"Are daémon forms tied to personality? Soulfire is - those suspicious recurrences all have the same non-gift determined primaries. There are only seven types, however, far more limited in number than daémon forms, from the sound of it." 

"There's 478 first-stage forms a teenager's daémon can settle as, give or take some debated variants and a small percentage of people skipping directly to an evolved form.  Many of these have known evolutions, which occur as the person matures. 

"People who have the similar daémon forms tend to be similar, but it isn't enough to perfectly judge personality."

"Hm, there are two overarching stereotypes which apply to each flame type, and it's safe to assume that any person who acts like one of them will have that flame type. There are outliers, however, and gifts do muddle things somewhat - some families, such as the Giglio Nero, have unusual powers which require a certain flame type to use, and so they all have at least as much of that type as is needed to do so." 

"Should we be having this meeting out here in the shuttle bay?" He wonders idly. 

"Oh, I suppose not," the mayor says, once prompted.  "We have a meeting room not too far away that should work well for this.  Will you be needing any special accommodations or..." he isn't sure exactly what to offer.  

"If you are providing refreshments we will want to check them over before we eat. Even if we seem to be the same species, somehow, different soul manifestations aside, we could easily be incapable of digesting each others foods. Other than that, nothing comes to mind." 

"Of course.  Will you need them checked at your ship, or can you do it with your magic?"

She nods, "We are capable of checking ourselves, yes." Sky flames are useful in this area. 'Is this substance in Harmony with this person's body?' 

Then they can all start heading towards the meeting hall, the mayor typing on his phone as they walk, ordering the hall to be ready when they arrive.

The visitors will follow. G eyes the phone as they walk, recognizing it as something like a hand-held flame bracer. She wonders what these people use for power, without access to their soulfire. Perhaps electricity, as their ancestors on Earth did? It seems like a discussion for later, and one better left to those with more expertise in the subject, however. Sarah will certainly be interested.

"And here we are," he says after not too long.  The meeting hall's table can easily hold twice their number, and large stages are set to either side for the daemons to sit.  Mayor Saffron leads the group with daemons to one half of the table, and motions for the Titan Fleet group to take the other side. 

Daemons climb the stairs to that side's platform, clumping together in a huddle to have their own conversation. 

("I'm not sure about this," one whispers quietly, too low for a normal human to pick up from that distance.  "Not being able to speak to their souls.  We're only going to get half of a conversation this way."

"People have one-phone-set conversations all the time," whispers the gallade.

"Yeah, but not for something as important as this.")

In a large basket at the front of the table there are a few bottles each of several types of drink - iced tea, fruit juices, chilled spiced vegetable broth, and plenty of plain water.  Small snack foods were grabbed as well, and include biscuits, pastries, fruits, and candies.  Nothing appears to have meat or animal products in it.

The Titan Fleet group sits - or, most of them do. Xan pauses at the end of the table for a moment, producing a palmful of red-tinted orange flames which he runs over the food and drink. After a moment, he nods, "Looks good," he says. He takes two of the iced teas and a fruit juice, and then moves to take his own seat, passing the juice to Robin and the other tea to G. 

G is not a normal human. She is, strictly speaking, very impolite in that she is not eyeflashing all the time, given that she constantly cycles Cloud Flames to magnify her senses. She is used to ignoring private conversations, but this seems like an important thing to bring up.

"How much difficulty will our lack of daémons cause in establishing diplomatic relations?" She asks. "Soul-to-soul communication usually only occurs between bonded, among our people. It sounds as though it plays a significant part in your peoples' interactions, however." 

"Daemon conversation adds an extra layer onto communication, similar to body language and tone of voice.  We can get by without them - or in only uninflected text, for that matter - though we may need to clarify things explicitly that would otherwise go unsaid between humans."

"It'll be fine in this room, and between diplomats.  Regular citizens will probably be uncomfortable about the idea for a while.  

"On a possibly related subject, what sort of bond are you referring to?  I hope our daemons talking isn't coming across as lewd."

She nods in response to this explanation. 

"It does not," she reassures him, "I was referring to a sort of soulbond between individuals, which can occur so long as at least one person involved is active - capable of using their Flames. There are a few types, but all of them allow some amount of communication between the participants, silent to observers and from arbitrary distances. The bonded need not be involved in any particular kind of relationship, so long as they are close in some way. The title I referred to Ms Chiswick by, 'Mist Guardian', means she is bonded to a Sky, in her case the captain of our ship." 

"That's a relief," Mayor Saffron says.  "I suspect there will be many cultural differences, some related to daemons or different technology, some just from being other cultures.  Giving each other the benefit of the doubt does sound like the safest option.  Do let us know if anything seems confusing or likely unintended.

"Have you met others on your trip so far?"

"We will be sure to do so. We have not met anyone else, no. We have been moving near constantly since shortly after we set out, and meeting any other peoples' in the void between galaxies is... extremely unlikely. Frankly, the fact that we encountered you is mind-boggling." 

"It did seem unlikely.  And a group so similar other than soul shapes..."  Perhaps all of the sets of sci-fi entertainment which spent time making very inhuman puppets for the aliens were being less realistic than the ones that just gave human actors odd-colored wigs after all.

"Mm," she nods, "To business, though. I assume your goal is to return to your own fleet?" 

"Yes.  These smaller ships were originally designed to operate alone if necessary, but over time became more dependant on each other for efficiency.  We could survive for decades more alone, but are likely missing some kind of important manufacturing systems..." she trails off, looking at the mayor.  Her and Azure were only visiting this ship, and she doesn't have every production line for every ship memorized.

The mayor confirms this.  "We export food, cloth, and trace materials gathered from created mud, but are lacking electronics or metal production."

"Do you have any way of returning through your own technology or the abilities of your people?" 

"Not unless one of the ship's preteens happens to settle as a Palkia.  That's not very likely.  We haven't been able to figure out how far the anomaly threw us, either, though we'll probably get the information soon enough once the star charts are compared."

She sits back, considering. It sounds like this isn't going to be something which can be resolved quickly without the Admiral noticing. That being the case... She glances at Robin, who offers her a nod. 

"I believe it's in all our best interests if I am blunt about the situation you have been dropped into," she tells them, "So that we can determine what should be done about it from an equally informed footing."

"I represent an individual Captain, who would love nothing more than to extend a hand of friendship and cooperation to you," she says, "However, the leader of the fleet is something of a would-be-conqueror. He has been making military preparations for our entrance to the Andromeda galaxy for his entire reign, readying us to take by force whatever we can't take by being the first there. At the moment, we are doing the best we can to keep him and his loyalists unaware of the presence of your ship, but it's only a matter of time before the Captain's agents slip up. When they do, well. Roberto Vongola does not believe in diplomacy which doesn't result in an immediate surrender." 

"What would surrender mean, in more exact terms?"