Azure is coming to the conclusion that he's supposed to micromanage every movement of his assistant.  In other circumstances he wouldn't mind - would even enjoy it, in a few - but here he's leading a dance where he doesn't know the steps and isn't even sure he's hearing the same music.

Gently, and keeping up a friendly smile, "The ones who brought me here mentioned you had a Gift that might prove useful if there were a problem.  I'd like to know that first, in case it becomes relevant.  Explain it to me."

"Yes, sir.

I have a healing factor, sir. It's mostly for myself, but I can have some observation outside myself, and in an emergency I could push it to help with some - critical medical problem, if something were to go very wrong.

A medical team could come in after that, but my Gift can work on - a lot of different things, and no one needs to know or understand what's wrong, yet, for it to help." He could probably have said that better. He's just - less used to talking about his Gift, and - being like this, at the same time. (And - alien. He's not used to that at all.) He should try harder though. 

He keeps looking properly at the table.

"An impressive Gift, and it does sound useful.

"The next thing I need to ask about is etiquette.  I'm not familiar with the customs here.  Is there anything I should have told you to do but haven't?  In particular, are you looking at the table because you're supposed to for the entire conversation, or because I was supposed to provide a cue?  Or anything else in that category."  Azure isn't feeling eloquent today either.

Eyes flicking down before returning at the compliment. "Thank you, sir."

Oh - of course this is something that could differ between cultures - even between cultures where no one is an alien. He looks up for a moment - not all the way up (of course).

"Oh, no sir - you have no responsibility for me. I'm here for your service only. 

This is the form of our etiquette, yes, sir. I can learnt to your culture and people's etiquette if you would wish that sir, as well as I can, though I am afraid I do not know it at all at the moment, sir."

That's reassuring.  He re-calculates the shape he's building in his mind, now with an upper bound to go with the lower bound.  What he's expected to authorize is a category that does include sitting but does not include posture, at least in this particular instance.

"I will need to learn the local etiquette in either case, so I might as well get as much practice as possible.  Please tell me if anything I do is rude or stands out as unusual."

...That's not actually strange, that makes sense, it makes sense to ask him - some places give dominants submissive tutors for this exact kind of reason he remembers, and he's here for service and to do what the alien dom might need.

He - isn't sure how to do it, but - that's fine, he might do it wrong and the dom might not like it (like any dom might not or - some other way, maybe) and - that's also what he's here for, he knows that. Why a sub with a healing factor is who they wanted. He isn't sure how to do it right but he can try and probably (hopefully) learn and that's why it's good if it's him. 

"...Yes, sir." Should he say (how can he say) - 

"No one will think you must know our ettiquette, sir - our country is - glad and honored to meet a new civilization." 

"I realize it isn't required, but it's important to me anyway."

Azure already has a few questions from what he's seen so far, which he asks:  What does 'sir' imply?  Is there an equivalent term he should be using for Alessa?  Is averting the eyes a submissive thing?  It would be on the Fleet, and does seem to be, but he should probably check anyway.

(There are a few other things he's less sure about how to phrase.  'Are things that would normally be spoken between daemons spoken by humans or just not said,' for example, probably isn't a useful question.)

(That's something to note and remember, about the alien dom.)

Sir (and ma'am) are the standard appellatives for submissive to use with dominants. Their etiquette only has this in one direction; there aren't corresponding terms. Looking down is for submissives. 

Azure has a lot of questions about role, and should probably start with them.

"Is everyone either dominant or submissive, or are there non-dynamic and switch people here?"

...Oh. Oh.

(He'd known in general that there were cultures with more roles, but details not really so much, and he's heard Kente's casual stories but -

it feels like he hadn't quite connected, at least not with this - straightforwardness. Suddenly.)

He needs to actually answer, not get lost in his own head.

"We have dominant and submissive, for roles.

I know some cultures have some other ones, but I don't know very much about it, I'm afraid, sir." 

...There is probably not a listening device here. The government won't be sure of all the alien dom's abilities yet, won't want to take the unknown risk of him noticing it. And if there is it - probably won't be so bad. He can say he was extrapolating from the other cultures existing. And - the official answer is what the alien dom will need to know, to know how things will work, but suddenly it feels important to tell what is - probably the truth, about people. 

"...I think we might have other kinds of people sometimes, sir. Even if not other roles." ...And he's caused himself a problem now, hasn't he (he should have thought this through better), he doesn't want the alien dom to be disoriented or embarrassed because he'd think that since Alessa just said that that's how things are and everyone would know it, when instead most anyone else he talked to would brush it off instead as an obvious silly confusion. And of course the alien dom might reasonably then say that that was what he told him, and of course he'd then be punished for it (and - possibly replaced, and that's much worse, he can't have that happen) but he can't say that. Among everything else what does that sound like, some kind of intrigue in a novel he didn't read.

He ducks his head harder. "I apologize, I think others wouldn't say so. I apologize for my presumptuousness sir."

That was a surprising amount of emotion.  Azure is tempted to ask if Alessa is one of them, but suspects that might be an overly-personal question.

"So dominant and submissive are the only two legally and socially recognized roles in this country, and if people don't quite fit they're rounded up to whatever they're closest to?"  He can't say he's happy with that, though it also isn't surprising.  There are a few people in the Fleet's kink community who take issue with switches, even if they're a minority of a minority.

"I suspect the Fleet has a decent percentage of non-dynamic people, though it's hard to say for certain.  I can guess for many, but not everyone.  Ah - Fleet culture doesn't mark role visibly," he notes, remembering that Alessa wasn't part of the group who he'd explained that to. 

"Daemon element is a practical enough system to sort people that other things like role, gender, birth month, ...eye color? - have relatively little..." he pauses, unsure how to phrase it.  "...Societal requirement to engage with?  Even many people I'd immediately label as dominant or submissive wouldn't necessarily think to include those terms if describing themselves."

"Yes, sir," he says to the 'legally and socially recognized' - that's a good way to put it, he thinks, like something to write in a book. (Though it wouldn't be good of course if he - tried to put it that way himself.) He's not sure what the dom means by rounded; knows there have been cultures with something different to determination.

"People self determine here as children, sir, almost all of them."

The next part sounds - confusing. Not that it's hard to imagine what that means - not having the dress code rules or customs, not using hairstyles or colors or other things instead like some places do. It's harder to imagine how it works - not that people can't read deep body language, of course, not that you'd really need to worry much about confusing people. But. (He wonders if their submissive learn to err on the side of caution; better use the etiquette due a dom and maybe make a submissive feel strange and wrong if you're unsure, than make the other mistake and anger a dom. ...Wonders if they get used to the receiving end of that. Wonders how the dominants do it, if a submissive mistaken for a dom for a moment might suffer some consequence of it.

But surely they have ways to deal better with it all, if that's the way they do and have done things...)

And non-dynamics then - he realizes he doesn't know at all what being non-dynamic (it's still strange to think that as such a simple word, a present concept) does to deep body language. Are they hard to tell apart, then? From who? And their society must not find that a problem...

The next part is much more confusing. He can't figure out what that could mean at all at first. But - daemon element. He knows that in some places with more roles the roles are something like - subdivisions. And that might feel harder to do, to him (though - probably it wouldn't, had he been born into one), especially for everyone, but if your soul takes shape and reveals it (?) (if he's connected that correctly from the summary he was given) then of course it would make sense that would be the world-wide system. And people might not think about the larger categories so much, if they had that obvious known one. (...And oh is that why they don't mark role visibly, because this is marked visibly always? (...do non-dynamic subcategories - overlap then, somehow, for it to be hard to tell...?))

He can say the acknowledgment to hearing/receiving. (It's - probably alright to look a little uncertain.) "We don't sort by gender or birth month or eye color either, sir." (...He wonders what doing that would mean, how someone would do it). "I apologize that I do not know your elements, sir, and cannot act more correctly. I will learn as quickly as I can if you wish it, sir."

"Any sorting system I could have brought isn't going to be of much use when I'm the only alien here."

"Daemon element is unrelated to being dominant or submissive.  Each daemon shape falls into one of eighteen elements: fire, electric, ice, water, and so on, based on their capabilities.  For example, water types can typically create water out of nothing, control water, breathe underwater, or have bodies that let them swim easily.  It's less like a direct personality-based thing and more like organizing Gifts into categories, though daemon form is personality-based."

"Florentho is psychic-type, which is associated both with telekinetically moving things and affecting the mind.  If I returned and polled every other person with a gallade daemon I suspect we'd have both dominants and submissives among us, though few non-dynamics compared to other groups.  We have a strong sense of social structure, and our place in it.  Psychic-type in general probably skews dominant, but generalizing for types is less accurate than speaking about individual daemon forms."

...He is confused again. Confused about this daemon element type - 'a practical enough system to sort people', the dom said, but now he said it's like organizing Gifts and - that doesn't seem helpful to sorting people at all unless you're recruiting them for very specific tasks (and he's not sure it even sounds like the most useful for that, the way the dom had said, creating water and breathing under it wouldn't really be used in the same kind of work...). Confused about the alien culture and their system(s); doesn't have more ideas for how to put together what he's hearing. 

(Also it's very strange to hear 'we have a strong sense of social structure, and our place in it' as something about some specific small subset of people.)

...That isn't actually important. He isn't here for this; the government will have scientists and diplomats who will be asking about the alien's world, putting understanding together. He has no permission for asking questions for his own understanding of something he doesn't need to know, or curiosity.

He says the acknowledgement again. 

"We don't have that, sir." Providing information is something he's here for. "Some people study how to categorize Gifts, and there are writings about it, but there isn't one system, and it isn't - something with societal engagement." (The dom's words feel a bit strange as he uses them - he wouldn't have thought that way, himself. But the dom had used them, so it can make sense to.)

It bothers him that Alessa is still confused.  It means there's something that isn't getting past the culture gap, and Azure might fall in later.  

"Daemons and Moves are likely easier to categorize, as there are only so many moves and so many daemon forms while Gifts are one of a kind."

"How does your culture handle jobs, in relation to Gifts?  Is it difficult to get someone with the right Gift to fill certain jobs, or do they appear consistently enough for anything that can't be done without them?"

He thinks something is bothering the alien dom, but he can't tell what it is or might be. Can't think of anything in specific, if he tries to run back over what he just said. (...Does he think people should be sorted by Gifts more, somehow, if that's important in the world he's from? Alessa can't do anything about it, if it's that). He's not sure if he can do anything about it either way. Tries to - keep answering well, keep himself rightly put together, remember to be promptly obedient.

"Yes, sir," he agrees. "There are similar Gifts but they're often not exactly the same. And sometimes the differences matters more - I wouldn't be as useful here, sir, if I couldn't push my healing factor outside my body at all, but not everyone's does that, if they have one."

"Oh it's - not quite like that for us, sir." That's interesting to think about, a world where it is like that. But he won't get distracted. "It's more like -" He tries to think (quickly, promptly). "like finding someone who has a really good talent for something, sir. Someone who's like that, they can do a lot if they find a place, or someone finds them. But everything has to - work, if you don't have anyone like that."