"Okay, not holly. Hmmmm... yew has the same berries problem... we'll find you a circular from a tree nursery and you can pick something sufficiently understated. Or just get you cloudpine twigs."

"It could be illusion or reshaped and recolored stone," he says with amusement. "Or there is my sister, who specializes in plants."

"Somehow I think Zeviana would rather laugh at you than coax a cypress spray into being crown-shaped for you. And no, no tacky artificial crowns. Real permanent ice and real live evergreen."

"The illusions themselves aren't, but using them for regalia totally is, sorry. I am the arbiter of taste, what I say goes."

More laughter. "Okay, okay," (Snicker.) "very well. Then should I get lessons for plants from Ana? So I can properly shape my own crown?"

"Sure, that sounds like a plan."

"Pff, okay. Then I'll start planning out crowns. Made of evergreens. If I make illusions to show you what it would look like, does that fall under the realm of 'tacky'?"

"Illusions for design tweaking are acceptable," says Isabella loftily.

"You are a kind and generous megalomaniac ruler."

"The most of all three things," agrees Isabella. Nuzzles.

Giggling, then return nuzzles. "If you do turn out to be entirely serious about this like you were about Mars you get to explain it to your parents."

"If we start running a colony on Mars-or-superior-alternative do you really think the crowns will need much explanation?"

"True. Though I'll have to think of an explanation that makes sense for New Kystle refugees, they might be nervous about moving from one mage-oligarchy to a mage-witch monarchy-or-whatever-we-call-it-where-crowns-are-required. So you get your parents. Fairness, my dear."

"I'm happy to postpone the crowns till people are used to us, at any rate."

"How delightfully reasonable of you! You continue to be the woman I love, please keep it up," he giggles.

"I have every intention of doing so." Snuzzle.

"If you didn't I would be concerned. Also worried." Snuzzle! "So - on the practical note. For Mars-superior-alternatives, what sorts of things are we looking for?"

"Requiring less terraforming. If we can find a breathable atmosphere and normal gravity, without any diseases that will be very interested in humans and domestic animals, which has plenty of fresh water, that's probably the best we can hope for - although I guess the fact that both Kystle and Earth have humans suggests that we might be able to hit the convergent evolution jackpot and find someplace that comes with edible wildlife."

"Right. I'll also try something that's stable, not a young planet that'll lose its breathable atmosphere to time or large amounts of volcanoes. Some instability can be allowed for, though, I think. We do have magic, we can probably keep something reasonably the same as it was when we got there if we're creative and careful."

"Oh, and let's not irradiate the population, either, don't put them near any astronomical phenomena that bathe the planet in this or that sort of ray."

He snickers. "Right, that too. Let's not accidentally kill everyone, and all that."

"And I bet everybody would appreciate a day/night cycle loosely compatible with sleeping at night and being awake during the day, too."

"Probably. Though I think that might be cosmetically solvable with magic lights or something. Because that was a solution to the New Kystle problem I thought of."

"Yes, but the better the day/night cycle is, the less direct intervention they need from us to do ordinary things like 'build a new house slightly away from the twilight band'."