Felicity is in his room, snuggling his poof and playing a computer game. Nothing appears to have burned down or been demolished while Elspeth and Jacob were gone.

"Hello again. We're back."

"How was the party?"

"It was fun! Glass discovered that templates come in two clusters we're calling the purple moiety and the green moiety, although we don't know what that means yet. Jokers are purple. Jake and I are green."

"Why green and purple?" he wonders.

"The Joker named them. Maybe more descriptive names will turn up if we find out more about what it means. So far all we know is that most purple templates trend bisexual and a lot more of you are masochists."

...He giggles.

"Also it looks like when people of one moiety have kids they have the same moiety children, but inter-moiety relationships appear to alternate."

"Huh," says Felicity. "Weird."

"It is! Glass's aura keeps turning up interesting things."

"Yeah? Like what else?"

"Templatehood is apparently contagious. She got some on her best friend and her cat, so we can expect to see more of those. I'm templatey, too, but I didn't exactly catch it, she says - also, she hasn't checked my father so it's an open question whether other Elspeths would have my parents."

"Yeah? Who else's parents would she have?"

"Possibly none! Brilliance is one of you and doesn't have any parents. And it also seems like which parents you guys have when you have them at all varies cluster to cluster."

"How do you end up with no parents?"

"Brilliance is a magically created device. He had terrible creators, but no parents."

"And we've always got terrible somebody," says Felicity. It's obvious to him; how wouldn't they?

"Yes, although Harley doesn't even remember his."

"'Cause of you," says Felicity.

"Yes. He was about a year old, I teleported into his room and picked him up and explained myself to his mother and left. She wasn't pleased."

He snorts.

"I told her she could send an email later and it didn't matter where, that Jane would collect it, but she never did."

Felicity shrugs. "Why would she?"

"I didn't particularly expect her to, but she's not the awful parent for that cluster, so it was possible."

"Is there anybody where it's their mom?" he wonders.

"Not so far. Dads, stepdads, magical creators."

He thinks about that. He doesn't really conclude anything, but he thinks about it.

"And Ansharil didn't have any parental figures at all, but he's sufficiently attached to Aianon that Aianon's history approximately counts for them both. I suppose Aianon's mother was also fairly horrible," Elspeth reflects, "but not in a way that stood out from the general population of demons."

He laughs.

"They married Sarion," Elspeth adds. "Aianon and Ansharil did, at the party - technically she'd already had a ceremony with the latter, but wanted to do it over again with both of them, and didn't think an elven ceremony would readily accommodate a demon, even if it could be stretched to fit a dragon who'd turned himself into an elf."

"Oh, several of you are. Beast and Rose are married, so are Micaiah and Angela, and now Ansharil and Aianon with Sarion. And they all hug each other's children at the parties. At this one there were a few who hadn't been at the last."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm. Micaiah has four angel daughters. Damaris, Keziah, Ariel, and Peninnah. Beast has a set of three, with larger age gaps but the same templates as the first of those - Yseult, Céleste, and Hyacinthe. And Kas has one girl, Helen, who is the same template as Yseult and Damaris. They call themselves Dominiques because Yseult donated her first name after starting to go by her middle name. Keziah and Céleste call themselves Griffins. And then there's the Joker, who has a son and a daughter with a local vampire called Nathan. Kerron and Aedyt."

"So many kids," he says. "It's weird."

"Kerron was an accident, Damaris was a sort of indeliberate but accepted consequence of angels not believing in birth control, and Helen was conceived on purpose but her being a Dominique was unintentional. But yes, a bunch of you are parents. Why is that weird?"

"Because... why," he says and/or asks.

"Because they wanted to. And their partners were up for it too, except in Helen's case, Amariah was very upset with Kas about that."

"What for?"

"Amariah missed the first thirteen years of Helen's life, isn't actually subjectively old enough to have a thirteen-year-old daughter, and feels like she's been robbed of her firstborn."

Felicity shrugs.

"Do you want to meet any of your niblingoids?" inquires Elspeth.

"Kerron in particular might make sense to have visit. He has a witch-ingot ability that lets him detect goals and intentions and the like, so if you decided to be obnoxious to him he could leave, first, if he wasn't in the mood."

Felicity snorts.

"Let me know if you'd like him invited over."

"You can, I guess."

"Now, or another time?"

"I don't care."

"I'll ask him tomorrow; his sleep cycle may have been thrown off by being in a space plant."

He shrugs.

"Aianon makes all kinds of interesting plants. It's something of a specialty of his."

"What a hobby."

"It's useful, anyway. But he did get stuck in Origin when he was there ecoforming the Saturn there and Jane broke."

"But now he's learned to freecast so he's going to make a treehouse palace for Tab."

"I bet it'll be pretty."

"I imagine so. Jane will be able to show you pictures on your computer, if you like, once it's done."

"Mm."

"Corona says I shouldn't offer you one of her gems yet."

"Mmh," says Felicity.

"On the grounds that its primary purpose would be to let her take you back if you wandered out of the universe, and he judges that you aren't yet likely interested in coming back."

Elspeth doesn't follow him.