"Maybe that's why I've never gotten a date before. All the possibilities were intimidated away."

"What, really? Never?"

"I admit I wasn't looking very hard."

"And your brothers? Never, either?"

"Inlaith never tried, and Elarron... well, it never quite worked out."

"There seems to be a story there."

"Yeah... he has a bit of a hard time being the third son of a spectacular family after two spectacular brothers. Sometimes he gets the idea of trying to do something that neither of us has gotten to yet, and one time it was Get A Girlfriend, and that was an embarrassing few months of all of our lives."

"...third son? That's not how triplets work here..."

"I'm only eldest by a few minutes but I'm still eldest."

"I see. Well, Aluvai girls and boys and enbies are missing out."

"Girls and boys and...?"

"Enbies, short for nonbinaries. People who don't neatly fit either category."

He deconstructs the acronym mentally and smiles. "Oh, clever."

Giggle. "Yes."

"I don't know of any of those in Aluvanna but maybe I would if they had such a clever word available."

"Are you likely to have heard of them if there were any? How many people live there?"

"A, let me see, third of a billion? How plentiful are enbies on Earth, then?"

"Dunno, probably on the order of zero point one percent? Less, I think."

"Well, maybe it's no surprise I don't remember meeting any, then."

"Yes, my point."

"Yeah."

"If you say so."

"I do!" She notices his tail behind him, then. "I kinda want to pet your tail, too."

He giggles. "You may if you like."