"We can," agrees Edarial. "That was Iobel's idea, it's a good one. We can buy some farmland in the name of the crown and grow the right herbs there, and just - be seen as kind of weird for doing that."
"And then I can bring you cocoa beans for 'em, it'll be great, the weird journalists who think my spending habits are fascinating will have more to write about than 'Isabella Amariah seen having a meal at a restaurant' and 'Is she building a new hub yet? The answer may surprise you. It's no.'. They will get to run headlines like 'why is she buying so much fair trade chocolate what the hell'."
"Aw, but that might shove aside my favorite ones. 'Mysterious husband - innocent lover, manipulative benefactor, or secret power behind the success?'"
"And what kind of a name is Adarin and what the heck kinda accent is that and is hair bleaching the new fashion trend for this fall?"
Adarin snorts. "Won't they be upset when they find out it's not bleached. 'Invaders from another world - here to take our hair colors."
"Only for albinos and old people, mostly. Some people have very light blonde hair, but not outright white, at least not without something weird going on."
"Same here. The 'something weird' would be my mother's genes, so - white hair."
"... Huh. That's strange, it's just - sometimes a hair color, here."
"We just have blonde and orange and brown and black in various shades on Earth. Gray and white for old people. It's weird that we're similar in so many ways, to be honest, I would have expected - aliens like the ones that left behind my robot army. Although at least the aliens had daemons."
"Yeah. It's strange to - deal with people that don't have them. Which I realize is hypocritical, but I've acclimatized to Earth. It's like I'm only speaking to half of you."
"You don't even have the relevant magical sensitivity to tell by just looking, even. My magical senses are going zombie!"
"In your world people without daemons are like the equivalent of some kind of half-dead monster?"
"In my world people without daemons is an oxymoron unless you're talking about the bears, who at least have their armor. You are horror - uh, literature - material. Congratulations."
"Where I'm from we have a way to record theater so you can watch it later after the actors have all gone home. It's basically its own genre now. The recorded things are called movies."
"It's delightful! They can even add other things to make it look different after it's recorded - making something look like it's magic or adding a creature where there wasn't one before."
"Listening to you explain movies might be the cutest thing."
"Sorry, sorry. Maybe you should only talk to us separately or something, that might be easier? If it's that bad."
"It probably doesn't help that Path and Vern are cuddling at home, I keep wanting to join in and snuggle her," admits Adarin.
At Iobel's confused look, Isabella says, "We left our daemons home, but they're still connected to us. We have - first person subjective access to what they're doing, especially if it's associated with strong emotions - not to the point where we can see through their eyes or anything, but it's not strictly a matter of hurting when they hurt and vice-versa. So our birds are at home on the couch all snuggled up and if I get at all distracted it's like I'm mid-snuggle too."