"Elf one did not abdicate."

"It's really not his skillset."

"We're a democracy but my father, uh, removed himself from consideration at age three because it was in competition with his inventing."

"Democracy?"

"Of the people qualified for office everyone votes for the one they like best. It's nice and stable, monarchies lead to civil wars a fair bit."

"- I guess if 'of the people qualified for office' is doing enough work that'd work fine."

"In Anitam if you go that track you spend five to ten years working your way up the ranks in a policy and lawmaking role - either foreign or domestic and then switch to the other one for another few years so you know how everything works and then you can run if you like. And you're blue."

"If you're not blue can you just dye it."

"No."

"...I mean, it's not more unreasonable than 'I run the country because I am the oldest married descendant of the last person who did."

"Married?"

"Because kings without heirs make for instability. It's a silly rule, doesn't exactly capture the thing it's concerned with, I've been meaning to change it but I'm not in an enormous hurry."

"...we are probably not married to the same person."

"It'd be a hell of a coincidence. I guess not more than everything else. My wife's name is Iobel and she is lovely, I bet if you met one you'd have married her."

" - seems unlikely."

"By everyone votes he means everyone without red hair and then there is math so people with blue hair count more than everyone else. It is indeed still less silly than marriage-dependent monarchy."

"Are the ones with red hair bad at voting?"

"That's the idea. And more informed people make better decisions and blue and green are most informed."

"Huh."

Sigh.

"You disagree?"

"I was brought up in an at least ostensibly egalitarian democracy where citing earlier historical periods in which certain people counted less than other people or certain groups could not vote was a winning rhetorical move."

"If you're doing the voting thing because it's good that people have a voice in who rules them, then it makes sense to count them the same, if you're doing it as a stability measure then maybe less so - if you have technologies or magic that boosts working memory then Iobel might be able to get her immortality to snap -"

"...explain?"

"The way you get access to a spell is you write it out and then trim it down and then if you can hold it all in your head at once it - clicks, and you've got it permanently after that. She's been working on immortality but it's far too big to fit in her head, but if there were technology or magic for it..."