At this he snickers. "I didn't say anything! But thank you for clarifying."

"Yes, you very obviously didn't say anything, by walking away in the middle of a conversation.  At least if it's this easy to fall back into mortal foibles we might not have to worry too much about resurrectees being condescending."

"We shall see what we shall see. Is it common for married couples to cloud up together - I guess if it's often an accident it might happen a lot just because they'd be most likely to talk to each other? -"

"One of my couples had 'at death do we join' in our vows and the other one did it on purpose but not planned quite so far in advance; they died years apart and the second one joined up with the first's cloud directly instead of starting with another singlet and working their way up.  But given that we all end up in the One eventually, it makes more sense to think about the question in terms of what size cloud usually contains how many married couples, which I don't have statistics on.  It's not usually too soon though; wanting to be around someone is different from wanting to be them and it would be quite terrible if there was social pressure to join up with incompatible stars so people actively push a little in the opposite direction.  And accidents mostly only happen when people try to remain the size they are for too long; generally one plans ahead."

"It's such a weird and fucky system. How long has it been going on, how long have humans existed in a star-forming fashion here?"

"I think that might be kind of a rude comment to make to people who are a part of said system even if it's true!  But nearly three ages."

"Might it? I mean, it's not like you designed it. I wouldn't be offended if somebody said becoming a daeva after dying was a fucky system. Though I would question their taste, I guess. How long is an age? What happens at the turn of an age?"

"I'm not offended but lots of people are very spiritual and might take it the wrong way, or the right way while in possession of opinions which in combination make them like you less.  An age spans eight strong years and nothing necessarily happens at the turning although they do seem to have arcs or themes associated with them so far."

"...what are the themes of the ages thus far?"

"Gemini was the beginning of sapient life, establishing how we as a species should go about existing, and founding the first civilizations.  Cancer was learning that humans are capable of affecting our universe in negative ways, taking steps to avoid those, and building a sustainable industrialized society.  And Leo seems to be about acknowledging the worth of mortal lives as more than just the larval stage of stars."

"Huh. How did sapient life begin, here?"

"It won't say."

"Rude. But there's not an evolutionary fossil record for humans?"

" - Give me a moment to look into that - no, we don't seem to have one of those."

"What about for other animals?"

"Not for them either, I think?  I'm slightly unclear about what specifically counts as a fossil and also on what we might have, though, with the amount of checking I've done so far."

"Like bones and stuff that get mineralized after hanging out in minerals for long enough."

"There are at least some old remains of some kind on this planet.  I'll get back to you once I find out more?  Or you could do forensics about it if you have a better idea of what you're looking for; that might be easier."

Hm. Last living triceratops on this planet cylinder?

Nope.

"Well, apparently you did not have the dinosaurs we had. I wonder if the creation situation was copying off my world - or some other world - like, evolution is important, I realize you have some biological differences under the hood but you and mice are still both, like, mammals, right, and that is meaningful for evolutionary reasons."

"We at least call both ourselves and mice mammals although I'm checking to see whether that means all the things you think it does.  And we definitely have enough evolution that a substantial portion of star power goes to swatting new species of parasites out of existence; that's most of what I did before this."

"Huh. Any other interesting discrepancies I should maybe read up on for general orientating myself?"

"Hm . . . genetics?  It seems like none of the babies from your world are born soulless - as basement dwellers, approximately - because their birthday was too far off from what it should have been based on their conception?"

"...how far off is too far off?"