"Oh, sure - gently, please, it's not very sensitive but pulling it would hurt. It's called hair."

"You're like a wooly," she says, and she gently, no claws, pets his head, though it does take her a moment of calibration to pull back the pressure to something that doesn't bend his neck.

He tolerates the mistake gamely and leans into the touch a bit when she eases off. "I'm not sure what that is."

"It's an animal a little bigger than your head with wool. There's lots of kinds, some of them have wool with weird chemicals on it but some of them are okay to pet."

"I guess I am a little like a wooly, then. My hair will grow out, though, eventually, if I don't find a way to get it cut."

"What do you cut it with? You could get wooly shears, maybe."

"That might work. We have special scissors for it at home, and some people make a career of cutting hair, for people who like fancier styles."

"Huh. Once I saw a wooly with a decorative haircut but I don't know if they needed special shears for it."

"I think it's just that hair scissors are finer and sharper, for detail work. The tricky part is going to be finding someone to do it for me, I bet. I'll look all funny in the back if I try to do it myself."

"You could get a mirror?"

"Some people can do it that way, yeah. I never figured out the trick, though. I guess I'll try again if I need to."

"I can try if you want but probably it'd be easier for a boy."

"Probably. It'll be a couple months before I want a haircut, anyway, I can wait and see who I know well enough to ask then. Or I can let it grow out, that doesn't hurt anything, it'd just be a little strange for me since that's one of the ways you tell human males and females apart, is that males don't usually let our hair get too long."

"...but then you could just let it get long like you said and nobody would know you were a boy?"

"Well, yes, some humans do something a bit like that. But I am a boy, it'd be strange for people to think I wasn't."

"I guess maybe boys wouldn't rather be girls, even though being a girl is better," muses Uamok.

"I'm not sure being a girl is better! It's definitely not that clear among humans, it's not very common for a human to decide they would rather be the other sex in the first place but it happens about as often in either direction when it does."

"Huh! Do they really want to - fit in small spaces, or -"

"Well, for humans we're all about the same size. But some people like being taken care of, or keeping house, or being the one to look after the children - those are mostly female things, for humans, we do it a bit differently, but I wouldn't be surprised if your males like them too."

"Huh! Maybe they do. I should ask Zoi."

"I'd be curious to know what he thinks about it."

"I'm going to move in with him soon. I've been putting it off since I don't think Mother'll keep sending me what they catch out here if I'm in the city, though, and domestic spren is not this good. Your stuff is great though." She has a couple handfuls of lightly sauced tartare, and stuffs one handful into her mouth.

"Glad you like it. You know it probably makes more sense for me to stay in a city at least part of the time, if you want to bring me with you - I can't settle down, exactly, I'm not happy that way and I'd lose my magic, but with people not knowing what humans are I can't just wander into town like I'm used to doing when I want conversation or a roof over my head for a few days, and a city has the most stuff, if I have to pick one place to get people used to me."

"And then you could cast that spell every day and I could get some? Yeah, sure, I can look for apartments that have enough room for a hummun visitor."

"Sounds like a plan. Should I go in with you to meet Zoi?"