On the other side are taller, grey-haired people hauling fish into port.

One notices the shimmer and breaks off down the beach to investigate.

The portal continues to exist, and singing continues to drift through it.

It's a little small, but one of the grey-haired people should be able to fit through it if they bend double. 

The sound of approaching footsteps catches the attention of one of the nearer motu, who also comes to investigate. He has curly black hair, and is short enough that he could walk through the portal with no trouble.

"Hello?" says the fisherwoman, blinking at him.

He blinks back. That isn't any language he recognizes.

She looks like a human, so... "Hello. Do you speak Common?"

"Oh stars, there's aliens," says the fisherwoman, staring. "There's teeny cheap-special-effects aliens."

The tiny alien shrugs. Still not any language he knows, and if they don't speak Common they're unlikely to know his native language. Humans never do. 

"Hey," he calls over his shoulder in Reo. "I found something weird and magic, anyone know what it is?"

Others come to investigate. Someone tries sticking a finger through the portal, to see what happens, and reports a tingling sensation. They are mostly male, all black-haired, and none of them are more than three feet tall. 

A few more greys drift over. One of them calls someone and gets put on hold.

"Maybe we should get a priest, or a wise-woman?" one of the motu suggests. 

"Go on, then," says another. After a bit more arguing back and forth, one of the younger men is sent running to the village to fetch someone with a better chance of knowing what's going on. 

Someone tries poking the edges of the portal, and gets a static shock. After that, they back off a little, but stay clustered around the opening so they can look through. 

The first grey pokes it.

There is a slight tingling sensation in her finger, like she's stuck it in fizzing water only without the wetness. 

It doesn't hurt, and there's no resistance. 

"Weird."

"Stop poking it. I'm calling the princess's office."

"It doesn't hurt or anything."

"Stop anyway."

When nothing particularly interesting happens, some of the motu start drifting away to return to their work. The fish aren't going to haul themselves up the beach, after all. 

One of the older men sits down by the portal, watching the strange humans whose hair looks older than their faces. 

After about ten minutes, the youngster returns with a woman dressed in green, a little shorter than the fishermen and with longer hair, in which she has braided a flower. The men move out of her way so she can look at the portal. 

"Hi?" says a grey.

"Stop talking to them, what if you fuck it up -"

"The princess's office isn't picking up, what if not talking to them fucks up?"

The priestess shakes her head; she doesn't speak the grey-haired people's language either. 

"I will pray," she decides. "Perhaps my goddess will know what to do."

Turning towards the sea, she stretches out her arms and starts to sing. 

And a girl steps out of the water, even smaller than the rest, to join in the song.

Her dress seems to be woven of living green leaves, there is a flower in her long brown hair, and something about her informs everyone present that this is a god, and she is curious. 

"Whoa," says a grey.

"Magic aliens!"

"This is great!"

"Unless it's not, keep your nose on."

She laughs like bubbling water, and comes over to look through the portal.

"Hi! This is new," she says. Everyone present understands her. 

"...hello ma'am," says the first grey, suddenly more tentative.

"Oh no, don't call me ma'am, you'll make me feel old!" she laughs.

She says 'old' the way children do, when they're too young to imagine being old themselves. To Amentan eyes, correcting for the way motu are half-scale, she looks around four at the oldest. 

"I'm Puna, goddess of spring," she introduces herself brightly. "Who are you?"

"...we're some fishergreys. She's contacting the princess's office, they'll be able to get someone more important to talk to you."

She pokes the portal and wiggles her fingers about to feel the tingling.

"That translates really weirdly! What does your...hair colour? What does that have to do with you catching fish?"

"...our hair is grey because we're grey caste and here fishing is a grey job."

"Oh, okay. Like dwarves! I think dwarves have castes." 

She shrugs.

"I guess it works for them. I wouldn't know, I just look after my islanders." She smiles at her priestess, who smiles back.

The grey on the phone gets ahold of somebody and starts excitedly yammering - "Aliens! I am not shitting you magical mini brown haired aliens one of them has translation -"

"What language is this?" Puna asks one of the other greys. "I've never heard it before, and I thought I knew all the languages there were." 

Since putting her hand in the portal didn't hurt, she tries poking her head through. This is only an avatar; she can replace it if something terrible happens. 

Nothing terrible happens.

"Alasseik..."

"It's pretty."

She walks through the portal onto the greys' beach, giggling as she passes through the fizziness, and looks around. 

There's greys. There's piers. There's boats. There's fish processing plants and a handful of grey children who were running around but are now being held back from the portal.

Privately, she thinks the view on the other side was prettier. 

Awww, children! She waves at the children.  

"I'm pretty sure the portal is safe to go through. Does anyone want to try it?" 

"We should wait for the Princess's office to get back to us -"

"- I wanna try it."

"- we should -"

"I do though."

"I don't want to get you into trouble," she adds quickly.

"One of my people can be the first to try it, instead." 

She asks the motu for volunteers. An older man, with streaks of white in his hair and sideburns, agrees to try his luck. He stumps up to the opening and cautiously steps through, then immediately turns and goes back. The portal continues to be harmless. 

"Finally," says the person on the phone, "look, there's a portal, with aliens, one of them is magic, she came through it and is standing here on this beach - uh, the fishery at Shell Beach - don'tputmeonholdagain! - damn."

Puna laughs. 

"Why are you calling us aliens?" she wonders. 

"...because you're not Amentans," says one.

"Amentans?" she repeats.

"Is that what you are? I thought you were humans!"

She takes a few dancing steps on thin air, bringing her head level with theirs for a better view. 

"Ooooh, you're a new species, I can tell now! What are Amentans like?" 

"We don't know what, uh, humans, are like," one points out.

The one who is on hold starts taking pictures of Puna and the portal and the motu beyond.

"Hmm, well...humans look like you, but they have brown or black or yellow or orange hair, and it only goes grey when they get old," she rattles off.

"They live about eighty years - wait, let me check how long a year is..."

The sense of this-is-a-god briefly increases, and her eyes glow green. "Oh, that's only twenty of yours, wow your years are long!" 

"...okay. We live about forty years and greys have grey hair. Or dye it grey if we don't. Nobody has brown or black hair. Yellow or orange sometimes though. Blue or green or purple too."

She giggles in delight.

"That's a lot of colours! No-one on Corth has blue or green or purple hair, it sounds fun!" 

She looks over at the children again. "So do you grow slower than humans as well? How old do I look in your years, if I were an Amentan? A human who looked like me would be...four?" 

"You look about four," one confirms.

"Okay! So you grow like humans, but live twice as long. That's cool!" 

Puna tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then pulls it back out to look at. 

"Should I change my hair to be like yours?" she wonders. 

"...only if you're grey," one says.

"That makes sense," she agrees.

"But how do I know if I'm grey? What things are grey things? What do the other colours mean?"

"You probably aren't an Amentan caste since you're an alien," a grey says. "Grey things are like boating or dancing or playing sports or policing or fighting."

"What a strange set of things to put together! I like dancing and sailing, but not policing or fighting."

She dances through the air to prove it, ending up back on the ground.

"You're probably right. I don't think I fit in this system at all."

"...well, usually people pick one. Blues run things and greens do art and science and stuff and yellows do programming and are secretaries and things and oranges do people jobs like teaching or doctoring and purples make stuff or drive buses or whatever."

She listens, and makes tiny illusions of people with the appropriate hair colours as each one is mentioned. 

"What's programming?"

"- yellower than that - uh, computer stuff."

"Thanks!" She corrects the illusion's hair from blonde to bright yellow. 

"What's a computer? And is that all yellows do? Grey had lots of different things."

"There's more stuff but we're grey so we don't look at yellow job ads..."

The one taking pictures on the pocket everything says, "Like this thing."

"That makes sense. Like how I don't know very much about dwarves..."

She forgets what she was about to say next, in favour of being fascinated by the pocket everything.

"What can you do with it? Talk to people far away, right? What else?"

"...go on the internet, order dumplings, play music, play games, check the train schedules, translate languages - uh, Amentan languages, not whatever those guys speak - I'm taking pictures - it has a flashlight -"

She is appropriately awed by the extent of its capabilities.

"One little box can do all that? I mean, I can do all that, but a magic item couldn't! Can I see the pictures?"

He shows her the pictures he has most recently taken of her (with another couple greys in the picture for scale).

"That's me! It got me exactly right, that's so clever!" 

She peers at it.

"I bet I could figure out how to make one, if I took it apart."

"I, uh. This is my only one. Maybe the Princess will give you one when I finally get somebody who can talk to her on the phone."

"Oh, don't worry, I wouldn't take yours apart!" she reassures the anxious grey.

"It's yours! I can wait."

Sceptics might note that she hasn't stood still for more than a moment at a time since she materialized.

"They'll answer any minute, I'm sending them the pictures."

"That's good."

Running back over to the portal, she persuades most of her fishermen to go back to work for now, and sends the boy who fetched the priestess back to the village to fetch his head-woman. They call her 'Lady', and seem respectful but not at all afraid. 

Nobody can understand them, but the attitudes don't require translation.

The one on the phone says, "Yes! Finally! Look, I've been sending you pictures - I know it looks like a - you background checked me? Seriously? - no, they're legit, I - look can you just send someone out here - Shell Beach Fishery -"

Puna doesn't interrupt the conversation.

She wanders around looking at things, picking up a couple of pretty shells from the beach, and humming to herself while she thinks of more questions to ask.  

"They're gonna send some people," the grey reports eventually.

"Oh, good!" Puna says.

"I like meeting new people! What sort of people are they?"

She looks at her little rainbow of illusion-people, and tries to guess. "Hmm, maybe some blues?"

"Yeah, probably, and maybe greens 'n yellows too."

"What would the yellows be doing?"

She perks up. "Do you think they could teach me how to do computer stuff?" 

"There's just lots of yellows helping blues with stuff. Maybe they know computers too."

"I guess we'll find out!"

Puna dances back over to the portal to see if the head-woman has arrived yet. She could manifest another avatar back on Corth and check that way, but this is more fun.

The head-woman is on her way, but she walks slower than the priestess, so she'll be a little while.

Greys take more photos.

And eventually a helicopter can be heard approaching.

The helicopter is fascinating enough to make her stand still for three whole seconds!

"Is that them?" She strains forwards on tiptoe and cranes her neck to see.  

The motu head-woman is still a few minutes out. 

"Yeah, probably. I guess it could be a news helicopter if the news somehow heard about you."

"No, those are black and gold."

"Right, right."

"...I probably shouldn't fly up to meet them, right?" 

"...might scare 'em..."

"Well, of course, that's why I'm not doing it."

The helicopter gets closer, and she's distracted by staring at it again.

The helicopter lands neatly on the beach. The door opens. A couple more greys get out, first, wearing uniforms. Then a blue in a fancy outift.

Puna waves at the newcomers, bouncing very slightly in place. 

She wants to investigate the helicopter, but she doesn't want the Amentans to get the impression that she doesn't care about meeting their rulers. She does care! It's just that new things are exciting regardless of whether they're people or objects or plants or animals. 

The helicopter will still be there, and still be new and exciting, after she's introduced herself to the blue.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," says the blue. "I'm Prince Shiresk, here on behalf of my mother Princess Amnoi to welcome you to Shi Alassei and Amenta."

"It's a pleasure to be here!" she replies, entirely truthfully.

"I'm Puna, motu goddess of spring, change, and travel, here on behalf of my pantheon. One of the leaders of the nearest motu settlement should be arriving soon, to aid me in representing my people." 

His hair is so pretty up close! "Your hair is really pretty! I've never seen anyone with blue hair before; it doesn't happen in any of Corth's species!"

"- thank you. What does it mean exactly to be a motu goddess, or to be a goddess of those things?"

"I'm a motu goddess because the motu worship me, rather than humans or dwarves or elves or...a bunch of other species."

She has to think about the other part.

"The things I'm goddess of are...the things I like, and the things I'm better at than the other gods in my pantheon, and the things motu pray to me about. And those three lists are mostly the same, because that's how pantheons work. We're good at the things we like, and people pray to us for the things we're good at." 

"What are the other gods... of?"

"Well, I can't remember how the elven or dwarven gods are organized, but in my pantheon there's a god for each season, and then Huringa who's the god of balance," she begins.

"I'm spring, of course, and then for summer there's my brother Raumati. He's the god of war and light and metalwork and a bunch of things like that. Next is autumn, that's my mother Kotinga. She's goddess of tradition, family, harvest, motherhood, community..." Puna ticks each domain off on her fingers as she mentions it.

"Last is my father Hotoke, god of winter. He covers history, memory, sleep, death, and preservation."

She seems to be finished, then remembers, "Oh, I forgot to explain Huringa properly! Huringa is the in-between god, they're sort of what you'd get if you took the average of the rest of us. They look after the cycle of years and the passage of the seasons, and they're god of prophecy too. So...that's my family," she concludes, beaming. 

"...motherhood is in autumn for, ah, motu?"

"No, most babies are born in spring. If they were born in autumn, they'd barely have any time to grow up before winter!" she explains.

"All of us do things all year round," she continues. "We're just specially in charge of our season as well. Like, it's not spring right now, but I'm the one who came to look at the portal because it's a new thing that goes someplace, and I'm the god who's in charge of new things and going places."

"Change and travel. I see," says Shiresk. "In addition to parents do you have - grandparents -? Where did Huringa come from?"

"Nnnot really?" Puna tilts her head sideways. 

"Kotinga and Hotoke came from the elemental forces of Order and Chaos mixing together, and then they made me and Raumati, and then Huringa formed the same way my parents did from the perfect balance of Order and Chaos right in the centre. So they're sort of my parents' little sibling? But we're definitely family, anyway." All of this may or may not have been said in one breath. 

"What about your family? What are they like?"

"- well, my mother is Princess Amnoi, the monarch of Shi Alassei, which is this country, and my father is Tahan Apma, who's from Tapa, another country that we have a close relationship with. I have two brothers and two sisters; I'm the youngest. I have a wife and two daughters, and nine nieces and nephews."

"That sounds nice! I sometimes wish I had a sister," Puna says cheerily.

"Why are you the one who came to meet me?"

"Ah, my mother's very busy so I volunteered to come ahead and not keep you waiting."

"That was very nice of you!"

She looks over to the portal, where the head-woman of Otara has arrived.

"I think you should meet a representative of my motu - other than me, that is. I'm just their god, not one of their rulers." Heading back towards the motu, she beckons Prince Shiresk to follow her. 

"What's the material difference -?"

"I don't tell them what to do, or interfere in their daily lives," she explains. 

"We only step in for big things, or when we're asked to help. Today is both!"

They reach the portal, and Puna darts through to fetch the motu chieftess. It takes a bit of coaxing, but she manages to persuade the woman to follow her through the portal to meet the Amentan prince.

The head-woman looks like she weighs easily twice as much as Puna, and has to bend her head to fit her headdress through the opening. She is wearing robes that leave her breasts exposed, and one of her nipples is pierced with a gold ring. 

The prince has no comment on the tiny alien's state of dress. He dips his head politely. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Prince Shiresk of Shi Alassei."

Puna repeats this for the head-woman's benefit. Like everything she says, it's perfectly understandable by everyone present, regardless of what language they speak. 

"Would you like me to grant you the temporary ability to speak and understand all languages, so you can speak to the prince directly?" she adds. "It seems easier than having me translate everything."

The chieftess agrees, and receives the temporary blessing. 

"I am Wikolia Hauata Turei, chieftess of Otara. It is an honour." 

She looks Shiresk up and down, as if gauging whether she could jump that high, then bows slightly. 

"An honor to meet you as well. How does that work?" he asks.

"The translation? It's magic. I haven't done anything to you," Puna clarifies, "just to Chieftess Wikolia. I cast a spell on her that lets her understand and be understood by anyone who speaks any language at all, for the next while."

She pauses. "Actually, I'm not sure how it's doing it. I'm not an expert in magical theory, but it can't be that the magic knows all the languages and translates them the way a person would, because until today there was no contact at all between Corth and Amenta, so it would have no way to learn Amentan languages. Maybe it works by intended meaning..." She trails off, lost in thought.

"Sorry! Back to diplomacy! That's probably more detail than you wanted."

"If it doesn't have any side effects..."

She blinks.

"Why would it have side effects? Anyway, I can do it for you as well if you want, but it won't last the rest of the day unless I renew it, and there's not much difference between one of you having it and both of you."

"We don't have anything like it here - translation is done by machines which do know the languages - so I wasn't sure," he explains. "Either way is fine with me, thank you."

"I proooobably shouldn't get into the habit of doing magic I don't need to do," she says regretfully. 

"So, um, what should be the next step here?"

"- what would happen if you did too much magic?" asks the prince.

"Oh! Nothing, mostly, unless I did a lot," Puna reassures him. 

"But it's not a completely unlimited resource, just a renewable one. And gods' magic is only really renewable when our own people are involved, so I shouldn't do magic for Amentans unless it's important."

She shifts to look at him directly. "Are there any important things I should do for you with magic? That seems like a good place to start."

"The thing that would most change the world for the better would be a way to get to other planets so we could have more room to put people," he says. "But if I understand correctly you didn't make this portal?"

"No," she admits. "It just appeared, as far as we can figure out. But there might be another way to solve the problem."

She thinks. "If it's about space to put people, I could make you some islands? I don't know if I could manage travel to other planets straight away, but I could maybe figure out how to do it eventually, especially if your scholars know more about the other planets and the space between them than ours do." 

The head-woman is looking between them, rather nonplussed. 

"Islands would be wonderful in the short term, but Amentans want a lot of children and can fill them up fast. We do know a lot about where planets are, and we can travel to some of them, but the ones that are close enough to reach in a lifetime aren't habitable. Another thing that occurred to me when you said you were a god of spring is that the reason everyone wants so many children is because of a drive that mostly happens to us during the spring; I don't know if the people of your world have anything quite like it."

"It doesn't sound familiar...but like I said, Kotinga's the expert on children, not me," she admits.

"Oh, I could fix the not-habitable planets! That's a thing I can do!"

"That would be amazing!" says the prince enthusiastically.

         The head-woman coughs.

"Oh, sorry! Was there something you wanted to talk to each other about?" Puna asks. "If not, I suppose we should let Wikolia get back to work."

         "With all this talk of needing land," Chieftess Wikolia says stiffly, "I would very much appreciate an assurance that you do not intend to take it from Corth. I mean no slight," she adds, "but such things have happened in our history, you see."

"They have happened in ours, too. For internal political reasons Shi Alassei does not maintain our own army," Shiresk says. "But I'm confident our Tapai allies will be much more enthusiastic about friendship with you and your gods and terraformed planets here than about trying to attack you."

"I should probably make it clear," Puna says, suddenly very serious, "that if any Amentan countries do decide to conquer any part of Corth, those countries will not get nice habitable terraformed planets." 

She grins. "Terraformed. That's a good word, I like it."

"It's good to have that clear," says Shiresk. "I'll make sure it's conveyed to everyone else."

"That resolves my concern," Chieftess Wikolia says. 

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Prince Shiresk, but I must return to my duties. I trust the Lady Puna to handle matters here on behalf of my people." 

"It was a pleasure to meet you too," he says, "please convey the best wishes of Shi Alassei to your constituents."

"Thank you, young man. I shall."

She bows again, then turns and makes her way back through the portal and home to her village. Most of the motu clustered around the Corth side of the portal have also dispersed by now, and the remaining few leave with their chieftess. 

Puna waves to them as they leave.

"So! Who should I talk to about planets?" she asks brightly.

"Would you like to come to the palace with me in the helicopter and meet my mother?" he suggests. "Then we can call Tapa."

"I'd love to!"

Puna is literally bouncing at the prospect of getting a closer look at the helicopter.

"Can I see how it works? Ooooh, can I fly it?"

"...unless your translation spell works on helicopter controls that probably wouldn't be safe," says Shiresk. He leads her to the helicopter. There's a purple guy at the controls.

"It works on writing..." she says, distracted. 

"I'll just watch, this time. I can watch, right?"

"Sure. You'll want to sit down for takeoff."

And when she's sat up they go.

This is so exciting!

Between the technology and the view, Puna is going to be thoroughly distracted for most of the ride. 

Shiresk has a few questions - how old is she, how many motu are there, what are their diplomatic relations with the other species like.

"I don't remember. I was around before the first motu...I don't remember the first elves, but that might just be because I wasn't paying attention?"

"Uh, let me just check...around sixty million? A lot of them live in different places..."

"Pretty good, I think! No-one's tried to start a war with any motu in, oh, three or four hundred years?" 

"Our years or your years?"

"Oh! Right, only one hundred of yours, I forgot."

She goes back to gaping out the window.

"Wow, you fit a lot of people into not very much space. I guess that makes sense..."

"There's about thirteen billion Amentans."

She blinks.

"Wow, that's a lot. I can see why you need more space! I think the total population of Corth is less than a twentieth of that."

"Ours used to be smaller, but we've gotten better at medicine than we used to be, the world has become more peaceful, and we only instituted population controls about forty years ago."

"Population controls?" 

She's still not paying all that much attention.

"If everyone could have as many children as they wanted they'd have an average of five, and start pretty early in their lives," says Shiresk. "So they aren't allowed to do that, since we don't have the space. Credits good for permission to have a child are auctioned, in most countries; some do it differently."

"Motu have a higher average than that, and they haven't run out of space yet..." Puna says, confused. 

"Oh, but you said medicine is better, and your world looks safer in other ways as well. No magic means no undead or dragons. So if an Amentan has five children, they'll probably all go on to have their own, but only about half of motu children survive to adulthood." 

"...what are dragons and... undead...?"

"Dragons are giant flying lizards that breathe fire or ice or poison gas or acid or lightning," Puna explains.

"They can talk, and some of them are really smart," she adds, for completeness.

"Undead are either the spirits or the bodies of dead people, walking around and interacting with the world. They happen when someone is cursed to stay around rather than going to their afterlife, or brought back by a necromancer, and large numbers of undead in a particular area can cause other corpses to rise as well. They're usually violent, and most of them are really stupid and are basically puppets or echoes rather than still being people."

"That's horr- Kish, fly the helicopter, dammit," the Prince says, snapping at the pilot when the vehicle wobbles alarmingly.

"I'm sorry your eminence," says the pilot. The copter stabilizes.

"- horrifying," the prince concludes, "can they be handled effectively - is there any chance any may come through the portal - have you or the headwoman touched any -"

Puna blinks.

"There haven't been undead anywhere near Otara since before Wikolia was born, so I don't know why she'd have touched one. I wouldn't have left the portal unguarded if there were undead around, that would be unfriendly."

She has to think about herself. "I've probably touched undead at some point but not with this avatar, I made it specially for today. Why?"

"We prefer to be extremely careful not to touch the dead, or things that have touched the dead," explains the prince delicately. "If the avatar is - new, that's fine."

"Oh, okay."

More contemplation.

"Wikolia has children and grandchildren - that's what her piercing means - so she's almost definitely touched at least one dead baby in her life. She'll have washed since then, and I don't think you actually touched her directly, but is that enough to be a problem?"

"If she washed she's all right, we have processes for things like that. If she made a habit of it we would have to dig up some of the beach sand where she was and discard it."

"Weird," is Puna's opinion of these precautions.

"And, uh, why would she have made a habit of touching dead people? Is that something people do here?"

"- oh, uh, various occupations involve contact with dead people."

Puna makes a face.

"That doesn't sound like a very nice job, if you all hate doing that sort of thing," she says.

"How do you get anyone to do it?"

"Well. Someone has to, and there's a caste that specializes in doing the things someone has to do that aren't ever going to be popular in their own right. Reds."

She calls up her little row of illusion Amentans again: blue green yellow grey orange purple. No red. The blue is a tiny Shiresk and the purple is a miniature copy of the pilot. The grey is modelled on one of the fishergreys she first met.

She adds a figure with blood-red hair to the end of the line. 

"When I asked the fishergreys to explain the castes," she says slowly, "they didn't mention reds. Why not?"

"People avoid thinking about them because thinking about them is very much like thinking about their work."

"You don't even like thinking about it?" Puna exclaims, equal parts incredulous and sympathetic.

"...Should I stop asking you about this?" she adds hesitantly. "And is there anything else I should avoid talking about?"

"It's not a subject I'd care to linger over except insofar as if undead are ever likely to approach the portal we need to know immediately. Ah, the other things reds traditionally handle are sewage, garbage, and each other."

"Alright. I won't talk about those things again without asking first," she promises, "and I'll only ask if it's important."

She goes back to staring out of the window at the scenery.

"Thank you."

Some time passes in silence.

"...Is there anything else I need to know before we land?"

Just asking the question seems to revive her spirits a little, and she follows it with several more. "Where will we land? Will anyone be there to meet us? Are there rules or safety procedures for landing that I should know about?"

"We're going to land at the palace helipad. My mother and some of her staff will be there; other people might too, they may not have all decided for sure yet. Just don't hop out of the helicopter till it's settled completely on the ground."

"Helipad," she repeats, beaming again. 

"Your language has so many words for things that don't even exist on Corth! I love it!" 

"What sorts of things have been invented on Corth recently?"

"Um...it depends what you mean by 'recently'?"

She thinks about it. 

"In the last century - sorry, twenty-five of your years - people on Corth have invented eyeglasses to help people see better, a cloth-making technique called knitting, locks on canals...a couple of new alphabets, but that's not really the sort of thing you wanted to know... This one artist came up with a method for making paintings look three-dimensional even when they're flat, that's really cool. Oh, and woodcuts, they're pretty new as well."

She starts rambling about woodcuts. "You carve a picture into a block of wood and cover it in ink and then you can stamp it over and over and have lots of the same picture! Personally, I think it's more fun to make new different pictures, but not everyone is me." 

"I see. Yes, we've invented a lot of things here that Corth's a long way off from."

Puna grins, and shakes her hair back from her face. 

"I'll have to ask someone about catching up on all of that." 

She consults her rainbow models again. "Maybe greens? Would greens be good people to ask about inventions? Oh, and I was going to ask yellows about computers as well..."

"Greens are good to ask about inventions in particular and history in general, but yellows, especially computer yellows and librarians, would be a good choice too."

"Okay! I'll see which I meet first," she decides.

"And then I'll ask them where I should go to find out more. People who know lots of things tend to be good at knowing where to find information, even if they don't know it themselves."

"Yep. The first greens you meet may not be historians, they're more likely to be scientists, but they'll have school friends who went into history."

"And they'll be able to tell me about science!"

She leans up in her seat to peer out of the window again; it's set a little high for her to see out comfortably. 

"Are we getting close?" she asks. 

"Yes, it's not far now, see that white and blue and silver building? That's the palace."

A lean to the side reveals it.

"Ooooh, pretty! Is that where you live?"

"Yes, most of the year."

Puna stares out of the window at the palace as they start to descend, legs swinging.

"Where do you live the rest of the year? Is that place nice too?"

"My wife's family has a place a bit north that we often spend the winter or part of it at. It's lovely."

"Huh! If you were a motu you'd live with your wife's family all the time," Puna comments.

She grins up at Shiresk.

"It's the little differences between species that I find most interesting to learn about, because they surprise both sides. The things people don't think to mention, so they just come up suddenly in conversation." 

"Why would we live with her family all the time?"

"That's how it works for motu, the husband moves in with his wife when they get married," Puna explains. 

"Most women move out to their own home eventually, but usually not until their mother dies, because then the youngest daughter inherits - and she doesn't want her older sisters around!"

She giggles. "Not that I'd know, I don't really have a sister." 

"I think we - care less about gender than that. And it's usual if only one child inherits that it be either the eldest or the favorite or the one with the most children of their own."

"That sounds confusing!" she says, still laughing.

"But I guess it works for you. I think the reason it's the youngest who inherits is that they have less time to build up their own resources, so they're the least able to go off on their own." 

She bounces up to look at the palace again now it's closer. It's still pretty.

"What about the boys, then?" The helicopter positions for a landing.

"They get married, mostly."

She is maybe a little bit distracted by the fact that the helicopter is doing a thing.

"I think the ones that don't just keep living with their sisters? I guess they could get a house of their own if they wanted, but there wouldn't be much point having a whole house just for one person, would there?"

"Apartments haven't been invented?"

'Apartment' is a new word, which is just about interesting enough to distract her from helicopters. 

"Sort of? Houses can be separated off into different areas for different family units, or individual people, but it's still nicer to live with family than with strangers, isn't it?" 

"Depends, some people don't get along as well with their families."

"I suppose. I like my family, even though we're all really different from each other..."

And now she is thoroughly absorbed in watching out of the window as they land. 

Down they go and now they're on the helipad! It's a big clear space surrounded by garden.

Eeeeee, garden! 

Puna bounces in her seat and stares out the window and waits with all the patience she can muster for it to be safe to get out. Helicopters are fun, but she wants to explore, and meet people, and, and, and...!!!

And the helicopter settles and they can emerge. There are blues and yellows waiting.

The very instant it's safe, she bounces out of her seat to hover in the air, because it feels more like she's doing something, and darts over to fiddle with the door mechanism until she figures out how to open it.

That achieved, she stands in the opening for a second and looks around at all the people. All of them have such pretty hair!

"Which one is your mother?" she whispers to Shiresk.

"The one in green," he whispers back. And then he formally introduces everyone.

Yay! Meeting new people! 

Puna delightedly says hello to everyone and memorises all their names. Meeting a bunch of new people is sufficiently exciting that she can stop bouncing and focus on being polite and diplomatic as she is formally greeted by Princess Amnoi. Since gods outrank even rulers, she doesn't technically need to bow, but she does anyway since she's a guest here. 

"We are so delighted to have you here in Shi Alassei," says Princess Amnoi.

"I'm equally delighted to be here!" Puna assures her. 

She's still radiating her aura of this is a god, which would like to inform everyone present that she is in fact even more delighted than that, she is the most delighted that anyone could possibly be right now. 

"I look forward to working with your people to improve the lives of those in both our worlds."

"What things would your people find most useful?"

"Science!" she answers immediately.

"Corth has magic, which is what we can share with you, but Amentans are...at least a century ahead, in terms of technology and inventions. It's really exciting!" 

"I am sure there are many things we can usefully share in that area," smiles the Princess. "We may need to consult some other countries so that no one is concerned."

Puna blinks, radiating deep confusion.

"Why would they be concerned?" she asks. 

"What can I do to help with that?" 

"All the countries on Amenta have known each other for a long time. With occasional exceptions, we don't surprise each other and have a good idea of what things would provoke fights and who would win them if that happened. We've never met another sapient species before, and people won't know what to expect. But you've been very reassuring so far."

"That's good! I don't want anyone to be scared."

She thinks.

"Should we work out a set of rules about how interactions between Corth and Amenta should work, to avoid other countries being surprised? It's not really my area of expertise, but it seems important."

"We're actually expecting a team from Tapa to arrive soon. They're one of the largest countries in the world and we stand in a protectorate relation to them. They'll be the ones to talk to about that. But if you have any preliminary ideas I'd love to hear them."

"I don't know if you were listening to my conversation with Shiresk..." 

With magic, someone could have scried them and overheard what they talked about, but Puna doesn't know if technology could do something similar. 

"It would proooobably help if we said that the portal doesn't belong to any particular Amentan country, even though it's in Shi Alassei?" she suggests. "We might set up something similar on the Corth side, but that's our problem, not yours..." 

"I listened to part of it. Administering the portal if there's much traffic will be a big job; airports often see many thousands of people come through them every day. So it being in Shi Alassei does have implications for Shi Alassei."

"Maybe we should try to keep the number of people travelling back and forth pretty small, then," Puna says regretfully.

She's gone serious again. 

"If anyone tries to invade Shi Alassei to get at the portal, you can count on me and my fellow gods to help stop them. And, as I said to Shiresk, anyone who tries to invade Corth through the portal will not get a terraformed planet of their very own."

"That's a very sizable bribe. Once it's clear you can follow through on it most people will be very cooperative."

"Good!"

The multiverse would like to inform the Princess that this is a full-fledged deity who is absolutely confident in her ability to terraform as many planets as she pleases. 

"Who should I talk to about arranging that, or should we wait for the people from Tapa?"

"I'm sure they'd like to be privy to the conversation. May I ask about your - aura?"

"Of course! What would you like to know?"

Answering questions is not quite as fun as finding out the answers, but it's still good, and it'll fill the time while they wait. 

"What is it exactly? It's nothing like anything I'm familiar with."

"That makes sense, since you don't have magic - and you don't seem to have gods, either, or I'm pretty sure they'd have come to say hello by now."

The aura flares briefly.

"It's...basically an overflow of power from my avatar? For a god, squishing ourselves down into a mortal-seeming avatar like this one is really difficult, especially if we want to have constant access to all our powers. Every second that I'm not using as much magic as I could, it spills out because there's nowhere to put it," she explains.

"Don't worry, it's not doing anything bad!" she adds quickly. "Some gods have auras of fire or destruction or things like that, but my aura just heals people a little bit, and announces my presence - that bit's really hard to turn off, but I could if I wanted to. It would take basically all my concentration, though." 

"It's not objectionable," the princess assures her.

"That's good. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

She wants to ask when the Tapai delegation will arrive, but that might make them think she's bored. That would be rude, but it might also scare them, because some gods can be scary when they're bored. Puna isn't one of them - at least, she doesn't think she's scary - but these people don't necessarily know that yet. 

"We're curious what you can tell us about other gods and polities of Corth."

She starts by quickly explaining her own pantheon again, because probably not everyone here overheard that part even if some of them did.

"As well as motu, Corth has..."

She takes a deep breath, mostly for effect. "Humans, elves, dwarves, mardik, dragons, dragonfolk, hyenafolk, lizardfolk, aaaand kobolds. A lot of them have their own gods, making...six different major pantheons plus at least that many minor ones. We don't tend to interact much with other gods, but I can tell you a little bit about most of the major ones..."

"- are the polities solely a matter of species, then, not - multiple countries of kobolds, or -"

"What makes a pantheon minor or major?" a different blue asks.

"Oh, no, every species has multiple political units. They just all have different systems, so it's easier to think of them as grouped by species first," she clarifies.

"The difference between a major and minor pantheon is the number of worshippers. If a species only has one religion, like motu, that pantheon will be a major one - we have about sixty million followers, but I don't have estimates for the others. The other major pantheons are the mardik, elven, dwarven, and draconic gods. Humans have lots of gods but they aren't all one pantheon, so none of them are big enough on their own to make the list - plus, a lot of humans worship the elven gods. Hyenafolk don't have gods, they worship their ancestors instead, and lizardfolk and kobolds worship the draconic gods, or sometimes just dragons." 

"- 'they worship their ancestors instead' makes it sound like the worship somehow precedes the gods -"

Puna responds immediately, almost speaking over the end of the blue's sentence. 

"Well, obviously if they don't worship any gods then they can't be said to have gods, can they? Instead of worshipping any of the gods that exist, they worship their ancestors, who are spirits not gods. That's all I meant."

She says all of this like it's obvious and should be self-evident to anyone who thinks about it for half a second. 

"...I'm sorry, we don't have the phenomenon here so things that are obvious to you may not be self-evident to us. What is a spirit?"

"Sorry, I keep forgetting you don't have magic! I'm used to explaining things to motu." 

She thinks carefully about how to explain spirits without mentioning other kinds of undead.

"Spirits, um...they're like people minus the physical body? Your spirit is your personality and memories and knowledge, all that sort of thing, and - at least on Corth, it might be different here - it doesn't necessarily die when you do, so spirits can sometimes stick around and help their descendants, a little bit like a small version of a god." 

"How interesting. We don't have that. Under what conditions does that happen? What powers do they have?"

"I'm not sure. Death really isn't my area of expertise," she admits. 

"I think Father said it varies by species, so it might just be that Amentans don't become spirits at all." 

"Are we likely to meet your family? Or other gods?"

She nods. "My family are fairly likely to come over and help out at some point. We don't tend to have much contact with other gods, so they'll probably only come through if they notice the portal on their own."

Since this is probably important, she takes a second to estimate how likely that is.

"It's on motu land, and nowhere near any settlements of other races, so the only reason they might notice is if they were watching a bird that flew through, or something. That could take years. Or...I suppose we could tell one of our people to ask someone else to pray to their god about it?" 

"If they aren't likely to be particularly helpful in terraforming planets or relevant to international relations, nor upset about being left out, then there's no tremendous hurry. If distance is a factor - we couldn't get a whole helicopter through, but we could probably get pieces of one across and assemble it there."

She laughs, both at the mental image of a helicopter being disassembled and reassembled and at the idea that a god might need one.

"No, it's not that they can't get to the portal! They just aren't likely to notice it because they don't have a reason to look there. Gods go where we're needed, mostly." 

Running through all the gods she knows in her head, she concludes, "I know of at least three gods, outside my pantheon, who would be particularly able to help with terraforming. I'm not sure they'd work together, though, or that all of them would want to work with me..."

"Well, you could work on separate planets."

"We could! Should I get someone to ask them, then?" she says to the Princess.

"It might take a day or two, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them will help!" 

"The more planets the better, as long as we can get to them!"

"Okay!" 

(Somewhere on the other side of the portal, a god appears to a motu priest worshipping at a temple in a multicultural city. The priest is instructed to deliver the following message to the nearest temples of Elpida, Shakhter, Ashkharh, and Shūcài...)

"Do you want to know about the gods I'm sending messages to?"

"Yes, please!"

She starts listing them. "There's Elpida, the elven goddess of spring. She's basically my counterpart in the elven pantheon, so I'm pretty sure she'll want to help. She does get less excited about new things than I do, but she'll come and help you because she's nice. Then there's Shakhter, the dwarven earth goddess - my priest might have to be pretty creative to get a message to her, since outsiders aren't allowed in most of her temples..."

Puna is momentarily distracted by making sure the priest knows about that restriction and has a plan to get around it. 

"Where was I? Elpida, Shakhter...Ashkharh! She's the mardik goddess of earth! She's my mother's counterpart, like Shakhter, and they're really similar to each other - they're both mother goddesses as well. Shakhter is in charge of her pantheon, but Ashkharh isn't, not that it really matters for this. I bet if one of them wants to help, so will the other one. And finally, there's Shūcài! He's the draconic god of nature. I have no idea if he'll help! But I thought I should at least try the draconic gods, and he seemed like the one to ask."

Having said most of that all in one go, she pauses to see if there are any questions.

"Why aren't outsiders allowed in the temples?"

Puna shrugs.

"I'm not sure...something about surface people not being holy enough? You'll have to ask Shakhter. I know it's not true for all the dwarven gods, just some of them, but I don't know what the difference is."

"You don't talk with them much?"

"Why would we?" she responds, shrugging.

"We all look after different people, and we only tend to watch what's happening when someone asks us for help. So most of the time, we don't even see other gods."

"And the peoples don't trade or communicate often, and you don't socialize outside of work?"

"Oh, our people interact all the time!" she corrects.

"But we don't talk directly to our counterparts. There's not usually a reason to?"

"Maybe we're used to a higher default interaction level because we're accustomed to the Internet," speculates Shiresk.

"Maybe - "

Puna blinks.

"What's the Internet? It sounds fascinating!"

"It's a way to write things that anyone in the world can read. Among other uses."

Her eyes get very round.

"OOooooh. Can I see it? Just quickly while we're waiting? It sounds really cool!"

"Does your translation work on text?"

"It does!" she chirps.

"Is that a yes?"

If anyone happens to look in the right direction, they might notice her feet aren't actually on the ground right now. 

Princess Amnoi shows her the conversation wherein she asked the Tapai liaison to Shi Alassei to call over some representatives to meet Puna. "This is what I most recently did with it, but I'm not sure what you'd find most interesting."

She's delighted regardless. 

"And everyone has access to this? You don't have to know anything about how it works to use it? This is great! I want one!"

"I'll have someone go buy you a pocket everything!" smiles the princess, and she uses her pocket everything to order just that.

Puna is too short to watch over her shoulder while she does this. She solves this problem by floating!

"Yay! Thank you!"

"You're welcome! It'll take maybe ten minutes."

"Okay!" 

She looks around to see if anyone has any questions to fill the time.

"How much longer until the Tapai delegation arrive?" she wonders. 

"Another hour or two. And they may have decided to alert some other countries, but if so they didn't tell us yet."

She nods, half her attention on watching the priest carry out his instructions back on Corth. 

"Oooh, he managed to find a priest of Elpida! Do you want to watch?"

"How would we do that?"

"I can show you!"

Puna holds out her hands, making them into a miniature stage for the tiny illusion people she conjures up, complete with a view of their surroundings.

A motu man dressed in robes the colour of autumn leaves stands facing a youthful woman in green, who could be a yellow Amentan apart from her pointed ears. The marble-columned room is bright with a rainbow of potted plants. 

As they watch, a third miniature person appears in the illusion, stepping out from behind a column carved to look like a tree.

Like her priestess, she could almost pass for an Amentan with pointy ears, but has warm brown hair upon which she wears a crown of flowers. She looks about four in Amentan terms, and is wearing a dress made entirely of flowers and leaves. The sense of divinity is muted through an illusion, but seems very similar to Puna's. 

She looks up, directly at the watchers. 

"Greetings, cousin," says the goddess Elpida.

"- can she see us too -"

"No, don't worry," Puna reassures them.

"She can tell I'm watching, but she can't see me or you. In fact - "

A duplicate of Puna's avatar appears in the scene, and returns Elpida's greeting. Someone looking closely might notice that the two goddesses in the illusion look slightly translucent next to their priests, similar to the difference between the illusory people and the real ones standing around. 

Puna proceeds to explain the situation to her fellow goddess.

"I would be glad to help," Elpida says when she's finished.

"Should I send an avatar now, or wait until preparations are more advanced?"

"Whichever is more convenient for you."

"I shall wait, I think," she decides.

Her voice is softer and calmer than Puna's, but comes through the illusion with perfect clarity. 

"Maintaining an avatar is an effort, however slight, and it sounds as though there is little point in my presence on Amenta before we are ready to begin work on your planets." 

"We appreciate your consideration," says the princess, "and will be delighted to receive you when the time comes."

She nods, and fades out.

The priestess bows to Puna, then excuses herself to greet another worshipper. 

The motu priest bows as well, more deeply, and leaves the temple to make his way to the next one. The tiny image of Puna fades as soon as his back is turned. 

Puna is grinning as she dismisses the illusion. "That went well!" 

"Was it likely to have gone worse?"

"She...could have refused to help?" she points out.

"You're not her people, you don't worship her - it would be perfectly reasonable to decide it's not her problem. The others still might." 

"What is worshipping, exactly -"

"It's...what our people give back to us, in return for watching over and helping them," Puna explains haltingly. 

"Worship is an acknowledgement that we are their gods, and everything that means. It can be a thanksgiving, or a call for help, or a plea for forgiveness if they've done something we told them not to do. Temples like the one we just saw are special places people go to worship, although it can really be done anywhere." 

"You tell them not to do things?"

"Not me, mostly, but yes," she clarifies.

"Some pantheons have lots and lots of rules about what their followers aren't allowed to do - I think the dwarven gods are like that. But we mostly stick to teaching people how to avoid dangerous things, or things that would be bad for them."

"Since you're not as crowded as we are, are people allowed to move somewhere with different rules?"

"The rules aren't about places, they're about people," she corrects.

"If they don't want to follow our rules they can just decide to stop worshipping us, and say they're not going to be one of our people anymore. Of course, that means we won't automatically help them if they need divine help, and I suppose their friends and family might be mad at them? So not very many of our people do that. I think some dwarves do, though, and plenty of humans and mardik." 

"I see - most laws here don't follow someone who has permanently moved to a country that doesn't have the same one."

She nods.

"That's how mortal governments work; it's just divine law that works differently. We can help people anywhere on the planet, so it would be silly to say we only had jurisdiction over one little bit of it!" 

Nod. "And the system is set up in such a way that - pleading for forgiveness tends to be relevant -?"

"It shows they understand what they did wrong, and didn't do it just to break the rules or to show that they're not going to worship us anymore?"

She thinks about it some more.

"If someone didn't apologise...it would depend on what they did and what the consequences were, but if they did a big thing that's really against the rules, and got people hurt, we'd probably stop helping them like we would if they told us outright. If they did something like kill other motu, we'd - sort of do the reverse of the ways we help people? Give them bad luck, and bad weather when they try to go fishing, and make their crops fail...Raumati might want to hit them with lightning, but our father would probably talk him out of it." 

"You can affect 'luck'?"

"Yup!" 

She bounces. "That's actually one of my specialties! Why?"

"We haven't found that luck is a - thing."

"Well, you don't have magic, either," she points out.

"That's probably why. It's pretty difficult to do anything with luck without magic!"

"What I mean is - presumably you refer to the sort of phenomenon that causes dice to come up in a winning or losing fashion? We've found that reducible to physics to the point where it's odd to think about separating it back out again."

"Well, yes, it's all physical changes, but they're all so tiny that it's trivial for a god - or even a mortal magic-user - to influence them to create a favourable outcome," Puna explains.

"The weather across an entire ocean can shift with the creation of a tiny breeze on the other side of the world a few days earlier, or a little patch of cold air off the coast of one island. For smaller effects, like a die roll, most magic-users know enough about the forces involved that it's easy for them to imagine how it could go either way, and that's enough that the magic can fill in the details to make it more likely to happen."

"Can non-gods use magic?"

"Yes! Not everyone, but there are plenty of different ways people can get it. One way is if someone impresses a god enough with their faith that we grant them a piece of our own magic. They're called clerics, but there are also wizards, sorcerers, paladins, bards, druids, rangers...and warlocks."

She pulls a face at the last one.

"- is something the matter with warlocks?"

"They...get their power by making deals with various powerful entities, mostly ones that are a step below gods," Puna explains.

"Including some that really shouldn't be trusted to uphold their end of a bargain, or set a fair price. Some even drive people mad just by interacting with them. So, warlocks tend to be evil, or mad, or trapped in contracts that force them to do evil things, or any combination of the three."

"...entities like what?"

"How could interacting with something directly cause mental illness?"

"How are the contracts enforced?"

"Uh...fey, demons, things from beyond the world that we don't really understand properly, minor gods, especially powerful - uh - spirits..." She nearly said 'undead', there. Probably better to avoid panicking the nice Amentans unnecessarily. 

"Someone mentioned physics, a minute ago? Um, the things beyond the world...sometimes break the laws of physics. They look like things that shouldn't exist, that don't make sense with your understanding of reality. And I think there's other things as well, but it's hard to study because everyone who interacts with them goes mad. Mad people aren't the best at accurately reporting their experiences for posterity!"

"...magic? I think it varies from one to the next; some might make it so the warlock literally has to carry out their end of the bargain, and others might just have them lose their powers if they don't."

"When you say 'goes mad' what do you mean, what disorder do they have and how does it affect them - we can make optical illusions, they don't make people crazy -"

"I don't know!" Puna admits.

"It affects everyone differently, but it doesn't happen frequently enough that we know why - it might be that they encountered a different entity, or that it's dependent on the phases of the moon or something!"

"...the moon?"

She blinks.

"Yes, the moon! Why, do you not have - "

She flickers.

"Oooooh, you have more than one moon! That's so cool!"

"Yes, but why would even a single moon affect - anything -"

"Plenty of magic things are affected by the moon!" 

She thinks for a second.

"Even some non-magic things are affected by the moon - do you not have tides?"

"We have tides but that's very different from mental illness."

"You don't have magic," she repeats patiently.

"A lot of things work differently on Corth. A minute ago you were surprised that anything could affect luck, now you're surprised again that something might affect the mind!"

"...is your moon itself magic?"

...she checks.

"I don't think so. Well, it is, but only in the sense that there's ambient magic in everything on Corth, including the planet itself."

"Ambient magic?"

"Is just what it sounds like! Magic is everywhere! There might be some leaking through the portal, actually, I should check that - "

She flickers again.

"Yeah, just a little bit. It shouldn't do any harm, and it'll take years before it gets to levels where it would do anything interesting at all." 

"...what will it do?"

"It might eventually make it possible for Amentans to become magic-users?" she guesses.

"I don't know for certain - this has never happened before! But whatever happens, it's not going to be any time soon." 

"It still seems worth being ready for."

"That's a pretty sensible attitude," she admits.

"But it's hard to prepare for something when we're not sure what the something will be. I do think the most likely outcome is 'some Amentans start being born with the capability to become magic-users', though, and it'll probably start happening close to the portal before it happens anywhere else." 

"Those of them who are born there, or conceived there, or whose parents spend some of the pregnancy there, or -"

"No idea! Like I said, this has never happened before!" Puna reminds them.

"All the places we knew about already had ambient magic, so we don't know what happens when a place suddenly gets magic."

"I see."

She grins. "It'll be fun to find out!"

A few moments' thought about the differences between Amenta and Corth prompts the question, "Are there any other sapient species in this world, or is it just Amentans?" 

"Just us on this planet. We haven't gone far into space but haven't seen anybody else through telescopes or heard them through radio."

"Telescopes I know about, but what's radio?" 

Puna bounces, turning the word over in her head.

"Something to do with listening...does it let you hear things at a distance?" she guesses.

"Sort of. Sound can be converted to radio and back with machines. So can other signals."

"Ooooooh." Yet another thing she'll have to learn about at some point, because it sounds ridiculously useful.

"...is that how pocket everythings work?" 

"It's part of it."

Speaking of pocket everythings, hers should be here soon. More bouncing!

Hmm, she's been saving up a bunch of questions for a while, which ones should she ask?

"Earlier, you asked me about whether people could move to get away from laws they don't like. Is that something that happens a lot here?"

"It's difficult because no one has very much room and they want to spend it on letting their people have children but if two people want to trade they can do that."

She nods.

"So it'll be easier once you have more planets?"

"Oh yes."

"What sort of laws do people want to move away from?" she asks.

"And, actually, are there any laws I should know not to break while I'm here?"

"...we do have a fairly extensive legal system but I'm not sure what if any of it you might run into. People sometimes want to switch to a place with a different population control method, that's a popular one. Or to somewhere that does caste with the other sort of inheritance if they're mixed caste and want the other parent's caste for the children."

Puna frowns.

"I thought caste was about hair colour. Can't you tell from that?"

"Caste is indicated by hair color and every caste is most likely to naturally have the right hair color for it, but it's actually inherited from parents regardless of what color their hair comes in - you can have throwback hair colors, see, match a grandparent or even a great-grandparent, and sometimes people marry out of caste but the child will still be one or the other though they're equally likely to have either color."

"Huh, okay. And how do you know which parent they'll take after?"  she wonders.

"Is it different between countries? Wouldn't that mean some places are sorting people wrong?"

"Intercaste marriages are really rare - actually, they used to be illegal in most places. So it's not a common problem. If the parents have a guess that would be a reason to try to swap if it's the wrong parent."

"No, I mean - how do you decide which parent intercaste children should follow in the first place? And why did different countries decide different things, if there's no actual difference between the children born in each country?"

She looks slightly worried now. 

"Motu who are dedicated to the wrong god can be really unhappy until they work out they need to switch. Just because it doesn't happen very often doesn't mean it's not a problem!"

"...most countries it's matrilineal because historically that was the parent who was definitely verifiable and the father could conceivably have been a third party. In some, of which Anitam is the largest, it's patrilineal for local cultural and historical reasons."

"And can someone change caste later if they figure out they were put in the wrong one, or is there a deadline by which their parents have to be in the right country?"

Puna doesn't sound like she thinks much of this system.

"People can't change caste, no - well, sometimes if they're moving between lineality systems as children they can fudge it a little, but not later. Castes have specialized educational tracks and cultures, it's not something you can just decide to switch."

"Hmm."

Puna is pretty sure this is a problem, but she's also pretty sure she won't be able to convince these people that it is one. Maybe she can meet a mixed-caste person at some point and ask them what they think.

"So does every caste teach children of their own caste, or is there one caste in charge of teaching everyone?"

"Oranges teach children. At higher levels castes teach their own specialties."

...well that sounds vaguely sensible. 

"What do oranges do if they don't like children?" she wonders while she thinks of a better question to ask.

"...well, nearly everyone likes children, but oranges can also be doctors or nurses or therapists or social workers or veterinarians or sex workers."

Oh, right, the thing where they all want lots of babies.

"What if they don't like people?" she suggests, half-teasing now. "Or animals?"

"There are some forms of medicine that don't involve much interacting with people. Anesthetists. Radiologists."

"Okay."

She consults her illusion memory-aids again to pick another caste.

"What about...oh, the things greys do all seemed to be things that need strong people. What if someone is grey but isn't very strong?"

"There are some edge occupations. I don't remember them off the top of my head but greys who need them find them."

The same will probably turn out to be true of any caste she asks about. It seems like the system is just about flexible enough that most people can find something they can do, even if it's not what they'd really like to do. 

She can't think of any more questions right this minute. "May I explore your garden for a while?" she asks the Princess.

"Be my guest!"

So Puna wanders in the palace gardens until someone has something more interesting for her to do.

Her aura dances over the plants and flowers, fixing their problems and making them grow just a tiny bit better. She doesn't pick any flowers, because it's not her garden and that would be rude without the owner's permission, but she's tempted. Some of them are so pretty! They're all pretty! 

And eventually the Tapai delegation arrives.

Puna goes to meet them! 

Yes hello she is a magical alien goddess and would like to solve all their problems, especially the one where they are running out of planet, how do they make planets happen and does Tapa have any other problems gods might be able to help with?

There is an astronomer along who has a list of possible planets if they can be portaled and terraformed and a list of possible planets if they can be seasoned too! In the short term they are having a war but it is less important than planets.

Portals prooobably not although they're looking into it and there are other transport solutions too, terraforming definitely - and the gods themselves can just teleport to all the planets and terraform them - seasons probably doable but not enough information yet. Someone should at some point tell Puna everything that is known about why seasoning is a thing so she can figure out how to replicate it. 

Puna understands that they are very very excited about planets (and she is too!) but the war also sounds pretty important to her. "Who are you at war with, and why?"

Well there are planets and moons to be had in commuting distance if they can be terraformed. Seasoning is like so, at a glance. "We're dealing with some food insecurity because a neighbor contaminated the supply chain and we're resolving that."

"If the problem is that you don't have enough food, we can solve that," she mentions casually, opening up a line of communication to Kotinga. This is more likely to be her mother's specialty than her own.

"In a way that doesn't take food, or the means to produce it, away from anyone else. Not very many things stay zero-sum when you add magic!" 

"We don't have enough farmland in Tapa to achieve domestic food security; we were reliant on imports. More imports will help immensely and we'd be able to relax or eliminate the rationing, but after this people want us to be able to feed them on things grown at home."

"What if your farmland produced twice as much food, all the time?" 

Kotinga is pretty sure they can manage that, since these people have never had any gods helping them with their crops before. They're bound to be less efficient than a goddess of the harvest. 

"That would certainly do the trick if it weren't reliant on ongoing support."

"My mother says she can do that," Puna reports. 

"But she'll only do it if that means you'll end the war. Should I tell her yes?" 

"We'll need some time to withdraw delicately and verify the output, but given that, yes."

"Great!"

She acquires a map of Tapa with pre-war boundaries, and arranges for Kotinga to go and bless all the farmland within those limits at a time convenient to Tapa. 

Now that's sorted, back to planets! Are there enough planets on this list for every Amentan country to get one of its own?

Not in commuting distance.

The further ones can be reached with teleportation circles, but that'll be bottlenecked by the availability of mid-tier spellcasters. Amentans might not want to rely on Corth for access to their planets even assuming they'll have their own spellcasters eventually. 

Can they get the biggest countries a planet each, and then have the smaller ones share? 

Some of the smaller countries are willing to share. Everyone is very excited about teleportation circles, although slightly less excited if the caster has to be at the far end to place one.

Gods can teleport anywhere they like and are perfectly capable of making teleportation circles. They can also bring passengers, but not arbitrary numbers of them and they don't want to become shuttle services. Those will have to rely on mortal magic-users from Corth. 

It seems like the sensible thing to do is have a first wave where all the planets and moons in easy reach are parceled out in a way that is roughly proportional to current populations, and then a second wave of further-away planets that are only really reachable with teleportation circles, and will therefore need a mid-to-high-tier magic user for every trip. Those will all be terraformed and then they'll go to anyone capable of paying spellcasters to take them. 

Sounds good. Tapa will host a conference for forming planet-sharing coalitions among the smaller nations.

And Puna collects responses from the other gods she asked for help.

The dwarven goddess Shakhter, whose invitation and reply were passed through several intermediaries, agreed to help after a few rounds of back-and-forth. Apparently the key detail was that the expansion is motivated by the Amentans' desire for children. The mardik goddess Ashkharh agreed almost immediately, for the same reason. 

Shūcài, the green dragon god, has said he will help if Amenta gives him their equatorial rainforest. 

...all of it? What does he want with it?

"He's a dragon. They like having stuff!" Puna explains. 

"You weren't using it anyway, right? Because it doesn't have seasons?" 

"It has some uses but it's not suited for dense year-round habitation."

"Well, with four of us helping, we don't need Shūcài if you don't want to give him the rainforest," Puna says with a shrug. 

"There can be rainforests on the other planets, with all the same species, but Amenta's still special, right?"

"Why the rainforest? Perhaps he'd like an asteroid?"

"He's a nature god," she reminds them.

"I think he likes the biodiversity! Asteroids don't tend to have much nature."

"Maybe countries with rainforest territory will revisit the question later."

"Sure! Gods are immortal, he'll wait." 

Puna, Elpida, Shakhter and Ashkharh divide up the first wave of planets between the four of them. They're ready to get to work whenever the Amentans want! Kotinga can take over negotiations while Puna is busy bouncing around the galaxy, in between blessing farmland. 

Works for them!

Three gods separately come through the portal and immediately teleport away. Two of them pick times when it is night. Puna gratefully hands over the politics side of things to her mother and hops off into space herself.

Terraforming commences!

It'll take about three Amentan years for the first wave to be done, so they've got plenty of time to put together space programs and pick colonists and sort out planet-sharing agreements. 

Which they get on very energetically.

Meanwhile, Amenta starts attracting non-divine visitors; Amentans are invited to visit Corth also. It's been long enough without incident that the gods decided they didn't need to keep quite such a tight control on the portal, but they'll come down hard on anyone attempting to immigrate to Amenta permanently unless they can find someone to swap with. 

There are scholars of various Corth races eager to learn about Amentans and their technology! There are merchants hoping to get in on the ground floor of inter-dimensional trade! And both of these groups are hiring mercenaries as guards, because you can believe what you like about the gods but it's not them who'll have to pay the insurance if something goes wrong. 

Darya is bored and between jobs and feeling the wanderlust down to eir bones. Ey signs on as a guard to a merchant company - humans, not dwarves, no dwarven merchants outside the Goldcrest clan will hire a Goldcrest mercenary. They're going to a country called Tapa, which is big and rich and will apparently buy food that no-one who works with sewage or corpses has touched?

They will, yes!

That's great for the merchants.

Darya has night shift, because the other guards are all surface-dwellers with terrible night vision. During the day, ey is free to wander around being 4'3" of Very Obvious Alien in a strange place where ey doesn't speak the language if eir enchanted ring stops working. Joy and rapture.

People take pictures of em!

...those sure are some bright flashes being pointed in eir direction.

One downside of dwarves having good night vision: they don't cope brilliantly with extra bright light. At least Darya's a dwarf and not a mard, they don't cope well at all. 

Ey endures it for a while, then starts seeking out quieter streets to walk down. 

There's not a whole lot of quieter. Amentans live crowded.

The worse neighborhoods a little less so, though.

Darya is used to bad neighbourhoods. 

Once ey finds somewhere quiet enough that there aren't people shoving pocket everythings in eir face at every step, ey starts whistling quietly as ey walks. 

There is a clearly-marked-as-something intersection over there, where you could cross a wide red line into... an even worse neighborhood.

Slightly beyond the red line is a sobbing pink-haired woman.

Huh. Didn't think aliens' hair came in pink. It's a pretty shade; maybe ey should go with something like that next time ey bother dyeing. (Darya's hair is currently undyed black.)

...oh gods this is not eir strong suit but she's crying and eir mother had pink hair sometimes - 

" - hey."

Sniff.

Darya is probably going to fuck this up but whatever.

"Hi. Uh. If you need someone to rant to or something, I'm an alien who's not gonna be on this planet next month." 

"They're gonna shoot my baby that's a little past 'need to rant'."

"...they what."

Maybe it's a problem with the translation ring? Ey really hopes it's a problem with the translation ring.

"They're gonna shoot my baby!"

Nope, sounded exactly the same the second time. What is wrong with tall folk - 

"Is this a problem that goes away if I hit people?" Darya growls. "I'm good at hitting people."

Ey shrugs in self-deprecation. "Not so great at talking to them."

"Money, I need money. Child credit."

Might be doable, unless it's a lot of money.

"How much?"

"Five thousand tap."

Yup, that's a lot more than Darya's getting paid for this job. "Sorry. Not that rich."

Ey thinks for a moment. 

"...they can't kill your baby if they can't find you, right?" 

"...well, more if they can't find the baby, but..."

Ey nods.

"Didn't think you'd want me to steal your baby and leave you behind." 

True, a baby on its own would probably be easier to explain, but easier still would be walking away. Darya's never been a fan of easy.

"...I'll go get her."

She goes and comes back with a baby.

...there is presumably a reason the baby has shaved hair. She's not Darya's baby, so ey doesn't say anything about it. 

"Ready to go now, or is there anything else you need?" 

Other than 'a plan', but they can figure that out as they go.

"I don't know where we're going or what we'll be able to get there but if you aren't in a hurry I can pack."

"I work for a merchant caravan from my world; we can stay with them until they leave, then go back with them to Corth," ey explains. 

"Seems a shame, but you might need to dye your hair black or brown at some point. I can get dye." 

"- okay," she says, and not "super illegal for me to be around stuff you're selling".

Right, Darya. This is illegal, you're helping someone break the law in a country where you don't even know the laws, better be careful.

Just to check: "Is there any reason we shouldn't walk back the way I came? Will anyone see your baby and know it's illegal?" 

"I don't have a valid work reason to be out of neighborhood."

That...is a problem. 

"How will they know? You wouldn't take your baby to work, maybe...I could carry her?" 

"Yeah. Am I packing or not -"