"I'm curious if it's for want of a specific person or a specific feature of Earth or just general unadventurousness."

The oranges glare at him.

"My twin brother, my little sister, my friends, my grandparents. The fact that I am the only immortal here. The fact I am even less able to blend in a crowd here, assuming your government doesn't try to lock up in a facility somewhere," Felix lists hollowly, there is not even a single note of anger in his voice.

"If the wings fold you could dye your hair and blend in fine."

"They're noticeable even under a trench coat."

"So have a backpack designed for them."

"Yeah."

This somehow fails to reassure him.

"What information would you get from taking a nap? What might happen when you nap, and what inferences would you make from that?"

"I would know if I could still dreamshape... I don't know about the rest."

"You can learn the language even if someone else is talking to him, right?" Nasami says to Afen. 

        "I can learn the language as long as it's being spoken. Or written."

"Okay. Felis, would you like a glass of water or a snack or anything?"

        "Felix."

"I can't make that sound."

         "Yes, you can, it's a voiceless 'ks', try whispering 'kas' quickly and that's pretty much it."

"Would you like a glass of water or a snack or anything," she says to Felix.

"No... thank you. I already abused your hospitality too much. And Felis is alright."

She smiles at him. "I will probably get it with practice, but that's very kind of you."

Slow nod.

"Do you have questions for us now that you've learned more about our world?"

He starts shaking his head, but then. "I guess I could ask the green about castes?"

"What about them?"

"My planet doesn't have castes. Societies that tried that were... incorrect about the approach. You are aliens, so it might just be that it makes sense for you to divide this way, but it feels extremely weird from my perspective that only a caste can do something like looking at security cameras and work as a model. And... uh... saying that some castes can't be as smart as the others would be strongly associated with prejudice where I am from and is generally... suspicious."

"- are all people where you're from equally intelligent?"

"No. But a lot of that can be caused by lack of opportunities, or development problems because of lack of nutrition, or even administrative bias because their teacher think ethnicity correlates with intelligence. And the excuse was - and is - used to justify the oppression of certain groups and the people doing it that were simply incorrect about the belief."

"Huh. Well, the average green is much smarter than the average purple, though there are three hundred million purples and there are not none smart enough that they could be successful if they were green. Instead they found major successful companies - it's useful having some purples be smart. It seems like maybe the unreasonable step was the oppressing people."

"Yes, they shouldn't oppress people. What I am coming from is: I know as an observed fact people being wrong about this thing. I am not saying that your world is wrong about those things. It's just a question worth asking. And it still feels weird to be so rigid about things. If a nonpurple wanted to found a company, what could they do? If a nongreen wanted to have a career like yours, what could they do?"

"That depends what caste they were. Everyone can found a company in their line of work - a grey can found a security company, an orange can found a daycare or a private school, a yellow could found a software startup, a green could found a think tank or a theatre, a blue could fund and advise anything they liked. A purple or grey who wanted to be a theoretical computer scientist would have to get a day job or be a stay-at-home spouse and contribute to open-source projects. None of them do. Orange could teach advanced green three and four year olds, yellow could get a software engineering job with a research component, blue -" he giggles. "Sometimes there's a blue who should be green."

"It sounds like people are incentivize too much against out of caste work - externally so - and it would affect social mobility a lot. It even sounds like the only way for a garbageman to have children that don't have to do his job is to marry outside of caste."

" - reds can't marry out of caste. And men can't marry out of caste in general, it's patrilineal."

"...Why?"