"But I didn't say your brother would be sad. I thought your parents would be."

"I mean they might have been a little disappointed that they never got to see what kind of children she would have, but that's not the same as not getting grandchildren at all; they did, through my brother, and that counts just fine for humans, because they know they're his and because they care less about that in the first place. And we do swap it around, remember, they might have been happier to get grandchildren from him than from her."

"Yes, it makes sense if they know they're his."

"Mmhmm. We really do count adoption just the same, though, too. Like - it happens in humans sometimes that someone won't actually be interested in partnering up with someone of the other sex, and will take up with someone of the same sex instead, and of course they'll have to adopt if they want children. My brother's younger son is like that and my brother and his mate don't mind at all."

"Whaaaat, that's so weird! How would they even mate?"

"They end up getting pretty creative with it, as I understand it. But they seem happy enough with the arrangement."

"Huh. Hummun sure are strange."

"A little bit. I'd say that's a species thing but that one isn't even, the other humanoids are just the same and some species of people are even worse."

"Worse?"

"Oh, like goblins don't come in male and female at all, they're all both, except sometimes they have a weird year and start changing to be more like a humanoid male or female, as adults, without any warning at all about who's going to be what. Or some species of fae are only male or only female, and mate with other species to get more of them. Or dragons, which are giant magical lizardy creatures that can shapeshift, and every once in a while someone will find out that, surprise, that stranger they spent a night with wasn't what they looked like at all, and now they have a half-lizard baby who can spit sparks of electricity when they get cranky."

"Oh no! That's so complicated! I like our way better. I don't think dragons or fae will have a lot of luck here, anyway, people want families, not to just randomly wind up with babies and no help taking care of them."

"Yeah. And those things are rare, anyway. But my world certainly does get complicated."

"Will a lot of hummun and other things come here?"

"I'm sure you'll get tourists and merchants and things. I haven't seen anything yet that would draw a lot of immigration but there might be something, if there's work we're better at doing or something like that."

"Well, there's magic."

"Mmhmm. That'll get you some immigration - Pelor will want to put a church here, I'm sure - but maybe not a whole lot of it, spellcasters aren't all that common."

"Who's Pelor?"

"Pelor's a god, I don't think I've explained those yet - so clerics get our magic from devotion to a concept, right, have you heard about that? Gods work sort of the same way, but they're not just devoted to the concept and get magic from it on top of having an otherwise normal life; they're made entirely of the magic of a particular concept or handful of concepts being important, and that means they're much more powerful and even more focused on just those things, with a much broader perspective on them - the god of travel is called Fharlanghn," he touches his pendant, "and he knows much more about travel than I ever will, because being a god lets him see more of what happens with it and because he's been around so much longer, gods are immortal. So usually clerics of a particular thing will also follow the god of that thing, because they know so much more about how to do it right, and because their perspective lets them coordinate more - it's not common for gods to talk to their clerics, I'm not having a chat with him every week, but once a year or so he'll send me a message saying there's work to be done in some place or other to make it easier for people to travel there, or to help people who need to travel suddenly. And it also helps clerics work together, if they're all following the same advice about the best ways to do things - not so much for Fharlanghn's clerics, with that, since his advice is for us to go see whatever seems interesting to us instead of sticking together, but for example he says that when we are working together on a problem we should make sure to listen to everyone, since even someone very new to being a cleric might have seen something that lets them give good advice in that particular case."

"So clerics have an advantage at working together because of our gods, and most gods' clerics form groups to do that, called churches. Different churches do different things, depending on the concept they're about; one of my favorites is about pleasure, and holds art classes and massage lessons and fancy dinners and gives away nice food to people who wouldn't be able to afford to get it themselves, as an example. And Pelor is the god of community and healing and the sun, and his clerics run hospitals and take care of orphans and try to give away enough food to keep anyone from ever starving, and every week they have a meeting for anyone who wants to go to it where they talk about what the community needs and how to be a good neighbor. It's the most popular church in my world, most places people live have one of Pelor's churches at least close enough to get to if they really need it."

"And some of those will come here and do the food spell? They'll get lots of people's attention if they do the food spell."

"You might actually want the pleasure goddess - Lastai - for the food spell, Pelor's clerics will be more interested in using their magic on injuries and things unless it turns out that domestic spren is bad for you somehow. I'm friends with one of Lastai's top clerics, though, I shouldn't have any trouble talking her into sending somebody."

"Healing injuries is good too but right now I'm not injured and I am full of about four times as much wild spren as I'm usually served in one sitting."

"Mmhmm. Well, you can have both, they don't get along completely uncomplicatedly but they won't fight or anything - Pelor's church thinks that the taboo on letting people see you without clothes makes humanoids better neighbors for each other, and Lastai's thinks it's bad to make people wear clothes if they don't want to."

"...are the Pelor hummun going to try to make people in hospitals put on clothes? That seems like it would be harder with an injury."

"I wouldn't expect them to. I think they only expect it of humanoids, and even if they decide you should, only wearing clothes in hospitals wouldn't really help anything, the idea is that having something private with your mate makes that relationship more special and stronger."

"It does sound cute but I think when I move in with Zoi and whoever else the special thing we have together will be... an apartment... also I think probably wearing clothes would make it very hard to have sex."