"I guess two women marrying wouldn't be silly if one was a wizard or something."

"What does one being a wizard accomplish?"

"She could support a household."

"I think I'm missing something. Ismat over there if I caught the right bits of the conversation makes plenty of money and supported her brother for a long time, right?"

"She dressed up as a man to do it, which is illegal. It wouldn't really work to say women can marry other women as long as at least one of them is doing some crimes to make the finances work."

"...okay, but she still has the job skills necessary, doesn't she?"

" - well, yes, but no one'd work for her once they knew she was a woman, until she was a married one and to a prince and then some of them had to sort of concede it was all right."

"...why wouldn't they work for her?"

"...because she was a woman?"

"Yes, but why does that matter?"

"You might have to ask Ismat but I would expect people felt like it was a vaguely scandalous thing to be associated with and their husbands and fathers didn't want them involved and customers expected the quality wasn't as good or something."

"And they don't have this problem with wizards?"

"I think wizards mostly work for the church, which has set fees for spells, or for adventurers, or they make objects which someone else can sell."

"Well. In my world there isn't this situation at all with respect to what women can do."

"Do you ...do things?"

"I study our gods and give them advice and sometimes write books about what I learn."

"Oh! That's neat. Some people do that here, but they mostly publish under their husband's names, if they do at all."

"Rúmil writes his own books!"

"Abada wrote a book! It will probably be published after the pharaoh dies."

"...why?"

"- because it'd hardly be appropriate, right, for people to be picking over private things now. But once we're dead it's different, then it's history," says Abada.

"I suppose I won't ask what it's about then."

"It's about my life. But I shouldn't get more specific than that, yeah."

"Maitimo wanted me to talk to you all to see if any of you might be versions of people we'd know from home. If you are and we ever figure out how to get between here and there would you want to meet them?"

" - sure! That sounds really fun."