"SAT stands for standard aptitude test or something like that, and it's typically taken by students in our country to provide a legible score of our verbal and math ability, mostly to higher educational institutions, and it involves multiple choice questions and it's timed so it takes hours but not all day to complete."

"The questions on aptitudes are chosen as the student goes in order to best identify their skill level. They take a few weeks."

"That's so long!"

"There are a lot of people in the empire and you want your process to be reliable!"

"It's cruel and unusual! Weeks of tests?"

"You get a much better measure of peoples' abilities if you don't try to make them show them all on one day."

"I am sure my abilities to do things are terrible after I have been taking SATs for weeks on end."

Isabella pats his shoulder.

"You can skip them, we can say you're too old already."

"We're twins. And she's the older twin."

"It's okay, Xander, I think my niche is probably not one the tests are equipped to locate for me considering. I will just assume they'd say I was awesome."

"You can be young enough to take them if you want. There are some benefits of ruling most of the known universe."

"When are they normally taken?"

Extended discussion with the tablet, presumably about time conversions. 

"Seventeen," announces the tablet after a minute, "and two months technically."

"We're fifteen. Maybe they are really fun tests, Xander."

"The hell you say."

"Are there other questions I can answer for you both?"

"Should we continue to stay in the shelter while figuring out where to live and finding some way to accumulate money for that?"

"No, no, I'll arrange something. It'll be easier to figure out what you want in a more modern city and people will be less alarmed at the sight of you if you each have your own private space."

"I can tone it down to a weird vertebra thing if that will help!"

"That depends on how annoying you find the stares, I think, mostly! I don't mind them but I've had a very long time to get used to it."

"You have to memorize your feathers before you get rid of them, we worked hard on those!"

"If I decide to get rid of them I will get pictures at least."

"We can do pictures."

"It would be weird if you had failed to either preserve or reinvent photography, yes."