"How are there babies without a mommy and why isn't he married? That's only two."

" - I'm not married because I'm forked from earlier than that."

"They have a Maia friend - Ardilorë aloud -" She bounces the soul Elves the real name. "- who carried the babies for them."

Soul Elves bounce the name to everyone else. "That's down to three fundamental disconnects."

"Which are?"

"What exactly do you mean when you say they're married, how is the child's father not married to the child's mother, Maia or no, and, uh, broad astonishment that no one objected to this - are the children all right -"

"- I suppose you must formalize marriage some way that doesn't involve chip blessings since you don't have chips. For us it's chip blessings, sort of pick-and-mix which ones. Ardilorë is not the children's mother, although he's frequently around and loves them very much; in much the same way that fathers and mothers are equally children's parents even though only one carries the children it's possible to have two parents who are both fathers and a Maia helper who mostly just incubates. There is nothing of import to object to except perhaps the fact that no one in the entire family can do without the string 'Fin' in one of their names, which has always seemed to me like a bit much; the children are doing very well."

"Ah hah, yep, there's the fundamental disconnect. We don't formalize marriage, it, ah, formalizes itself."

"...that sounds potentially inconvenient."

"Well, it's not something that happens by accident. But you definitely could not end up carrying someone's child and unmarried to them."

"Well, that's that explained, then, but it's not like that for chip Elves."

"Well, as long as everyone's happy. But it can't work that way in our world, Eru made marriage and it works as he designed it."

"If we're very lucky your Eru can be convinced otherwise and then after fixing any other metaphysical unfairnesses retire to read tragedies all day long."

"That would involve being very lucky indeed."

"Well, it happened the once."

"And failed to happen the - four hundred million -"

He has gone back to playing with his model car.

Nod.

"I will confess myself mildly surprised that we married as young absent the motive," she muses.

" - yes, me too, actually. Not that I have ever experienced even an instant of regret."

"There's an insight and memory transfer blessing they were impatient to have."

They giggle. "I find it appealing to know I would have married you with significantly fewer good reasons!"

Kiss. "And been happy hundreds and hundreds of Years and many grandchildren later, that part's reassuring too -"

"Should we call our set over, see how much space-warping this place will do to avoid being untenably crowded -"

"I expect it'll do quite a lot, and that'd be lovely."