do you recall when the war was just a game?

Well then, they can get on another bus with a local welcoming-committee sort of person - this bus doesn't teleport, it just flies - and: here's an open prairie with a few copses of trees that you could build yourself a house with if you wanted and still have some leftover; there are neighbors in those three directions and open lots that will be settled sooner or later in those two (or they could leave this one and take one of those if they like). There's a fence in that direction, keeping in some chickens, and a claybed creek in that direction, with a pretty footbridge across it; and a dirt road with some cart ruts in that direction across which they can see a distant farmhouse surrounded mostly by crops of various flowers. The soil, if they check, has weirdly few rocks. It's currently windy and cool here, very flat except down by the creek. One of the trees is bearing tangerines.

It does seem nice.

They'd like to know who they'd answer to if they moved in and if that's the same person they'd answer to if they moved somewhere else. And what kinds of disasters happen around here and how often. And how they're supposed to recognize important people.

"This area is called Prisncou and the mayor's my husband!" says the welcoming committee guy. "We live four miles that way -" Point. "If you don't like it here next place I'd send you is Cavune, mayor there is a lady called Pathcy. If you want to come up the road looking for me'n mine, it's the one with all the pumpkins and corn and beans and nasturtiums. And horses, but the folks next to us have horses too. Once in a while we'll get a tornado, so you want a cellar when you plan your house, in case emergency services is slow to find it and stop it. If somebody's actin' important you can ask to see their ID and there's some way to check if it's legit but I have forgot how."

They'd like to hear about the different mayors they could live under! And, uh, they also think they might have misunderstood the word "husband" - they've heard that they're not even hearing any words correctly and it's all magic, so.

"Yeah, it's magic. You can marry anyone here who wants to marry you and is a mature member of their species." He sounds like he's quoting something. "So I married my husband. If you need everything a little more familiar than that then - hm, not Cavune - let's see - okay, looks like these days people who don't want anybody around 'em gay married or anything else sometimes unpopular like that collect in Touj, do you want me to hand you off to the welcomer from Touj? Only it's nighttime there right now."

Some of them look concerned and the one who's taking point on talking to strangers starts talking very apologetically. "I'm sorry if I've implied we have objections to anything my lord does - er, anything my lady does? - " The distinction he's making is technically not gendered in Sesati though it goes by gender nearly all the time. " - I certainly know better than to criticize my betters."

"- I mean, you can say quite whatever you want, though I guess if you were real prickly about it we wouldn't have you over for supper."

"...I apologize, I come from far away and I was only a serf back home, and I don't know anything about how they do things in faraway lands and I don't understand this conversation at all anymore."

"Here on this planet you can say anything you want, none of it is going to be illegal or anything. Idea with homestead planets like this one is that you find a place you want to homestead that's nice and comfy for you. If having a gay married mayor isn't nice and comfy, well then, you can go off to Touj or someplace, nice and comfy, right? It won't really affect me except someone besides you'll be moving in."

"I know far too little to know why that would make it less, um, nice and comfy here - but if you can say anything you want, maybe you can tell us if there's anything not to like about any of the mayors around here."

"Hm, let's see. I don't like some of the regulations about animals some places have, like Cavune. Here you can have livestock and you can eat 'em. Lot of people don't, I don't even myself after one too many times the pigs got out and ate all the truffles in the woods, but it's allowed here, while Pathcy doesn't want any animals getting slaughtered on her watch so you can only have them for eggs or milk or wool or labor, not eating. I just think that's a little counter to the nice and comfy thing."

"Wow, that's very different from Sesat. Do they go hungry or are they just not nice and comfy there?"

He's going to attempt to plausibly deniably extract a complete list of problems with local mayors, and a complete list of local mayors, although not being allowed meat seems like a small thing and it's not very clear what the problem is with having a mayor that presents a man as his spouse.

"They eat plants, or they get meat from the grocery store - grocery store meat didn't use to be an animal, it's just made with magic, but it's miles out of some people's way to go in person and a lot of folks don't like delivery..."

Other mayoral problems this person is willing to tell them about include:

- polycule drama
- scandalously clumsy handling of an invasive fungus
- has managed, via various shenanigans, to form a small ethnostate, even though the planet's charter advises mixing people up more than that
- substance abuse habits
- doesn't appear to like homestead planets as a concept at all and is obviously just polishing her resume for more influential political posts in the future
- too aggressive on the cultural integration
- too hands-off about the cultural integration, some of his people don't even know you can buy a resurrection
- cut up the parcels in their region stupidly so some people have to dig wells when there's enough tributaries to their river to go around
- escalates things to the planetary government at too little provocation

Those things all sound potentially dangerous. It's not really clear what the problem is with the gay marriage, but presumably it has implications right up there with getting the attention of the planetary government.

"...I'm thinking the one where they don't slaughter animals might be the best," the one who's been taking point says, half to their guide and half to the rest of the family.

"All right! I'll hand you off to Pathcy."

Pathcy arrives in another flying autonomous vehicle and collects the family to bring them to Cavune. It isn't far. She chatters about how they can sign up for grocery delivery to supplement or even outright substitute for farming, and shows them to a parcel they can have; it's on a lake, and the neighbors on one side have a fishing pier and the neighbors on the other have alpacas.

They inquire as to what the fishing pier is for and how the rights to do various things with the lake are divided and what they're supposed to do if an alpaca attacks.

The fishing pier is, it turns out, just for sitting on and diving off, since you're not allowed to fish. The alpacas don't attack but if one does you can smack it on the nose or something.

"It seems like it might be nice. Can someone read us the laws here?"

Yup, Pathcy can do that! It's your standard Vanda Nossëo freedom of movement, no torture, no rape, no murder, defined thus and such, plus local ordinances about trespassing, animal treatment, water rights, etcetera. Everyone in the family is welcome at the biweekly town meeting but most people don't go to more than half of them; it's a good occasion to ask any nonurgent questions they have, though. Urgent ones they can take straight to Pathcy, she lives that way, the place with the plum trees a mile on.

That all sounds great! And who are the people who are bound by those laws? Like is Pathcy allowed to torture them, is the planetary government allowed to trespass...?

Absolutely nobody is allowed to torture them! The government can trespass but needs a reason to do so; here is the list of reasons but at a high enough government level personal discretion is among them, with a list of example weird situations that have called for that.

Sounds about as good as they can hope for even with the bizarre and capricious rules about animals. They'll take whatever seeds the locals recommend in a quantity that strongly suggests they haven't quite grasped that they have options besides subsistence farming.

They can have as many seeds as they want, and their pick of an array of what are ostensibly all farm tools though some of the designs look mighty weird, and a similar array of household goods like cookpots and blankets, and a welcome gift basket full of fruits and sausages and dried herbs and cheeses from their neighbor over that way, who says to come by if they need anything or just to drop in for supper.

They thank their neighbor over that way, and plant diligently, and enjoy their magical sausage and possibly magical other foods, and save the basket to fill up and return later.

The oldest son, Tana, who's been taking point on interacting with aliens, goes looking for the grocery store to compare the prices to what's left of their basic income after paying for the homestead.