"You were set from the first time she told you I like you."

She beams. "Well that's flattering."

Ruava grins.

"So, my turn to tell about myself?"

"Yeah!"

"My father is an enchanter and also king of Laokab. I Expressed when I was a small child, and the first thing I did was borrow some of my arcanist mum's mana and make myself a gender-shifting spell. My father was not pleased when I didn't turn out to be an enchanter like him—he was the first child of a first child, and my grandmother was supposedly an enchanter, too, although I have my suspicions—but because of complicated laws of succession that only meant that I'd either need to marry an enchanter when I grew or he'd need to have another child who was themself an enchanter."

"I'm trying to imagine if there were countries where you had to be a certain kind of mage to rule, and... wow, there must be way more mages in your world than mine."

"About... maybe one in two hundred people? Statistics are difficult, there are probably lots of people who are mages but never manage to figure out how to Express it."

"Yeah, that's way more mages than there are in Eianvar."

"How many are there in Eianvar?"

"I don't know the numbers, but I know it's way less than one in two hundred. One in a few thousand? Ten thousand? Maybe?"

"Wow that's barely anyone. What's your population size, do you know?"

She shakes her head. "I could try to guess but it would just be a guess."

She nods. "Anyway most royalty aren't actually magical, and almost never the right kind of magical, so lots of people pretend."

"...that seems like a really stupid system."

"They don't officially pretend, if they're found to be pretending they're excommunicated and executed."

"That sounds like an even stupider system!"

"That's because you haven't read the entirety of the laws of succession and things like that. They're ridiculously convoluted and absurd. It's all the more baffling because the gods probably don't even exist."

"If there were gods and they wanted people to govern themselves in such stupid ways I would want to talk some sense into them."

She laughs. "You're brilliant, have I told you that?"

"You might've mentioned it!"

"But if there were gods I'm not sure it'd be—safe for you to talk some sense into them and I like you so I'd rather you not do that before having overwhelming power."

"Well, that's reasonable."

"I generally try to be."

"You succeed!"