Karen comes over to talk potion specs. "So you just need all the bone marrow replaced, not the bones, so that's easier, I don't have a full array of ingredients here but I might be able to come up with something and if we ever find a way home for this to be relevant I'll definitely be able to do it."

"Thank you!"

And now they have four more bedrooms with distinctly human decor.

Karen pats Timothy's arm before she leaves. Because they are dating.

Pat pat so dating. 

"I really don't get it," Aitim says. 

"I think the Elves have, like, a theology behind it - and so do the Catholics - with wizards it's more just that we're traditional and it's not done. - and when you hear about someone doing it they do seem to be disproportionately terrible but I think that's because we dig up the private lives of terrible people and let decent ones lie."

"Why, what's it like on your planet -"

"I have literally never heard of anyone caring even in the really conservative countries - I guess there are places where you'd be expected to marry for kids and have all that on the side but - openly on the side and I don't think there's anywhere where you couldn't marry someone because of gender -"

"And the disproportionately terrible thing isn't true either. I mean, childless people get into more trouble than ones who are settled down but correcting for that - nothing."

"Wizards don't do the openly on the side thing. - are those blue kids yours -"

"Yeah - with a couple women in the same position - we were on the adoption list but blues practically never come up."

"And you couldn't adopt a child with some other hair color."

"It's not about the hair color but no, we really couldn't."

"So wizards just pretend to be monogamous all through their fertile years? Kind of a lot of work."

"People date around before they get married, sometimes, but after that - uh, I wouldn't think most people were pretending, Timothy's guess'd be better."

"Most people are actually monogamous, yeah. Maybe a decent percentage have a slip-up at some point but not a majority or anything. - do you have some other way to know paternity."

"Yep. But even that'd only be reason to be monogamous in a spring you're going for a baby -"

" - uh, humans can get pregnant at any time."

"- not literally. Wizards have birth control! And it has to be postpubescent! And in women's case premenopausal! Also there has to be copulation. In case any of that was ambiguous because you're aliens. I had to rejigger the birth control potion, we didn't have all the ingredients and Miranda and Minor were having a hard time and while there was a war even Rebecca was taking it, the Elves were horrified at us..."

"The Elves were horrified that you were taking birth control?"

"I'm not, we're not married and we don't do premarital sex - they were horrified that Rebecca had religious objections which is admittedly kind of weird of her and horrified that Miranda and Minor didn't wanna just plain cut it out."

"Uh."

"Elves seem to do a lot of being horrified that other people aren't Elves."

"Also, there are not unicorns here and I couldn't figure out any substitutes and I asked if I could try Elf hair since they're magic - flipped out - eventually got some and it works, I'm not sure how they're handling sourcing."