble or royal familiar, in ascending order, and if a bunch of gods start throwing lightning bolts over the prospect of not getting you, and none of them are willing to settle things by claiming you with a higher tier familiar, you get a higher tier griffin. And different familiars give you different blessings with different- themes- and higher tier familiars give you stronger tricks- a lesser unicorn mage might be able to purify water, say, and then a greater unicorn mage might be able to cure arbitrary illnesses and then also have a bunch of little powers like that, and then royal unicorn mages all get my package of virginity-renewal and self-ressurection and mental-Immunity and so forth. 

People... also sometimes get extra familiars, later. Sorcerers. They don’t get any better at thaumaturgy- that’s all the fiddling about with wands and staves and such- but they get two more familiars, of the same power as their first. It happens when you do something particularly… interesting, that a god admires, or if you make one upset enough that they want to be able to visit you and hold you in their afterlife. I’m one. I… don’t particularly want to talk about the surrounding circumstance.”

"Huh. That's not how we get familiars, they're - personal bonds you make directly with the animal."

"It'd be interesting to someday see if getting a familiar from this world would enable someone from outside to use your type of magic."

”I would expect it,” says Sira. “Given that the just hatched and un-familiar-ed, however adorable, cannot use any sort of thaumaturgy, even if they later go on to be exquisitely tiny royal mages capable of rearranging stuffed animals and building toy towers with a wave of their hand. I would also not be very surprised if you spontaneously found yourself being nuzzled by flying deer and mushroom birds within the next few days, with powers to match, the general logic being that it isn’t a species or age-related event so much as a matter of coming to the gods attention.”

She abruptly changes her expression and demeanor, having evidently decided that the room has lightened up a bit.

”That aside! Kunali, dear, I like you already, let’s go to a corner so we can avoid bothering everybody and so we can pester each other with questions, we can fill everyone else in later; now, pray tell, what are ‘spell slots’, what benefits do you get from your familiars, how long does it take most species to reach adulthood and die of old age- I have a watch, we can figure out how long your years are...”

And so on, and so forth.

Ze knows the answers to most of her questions, fortunately, being more of a biologist than a druid and more of a generalized nerd than anything. (Ze pulls Malir in for the wizardry and non-bio-technology focused questions.)

Ze smiles at zir team, then turns to the others, and says, "While they're running down the differences list, we do have more people on our ship - our crew complement is only twenty, and we can stay on the ship, but I suspect a lot of people will prefer to stretch their legs. I'm authorized to make arrangements on the Captain's behalf, or you can talk to her directly."

Sasha gestures broadly in the direction of, well, everywhere.

”This is my kickass palace, and I’m in charge of the rest of this country; Ms. Magenta K. Nerd over there mostly runs her place underground, Kadlawen doesn’t have a country, Rakaskem ‘rules’ like seven hundred mini-countries, Dato should not be within a hundred fucking miles of aliens, Tasha has no chill, and Ariz would have panic attacks about your color scheme, so you’re stuck with me. Don’t fuck with me or anyone who doesn’t fuck with you first, and you can tourist it up; I’ll make Kadlawen send out a memo.”

“Three hundred and fifty-six,” Rakaskem corrects.

“And I’ll go whip up that memo!” Kadlawen chirps. “Does anyone want a tour, which we’re at it?”

He seems to be mostly looking at Ateshai. Perhaps they have something on their shirt. 

"I can do a tour. Do you mind Runla tagging along?" he asks, gesturing to the wolf.

(Oh gosh he even has a cute smile in addition to asking good questions and not asking painful ones and being interestingly exotic oh nooooo.)

“Um, not at all! We can start with the ikaroa ponds, I suppose, they’re gorgeous,” he says, moving in the direction of a seemingly blank wall, tapping on it thrice, and looking unsurprised when it turns into a doorway. 

The ikaroa ponds are gorgeous- little fish, varying between ‘black as ink, with glowing sparkles’, and ‘deep gradients of purple and white’, swimming around in elaborate water enspelled to look like nothing at all, with sparkling white and violet and black trees elegantly overlooking it all, and softly radiant lily pads dotting the pond’s surface, in the style of miniature moons. 

He is very appreciative! "We don't have much like this in Oheanri," he says, "Water fixtures are usually like, a running brook - we're a bit weird for a planet, and running water's hugely significant across cultures. Could see this being real popular in Veshiri though, they're fancier."

(He should not have invited Runla. His sister is laughing at him. It's not obvious if you're not familiar with wolves, but she's very wolfishly snickering.)

He elbows Runla when she looks like she's about to ask about edibility, because she's a pest.

Kadlawen is also very appreciative eee-

“Some of our planets are a bit like that! In most systems you have one planet for each terrain, that’s made almost entirely out of that terrain, in addition to the more mixed planets, and sometimes that terrain is ‘rivers’- you- I mean, um, they’re lovely. And- um, I’m being a dreadful tour guide, aren’t I- so, these are ‘ikaroa’? They’re a type of familiar, we rent them from people who don’t happen to find they get along-” 

He elaborates for a few minutes about how he’d arranged for the ponds to come into being- he’s responsible for quite a bit of the palace’s aesthetics, as it turns out, Sasha’d said “I dunno, just make it look nice” when they first settled, and he’d taken to the task with reasonable grace- and how they’d had to harvest the moon lilies from an obscure bog, and how he’d grown the trees with a sprinkle of sanzitania magic so they’d be inherently lucky. Interspersed are personal anectodes- “I actually had to escape from prison, while we were down there, Rakaskem had a miscommunication with one of his sub-states and I’d violated some escort law or another, and I didn’t want to do the tornado thing, it could’ve hurt people-“

It’d be reasonable to conclude that he’d given tours of the place before, though perhaps not with quite the same look on his face, and presumably with a bit less in the way of staring. 

Aw he's adorable.

"Most planets back home aren't all one terrain, Oheanri's a bit weird - not even a planet by some definitions, it's a flat plane enclosed by a dome. The underground extends to another dome, which sometimes has cracks. The name means ' Mighty River' in our biggest trade tongue, there's one enormous river that flows eternally around the plane. I'm a druid, so I was often in charge of nature and ritual related things, while Runla's more of a straight melee type, used to guard against White Beasts, which are a type of monster."

"You only became a druid because it didn't involve talking to sapients," the wolf says with a grin. "Just because you're better now doesn't mean you're not still a dork."

(He kicks her.)

”You seem like a perfectly lovely conversationalist!” Kadlawen assures him. “And that sounds fascinating- everything you say does, really, if you’re a dork you’re the most charming one I’ve met, I’m on the verge of composing poetry about- um, pretend that I didn’t say that- anyways! We should probably stop by the rose gardens next, they’re much less one note than the name implies-“

And, after a short trek over a bridge, and a passage through a waterfall which, inexplicably, doesn’t so much as dampen them, they can reach the aforementioned rose gardens.

The roses are arranged as a solid field, at least an acre wide, of flowers, with bridges cross-crossing above them. Each rose seems to be constantly shedding petals at an unsustainable rate, each in an entirely different color gradient; rather than falling downward, they seem to spontaneously blow themselves up into the air. Those petals then, after arcing about a bit within great plumes, gently blow into an entire river of slowly flowing, technicolor petals, which goes around the field in spirals before eventually disappearing into a tunnel. The whole thing has a nearly invisible glass ceiling, and is surrounded on all sides by what look to be natural, pale rock formations. 

Kadlawen continues simultaneously looking at Ateshai like he’s considerably more prepossessing than their surroundings, and giddily recounting how those surroundings came to exist.

(His sister is radiating 'you two were meant for each other' with a side of 'because you're both idiots.' He ignores her.)

Ateshai is very appreciative, and talks about similar sights he's seen in the wider multiverse.

(He is a Mature person and will not start sinking into the floor like he used to in adolescence, but he will register the attention as a Lot.)

Then they can continue on, similarly, through several different sights of comparable grandeur, before eventually arriving in a relatively plain-looking hallway, and then a relatively plain room.

Kadlawen ducks in for a moment, sends a memo to the several extant news stations of the country about how they ought to cover today’s events (with an emphasis on ‘anyone who the important alien visitors dislike is going to be on Sasha’s shitlist’, prominently- living in an authoritarian state can be so convenient), and then ducks out.

”So. That’s it. For the tour.

Um.

I have no idea how your romantic customs work, but if you wanted to go out on a date or kiss or undergo some obscure mating ritual or something I’d be really enthusiastic about that- I’d spend a century in the grasp of the Dessicated Hunter just to see your smile- I’ve only known you for like an hour but everything you say or do just reinforces how great of a person you are-“

Eeeee okay here's the uncontrollable blushing. It's rather interesting on him. He turns brick-red and splotchy.

"You're really fun, too! I wouldn't mind trying? Initial dating where I'm from is often - very low key, uh, differences I've run into - we don't have really long courtship rituals like some places, it's casual, and almost no one does one-on-one closed relationships early on, there's a lot of dating around. If we wanted to be serious you'd need my family's permission, my sister and Captain could count out here - "

"No weddings until it's been at least three years," Runla interjects, tongue lolling out. "My baby sibling is too much of an idiot for anything shorter."

The blotchy gets worse! His ears are probably bright red. "Ah. This sort of thing would be very datey, we might also go see a play or hang out at song circles, or just work together a lot on common chores if we were same community? I'm old enough not to need a chaperone, but it's - if you're being very traditional, we'd have someone looming menacingly to make sure nothing improper happens, and then there's always a big game of managing improper anyways. Uh. In adolescents, at least."

!!!

“Goodness- um- you’re also really fun, and we can see plays and everything, and if you want me to do chores I totally can, and you can see as many people as you like- I’m seeing Dato and Sasha and Lalvien, minding if your partners see other people isn’t really a thing here?- and ‘improper’ and ‘wedding’ are both translating weirdly but I’m comfortable with doing as much or as little of either as you like, though I will be very sad if you never want to kiss me and very happy if you do.”

"We. Ah. Customarily save, like, kissing-on-the-lips through full making out and, well, sexual stuff for later in a relationship. Or at least adolescents are supposed to put it off. Proper is 'what you're supposed to do,' improper is doing things you're not supposed to, and half the fun of something for adolescents where I'm from is when authority's saying you can't. A wedding is a dedication ceremony, sort of stating your seriousness before the community, it's usually but not always a prelude to moving in together and sometimes acquiring children. A relationship with a wedding is at least in theory supposed to be more serious than one without, but a lot of people my age skip it, Runla's just being a pest."

“I’m not going to pester you or anything, but do note that you can most certainly ignore custom as much as you feel comfortable with,” he says. “I’m not super sure that we could have children even with very liberal use of magic- um, anyways. You’re cute and great and I like you and I have the rest of the aftergloom free and you can spend the rest of it however you like, with or without me, whether than involves plays or handholding or watching paint dry.”

Eeee!

"If I ever acquired children I'd be adopting, anyways, without free resurrection parentless children does happen unfortunately, or people who just don't want the kid they had. But that's way down the road, my mom can continue pining for grandchildren for a while yet. Are there any date type things out here you'd suggest? I'm usually pretty active, prefer doing things over sitting and watching, so a chance to learn a sport or spar or sing would be nice."

Kadlawen momentarily wonders if Ateshai will ever express a personality trait that he doesn’t find immediately and immensely attractive. What a great person. Eeee. And that smile-

”I’m actually kind of unfairly good at sports- part of the whole ‘roc familiar’ package- so maybe not that, and I’m pacifistic enough that sparring probably wouldn’t be much fun for you, so, um- singing? There’s a neat little place only a few dozen miles away where you can learn these quick group songs, and the regulars don’t mind people dropping in, and it’s secluded enough that we wouldn’t immediately be mobbed.”

"Group singing sounds fun! I guess Runla would get more attention - "

"I'm not leaving my baby sibling without a chaperone, what sort of sister do you take me for?" she asks, then snickers when he sends her an exasperated glance. "You were far too good at slipping chaperones as an actual teen, I need to get my fill in now!" she explains.

He rolls his eyes. "Group singing it is. As long as we don't let Runla join in, she thinks loudness makes up for not being able to carry a tune."

"Howling is a perfectly legitimate artform!" she replies in mock-affront.

“She’ll pass an odd amarok well enough,” he assures. “And I’m positively certain that your howling is lovely, Runla- I’ve never heard it, mind, but there’s no such thing as unappreciable music, only unappreciated musicians.”

He promptly knocks on a nearby wall, and it produces a door to the same courtyard from whence they initially came; he opens it, with a grandiose gesture, bows slightly, and looks up at Ateshai, batting his eyelashes.

”Shall we?”

(Runla preens).

Portal doors, neat.

"Lead the way my good sir," he says mock-seriously.

“Of course, my liege,” Kadlawen replies, with a similar sort of pseudo-severity, and they proceed.

Presuming that nobody has any last minute objections, they make their way to the little clearing, he summons his staff and wand, mutter mutter swish swish et cetera, and then they’re swallowed up by a tornado and spat back out, this time onto the roof of a floating building- or a building on a floating island, as you rather- in a similar style as the ones that they saw earlier.

He traipses down a little stairwell that runs on the side of the building, cheerfully greeting a rose-colored woman- who was, for some reason, tied to the bench she was sitting on- with a chirpy “hello!”

”Oh, hey, dude,” she replies. “Glad you could make it, been a coupla months since you came. Made it just in time, even- I guess one of your whole, like, shticks is luck, makes sense, makes sense. Hey, uh, if it wouldn’t be any trouble, could you stop by my place afterwards? I just got a dog, real old, from a shelter-“

”Um. Okay! Maybe sometime during blooming, instead of right away, so you can go call your neighbors and see if any of them want their pets anti-aged too?”

“Sure, sure,” she says, nodding. 

It's neat they can do deaging on animals. He knows some conservation programs that'd be useful for, if they can leverage the local magic elsewhere.

He's not sure what's with the tying down, but it seems rude and eminently awkward to ask.

He smiles in a friendly way.

And so they go inside, find themselves greeted by a few murmurs and surprised looks, and stand in a circle with an assorted cast of colorful characters- in several senses of the phrase- and they can start.

”Shalei,” sings the fellow who seems to be in charge of all this; “Shalei,” parrots everyone else, with varied success.

”Shalei iraila,” he continues, to similar response.

He continues on, bit by bit, then line by line, and then everyone’s just singing-

 “Shaliei iraila lashai wapaiä (you tasted once from the fruit of sorrow)

Shaliei iraila lasi wasiä (you tasted once from the herb of joy)

Shaliei iraila lapal wawalä (you tasted once from the tree of trust)

Ra frasa laisir layi waiaiä (and swift blossomed the flower of fear)

Hai fahal hai (why, child, why)

Wai hwapasai hai (why do you cry)

Ferfeita hä rosholar (the storm’s like a snake)

Kara’ai kawaka ro (but you’re still awake)...*”

And so on, and so forth, with the song going over all the different reasons the involved child oughtn’t be afraid (sometimes involving seemingly nonsensical similes) and often repeating the chorus, to the good fortune of those people involved who can’t instantly memorize lyrics. 

Kadlawen- who’s a reasonably good singer, perfect tones and mediocre diction- continues on with his long and storied tradition of periodically looking at Ateshai like he’s the center of the universe, or possibly just a very uplifting minor divinity. They are on a date. Eeee. 

Dates are amazing! He should do them more often, he's not sure why he doesn't. (Okay he knows and it's because he's really bad at flirting, accidentally is basically the only way he can acquire datemates).

Ateshai is. Not a bad singer? He is good with lyrics and has a nice even baritone and knows what a tune is but isn't so loud that the way his voice doesn't quite hit the mark becomes obvious.

Runla, on the other hand, is a disaster and loving it.

Picking people’s voices out of the overall group’s is a bit tricky, but to the extent that he can discern Ateshai’s voice, Kadlawen thinks that he’s utterly perfect. 

People are maybe staring a bit at what they assume to be a singing amarok, but not enough to be rude- familiars normally only know a select set of a few hundred words and phrases, but it’s not terribly uncommon for one to be capable of mimicry. 

And then the song is done! 

And, of course, there’s another one after that, which is a bit less frantically energetic- not quite a lullaby, but something close- and led by a different person (during which Kadlawen can glance adoringly at Ateshai), and then several songs after that, for which they can sit (and Kadlawen can glance adoringly at Ateshai), and then they’re done!

”Cool session, guys,” says a guy in the singular tense. “Anyone wanna help clean up the place? I always end up doing it, and, like, I’ve got a lindworm, I don’t mind that much, but-“

Kadlawen waves a hand, without bothering to summon his staff and wand, or speak; the chairs and assorted detritus obligingly disappear to their appropriate places, and the floor abruptly looks like it was polished by a perfectionistic army.

”... cool,” says the fellow with a lindworm. “Right, you’re the red sorcerer. Uh, could you help me out with this one thing? I can totally pay you back, just-“

”And I could kind of use some sorcery too, this one bitch totally broke my-“

And Kadlawen smiles obligingly, sighs internally, conjures up a notepad and pen to write everything down on, promises he’ll see to everything in a couple hours, and they can leave.

Two suns seem to be setting simultaneously. It’s stunning. 

"You help people a lot. It's nice," he comments. "This was really nice, too, I'm glad I came."

“So am I!” he says, beaming. 

Brief companionable silence!

Then, "Oh, should probably mention - I'm a Shifter, which means I can change my face and body pretty trivially. Oheanri type, so it's basically freeform what I can look like. This is my default masculine face, but sometimes I feel more feminine and use a girl shape, or like turning into an animal - sometimes without human vocal chords if I need to just curl up and not talk for a while."

Blink.

”I’m glad to know that ahead of time,” he says. “Um. My sexuality is dreadfully standard for a red, which means I’m attracted to anyone in the chartreuse to azure range? And right now you round off to ‘chartreuse or cyan with a different skin color’, and I desperately want to kiss you and make you really happy, and I expect that’ll go down to a platonic ‘make you really happy’ if you instead resemble someone in the range of blue to gold, or an animal? So we might want to schedule dates for when you’re feeling masculine-shaped.”

He hesitates.

”Um. If you want to go on another date, some time?”

"I would like more dates! And that's perfectly fine. I usually feel a certain shape for around five to fifteen-ish days at a time? But it really varies."

Eeeeee, that smile- he nods. 

”Lovely! We can schedule around that, definitely- and I suppose we should be getting back?”

He gestures at the stairwell leading to the roof.

"That does sound like a good plan, yes."

And so they can proceed to the roof, and then beyond.

After being spat out by a whirlwind once more, into the same courtyard- it apparently receives this sort of abuse rather regularly- they can move indoors, proceed through the same set of hallways the landing crew initially went through, and eventually reach the game room.

And Sira can abruptly pop out of a ceiling vent, directly in front of them!

Kadlawen squeaks, and scrambles backwards a few paces, before composing himself.

”Sira. I’m sure that you have some perfectly lovely excuse for this, but could you please-“

“He could’ve done some sort of bodily puppetry to you while you were gone!” she says, still upside down. “Honestly, nobody else here is nearly paranoid enough- you suddenly develop a crush on some random alien, disappear for a few hours unobserved, and you expect me not to be suspicious? I noticed an increasing fuzz in my astral sense, figured you were about to come back, and hid in one of those ridiculously large air vents that Sasha insisted be installed.”

“And this translates to hiding in a vent how, precisely-“

“If you were being puppeted, you wouldn’t have flinched,” she says, reasonably, while gracefully floating down to the ground. “And it was amusing. Even I get rather bored of question and answer sessions eventually, you know.”

“The fact sheets are in that corner over there,” Rakaskem says, gesturing vaguely and subsequently going back to his book. 

"I'll leave sorting through all that to the wizard-types," he says amicably, "Though I might want to look at biology notes at some point. And in the spirit of full honesty, a sufficiently powerful telepathy-focused psion or maybe cleric could do compulsions that wouldn't overtake someone's body. People that powerful don't get sent on exploratory vessels, they're incredibly rare, but they exist; the compulsions are fightable at least and most of them someone will be acting extremely out of character."

He nods.

”We aren’t, really, that concerned; if you had readily available mind control you’d use it on the person who wasn’t mostly immune to it. Sira just enjoys making up reasonable-sounding excuses to act like someone fresh from hatching.” 

“I am not the one who yarn bombed Sasha on his hatching day, dear- and I can get a copy of the biology notes for you. I see that you haven’t had much of a date, if you’re still curious about that- Kadla, did you even ask him out or did you just lead him around on that ‘tour’ like a lovestruck puppy-”

“Since everything seems settled here, I don’t suppose I could escort you to a guest room for the night?” he inquires, brightly, and with the air of someone well used to ignoring certain others. 

"Sure! Runla and I usually share a room, or at least a suite, though she does need a pretty big bed."

“Lovely! There’s a room that ought to suit- it’s over on the other end of the palace, but distances don’t matter much with the anti-wayfaring doors- I really do adore them, even if Sasha had to stab me for their installation-“

He knocks sharply on a nearby wall, and it promptly opens up to a hallway, which in turn ends in a single door.

The room at the other end of the door is, unsurprisingly, stunning. 

The walls seem to be made out tricolor tanzanite, with subtle, rippling patterns, and the floor seems to be made out an obscenely luxurious carpet, with matching (if immobile) whirls of color. The room itself has two floors, the second one being freely visible to the first, and accessible via two dignified marble staircases, a dignified marble ladder, and a (not particularly dignified) marble water slide. The lower floor has a seemingly natural, gently burbling hot spring, a dining table, several sofas, and a piano (labelled ‘I take requests!’), and a few bookshelves; the upper floor seems to instead have three beds- going substantially beyond ‘king sized’, a mirror (also, strangely enough, labelled ‘I take requests’!), and a few miscellaneous cabinets and closets. The whole thing seems lit primarily by an even, mystically-sourced glow, alongside a window.

A waterslide!!!! He will not jump straight on it because he isn't five, but - "I love it!" He looks around, clearly delighted.

Runla, meanwhile, flops straight into a sunny patch on the carpet in front of the window, huffing. Then: "Why was stabbing involved in the magic?"

‘And I love you’, he does not say, because they’ve known each other for a few hours and it’d be weird. Even though he is so in love.

“Um, enduring portals are really hard, enduring portals that go anywhere you want are impossible, and enduring portals that go to arbitrary physically contiguous places are just barely possible, if you have a royal mage and a virgin sacrifice? And since I have a royal unicorn familiar, I can be a virgin sacrifice repeatedly, while basically nobody else can? And there are complicated fiddly reasons why magic in general works better when I’m the one being sacrificed instead of some random ruwien. So: stabbing.”

He looks out the window (which is showing two suns, one of them noticeably higher than the other, alongside steadily more visible stars), and blinks.

”Goodness, it’s already dusk. Um. I should... probably go see Bradaton? He’ll be expecting me, and if I’m not there he might come looking, and he really shouldn’t be anywhere near interdimensional visitors.”

"Sure! It's been a long day for me, I'll get settled in."

“Okay!” he says, eloquently. “Um, have a good night! I’ll be back in around ten hours, if you want to go anywhere just knock on a wall three times and think of where you’d like to be.”

And then he’s just going to flee before he embarrasses himself, howabout. 

And he teleports over to Dato’s palace, and successfully distracts him from the topic of interesting alien visitors with copious amounts of sex (punctuated with the customary mix of tear-inducing vitriol, effusive praise, and sensory deprivation- Dato tended to be a bit more cerebral about this sort of thing than Sasha, in spite of their customary gender stereotypes), and gets around to all those miscellaneous requests from people at the group-singing gathering, in due time. 

One sun falls, and the other lingers in a sort of perpetual sunset, though the window obligingly dims enough that this isn’t distractingly bright. The moon rises. About three hours in, every plant in the world starts glowing in prismatic hues, and the moon becomes similarly bright and prismatic; this peaks over the course of another three hours, and dims over three more. 

And then it’s morning! Sort of! One sun still seems to be down, and the other still seems stuck at sunset, and the actual period seems to want to translate as ‘midnight’, but it’s close enough.

A platter of mysteriously exotic food seems to have appeared on the table of Ateshai’s room overnight. 

He contacts the ship as soon as Kadlawen leaves, updating them on what he's seen and getting updates on the others. He chats a bit throughout the night - nothing sensitive, nothing that they can't afford to have read by outsiders.

He doesn't sleep well in strange places, and doesn't need as much sleep as a human, so he sees all that. It's neat.

Ateshai out of habit directs a 'detect poison' cantrip at the food (which will also get 'is incidentally incompatible with shifter or wolf biology'), then if it comes up clear divvies the food between himself and Runla. He steers towards less sweet things - fruit preserves are about as much as he can stand - and shows a clear preference for savory flavors.

Their breakfast cuisine- which registers as a non-poison- seems to lean towards a mix of meat (drizzled with a delicate cream sauce), raw fish (marinated in lime, onion, and a delightful array of spices), little twists of warm bread (with an associated key-lime sauce), and elaborate bowls of fried onions and vegetables. In lieu of silverware, there’s an assortment of spongey flat bread, which he’s presumably supposed to grab things with.

When the plate’s been largely cleared, a message appears on it:

I never have a sunrise seen,

From glimmer night, or whispered dream,

Quite so lovely to the eye,

As one known as ‘Ateshai’:

And as eyes see into the soul,

I have seen one forged from gold,

Forged from virtue, long and old;

I have glimpsed a kindred soul.

And as teeth bare in joyous grin,

I discern but a single sin:

This fellow from a foreign land,

With radiance plucked from diamond sand,

Cannot perceive his glaring worth-

And so I felt so swift compelled,

To take a pen and sin correct.

And though I can but scarce inflect,

In mediums so indirect,

One truth I know will never bend:

You’re great and I like you,

~ Kadlawen.

P.S. Um, sorry if this was weird, or anything! It’s a pretty standard courtship thing, here. :~)

It's more cute than weird, but this soon is definitely not his culture's custom. Though writing sappy love songs wouldn't be too out of character for teens after starting dating, and he knows cultures where 'small gifts' including poetry are the entirety of courting.

He'll... Have to figure out how 'poetry' works. (And legible writing...) Maybe Kadlawen won't mind if Ateshai copies over poems from his culture? He'll have to check with someone what the courting customs are.

He smiles at the poem, puts it somewhere not-the-table where he won't forget about it, and considers where to go, then knocks on the wall three times and thinks of the entrance courtyard they came in.

Where Kadlawen is merrily whirlwinding in! Convenient how the timing works out, there. 

About seven seconds later (the tornadoes do take a little while to dissipate, however often this is elided over), he sees Ateshai,  beams, does something that wouldn’t be mischaracterized by the word ‘prancing’, and brandishes a set of relatively small potted orchids, each a dizzyingly vibrant shade of blue.

”Hello! Um! I brought flowers! And blessed them- um, you probably don’t have the cultural context for that- in the same sense that royal unicorn mages have the virginity thing and royal roc mages have the whirlwind thing, royal sanzitania mages can can bless plants? So now these don’t need water or sunlight or anything, and they’re really lucky. Um. Hi!”

"Hi! That's really neat, let me put them back in my room real quick - " He does so, then returns. "I'm going to have a lot of fun poking at those, probably, thanks!"

“It was my pleasure! Um, so you can do whatever you’d like, tonight- I don’t want to monopolize your time, or anything- but I figured that I could pop you back up to your ship right quick, if you wanted to see anyone or do anything there, or I could show you around the city you landed in, or we could try sparring with these neat blades I bought that’re completely incapable of hurting people, or we could try hiking, or we could attend this neat thing where you have to try and outrun a bunch of sheep, or a combination, or- whatever you happen to want, really.”

"I'm fine not visiting the ship for a little bit," he says, smiling at the adorableness. "Hiking sounds my speed? I would probably be a cheat at the sheep thing, I'm faster than my frame suggests and can shift to be better. Runla might get a bit too tempted to chase them, too."

"Sheep are dumb. If they didn't want me herding them into funny patterns, they shouldn't run away from me, or should do a better job of it."

Eee, Ateshai’s smiles are not getting any less entrancing- 

“Certainly! On both accounts, really- and I can go ahead and take us there, there’s a neat little mountain trail that has the most gorgeous bluebells in bloom right now-“

And: one ‘mutter mutter, swish swish, tornado’ sequence later, they’re at the base of a mountain! Not a particularly tall one, mind- one of those smooth, round instances of the breed, worn down over time- but a mountain, certainly. 

There is, as promised, a trail, which they can start walking on. Companionable silence ensues.

 “So, um, what’s the rest of your family like? Aside from the lupine and extraordinarily charming instance thereof walking beside us, of course.

"Hm. Big. I don't actually remember my birth family, I was very young when I apparently decided very firmly I wanted nothing to do with them - not sure why now, but I was very discerning as a child so almost certainly a good reason. Runla's parents adopted me. I have a lot of siblings, only some Oheanri wolves actually reproduce and they're usually making do for the whole pack. 'A lot' as in twenty as of the last time I communicated with them, including Runla. Only four are older than me, the rest are various stages of pup. I have pictures I left on the ship, if you want to see them at some point, though they probably all look pretty similar if you're not familiar with wolves. Mom's the one who played with us the most, taught us to hunt and get up to mischief. Dad was the main one looking directly after us - helping us deal with life, pretty much. Mom taught, dad advised, basically? Mom's wife was only around some of the time, she had major wanderlust, but every time she swung by she'd have some new story - she's the one who got me into adventuring. I also have a bevy of aunts and uncles and other assorted relatives, though not many cousins.

"Most of my siblings are little shits, we tease each other a lot, though there's personality variations, too. I was close to Runla growing up, she's just barely older enough that it mattered to children so she'd lord it over me. Also one of my brothers was a big storyteller, but otherwise a quiet sort, and I liked to hang out with him when things got overwhelming."

“Awww,” he says. “I have six- had six siblings, wow I didn’t think that sentence through- though I only really knew two... Um. Rabaprom hatched six years after me, and Shawadhga six years after- a cyan with an isonade and a violet with an abaia, respectively. Raba was always getting into all sorts of mischief, and Shawa was always so adorably appalled by it- she fit the abaia stereotype to a tee, see, always reading, always solemn, always lurking in a dark corner somewhere, and then Raba had all the typical disrespect for the law and none of the malice-“

His voice drops, a touch, in enthusiasm.

”They, um, died. Permanently. Because of... the thing that I don’t like talking about, which made me a sorcerer and not just a unicorn mage. Alongside our twelve parents, though I wasn’t really close to any of them- ‘mother’ and ‘father’ translate a little strangely, people mostly have children in twelve-person groups, one of each gender? Um. You do deserve to know, if we’re dating- the quick summary is that this one... organization kidnapped me, when I was about fifteen, and... used me for the thing that you use royal unicorn mages for. And I escaped. And they followed through on certain threats. And kept right on chasing me, until the portal leading to this solar system closed.”

A pause occurs, interrupted only by a twig snapping underfoot.

“That’s, um, why I ended up with a roc and a sanzitania. Rocs are granted by the Dessicated Hunter, to predator and prey, and sanzitanias are granted by the Bumbling Astronomer, to people who make horrible, horrible mistakes.”

"Ouch. That sort of thing always sucks. Especially when you're young and family's involved. I don't mind external threats, I don't know how my power level measures up here but it's enough I have few genuine challengers in our worlds. In my world, most people are one of two main genders, and have kids in two-person groups. The wolves usually only have one breeding pair, but can be dating others."

He nods.

”Thank you. I picked up on the ‘two main genders’ thing, and the ‘mostly have children in two person groups’ bits. I’m- theoretically the most powerful person around, here? Only royal sorcerer in business, and all that. But I’m going to lose a fight with just about anyone, just because I’m really unwilling to hurt people or seriously restrict their movement or anything, and my only teleportation option is dreadfully murderous unless I can enhance it with thaumaturgy. And then I’m not particularly willing to be the sacrificer, rather than the sacrifice...”

Sigh.

”Um, my apologies about being so depressing, I promise that it’s just that one particular topic that makes me act like an unfortunately gloomy sea cucumber, I still really enjoy your company and everything. What sort of thing can you do, power-level wise? Aside from ‘have a smile that could make onrushing armies stand aside and find themselves all aflutter with the internal butterflies’, of course, I already know that bit from personal experience.”

"Awww. It's cool. And, hm, my abilities are hard to sum up? I can turn into animals, plants, and elementals of various sizes... My nature bond is the wolf domain, though that probably doesn't mean much to you - I can control plants, summon animals, double Runla's size and some other fun buffs, that's always hilarious, I can reincarnate people but only if they've been dead less than a year - that works even when most resurrection spells would fail, I can turn metal into wood which is neat to do to people's weapons, and various elemental attacks including giant balls of fire. There's more, but we'd be here hours detailing every little thing I can do."

“Ooh!” he says, returning to that ‘adoring staring’ hobby of his. “Shapeshifting isn’t impossible with regular thaumaturgy, but if you’re turning into anything that isn’t usually a person you need to sustain the effect, and that gets mana-expensive quickly- thaumaturgy can’t make actively magical effects stick to people, although familiar specific powers can. Shen mages can shapeshift into animals and plants, and dragon mages can turn into other people, and amarok mages can do something a bit like turning into an elemental, but it’d take a pretty niche sorcerer to have all three.”

"I have an innate ability to turn into any purely-physical thing-with-a-brain that's the same mass as me, but yeah druidic powers allow going outside that. Limited hours per day, though I'm almost to the point where it's 'because I will eventually need to sleep,' and if I manage highest power levels I could turn into a new thing every six seconds for eternity. Though that'd probably get disorienting."

“Probably!” Kadlawen agrees. 

Walk, walk, brief companionable silence, walk, walk.

"Your magic's neat, too - I'm not really clear on what the familiars do? Or, like, what magic's associated with yours."

He is not even slightly qualified to teach this, but he can most certainly pretend for that smile- or, for that matter, that person, the smile in particular is getting less important over time-

“Um. Well, familiars come in thirty-six kinds, and five tiers of ability? Lesser, common, greater, noble, and royal, each of which is around a hundred times less common than the previous one? And then you refer to a mage by their familiar tier and kind- Sasha, say, is a royal amarok mage- and then you refer to a sorcerer by their three familiars’ tier, and their gender, so I’m a royal red sorcerer.

Familiars grant blessings- or powers, or abilities, there isn’t really a formally correct term- depending on their tier. Lesser familiars grant one of their five associated lesser blessings- like, lesser zlatorog mages can pass through paper, or cure minor mental illness with their blood, or break really simple locks, or recover more rapidly from unconsciousness, or never lose their keys, they’re normally small things like that. Then common familiars grant two lesser blessings, and one of four possible common blessings, and greater familiars grant three lesser blessings, two common blessings, and one of three possible greater blessings, and so on? Until royal zlatorog mages have the royal zlatorog blessing and every other zlatorog-associated blessing there is? And royal zlatorogs themselves also have those abilities, but they’re, you know, mostly just weird semi-intelligent antelopes, it doesn’t come up much. If that makes sense?

... you, um, probably don’t want me to list out everything I can do, but unicorn powers are mostly themed around mental defense and spiritual purification and physical healing, and then sanzitania powers are mostly themed around plant control and good fortune and making other people have good fortune, and then roc powers are mostly themed around wind control and physical skillfullness and travel-via-wind?”

"Huh!" And he'll explain the common power divisions - wizards (very broad arcane magic; he knows the schools but not many examples within them), druids like himself (basically 'nature control'), clerics and oracles (healing, buffs, and... Other stuff?), paladins kinda have the same spells as clerics, bards (magic music), war mages, and he knows there's other less common ones - he can give a few examples from his homeworld, but not many from others. He thinks Veshiri has techno-mages? 

Eeee he’s so great at explaining things- and everything that he’s elucidating on is genuinely really fascinating-

Kadlawen enthusiastically nods and “mm-hm’s at appropriate times, replies with a few clarifying questions, further miscellaneous and minor conversation ensues- and then they’re at the summit (it being a relatively small mountain), surrounded by predictably beautiful bluebells, and a still-seemingly-setting sun.

Also at the summit, evidently, is a dragon. 

“I come for the one known as Ateshai,” rumbles the dragon, ruffling blue-feathered wings, “who has caught the knight of knight’s own eye, and so as writ upon the seven fates, and upon the lonely stone of dates, I come now to familiarize.”

"Uh. What does that all mean?" he asks, half to Kadlawen, voice creeping up mildly in pitch.

Kadlawen blinks, and takes a few steps back.

”Um- it’s a dragon? And it’s... your familiar now, I suppose? Um. I guess one of Kelsiran’s strange esoteric theories actually turned out to be correct for once, how surprising- um, magical creatures aren’t sapient or anything, but they come knowing packaged phrases, it probably can’t understand most questions, and if I were to try and translate that one into plain wecheyum I’d put it as ‘hello, I’m your familiar now, I was sent by the the Nebula Knight, blah blah blah predestination blah blah blah purple prose.”

"...Alright," he says, then to the dragon, "Hello. Do you have a name?"

“No,” intones the dragon.

"Do you want one?"

The dragon- with dark horns, aforementioned blue-feathered wings, eyes as pale and luminous as stars, an air of majesty, and scales seemingly carved from faintly glowing lapis lazuli- stares at him blankly. 

"Do you mind Iyurei? It means 'blue.'" ...He's terrible at names.

“No,” repeats the dragon, in precisely the same tone and intonation that it used previously. 

It adopts a ponderous expression- to the extent that a winged reptile can have one- and then proceeds to take several graceful steps forward, lowering its head in the process. The dragon- Iyurei, now- stares at him soulfully, aforementioned wheelbarrow-sized head only a few feet away. 

Dragons, evidently, are very enthusiastic when licking people.

"Awwww!" Enthusiastic licks are best licks!

Runla sort of glances at the sky. "Do I get a familiar?" she half-whines.

“Awwwww!” Kadlawen agrees, coming back from where he’d temporarily made a ‘tactical’ retreat.

And single, skeletal claw pops out of the ground, with a skeletal frog- including non-pictured skull pauldrons, glowing red eyes, and a generally necromantic aesthetic- coming not far behind; the gods do have their own senses of dramatic timing.

”Runla,” it croaks. “Runla the fateful. Runla the joyous, and Runla, unhateful. Runla whose spirit blares hotter than brands, Runla whose unforetold bliss tis swiftly at hand. Runla the vengeful. Runla the kind. Runla whose desires may bite, in due time. Runla. We know answers in time, Runla. And the meanwhile’s sublime. Ruuuunnnlllllaaaaaaaaaa....”

"Eeee! You're awesome, I'm calling you Bones," she says, not quite prancing. "What're you?"

“I am a gashadokuro,” it croaks in reply, that being one of the phrases that came pre-installed.

"What's a gashadokuro do?"

Bones stares at her, ominously. 

“Oh, goodness, who’s a dreadfully adorable frog? You are, yes you are!” he coos, patting the frog delicately on its skull-plate. “And, um, gashadokuros mostly have and grant powers revolving around controlling the undead, raising the undead, and negative energy? If you leave him alone for too long he’ll start summoning skeletons to fetch the cookie jar and killing your house plants, that sort of thing? And you, too, will be capable of summoning skeletons so as to fetch cookie jars.”

"That is a very reasonable use for skeletons!" Then, to Ateshai: "See, I totally don't need opposable thumbs ever," in the tone of someone who has just won a long-standing argument.

Eyeroll.

Iyerei notices that he’s paying attention to something other than- her? him? it? them?- and corrects this with a light headbut, followed by further licking!

While Bones, by some similar instance of unrefined reason, jumps gracefully onto Runla, lets out a drawn-out croak, and contentedly commences clinging to her back. He- to settle on a pronoun- is surprisingly light.

Delighted running amok commences.

After a bit of playing around, while Kadlawen is focused on something else, Ateshai notices Runla trying to get his attention.

She is not being incredibly subtle.

He raises an eyebrow at her.

"You suck," she hisses. "Just, in general, but also at dating, like, wow, you're painfully horrible at this - "

"Do you have a point?" he hisses back. He's aware he's bad at this! His vague flailing attempts at dating have historically ended pretty quickly!

"Tell him you like him, moron," she whispers, then nudges him in the back - and harder.

He tries and fails to kick her, then sort of sidles up to Kadlawen.

"So. Uh. You're really great and I like you a lot?" he almost squeaks.

Kadlawen’s mostly spent the involved intermediate time slowly transitioning from the state of ‘smiling brightly’ to ‘smiling somewhat forcedly’ to ‘looking moderately droopy and unhappy’.

“Um- gosh, um, thank you! I- admit that I was sort of uncertain, on that point. Um.

I know your culture is different and everything, and I really don’t want to pressure you or anything, but I- also really like you? And refraining from so much as kissing you has taken a lot of restraint? And I’m already defying an honestly supererogatory amount of cultural brickabrack by doing even this much pursuing and arranging and initating, and- if you wanted to kiss or hold hands or do anything non-platonic I’d be very enthusiastic-“

"I'd love to hold hands and we can kiss! I am interested, just exceptionally bad at romancing people, it's probably better to be forward, I don't cave to pressure really, worst thing that'll happen is I'll turn into a red blushy pile and Runla will laugh at us. Like literally the only time I kissed someone on my initiative it wasn't even my initiative, Runla tripped me. I can definitely try to be more forward, though, that's just - something I'll have to work on, and you might have to occasionally tolerate Runla telling me I'm an idiot and shoving us into each other."

Runla has a paw over her face.

You know what? Why not.

Kadlawen gracefully turns, encircles his arms around Ateshai’s midsection, leans upward a bit,

and

kisses

him.

He is, as it transpires, a quite literally inhumanly excellent kisser- the kiss manages to avoid awkwardness entirely, instead achieving a level of effortless passion and precision that would make Olympic ballerinas emerald green with envy. The ‘physical skill’ bit he’d mentioned amongst his familiar blessings presumably applies. 

(He also- as would be moderately less relevant for people with ordinary senses, but is likely to be fairly significant for a Shifter- smells really, really good.)

Ateshai is an incredibly bad kisser! But enthusiastic, at least.

Kadlawen can totally make up for nearly arbitrary incompetence on the part of people he’s kissing! He’s very convenient, that way. 

Eee! Eee! Eee! More inarticulate nonverbal squealing! Ateshai is great and everything is great and he really should’ve done this sooner!

...Ateshai has no idea where to put his hands! This might be a problem!

Kadlawen is tragically unaware of this internal conflict! He’s just going to keep moving his hands around in precise little dances and circles around Ateshai’s back, inducing a substantial degree of melty, pleasant, and vaguely erotic shivering! 

Even without external prompting, however, Ateshai can presumably still anticipate that the answer would be ‘wherever you’d like’.

Yeah his hands are sort of going to just flutter indecisively, how does he do this kissing thing ahhhhhhh.

(It's a good ahhhhhhhhhh, but also: ahhhhhhhhhhhh).

- Kadlawen eventually notices this.

And, since, he is so done with being restrained, he gently grabs one of Ateshai’s wrists, and fluidly places the associated hand on his derrière.

Then he'll be treated to what Ateshai looks like when he turns into a blushy goo person! (Not literally, but there is a significant amount of blushing going on).

Ateshai is way too busy being kissed by the magically-assisted best kisser on the planet to be a blushy goo person. Perhaps additional kissing will ameliorate this issue.

Nooooo he's pretty stubbornly a blushy goo person. Additional kissing in fact seems to make the blushy goo condition worsen!

Oh no! How terrible! This complication ought to be solved by the application of... additional kissing!

They should probably come up for air eventually, but it needn’t be particularly soon, if Kadlawen has any say in the matter. 

Ateshai has fairly optimized lungs, and can indeed kiss for a very long time! He even gets slightly less gooey with practice and exposure!

Kadlawen doesn’t have optimized lungs per se, but he’s much less bothered by suffocation than the average person! 

They do still need to eventually detach, although Kadlawen sees no reason at all to stop doing that dance-massage thing with his hands, or to keep Ateshai’s hand from remaining precisely where it is.

”You are utterly and astonishingly amazing,” he says, breathily. 

Eeeeeeee! The return of the blush!

"You are too!"

Eee! Kadlawen is also blushing! 

This seems like an opportune moment to glance over at Runla.

"I am shocked you're putting up with my idiot of a brother," she informs him. She's fulfilling her duty as a chaperon by keeping a thorough if lazy eye on them.

“I’m shocked that your gorgeous, talented, kind, intelligent, motivated, and generally wonderful brother is putting up with me,” he replies.

Oh wow looks like that blush can intensify even more! (Runla snorts).

Gosh. He’s never really been the blush-er, rather than the blush-ee, this is kind of neat. His left hand drifts away from Ateshai’s back, and starts delicately tracing out the contours of his chest and abdomen.

They can probably maintain a bit of comfortable, moderately snuggly silence for a bit, and then: further kissing? Possibly involving additional tongue? 

Further kissing and tongue is a go!

Eeee! Kadlawen’s certainly been kissed before, but he’s never really kissed someone- it’s an interesting line to dawdle on the other side of, he certainly wouldn’t want to do it all the time, but it’s- nice? And it’s Ateshai, who is intensely attractive and generally great and! actually! likes him!, which makes up for quite a bit of oddity. And if this level of physical intimacy is rendered strange by a cultural barrier, he has genuinely no idea what any eventual sex might be like- the info sheet hadn’t mentioned whether Shifters even had roles, but it’s becoming kind of clear that they don’t have them in quite the same way, if so-

He decides to stop thinking about anything other than exclamation! points! and the fascinatingly innumerable number of ways through which he can continue being intensely pleasant to kiss, and succeeds. 

Ateshai does eventually need to breathe, even with thoroughly optimized lungs.

(He's slowly getting less hesitant with his hands, at least, and once he figures out "hands are a thing" he's slowly showing a dominant side).

Kadlawen is demonstratively enthusiastic about hand-based expressions of dominance! There are moderately indecent noises involved! That sort of thing is so much more in his comfort zone! And it’s also really attractive! Eee! 

He beams when they finally break off, looking just about as thoroughly delighted as Ateshai’s seen him.

... and, since he’s already made a habit of this whole ‘glancing at other things while temporarily not kissing’ thing, he has to admit that he’s pretty curious as to whether Ateshai’s enthusiasm is, well, visible.

Sort of? Maybe? (There wasn't enough adrenaline for Ateshai to get into it this quickly without his body having concretely learned what kisses lead to, but he's definitely registered the kisses as a Good Thing).

Kadlawen supposes that isn’t terribly surprising. He’s just going to continue being an attractive alien with magical sex powers and see what happens.

Shall they re-kiss? With moderately increased physical closeness, this time around? 

While Ateshai has no problem with that, Runla will eventually loudly clear her throat and declare, "Do I need to get a bucket?"

(‘Bucket’, lacking relevant connotations in Wecheyum, is instead translated as ‘kedheipedjui’- a box of ice water. This oddly specific connotation derived from an old fable in which a rose, overcome by the overexuberance of her young lover, imprisons him within a ‘kedheipedjui’ for thirty-six days and thirty-six nights. Each day, he prays to another deity, before at last reaching Our Lady of Silence, the Marble Midwife. She- or so the story goes- promptly sets him free, transforms his former paramour into a pillar of salt, and renders him forever cold, apathetic, and mute, so as to prevent him from once again returning to his prior predicament. This is widely considered to have been a slight overreaction.)

Kadlawen reluctantly disentangles from Ateshai, and smiles at Runla.

”Oh, goodness, um- my apologies!” he chirps. 

"You two are worse than cats in heat."

Ateshai is both blushing and making a very valiant attempt to sink into the ground.

“I suspect that my standards for such are a touch different than your own, which isn’t dreadfully surprising- by this time on my second date with Lalvien we’d already had sex four times and we had to communicate entirely via telepathy. I feel positively chaste.”

"That is very atypical for most Federation cultures, though I could name a few exceptions. Ours is on the liberal side of things, but I would generally expect you two to know each other a bit longer first."

“Oh?”

(He’s opts to hold Ateshai’s hand and rub soothing circles in it. Eee! He can do that now without feeling pushy!)

"It varies, some idiot teenagers roll into the bushes together within seconds of meeting. But the cultural expectation is six or more dates, and the compromise is usually four dates, and my brother is an easily embarrassed prude so he might invent a spell that lets him sink into the ground if you bring it up."

(Indeed, that seems to be what Ateshai is currently trying to do.)

Iyurei notices this- having otherwise stood by placidly as assorted events proceeded- and, leaning in his direction, gently boops his forehead with a reptilian nose.

Awwww best dragon.

Ateshai is still very blushy but at least Iyurei is something to distract himself with.

Meanwhile, over with Isekura, a pheonix blazes into existence.

”Our Lady of the Burning Note hath of your presence wised,” it/he/she/they sings, in an androgynous contralto. “And in accordance with this truth, her blessing‘s now applied- applied to Isekura, yes, who comes from heavens high.”

Isekura, who has been interfacing with the planet's biologists and medical people, blinks in shock.

The phoenix, being a bird and corrrspondingly unfamiliar with human facial expressions, doesn’t immediately respond to this. After a pause, she- settling on the pronoun most traditionally used for phoenixes- looks at Isekura quizzically, cocking her head exaggeratedly to the side.

"So, ah, who are you - are you a familiar?"

“Yes,” intones the pheonix.

"I hadn't been aware non-natives could acquire familiars, though I suppose it does suggest that the selection criteria align more with sapience than species... What abilities do you offer?"

The pheonix stares at her blankly.

She glances over to one of the medical people.

"What do phoenixes. Do?"

The medical people, while helpful, are somewhat primitive in terms of practical knowledge; they have a great deal of theoretical knowhow, but practical matters are, it seems, generally tended to with thaumaturgy or a helpful unicorn mage. The differences between Ruwien kerewutu and more standard genetic materials have nevertheless been a matter of much fascination, and discussion.

”Uh, they, like, do stuff with resurrections and energy immunity and intangibility and stuff?” says one helpful, rose-colored intern. “I have a cousin with one- he, like, helps out whenever my plants die. I can look up a chart, if you want? And it should reply back if you ask it what tier it is, it looks like a noble to me, which, like, wow.”

”I don’t know,” says one of the more distinguished roses in the room, thoughtfully. “I’d call it more of a greater pheonix, myself- which is still rather impressive, of course.”

“I wonder if it’s a royal?” wonders one of the biologists. “I think that it’s usually royal phoenixes who have that sort of crest...”

"What sort of phoenix are you?" she asks, obligingly.

“Noble,” sings the pheonix sagely. 

“Uh- noble phoenixes can grant the ability to go properly, fully intangible, without that resulting in an inability to channel mana like it does when you go intangible using thaumaturgy, or the ability to self-resurrect at arbitrary locations at will, with a one day delay,” rattles off the biologist, having once memorized a relevant chart. “And then for their greater blessings, they grant the ability to become immune to any one of the four elements at will, the ability to make other people intangible with a touch, and the ability to resurrect someone who’s died within the last few minutes, once a week? And then you would get two of those? And then there are a bunch of other ones...? It’ll probably respond with a ‘yes/no’ if you ask if it grants specific powers, you should probably do that.”

Alright, she'll start running down the list for phoenix powers, then.

This pheonix, as revealed when comprehensively quizzed, grants:

~ Self resurrection.

~ The resurrection of the recent dead, once a week- without the corresponding penalties associated with clerical ressurection.

~ The granting of intangibility to others, with a touch.

~ The ability to turn a single limb of choice ethereal, at will.

~ Immunity to relatively mild acid.

~ The ability to resurrect recently deceased plants and invertebrates at will.

And, for the lesser powers:

~ A slight increase in the rate of one’s renewal of fatigue, the capacity to the ability to interact with precious gemstones as if they were vaporous, an expansion of one’s comfortable temperature range by about thirty degrees in both directions, and, somewhat incongruously, perfect pitch.

"Interesting. Thank you. Do you have a name?"

The phoenix doesn’t bother dignifying this with a ‘no’, or possibly doesn’t understand it; she continues looking at Isekura blankly.

"I'll think on appropriate names, then," she says. Then to the helpful biologist, "Is there anything formal I should do now that I have a familiar? Well, in your culture, I'll need to report this to my captain, of course."

“I mean, people here never get familiars unless they’re a few days old, or a sorcerer?” shrugs the helpful- chartreuse- biologist. “I guess our universe thinks that you’re a few days old, since you’ve only been here for a little while? You probably don’t want to throw a celebratory theme party with balloons and elaborate courses centered around the involved god’s associated foodstuff, there would be an unholy amount of red pepper.”

"Yeah, that doesn't really seem my style. Thanks for the information, though - and I really should report this right away."

Assorted medical and biological personnel agreeably wish her well. 

She thanks them for their time, and goes to find somewhere quieter.

"Captain," she says, once the call's through. "It seems non-natives can acquire familiars, too."

"I noticed," she says, from her position of 'losing a staring contest with one.'

The pomola that attatched itself to her is, indeed, rather good at staring: having eyes seemingly carved from flawless ice, and no obvious eyelids, helps.

"Any information on - I believe this is a pomola, given the earlier summary. Elk-headed eagles?"

Isekura will relay the question to someone who might know.

Sira, being rather excited about the research implications of adults acquiring familiars, has been excitedly flitting around: she eventually does so in Isekura’s direction, carrying a frankly enormous number of papers and binders and folders.

“Hello, dear!” she says. “Pomolas themselves have powers over ice and sound, mostly rather broad in scale, have horns which are really dreadful to be on the other end of, and command a certain level of personal space; their owners may perform comparable feats, although typically with swords in lieu of horns. Normally leadership types, sort of personally chilly, that sort of thing. Really, you can just look up a chart or something- and in any event would you nevertheless fill out this survey of immense scientific, thaumaturgical, and theological importance? I’ll need to pester Kadlawen into popping up to that ship of your’s and getting people there to fill it out, but- anyways- here you go!”

She rather flings a packet- labelled ‘A Survey on the Personalities and Histories of Those Subject to Adult Onset Familiar Acquisition” into Isekura’s arms, and then jumps into a nearby corner of the room.

“- ta-ta!” she says, gleefully knocking sharply on a nearby bookshelf. “Places to go and things to see, you know the drill.”

A trapdoor opens, in response to the knocking, underneath her feet; she falls down it, half-cackling. 

...She'll relay that information then, look up a chart, relay the chart, and then set to filling the packet out.

It is, unsurprisingly, a survey.

Rakaskem, meanwhile- and in a place entirely separate from the palace, lit by wall sconses and decorated by an architect who thought that beige was overbearing- is pacing. There’s a chalkboard, on the wall, with six words scrawled on it; his handwriting is large, and messy, and not particularly indicative of mental health. It says the following:

How Do We Destroy The System?

Rakaskem is, naturally enough, contemplating that question.

He’s made inroads; setting up a system where people within his polity could set up their own systems of governance, and implement them, wasn’t nothing. The Ruwien people have been ruled over by royal mages for millennia, on countless worlds, and the proclivities of those royals have been unchecked. To the average person, the idea of any other system of rule- of royal mages refraining from dominating everything in sight, of noble mages being mere citizens instead of leaders- is preposterous. Insane. Foolish.

Rakaskem might- he admitted to himself without reservation- be insane. Might be foolish. But he is not content to let Sira prance around as queen of a kingdom she did nothing to deserve and does little to help. He isn’t content to let Sasha routinely torture and rape the innocent and innocuous, or allow Bradaton to casually execute anyone who annoyed him, or let Arizvam anxiously mismanage everything from education to immigration, or let Lalvien casually waste uncounted resources on whatever had recently enthralled him. He isn’t content to let all of them enforce ridiculously restrictive gender-by-gender laws, restricting roses to medicine and chartrueses to academia, and- and browns to food preparation and service- Lalvien had made some efforts to be less restrictive, some efforts to be progressive, but not enough-

His inoffensive guise and high position have been assets. Kadlawen has been an asset, on occasion, without knowing it. His contacts have been assets, taking actions that he couldn’t do personally or delegate to the unknowing.

He had managed to create his ‘kingdom’- managed to lastingly assassinate a few particularly conservative nobles, managed to pull and prod and poke the world into being a slightly better place- using those assets.

They haven’t been enough.

If he can convince the interdimensional visitors that he’s in the right- well. It could be enough to get rid of the whole shebang, enough to move up his timetable by centuries...

He paces.

He makes a plan.

He scries, for a little while.

He makes a call.

”Call Sira,” he says, to a bamboo rod.

“-yes, Raka, whatever is it?” Kelsiran says, sounding mildly surprised and pleasantly surprised.

Okay, slip into ‘laidback, ordinary-ish teenager who definitely doesn’t operate a shadowy conspiracy trying to destroy life as we know it’ mode-

“I got the memo about all the aliens getting familiars and figured that you’d be all over it. Want to get Kadlawen to teleport us up to the weird alien ship so you can do whatever it is you’re doing more effectively?”

“Honestly, Rakaskem, have you ever managed a single moment of being considerate in your entire life- did you even hear Kadlawen squealing about his intended date today on that little group communique, or are you deaf, in addition to being oblivious-“

“If I wasn’t deaf before, I would be, after that ‘communique”. I know about the date. I think that this is important enough to interrupt.”

“Fine. But Raka, dear, if Kadlawen happens to complain to Sasha or Brada, later, this was entirely your idea and you get to be the one hit repeatedly in the face.”

“Sure. Go to the palace clearing or an equivalent, we’ll be by shortly.”

He hangs up. He calls Kadlawen.

Who is merrily holding hands with the best person in the world, having eventually resumed hiking through gorgeous foliage and lovely flowers and so on and so forth.

”- um, hello?” he says, flicking a bamboo rod out of (seemingly) nowhere with his- unoccupied with handholding- left hand, and giving it a slight twirl.

“Hey. Sorry to interrupt. Sira and I wanted to head up to the alien’s space ship, look around, do various familiar-base science. Are you willing to give us a lift?”

”Um! ... Um. Um?”

He looks at Ateshai, with the unspoken body-language version of ‘I adore you and will do whatever you want’ being even more apparent than it always is when he looks at Ateshai.

"I'm fine with that, assuming the captain is."

“Could you go ahead and ask them, then,” pipes up Rakaskem’s voice from the bamboo rod, “or should we?”

"Sure." And he calls the captain, quickly securing permission for the group to teleport in. Only so many people, and there's a specialized receiving bay for teleportation - the rest of the ship is shielded against teleports, though it'll be interesting seeing if that interacts with the local magic at all.

“Thank you. Kadlawen, you can pick me up in the clearing by my headquarters, pick up Sira at the palace, and then we can head on up.”

And so Kadlawen floats up high enough that the tornado resulting from teleportation won’t hurt local wildlife- alongside Atehsai and Runla and their familiars, provided they care to come along- and pops on over to collect Sira, and pops on over to collect Rakaskem, and pop-pop-pop-pops up into space, finally entering the ship itself via an exquisitely small tornado. They don’t need any particular protection from the vacuum; roc-based whirlwinds produce air, rather than moving it.

“Hello!” he beams at whoever happens to be near the designated teleportation area. 

(These people are Ateshai’s friends and coworkers, he is not going to make a bad impression, he refuses to make a bad impression-)

“Hey,” says Rakaskem, scanning for someone who looks reasonably important. 

“Salutations!” chirps Sira, completing a trifecta of variously formal greetings and waving around an obscene number of surveys. “Would anyone perhaps like to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge, possibly in exchange for outrageous mystical bribes?”

"Hello. I'll have a look at those forms, then see them distributed among my crew to those with the spare time, in the interest of scientific exchange. My crew do not accept compensation from outside entities."

She makes a dismissive gesture.

”If you’d rather save me the mana, dear, I’m hardly one to complain- here.”

The surveys swoosh out of her hands, each individual packet going in a slightly different direction; they take on a formation much akin to a flock of birds, swirl in one smooth spiral, and land, one plip after another, on a suddenly extant invisible platform, right in front of Tanna. 

(She doesn’t often use her telekinesis, but when she does, she makes a point of using it with characteristic flair.)

(Rakaskem rolls his eyes.)

Kadlawen- who is casually holding hands with Ateshai, because why would he do something other than that- smiles at the- captain? They’re probably the captain, unless ‘my crew’ is translating oddly. He really wants to make a good impression-

”Um, that aside- thank you so much for letting us aboard! You have lovely taste in decor- it’s all wonderfully utilitarian, I’m unaccustomed to the style but it has its distinct virtues- and I just adore the outside, too, I only caught a glimpse but the design’s completely unlike our own astro-nautical styles. Would it be okay if we looked around a bit, while we’re up here...?”

“And could I speak to you in private, plus or minus a few optional bodyguards?” says Rakaskem, looking at Tanna.

There's only four other people present other than Tanna, of the fifteen on the ship (well, seventeen now, with Ateshai and Runla having returned): Aleshen, their Alean god - currently dark-skinned, male, eight feet tall (or a foot taller than the next taller person), with features inhumanly beautiful and symmetrical; Ridabet, a short gnomish woman with reddish hair, sharp eyes, and pale human-toned skin; Sureyai, a male humanoid fox (not that his gender's obvious, looking at him) with soft yellow fur and two curling tails; and Nyall, a muscular cat-woman with speckled fur in browns and golds, taller than anyone else on her side except Aleshen. Their clothing varies around a theme, common colors and simple geometric patterns denoting their uniform, altering with each culture and species.

She inclines her head, and Sureyai picks up the packet, stowing it in an interior pocket of the broad sash about his waist. It makes no noticeable bulge.

"He will see to distribution. As for exploring, you'll be provided with an escort, of course, but looking around is acceptable. You seem familiar with Ateshai and Runla already; would you all accept them, plus Nyall here?" she asks, gesturing to the woman. "And a meeting is acceptable. I will have two of my crew accompany me. There's a reception room off this bay, if the matter's urgent?"

“Ateshai is an extraordinary person, and while I’m not as familiar with him as I might like, I am familiar enough with him to give him magical presents and compose sappy love poetry and have snuggly makeout sessions, and familiar enough with Runla to know that she has more vivacity than ten ordinary people, and familiar enough with Nyall to know that they have an excellent sense of yetyelpü-style fashion. Those escorts would be fine.”

“... and it is, in fact, fairly urgent,” adds Rakaskem.

She nods. "Well, I'll leave the rest of you to your tour, then. Aleshen, Ridabet, with me. The reception room is through here." She strides over to a section of wall, touches it, and it flashes and then opens into a rather cozy lounge-type area.

"I'll get these distributed, then," Sureyai says, inclining his head and strolling through another door. (He intends to check them rather thoroughly for potential hazards, first, and to caution the crew against revealing any information that could easily be used against them, potentially including removing specific questions, but otherwise doesn't see much harm in scientific collaboration.)

"Hello. I'm Nyall, originally from the planet Dwamla. What sorts of areas would you be interested in seeing first?" she asks whoever stays behind. She's moderately off-put by being assigned to tour guide duty, but she understands the logic - the Captain is immensely unlikely to need a guard past Aleshen, and between her, Runla, and Ateshai they can handle most threats that might pop up - towards or from their guests.

She's also friendlier than most. (Small crew deep space exploratory vessels do not usually draw many charismatic types.)

Rakaskem eyes the lounge area, selects a cozy looking seat, and- as might have been predicted in advance- sits on it. He waits, until the entrance is closed, to speak.

“So,” he says.

I have information that you’re likely to want. One of my companions- the fuschia one- can read minds: she doesn’t, ordinarily, but she does do occasional, surface-level intention-scans. The information that I’m inclined to give you might make you trigger an intention-scan. That would be bad. Do I have permission to ward the three of you against surface-level mental intrusion, so that I can safely give you information, or do you already have presumably sufficient defenses?”

(The above-mentioned mind reader, meanwhile, proclaims a desire to see the crew’s living quarters; Kadlawen has no objections. The tour proceeds unremarkably.)

"My rank is sufficient for state-of-the-art warding under our native system, but I don't know how it would interact with your magic. I'm hesitant to accept a ward from a magic system I don't know, starting with the risk of unwanted interactions."

"I can apply wards that work on a more conceptual level, Captain."

She inclines her head. "I'm comfortable with my wards, then," she says to Rakaskem.

“Fine, then,” he says.

“I’ve been working to overthrow the stupid, cancerous thing that we call a governmental system since I knew what it was. Did the concept of ‘teenage dictators, so entitled because of earthshaking magical power’ strike you as a horrible idea, when you first heard about it? It is one. One of my compatriots, Sashadon, throws weekly orgies, with mandatory viewing for adults. During the most recent one, he gouged someone’s eyes out, burned no less than three people alive, kept one person breathing while 57 needles pierced their chest, doused someone in acid, and broke thirty-seven people’s bones, alongside other miscellaneous atrocities. Participants were mostly there of their own free will, in return for varied bribery, but didn’t have anything resembling a safeword.

Sashadon rules over seventy million people.

Our criminal justice systems are made out of a duct tape, cardboard, and alternation between ‘rape is a minor fine’ and ‘annoying a noble mage is an execution offense’. Our education systems are made of plywood. There are gender-based restrictions on profession; browns to food service, blues to art and media, roses to medicine.

I’ve managed to make some peaceful progress, in my own region- managed to only have nominal rule, managed to give most of the power to the people- but it isn’t enough, and our people are horribly acculturated. Some of the other royal mages are making tentative efforts towards decency. Lalvien’s liberal. Kadlawen nudges people towards decency- I doubt that Sasha’s pastimes would have even a veneer of consent, if he hadn’t pushed for it. Neither of them would dream of upsetting the status quo.

I want to upset the status quo. I will, eventually. I’m curious about how much you’d be willing to help.”

"We have a policy against that kind of direct interference except for the explicit and sole goal of preserving life on a massive scale in an emergency. This usually means 'volcanic explosion' or 'asteroid impact.' Interfering goes wrong far, far more often than it goes right. The Federation can and does exert political and economic pressure on both member states and potential member states, as well as potential trading partners - there are minimum standards a state must meet before being accepted, and while waivers can be received they're next to impossible. A state that joins the Federation benefits from our defensive pacts, but we don't aid in wars of aggression."

(This is not surprising information. The locals' wards against scrying are pathetic, and Sureyai is very, very good at what he does.)

The wards are wounded, truly- it’s hardly their fault that Ruwien magic is dreadful at both divination and anti-divination, and that nobody thought espionage likely enough to waste more than a few sacrifices strengthening them.

There’s one person on the ship, however, who was willing to spend a ritual sacrifice strengthening a very particular sort of undetectability. And who was, furthermore, perfectly willing to discretely tag along on Kadlawen’s tornado.

She becomes visible, gaudy, skull-themed jewelry and all.

”How fortunate, that this is the case,” she says, to Tanna. “Otherwise I would have to kill you.”

Aleshen glances at her, freezing her in place.

"Fortunate for you, perhaps. Attempted murder would carry a greater charge in the Federation than spying or merely threatening a Captain."

She attempts to roll her eyes, and finds that she can’t. Irritating. Her voice emanates from the corner of the room.

“I would not have appeared, if I saw risk or threat in appearance. Conceit does not become you. And I am on the ground, as well as the sky; there are a thousand nobles who would jump upon my word. Men who I wish die, die.”

Tashalkan- stutters, briefly ceases to exist, disappears- then resumes existing. There’s a (gaudy, skull themed) knife in her hand; she twirls it, absently, having regained mobility.

“Do you wish to measure dicks all day, captain?” she inquires. 

Aleshen tilts his head - 

And the world pauses.

He stands, turns slightly - 

And steps elsewhere.

(It's rude, to bring to bear non-mortal force against another god's charge without permission or strong cause. He doesn't know the local pantheon, and their pantheons have never hashed out what counts as sufficient cause.)

Of course, when you don't know the local rules, it's good to ask.

The place where he arrives, superficially, appears as a vibrantly colored reef- each coral glowing in bright pinks and oranges and reds, small fish flitting this way and that, gore-encrusted skeletons floating delicately on the current, sharks in improbably dense quantities. 

The place where he actually arrives, several conceptual steps above that, isn’t quite as readily describable.

There is a woman, there, violet-skinned- to the extent that you can have skin, in places beyond places. She does not have a name.

She raises a single, mostly-conceptual eyebrow.

”We do not intervene directly in mortal affairs/ We would not have allowed you into our purview, if we objected to you doing as you like/ Note that no power you may bear may remove any of our children from that purview/ I am hardly one to enforce politeness/ Goodbye,” she says, with all five strings communicated simultaneously.

And then he is- rather forcefully- booted from her domain.

It's not obvious what just happened from the mortals' perspective.

Time continues -

And Tashalkan's clones all vanish as pain briefly glances through her. Even mental actions become impossible, except a thin tendril of thought.

He brings the force of his divination abilities to bear, ferreting out dead man's switches and disabling those he directly can.

'You may communicate like this. Only those I permit will hear. Magic cannot be effected along this path. You are under the effects of a zone of truth.'

She seems to have instructed several dozen subordinate noble mages to destroy the ship if they fail to hear from her in the next day, as a routine precaution; three noble mages are under ongoing instruction to try to kill her at range and then resurrect her if they fail to hear from her for a week. Nothing else seems directly arranged; she wasn’t expecting to need to be quite this paranoid.

”... truly, you are too kind,” she says, after a pause. “Note to self: check that otherworlders do not wield unfathomable power before trifling with them. It is normally safe to assume.”

(Rakaskem is just going to be over here, quietly baffled by this rapid turn of events.)

The ship can become harder to destroy, in ways specific to the local magic. Unfortunately, arresting someone for something divination revealed they might do isn't legal.

Monitoring them is, though.

"'The Federation can escalate more than you can' is generally a safe assumption. Now, who are you?"

“Tashalkan, Royal Isonade Mage,” she says. “She who owns ten thousand souls. The Queen of Knives. The Golden Eye. Fools concoct many titles, for those above them. I pay attention to but few.”

“... good for you. And why are you here in the first place?” asks Rakaskem, who is pretending to be much more composed than he actually is.

“I have known you as a petty klasaiko* for years, and overheard your call: however could I not follow? I am watcher, you are watched: it is the natural way of things.”

She would give both Tanna and Rakaskem a disdainful look, but she’s currently incapable of substantial movement. The sentiment is nevertheless communicated.

“I expected no conspiracies of narrow aversion. No summarial scorn of long-held culture. No spontaneous detainment of foreign dignitaries based on ill-communicated policies. Thus I am foolish as a lamb. Do you often discourage spies from revealing themselves, and keep foreign dignitaries from announcing contingent intent, captain, or is this an uncommon display of incompetence?”

[*Untranslatable, roughly equivalent to ‘loathed blight on society’, normally used informally or sarcastically.]

"Spying on us and never getting caught isn't easy. It becomes less so, the more familiar with a magic system we are. We find it better to discourage the attempt entirely. As for intent - killing me for verbally siding against you is illegal. Credibly threatening to commit a crime is also illegal. You did not go through any channels to announce your status as a foreign dignitary. You did not establish yourself diplomatically. Our first contact with you was hostile, by your choice."

At this, Rakaskem looks nonplussed.

 “Uh. Not that I’m not in favor of you hauling away that psychotic bitch and throwing away the key,” he says, in an uncommon display of profanity, “but we do not have ‘credibly threatening to commit a crime’ as a crime. Or a substantial taboo.”

“My many thanks, Rakaskem, for that vital addition,” says Tasha, frostily enough to suit Tanna’s new pomola. “However could I abide the ages and their trials without such earnest support. Yet I find the things that you refrained from saying far more interesting.”

She- attempts to glower, finds herself incapable. Being unable to move, after being accustomed to four sets of hands, four sets of eyes, four faces, four bodies that are hers hers hers- it’s irritating beyond measure.

She takes a moment to compose her thoughts into something useful, in lieu of the indignant nonsensicalities that would otherwise be their natural shape. There are so many things that she could nitpick, in that statement, but one seems like to stand out- if she could just articulate it, ever so, as precise and concise as her tutors encouraged... this abruptly became higher stakes than she predicted, higher stakes than she could have predicted, the sharp sense of actions having consequences tingles like a serpent slithering down her spine...

”You land in a foreign system. They do not share your values, or culture, or species. They do not share your definition of ‘formality’, do not agree on its necessity- do not even speak the same language, in truth. From that system comes a queen: she arrives, takes unnecessary action to render herself conspicuous, and notes that you have narrowly avoided having her as your enemy. You attack, immediately, and then escalate until she is helpless as a hatchling. She announces her status: you explain that she violated laws she did not know of and does not share, that she did not announce herself as you would like.

Do you sense a villain, captain? Or, perhaps, I should borrow Rakaskem’s construction- do you sense a villain, you psychotic bitch?”

(Tanna: not even slightly trained for first contact. She is definitely making a mess of this! Not that it shows on her face or in her voice, of course.)

"The mistake we made was in permitting anyone from your system on our ship. It was an oversight, and in truth we should have remained more at a remove until we understood your magic better, and could easily prevent tag-alongs. We should have also exchanged solid copies of our laws before sending a first contact team, rather than after, and run the risk of keeping to ourselves until distance communication could be established."

"The primary crime in question here was the spying, and threatening me alone would, outside of our culture's context, be let slide with a warning not to do it again. Most species and governments I am familiar with at least operate on the assumption that spies will be denounced by their home government if found out, and that spying is at least nominally a crime. The others don't have concepts of deception such that 'spying' makes sense as an action. The Federation is more proactive than most in hedging out spies, I'll admit, but assuming that it is safe to announce yourself as a spy is not, in fact, something I have encountered."

"There are numerous reasons for us to control who has access to where on this ship. It is part safety concern - for us and you - part informational flow concern, part operational secrecy, and part expectation of privacy. Your protest would be more sensible if your compatriots had not asked permission before teleporting aboard. If you were spying on our operations, you would have noticed that Ateshai asked for my explicit clearance - including for the specific number, and for the specific people, implying that is important. If this was a simply cultural misunderstanding, I'd expect it to be shared by people from your culture."

"And, another: if you were spying on your neighbors, you would have noticed that we sent a copy of our laws, a treatise on our system of government, and an analysis of our culture performed by as balanced a group of species as could be arranged - admittedly as a hard copy, we haven't quite managed format conversions yet for our communication arrays. If you'd had an ounce of impulse control, you would have waited for it to be uploaded before risking poking us."

"A warning for you, perhaps: the Federation is also notably, and exceptionally, lenient against espionage."

“The seven royal mages on hekyeiyelui are drawn from disparate regions on a mother planet with billions and billions of people; only in a loose sense, are we are from a single culture. And I did ‘spy’ enough to know that they did not ask permission first; they were prepared to do no such thing, until, by accident most refined, they contacted this ‘Ateshai’. Pretending to be as one is not is, on occasion, a crime; doing as I do rarely is. And, if we are to speak of sticks and poking, inducement of complete paralysis, when unnecessary for urgent self-defense, is criminal in every country on the planet below us, and on most of those I know of elsewhere. Even for noblility.

First, keep in mind and soul that we still hold command over aging that you do not, unfathomable power or no, and that the other rulers of my planet will know, in time, of what you do here. Then tell me, most dignified and wise and exquisitely lenient of psychotic bitches: what are you going to do?”

"I had no guarantee you would remain, nor that you would refrain from attacking when I failed to react as you wanted. A hold is considered fairly basic, and in common use for deescalating situations by law enforcement, but given that difference, if you give your word you won't try to escape nor attack anyone, I will have the hold released. Your diplomatic position does merit special consideration, assuming I can confirm it. The most likely result will be economic, diplomatic, and informational sanctions against your country, given no repeat incidents. We do not bow to threats, however. Withholding that magic does not matter. Since this seems to need to be said: threatening us does not improve your bargaining position. We have our laws. They can flex, but they will not bend at the whim of gods, let alone petty tyrants."

“To the extent that you trust anything I say, trust that I will not attempt attack, or escape, in ways that would have been prevented by the hold. I would have been less cavalier with threats, aside from the opening one, if you had clarified that your preferred forms of reprisal were national, rather than, say, seven years of this, given that you are as cavalier as you are with it.”

The hold releases.

"That policy is due to a presumption of heads of state acting as the state - the actions of a queen are the actions of her queendom. If customs differ, here, and you are willing to be treated as a private citizen, then all sentencing will be as a private citizen would be sentenced, but you would likely lose the special consideration afforded foreign nations. We do not sentence differently based on caste nor class nor personal power, though."

The knife briefly resumes twirling, and then folds back into pocket space. Tashalkan luxuriates in a renewed ability to move. If she has to go her whole life without ever being quite that helpless again, it’ll be entirely too soon.

“... good for you,” says Tashalkan, deliberately squishing the urge to express non-faux gratitude like the miserable little worm it is. “And you misunderstand. Given how little I would like to interact with you again, I will take the economic, diplomatic, and informational sanctions, thank you kindly.”

“... and then-“ 

“I will not ruin you, nor display that which you prefer obscured. For now. Test not of the limits of my patience, and perhaps you may remain within them, for a time.”

She looks at Tanna.

”How patient must I be?” she inquires. “You mentioned ‘confirmation’, yes?”

"She is as she says."

"There. I will escort you to the teleport bay, and then ask you to leave. And not return, unless new permissions are negotiated."

Well, that certainly didn’t imply a terrifying informational advantage at all-

“For pity and for shame. I was so eager to once again enjoy your gracious and genteel accomodations. Lead the way, unless obscure alien taboo demands I be made deaf and led around by the cartography of cats beforehand,” she says.

She nods to Aleshen, who does so, leaving her and the still silent Ridabet with Rakaskem.

And so she does a brief spell to render herself immune to the perils of vacuum, glowers a bit at Aleshen, does a second spell to increase her duplication range, and produces a duplicate right outside of the station- and then another one, and another one, and so forth. She isn’t in the mood to spend another sacrifice on outright teleportation right now- she doesn’t have another one from Kadlawen stocked, and using too many sacrifices from people of lower station, too quickly, tends to leave people spread a little... thin.

It’s going to take a few hours.  

That is thoroughly unnecessary given the ship's own teleportation capabilities, but if the woman wants to waste her time, whatever, she's already out of verbal range and Tanna doesn't feel like revealing their communicative telepathy.

Tashalkan would presumably produce a concise, biting riposte to this sentiment if it was communicated to her, but, alas, it isn’t.

(And she’s sort of enjoying her unobstructed view of the stars and relative relaxation time, not that she would ever admit that fact.)

Meanwhile, back on the tour, after a substantial conversational pause:

”... On an entirely separate topic, Nyall, darling,” says Sira, attempting to traipse on the tightrope between ‘awkward’ and ‘overbearingly self-assured’. “Would it be excessively invasive in some unfortunate sense if I asked as to what your home planet was like, and, most pertinently, if I asked as to your own circumstance upon it? I admit no small degree of curiosity.”

"Not really invasive, though we apparently have weird privacy intuitions so that might not go for everyone? Hm, biologically, most common differences - our physical sexes exist on a spectrum with three ends, and we don't all look like me, but our phenotypes don't vary thanks to inheritable characteristics, unlike most species. General phenotype is determined by astrological circumstance - I was born when our largest moon Himsu was waxing gibbous, our middle moon Kaeshi was a sliver of a crescent, and our smallest moon Azoko was waning crescent, so I'm mostly towards the sex-point that rounds off to 'female.' The constellation Kanzu was ascendant, so I'm the shape I am, and the planet Rymni was closest to apogee, so I'm furred in a certain pattern, and the wandering star Shianxo was in the first house, so I'm yellow."

"We put a lot of importance on the stars, because they determine - well, everything. We're mostly nocturnal, though a few are more diurnally adapted - that depends on a combination of shape, pattern, and color. We structure our governments a bit different, too, we're predominantly a tribal people. Each person is a member of a tribe, which is rarely more than a hundred people. Each tribe elects a chief, who is a member of a tribe of tribes, which contains a hundred or so tribes. Each such tribe of tribes also elects a representative, who is a member of a geographically defined tribe, which elects a representative, and so on, until you reach the Council of Thirteen Stars, which is the highest tribe, and is the polity we joined under. Almost everything is resolved at the lowest level, and our population density's low enough people can just get up, walk off, and find food elsewhere if they don't like how their tribe's run. Disputes that involve multiple tribes or that otherwise can't be negotiated within each level get referred to higher groups."

"We have an average of about one to two kids per adult when we're not space-stressed, but we get antsy if there's too many people around and stop being able to reproduce, so our population fluctuates a bit around a set point. There's not really problems with fighting over space, though, like some species get? Probably because the amount of space we need to reproduce is higher than the amount we need to feed ourselves, so there's no pressing need to fight."

"Socially, we pretty much have chiefs, story-keepers, and everyone else, so there's no - set position in society. I wanted to be an explorer, so I became one."

"Geographically - hm, unlike this one. There's a variety of terrains, but it's effectively normal for a temperate rocky planet, I can look up the exact classification, there should be a briefing on it somewhere in the mess the scientists were trading..."

What an informative answer. Kelsiran likes this person.

”I must admit that the idea of biological sex not being determined by or at very least correlated with color remains somewhat bizarre to me, and the extent to which other societies lend importance to the stars is intensely interesting- our own asterisk objects are the simple result of a Way leading to another system’s sun, and don’t have substantial cultural significance. The phenomenon is striking in roughly the same sense as if we met a society of aliens in which they placed intense cultural significance on green rocks, and had their gender determined by which kind of green rock was closest, and they summarily ignored every other color. There was, in fact, a geographic briefing. Another briefing also included the word ‘constellation’, which translates oddly, as a matter of necessity- we don’t have a similar concept.”

Kadlawen is mostly attentive to this prolonged series of monologues, but occasionally spots Ateshai out of the corner of his eye and ends up distracted by the ever engrossing task of beaming adoringly at him. They are still holding hands. Kadlawen is happy about this turn of circumstance. 

“That sounds like a lovely place to grow up!” he says, once Sira finally takes a breath. “I’m not sure that I’d like it if I decided to live there, or anything, but the whole thing with- minimalistic expectations, and everything, it sounds like a nice culture to be born to. It sounds like the sort of place where you’d have a fair amount of free time- did you have any hobbies?”

"It is! We have a lot of old martial traditions I trained in - most of them are half performance art now - and I loved exploring caves even as a kit. Studied languages and cultures in my free time, too, though I'm no scholar."

“- I am unfortunately reminded of the brief section of scientific exchange related to linguistics that made absolutely no sense and I would like an explanation, as soon as one may feasibly be constructed- words do not form that way-“

And then they can comfortably fill the rest of the tour with Sira pestering Nyall about morphology and etymology and phonology and syntax, and then they’re back where they began.

Tanna, having had a long and rather revealing conversation with Rakaskem in the meantime, arrives just as they do. She nods to her crewmembers, says, "I trust your visit was enlightening."

“It was!” beams Sira. “- Raka, darling, what was that little meeting about, I neglected to ask-“

“Confidential medical information.”

“... oh,” says Sira, in an unusual display of concision. 

Kadlawen: also not going to tactlessly pry.

“Um, I can just sort of decline to mention that part to Sasha or Dato- is there anything else we ought to know about or see before we go?”

"Rakaskem was also very helpful in discussing potential points of cultural divergence, especially as relates to state-craft - it's easier to get these things out of the way face-to-face. I will send you each with a document with the summary of what stood out, but I can also verbally highlight certain factors, and these summaries will be included in future communications with new governments from your species."

"Part of this was highlighted because we found a spy. The Federation publicly disapproves of spies, though obviously that mostly affects public policy, not private actions. We will be tightening our informational security measures, and temporary sanctions will be placed against the spy's place of origin - which was outlined in the legal briefing as our policy."

"Also: in most places, and on a federal level within the Federation, credibly threatening to commit a crime, especially a violent one, especially with the intent of effecting policy, especially towards an official of any level, is in and of itself a crime. This is not often prosecuted, but it's at a minimum rude, and not how we prefer to go about politics."

"We have considered that it might be best to dial back first contact until we have more thoroughly been able to establish communications and what differs. I apologize for any policy irregularities - neither I nor my crew are trained in first contact, and only one crew member has any diplomatic training, which applies poorly here."

“Um. That’s all sort of sudden- which polity was the spy from, what did they do to make ‘credibly threatening to commit a crime so as to influence politics’ relevant- unless that came up separately?- and is there anything on our end that we can do to prevent future incidents?”

Luckily she's been coached telepathically on this by Ridabet, Aleshen, and her better-traveled helmsman, and the initial emotion spike from her surprise has faded. She needs to get better at not letting emotion spikes dictate her words or actions; Aleshen has suggested pulling her out of time when he senses such a spike, so she can calm down on her own, as a stop-gap measure.

"Shezligraia. The spy threatened to kill me if I took a certain action. It wouldn't have worked, but an attempt would have ended messily."

"As an explanation for those laws: in general, the Federation mostly passes laws that are intended to govern behavior between states and species - and species vary a lot in expectations around freedom of movement, freedom of information, and privacy. Species with strong privacy intuitions tend to object more strongly to those being breached than species with strong freedom of information intuitions, and are more common, so Federation law does tend to favor 'innate desire to keep privacy' over 'innate desire to discover secrets.' On a larger level, the Federation itself trends towards keeping certain matters confidential."

"Threats to commit crimes are broadly illegal because many species respond to threats with escalation, and the Federation desires escalation be kept to a minimum, and because prior to the proliferation of divination magic it was hard to tell who making threats had a high probability of following through. It's still hard. The usual example case used to justify the law is someone who threatens to set off a bomb in a crowded public area; stopping that person has a chance of saving lives, which weighs heavily against the chance of acting unnecessarily. Usually threats short of murder are responded to with a warning and perhaps required counseling."

"My species has high expectations of privacy, so I'm not sure on how to reliably communicate 'what is intuitively a private topic or space' to someone without those intuitions, but in general - if you're in a private space, which is generally defined as anywhere with limited or presumed limited entrance, you should make certain people know you're there before conversation begins. If the conversation relates to state concerns, or could be reasonably expected to touch on secrets, it's generally considered spying. A conversation between two leaders is one expected to have the potential to touch on secrets, even if the topics actually discussed are innocuous. Don't open locked doors unless you have permission. If a place has limited entrance, it's usually discouraged to illegal to enter it without permission."

"Places separated from common areas by closed and especially lockable doors are usually private. Entrance areas - like this teleport bay - are common areas, but this particular bay is a common subset of a private area. Don't come on the ship without permission, don't come on the ship without letting me know you're there, and don't wander around the ship when I can't tell where you are, should cover general policy. Individual crew members can discuss relative privacy expectations for their own quarters planet-side, though so far our presumption has been that information expressed planet-side isn't secure, so we don't have any overarching, political objection to planet-side spying."

"I will also include more information on cultural and intuition differences, especially as applies to the species that make up my crew."

Kadlawen has a strong suspicion about which Shezligraian would be capable of getting on the ship, and willing to casually threaten murder. He doesn’t voice it.

“Um. Okay? We most certainly do have privacy intuitions, they’re just normally not as... prominent, as yours sound like? Less ‘this is a horrible crime’ and more ‘this is rude and if you do it particularly often people might not like you’? And there’s an expectation that important people and governments and such have less default expectation of privacy, rather than more... I already presumed the ‘don’t come onto the ship without permission’ thing from how Ateshai, you know, asked permission...”

He processes a bit of Tanna’s previous monologue. He glances (adoringly) at Ateshai.

“... what, exactly, would ‘dialing back first contact’ consist of?” he asks, tentatively.

"I'd like to trade information relevant to open and honest exchange first. Cultural differences, intuition gaps, legalities, that sort of thing. Sorting out distance communication protocols is a high priority. We're not in a rush to exchange scientific and magical advances right away, especially since those are in my experience more likely to butt up against taboos. I would advise but not take disciplinary action against personal romantic or sexual relations between locals and crew at this time, given the high possibility for misunderstandings."

He nods.

”Should we go ahead and get out of your hair?”

"I can answer more questions, and of course I'm available if anyone else has business best discussed face-to-face."

“Of course,” Kadlawen agrees. “Have a lovely day!”

And then- one fiddle-fiddle-swish-swish-mutter-mutter later- everyone relevant is sucked up by a remarkably tiny tornado, and pop-pop-popped back to the planet’s ground, and then he’s just going to abruptly cling to Ateshai like a ten-tentacled octopus that’s unsure if they’re about to be broken up with.

“- are you going to want to stop going on dates and having me compose poems about how great you are and stuff,” he says, in a rush, voice quavering a bit.

"I wasn't planning on it! We seem to be pretty good at communication, but the captain does make a good point, we should probably sit down and iron things out some - "

“- okay great,” he chirps, shifting to be less despairingly clingy and substantially more cheerful. “I could go drop off Sira and Rakaskem, and then we could go do that?”

"Alright! I'll familiarize myself with what's already been talked about, at least a bit, the captain pushed something to our devices."

Eeeeee- he is still not totally adjusted to how pretty his smile is-

He drops off Rakaskem, and Sira, as promised, and then they’re in the palace clearing. A question occurs to him.

”... should you be there while we try to iron relationship details out?” he asks Runla. “I’m still not entirely sure how chaperoning works.”

"Ideally. I'm also older, better traveled, and have more of an idea what I'm doing, so I'll have useful insights. I promise to not be too much of a little shit during the conversation."

“That sounds reasonable enough,” he agrees.

And then- since it’s been less than five minutes, and the spell tweaking his tornados to be pleasantly petite is still active- he can just pop all three of them directly into Ateshai and Runla’s (still exquisitely pretty) room. 

Ateshai has pulled up a projection of the safe-for-viewing-in-front-of-natives summary document. "You guys have roles?" he asks after a bit of skimming. "...Oh, and, uh, any questions for me? This's pretty summarizing, though, you might want to look at your version?"

“Yup! I got the idea that you didn’t or had them differently, after a while, it might bother me if we were being monogamous but as is it doesn’t particularly- I’m submissive, you could probably tell- and I suppose I should probably do that-“

He flicks out a little compact mirror from nowhere in particular; its surface turns white, and acquires a visual texture pleasantly reminiscent of paper. He fiddles around on it for a while, and then spends a little bit reading.

“Um, nothing but the fact that you don’t have roles and the way where you’re less- casual about physical intimacy?- seem super relevant to dating? It also says that we have substantially higher median sex drives, but that’s another thing that would only matter if we were monogamous...”

"Because it has to be said, I would draw your attention to the section on legal differences. I don't know if legality reflects general acceptability, it doesn't always, but coercion, especially sexual, especially against stated wishes, is unacceptable where we come from. We had a great-aunt who ate someone who coerced her son, and she was arrested but the general community consensus was 'good,' and the rapist's family chose not to have said rapist resurrected."

Kadlawen gestures helplessly. 

“It- we both have a word that translates as rape but I think we think of it really differently?” he says, to Ateshai. “I found that section really confusing. But- it all sounds weird to me, in the same way that it would be weird if you permanently executed people for throwing tomatoes at other people, but I’m not even slightly tempted to throw tomatoes at you? And- and if you were worried that I would throw tomatoes at you, I would be willing to do anything to make you more comfortable that I wouldn’t, I- that’s the point of me, making people happy and comfortable and better-off- and I would rather be dropped at the bottom of the sea than do something you didn’t want me to do? The only way it’s going to be relevant is if you want me to- I don’t know- if you wanted me to wear a bracelet that’d make me fall unconscious whenever you wanted me to, because it would make you more comfortable? I could do that.”

Ateshai makes Of Course I'm Not Worried noises, while Runla tilts her head, slightly stern hackles lowering.

"Well, I'll try to make it make more sense. Not all species share that taboo, but it's pretty common - especially in sexually reproducing species where accidental pregnancy is easy, and where pregnancy and childcare are major investments. Our world's species are usually highly invested in pregnancy, children start moving around while still helpless and require a lot of work, impregnable people can usually get pregnant on accident easily and without a lot of rigmarole, so from back before the first dawn anything that could lead to an undesired pregnancy is taboo, anything that could lead to a forced pregnancy is variably traumatizing, and instincts and culture are a cludgy mess so that transfers to related activities. And of course we have intense instincts towards individualism and personal freedom - doing things to people against their singular will is in general bad and the type of thing that used to cause blood feuds. 'Having laws' was a very strange transition for us, which is why I wasn't clear on legality versus morality."

"There are, by the way, species that would consider tomato throwing to be a major offense, but that's usually for scrupulosity reasons - they very obviously have general prohibitions against all forms of intentional mess-making. Which is why we usually send trained people for first contact, and prefer to spend a while observing a population before interacting - that wasn't feasible here, since we very obviously appeared in your space."

Kadlawen appreciates Ateshai's Of Course I'm Not Worried noises; he relaxes, visibly.

"That makes sense- um, at a guess, we probably lack the involved strong taboo because of how submissives generally lack strong individualism and personal freedom drives and stuff, and because we mostly don't have unwanted pregnancies? It's not, like, impossible, and it'd be pretty easy if someone specifically set out to give someone an unwanted pregnancy, but the way our genders work makes that really hard to do on accident. Our children also don't start off helpless- you mostly just have to make sure that their egg has a constant supply of nectar, for the first six years, and then out pops a child who's capable of going to school and such; it sounds like a much less all-consuming investment."

She lays her head on her fore-paws. "That sounds strange to me, but I suppose it is a species difference, or at least a cultural one."

Kadlawen nods, and- surprising no one- glances adoringly at Ateshai. It’s becoming a lovely little habit.

”Um, I suppose we should also think probably think about standard relationship-stuff, in addition to interspecies stuff... um... I mostly spend my middays with Lalvien, helping him out and doing relationship-y-stuff, my evenings with Sasha doing the same, my bloom-time with Dato, and the rest of my time ends up divided however seems prudent? So within the constraint of doing things at other times I’m- I get the impression that you might not believe me if I said ‘up for whatever’ but I think it might be pretty completely true? You can de facto assume that I will do whatever you want me to and that you can do whatever you want with me? That’s- not even totally a cultural thing, I think, I’m just genuinely really oriented around the wants of other people?”

"Uh, I believe you, I know people like that, but - I'm not actually. Sure. What to be doing? And 'whatever I want' isn't a super helpful answer? Like, it's not as bad as it used to be, but I still sometimes get decision paralysis, even if I knew enough about what's available to be done and was big into never having that push-pull?"

Kadlawen privately considers the question of whether Ateshai’s culture mightn’t find declarations of unending obedience terribly romantic. 

He also privately questions how much of his current decisionmaking is based on ‘what would be terribly romantic’, as opposed to ‘what do I actually want to do’. He isn’t accustomed to asking the latter question: he feels the existential dread of someone delving into an unexplored oceanic cavern, of looking into the abyss and having the abyss look back, of staring into the eyes of a tiger and not knowing if you’ll be devoured or adored.

“... Okay,” he says, eventually, trying to put his incoming existential breakdown on hold. “Um, I can probably have preferences, if you’d genuinely prefer that I have preferences? I’m having some trouble disentangling that from the thing where I’m not being pushy- I’m okay with making decisions, and I’m okay with initiating things, but- I don’t think I could avoid ever initiating something that you didn’t like? I would stop but- I’m not sure how horrible it would be if I accidentally escalated too much and you had to pull away, or something. Would asking ‘can I such and such’ whenever I want to such and such still be putting too much- decision-based pressure- on you?”

"Horrible for you or horrible for me? Because accidentally bumping up against my boundaries really wouldn't be horrible for me. Runla's just dramatic. Asking might be a good move in the near term, though? And for preferences - uh, I want you to have the extent of preferences you want to have?" A pause, and, "This is also unfamiliar territory for me, my last few relationships were either explicitly very non-serious, or involved a lot of pushing back and forth, and I also feel like your species might - do front-loading seriousness more than mine usually does."

“We probably do,” says Kadlawen, who’s internal monologue continues to be an incoherent mess of screaming, unworkably confused cliff metaphors, and question marks. “We do have casual relationships but any given relationship is pretty firmly slotted in the ‘serious’ or ‘not-serious’ slot from the start... and I think I’ve been mentally slotting us in as ‘serious’, and it probably would’ve been more appropriate to slot us in as ‘casual’? I think that I might’ve been- misinterpreting signals?”

"We usually try to know each other for a while before deciding that? At least ideally. Initial slotting tends to lead to mistakes a lot? Uh, I think long-term trajectory we run a higher chance of not working out for serious than for casual, so if defining things is important to you it might be better to define things as casual."

Time to not conspicuously turn into an unpleasantly gelatinous mess of emotions-

“Okay,” he manages to say; he isn’t, quite, capable of keeping every little bit of waveriness out of his voice. “Does, um, does anything else come to mind as something that we ought to straighten out?”

"...Are you okay?"

“I am- disappointed- and trying not to unload that on you. I will be fine.”

"I'm not opposed to something eventually serious, I just - do not know what to do with up-front serious when I don't already know someone very well."

“I understand. I will be fine. Is there anything else you- want to discuss?”

"...I'm sure there was something but I, uh, got distracted? Uh. How do the roles. Like. Impact things?"

“- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that question, I don’t think that I can continue this conversation without getting even more irrecoverably upset, I’m sorry, I can- I can come back, later-“

And then he’s just going to march over to the door, have it lead somewhere other than the traditional hallway, exit it, close it, collapse, and cry.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yeah he screwed that up.

Kadlawen isn’t feeling particularly inclined to disagree with him.

He curls up into a small little ball on the floor, and he continues crying. 

Ateshai must hate him- no, that’s really unlikely- but it feels true in one of his deeper caverns of consciousness, and he doesn’t have enough emotional energy to root it out, not when it’s being fed by a steady trickle of ‘he couldn’t possibly have communicated casual rejection more soundly’ and insinuous little currents of anxiety. Ateshai must be feeling, if not hate... apathy.

Kadlawen isn’t feeling apathy. He isn’t feeling apathetic in the slightest.

He...

... must have known on some level that it couldn’t possibly work out, when Ateshai only resembled one of his preferred genders half the time, and had a profession firmly associated with regularly going new places, and had a completely different romantic framework and culture-

... had continued on with it anyways- but why did he continue on with it anyways, if he’d known on some level that it would be a disaster- 

... because Ateshai had been so cute and so good and so intensely attractive- and he’d delegated so much of his decision making for so long that he hadn’t particularly thought to worry about things not working out, he just had to be ever so charming and cheerful and obedient- but Ateshai, although mildly charmed, hadn’t particularly wanted obedience, hadn’t particularly wanted Kadlawen, and if he wasn’t being perfectly obedient he couldn’t quite manage to flow in perfect obedience to narratives and fairy tale logic-

... how long had he been operating in adherence to fairy tale logic, where everything would be just fine if he went along with whoever had hold of his figurative collar- ever since he’d accidentally killed his entire family, he supposed, ever since he’d read newspaper articles cooing sympathetically about how he must be ever so sad, ever since he’d been condescendingly patted on the head and told that this was what happened when damsels in distress tried to rescue themselves- and the idea of doing anything else remained terrifying beyond description- 

A wolf comes to sit next to him, once he's been spiraling for a while.

"So. Sorry if I didn't help. And feel free to tell me to fuck off. But you seemed like you could maybe use some support. I can get someone else, if you want, or I can sit here with you, or I can talk."

Kadlawen has, at this point, ceased actively crying, and is instead occupied entirely by continuing to be a silent lump of sadness. He wonders, briefly, how she found him, and then supposes that he didn’t bother making it so that the intra-palace portals wouldn’t lead people right to him, if they asked nicely. He likes being findable, ordinarily.

”This is normally the moment where I’d talk to one of my boyfriends and snuggle,” he says, his voice soft and careful and quiet, “if this were an ordinary problem, but I don’t think Sasha or Dato would react productively, and the wards here block Lalvien’s number. I’d normally call Tasha, then, she gives decent relationship advice, but I already know what she would say, and she isn’t picking up her bamboo. And although I’m going to be fine, although I’m going to get up and go back to having a bunch of perfectly well-functioning relationships which aren’t unworkable in a dozen different ways, I’m not quite ready to do that, yet. So do feel free to talk.”

She settles her head on her paws. "Ateshai is sorry for hurting you. He does like you, a good bit. The problem is... We don't know if this will work out, because our species is bad at figuring out compatibility without trying and failing a bunch, but we don't know it won't. Maybe Ateshai will go on his adventures, and he'll have a sweetheart in this port, and maybe that sweetheart will be a good friend and a little more, maybe that sweetheart will swirl briefly against him like two tides, maybe that sweetheart will be the sort of epic love that shakes the foundation of worlds. We don't know, and we don't know if it would hurt you more to keep trying to be something serious, if you two failed at that trying.

"I don't think Ateshai can settle down, not without hurting himself a lot. I think he's very good at being serious about people, and very good at having friends, and very good at meaning well, even if he's an idiot who's bad at social most of the time. I don't think you want to leave this place to go gallivanting off into the stars, though the Federation - or any ship, there's independent operations aplenty - would love to have you. I think you're good at being kind, and good at being helpful, and good at what other people need, but I'm not sure anyone in all the myriad worlds can be what Ateshai needs. That's okay."

A huffing chuckle, and: "'s why we signed onto the ship of outcasts and fuck-ups in the first place."

She shrugs, and, "Ateshai isn't opposed to trying to be serious. He just thought you might be better with a casual relationship? Because it might hurt less. But I think we do things differently, and he was saying 'let's try and define this thing that's coming up,' because our culture would say you two are still in the roughing things out stage of courting, and you were hearing 'let's reduce this thing we already have,' which is an unhappy thing to hear."

Kadlawen sniffles, and curls up on himself just a tad bit more, and doesn’t immediately reply, otherwise.

"What do you want?"

“I’m... not used to asking myself that question.

I want- to be what other people need. I don’t think I can be that for Ateshai. So I don’t think I will.

I like him, but- not enough, to try and be- insufficient. I don’t think I could avoid giving him everything, because I can’t, when I love someone, and it would hurt more than anything to have that be-

I think that we can be friends, eventually. I don’t think we can be anything more.”

"Alright. Friends is a fine thing to be."

And so Kadlawen indulges in a few more minutes of being a sad lump in a corner, and then he gets up, and drifts to a particular bit of wall, and knocks on it; a door opens, revealing the field cleared so that he can produce tornados at liberty, and he walks out.

The door closes, and disappears. 

And that seems to be the end of that.