I dreamt that they were filled with dew

"Yes to both.

"My civilization is a fleet of 68 generational ships travelling though interstellar space," he clarifies, just in case they'd thought he meant ocean ships. "Our previous world became uninhabitable, and we were travelling to a planet in the right position around its star to be terraformed."

Wow! And sounds like they must be very technologically advanced! Also sounds like it would be hard for an unknown creature to appear in that kind of setting, or is there something she's missing?

He has no comment on how advanced they are, not having seen what this culture has for technology yet.

"The unknown creature's appearance was very sudden. Presumably it was transported to the fleet with the same ability it used to send me here."

Ah, reasonable idea! These notes report that members of his society have some rather impressive abilities, but she gathers that transportation over such distances is usually not among them? Or is distance no object, as long as the previously-memorized condition is met?

"The limit is around a hundred miles for my kind."

That's more than enough to travel anywhere in the fleet, but it's much less impressive on a planetary scale. Not to mention interstellar distances.

She, however, is clearly impressed. "That's quite incredible. Are other kinds similar?"

"My kind as opposed to the mirror-creature's kind," he clarifies. "All daemons who know Teleport use the same Move."

Ah, interesting! She is sure many scientists of Gifts will be very interested to learn much more about that.

In the meanwhile, is there anything he is particularly interested or in need of, at this moment? She's sent messages out, and a party more suited to welcome him properly should be here soon, but in the meanwhile she is very happy to make sure he has whatever he might need!

He doesn't have any immediate needs. Azure is very curious about the local Gifts, however. Perhaps they could explain while waiting.

Of course! Among their people, some people have Gifts - special abilities, of various kinds. Some stronger than others though ones of the strength he'd demonstrated with his are rarer. (She's not bothering to hide that sort of thing - here, or about technology level. Why do that? It'd be obvious if he spent any time here, or if his people showed up. And perhaps he'll be flattered). There's a lot of variety, and Gifts can be very idiosyncratic - even if two people have very similar Gifts, they're unlikely to be quite the same.

Their scientists don't currently understand too much about them, though they try, of course. They can say that Gifts don't seem to be hereditary, or follow any other obvious pattern like that.

If they don't push it, most people can use their Gift as unrestrictedly with respect to exhausting it as they can a limb - so, not completely unrestrictedly, but most people won't run into that most days. Some people can push their Gift harder if they try, either on intensity or on the kinds of things it'll do, but that'll leave them exhausted a while after.

Some examples of Gifts - moving small objects without touching them, breathing underwater, being difficult to burn, changing the color of any part of one's own body, making small things colder, having very good aim. If he's noticing a pattern that Gifts with respect to oneself tend to be 'stronger' he's right.

They have some officers and employees with Gifts here, if he'd like some demonstrations?

He would love to see demonstrations.

Do they seem personality-dependent? That they're all different is fascinating.

She'll have some people called in, then!

That's not something she's heard said about them. She's not even sure what that would mean - how would someone exactly have a telekinetic personality, say?

They're not completely different. Lots of them are very, very similar, even. But they're usually not entirely similar - different details, especially different details at the edges if they have them.

And promptly another sub in uniform shows up. Does polite greetings, at his superior and at the fancy-foreign-dressed-looking dom with some weird Gift-creature.

His Gift is interesting, the dom says - if he carries an object around he can tell if any other people around him have touched it. He moves around between precincts, it's convenient he was here and free right now.

If their guest wants a simple demo, the Gifted sub can turn around, and some of the rest of them can touch some objects, and then he can tell them which of them it was.

That sounds fascinating. Both Azure and Florentho will touch example objects.

The dom makes sure there's a few objects to touch; with this few people it wouldn't be a very good demonstration, otherwise, too easy to potentially credit to guessing. She and the sub from earlier will also touch and not touch some objects.

And the Gifted sub can turn back around, and receive the objects himself, and look around the room's occupants with a slight look of concentration, and report on who touched what. He looks additionally slightly uncertain, for a second, at the first object either Azure or Florentho were involved with. (To his sense, any object Florentho touched reads as Azure kind-of-touching it, and Florentho touching it; takes him a moment to quite puzzle out the less familiar sensation.) ...Well, not too strange, for whatever Gift the foreign dom has to have that effect, he'll think. He can point out when and whether either or both of them touched an object.

That's interesting. Azure can thank him for the demonstration.

Turning back to the person who seems most in charge, he asks, "What percentage of people here have a Gift?"

The sub does a polite acknowledgement of thanks.

She doesn't know off the top of her head - less than one in three, more than one in a hundred? But she can get someone to look it up, and get an answer back promptly.

Is there anything else he was already curious about? They are of course very curious about his people as well, but since he is here, it seems his curiosity should take precedence!

He sees no reason why they can't both take turns asking about things.

For the closest equivalent in the fleet, all people have daemons though not all are equally as powerful or have equally useful Moves that they can learn. One in about a hundred thousand settle as unusually powerful forms called Legendaries. He's not one of them. Gallade are above average, useful-powers-wise, but not outstandingly so.

Is whether or not someone has a Gift what is being marked by the robes? They don't seem to be marking the same things with clothing that he's used to. (The robes are more common than those numbers, that he's noticed, but perhaps they're in a very affluent or Gift-centric part of town? Or people with Gifts are more likely to be out traveling from building to building for their use, while people without would be in desk jobs more often?)

Well, she's certainly also interested in anything he might want to explain!

Huh, interesting!

Oh, no, not at all! They definitely don't have that many Gifted people, and they don't mark Gift-having in any particular way. In this country - in this whole general area, actually - submissives dress in robes, and dominants don't. That's not world-universal - various other places do it differently, there's some places in other parts of the world where robes are general everyday wear, some places don't even do much with clothes and it's mostly hairstyles or something. But here that's how it goes.

What's he used to being marked by clothing?

He can go on for hours about clothing and fashion! Though is going to hold off and keep it to the basics, since there are other interesting things to talk about today.

Everyone on the fleet wears clothing which matches their daemon, color-wise. Azure's green and white clothing perfectly matches Florentho and makes a good example of this.

Daemons forms are sorted into eighteen Types categorized by general ability sets, which also have an associated color. Gallade are classified as Psychic type, which means that he could also choose to wear dark pink if he wanted to. This is mostly only for people buying off-the-rack clothing or needing things too quickly to wait for customization on. That, and some outfits worn for religious ceremonies and the like.

Clothing shape and style doesn't mean anything, officially. Fashions change, and some subcultures like to dress similarly to show their mutual appreciation for certain musical genres or hobbies or such, but it isn't... serious, the way that colors are. Embroidery signifies wealth, while fabric with printed patterns is lower class.

... they don't have any signifiers for 'dominant' and 'submissive' on the fleet.

In fact, he'd like to know the local definitions for those terms. The definition he's familiar with is a very strange thing to wear openly and be universally acknowledged, on the fleet, and could be awkward to make assumptions about.

How interesting! She's sure some local cultures have signified things by color, but she's not personally familiar. (And - so their visitor is well off among his own people, or at least is saying he is. She'll certainly note that.)

Huh, not having signifiers sounds like it would be kind of inconvenient, even if people generally can intuitively tell by body language.

Oh right, she thinks, there's cultures that segment things up differently and have a few more roles socially recognized - is about to clarify which ones they have here, when -

Now that's very strange, she's having trouble imagining how that would be! Of course it would be awkward and then some to make guesses if you were wrong, but that's what signifiers are generally for. Maybe they're having some sort of miscommunication, though she does not at all know what it might be!

Anyway, dominant and submissive are the roles, here and in most of the world, though there's a few places with more. Dominants: make decisions for their households, govern various aspects of society for its wellbeing, command and own and guardian. Submissives: serve their dominants with obedience, fulfill important tasks that society needs done, serve the households they belong to by their dominant's will.