"...If there weren't a harmi/haran distinction you wouldn't miss it," Aurin points out. "And there's plenty of variety even with only two? Like, I guess we don't smell like much, but people do all kinds of stuff with the 'being a guy' basic idea."

"And even if you didn't have spices, you could still have fruit sauces and cheeses and sparkleaf and stuff to give food extra flavor," she shrugs. "There's lots of ways to be a person with the system we have too. I'm not saying you're horribly destitute, or anything, but you're way, way out of anything I've ever seen before. And vice-versa, I assume, I'm sure I'm plenty weird to you."

"Yeah. I'm not getting anything substantially different-and-interesting as far as I can understand off the words - I mean, figuring out culture from words is not very reliable or in-depth but still."

"If you're not used to gendering people by scent, you probably wouldn't. I mean, someone whose species didn't have genders at all probably wouldn't see much difference between your desret/desan and your haran/harmi two genders either."

"I mean, there's the obvious, but yeah."

"And if your species reproduced asexually the obvious probably wouldn't seem to matter as much. I get your point, though."

"I can actually smell the smell," he mentions. "It's nice. Just doesn't scream 'major feature of gender' at me."

She smiles a little smugly when he mentions how she smells. "And a member of a sexless species would probably be able to observe that I have pectoral adipose reservoirs and you don't. It just wouldn't scream 'major feature of gender' at them."

"They wouldn't have a concept of major features of gender."

"True enough."

"So can any two people have kids together without magical help where you're from, or just certain matchups...?"

"...No, of course not. Any desi can get someone pregnant, and any hari can get pregnant, but--wow, I was not expecting to have to tell someone about the swans and the minnows today. A desret can get anyone pregnant who can get pregnant, which is all three hari genders and also desmi. A harret can only get pregnant by a desret or another harret and can get anyone pregnant who can get pregnant. A desan can get a haran or a harmi pregnant. A desmi can get a harmi or another desmi pregnant. Haran and harmi can't get anyone pregnant. Um, have I forgotten anything."

"...I don't know, I completely lost track of that halfway through and may need a chart."

"...Bar, can I have paper and a pencil please?"

If you borrow a whiteboard and marker instead I won't have to add it to your tab.

"What are those?"

Behold!

"Ooh, nice. Do you have more marker colors?"

Here is an array of them.

She selects the black and the green and the red, and makes a chart

"Huh. Okay. So... why can't the four combinations that don't work, work?"

"I don't know, they just don't."

"Huh."

"I wonder how two-gendered people fit into it," she muses, tapping the green marker she was last using against her chin. "Maybe you're too different from us just on account of the genders thing, or maybe your genders aren't compatible, or maybe one of your world's desi could sire a child on someone like me."

"No idea. I mean, if nothing, else, even on my world two people who couldn't normally have kids can do it with magic."