"Also, don't they work for her?"

"Queenie does. Ghosty is - helpfully visiting. I don't believe that would be an obstacle were Pattern interested, but she doesn't seem to be."

"...What do female pronouns have to do with anything?" wonders Liselen.

"Except for Cam, and sort of Amariah but she claims it's only because daemons don't count in the same way, we're all straight," says Golden. "Shell Bell's special circumstances."

"And straight means... you don't want to date female people?" the unicorn hazards.

"Given that we're female," clarifies Aurora. "If Cam were straight he wouldn't want to date male people."

"Oh," says Liselen. "This sex stuff is complicated."

"It gets worse," laughs Aurora.

"...How's it do that?"

"...I'm not sure how close to zero you're starting here."

"Really, really close!"

"I don't believe I'd contribute particularly effectively to this conversation," remarks Golden, and she wanders off.

"Uh, well," says Aurora. "...Can't you magically sense sex things, is that not helping you out any here?"

"Being able to feel pain doesn't make you a good healer," says Liselen. "I sense things, but I don't really have context for them; before one of you fixed me, I couldn't even be as close to you as I am right now without feeling like there were bugs under my skin."

"I'm perfectly unicorn safe," says Lexi smugly.

"Yes, Lexi, sometime you can visit Thilanushinyel and see if any herds of unicorns want you to frolic amongst them and be fitted for flower garlands. Meanwhile, um. Okay. So, a majority of people - at least humans - are only interested in having sex with people who are not their same gender. Some people don't care either way, some people are only interested in people who are their same gender, some people don't want to have sex with anyone even after they grow up, and this is all complicated by the fact that gender is only usually a one-or-the-other thing."

"Wow," says Liselen, blinking at her. "How do you sort it all out?"

"Look," says Aurora, "this is weird, where do little unicorns come from if unicorns can't be anywhere near nonvirgins unless they're patched like you?"

He sidles uncomfortably away from her.

Aurora shrugs. "Never mind, then. I'm going to go talk to Angela."

"Okay," says Liselen.

Angela's not hard to find. There she is! She gets the same explanation.

[Love, have you met Aurora yet? She's trying to figure out how Bell-Joker relationships tend to work,] Angela tells her husband.

[I haven't! I was distracted,] he says merrily. [Should I come and help?]

[If now's a good time.]