"How big is the assembly? How long do people serve?"

"I don't know; I think it changes with the population.  - As long as they both want to and are suited to it, I assume?"

"Some places have term limits. Or have people serve for life. At-will government positions are unusual."

"Our lives are indefinite."

"I suppose that might change things."

"Mmhm."

They wait. Holding hands.

Eventually the bouncy one comes bounding out of the building, from the ground level, followed at a slightly more sedate and substantially more dignified pace by someone with two-tone skin.  He examines Kyeo and Sarham for a moment.  " - I can get you a conference room on - would the fourth floor be too high for you to climb?"

"I can do three flights of stairs."

"All right."  He describes a room location to the two natives and heads back towards the building's scaffolding.

Inside, the stairs are bigger, both in the sense that the individual steps are built for larger strides and that the ceilings of each story are higher, although they're not unmanageably so.

Sarham can in fact still do three flights of it but he's breathing hard by the end.

Conveniently the conference room has chairs!  Neither of the Citrelians sit in them but they're there.

After a few minutes, another vitiligous person - patterned more densely than the other, and with clear intentionality to the shapes - enters.  She, too, looks at the two of them for a moment before speaking.  "Greetings, I'm Secretary Orthan.  Why don't you tell me about how you came to be here."

"We're not sure. We saw a mirror, suddenly appear in my room, where we were sitting together, and the mirror approached us and we were in the park. It's not a phenomenon I've ever heard of before."

"That does sound very strange.  What was the place you came from like?"

"We were on the planet Outer Sohaibek. I haven't seen much of it."

"I'm not from Outer Sohaibek but I was attending school there. It's - a democracy? Cold? Short days? I'm not sure what you're looking for."

"Primarily, I'm looking to determine whether the situation is as it was presented to me and what to do about it.  If your civilization spans multiple planets I'm more concerned with things that are consistent across it, and with things that apply to you two personally, than those at planetary scale."

"We can't copy things from other people. I'd loanword it but I'm not clear on the grammar yet... This means we need to eat and sleep, every day, and that if we're injured or sick we need to heal that ourselves too. And we'll get old eventually."

"I see.  I'm told it was explained to you that you can't remain in Telerta - or at least not permanently; we won't turn you away while we figure out what to do with you - but have you given any thought to whether you'd like to live elsewhere in Creta or in a different country."

"We'd love to hear more about our options and which places would be happiest to have us."

"If you didn't already have somewhere else in mind, I think you should head to, hm - either Chraida or Siliner, at least for the time being.  Those are both Cretari cities about a week's travel away.  They allow foreigners, and they're centrally located enough that if you find you want to move on you likely won't have to go as far, depending on where exactly you choose.  And they get enough trade that if you'd like to correspond with other nations before making a decision you'd be able to do that."

"Those sound like important considerations, thank you. - a week's travel how?"

"Trade wagon."

"With food and stops for sleep on the way?"

"Yes; it's less than a day and a half for the sprint relay."