"Do you not have that?"

"Uh, old humans' hair turns gray, but that doesn't have anything to do with dancing."

"Elementals would not have - do humans have it that children will look like and be good at the same things as their parents?"

"Uh, we do look like them, I look more like my mom. My dad is a city watch officer and my mom teaches kids to read."

"With Amentans - might be a teaching difference, might be a species difference - people are good at the same things as their parents the same way they look like their parents - so not all of the time but usually, and often quite strongly."

"And all the dancers generations ago had gray hair for some reason?"

"Yes. There was a culture who did it that way and they - did very well, won all the wars - a very long time ago."

"Huh. Okay. I guess that explains some things."

He nods. "Grey is also city watch officers - grey is most things that need you strong and untiring. Blue is government, green is learning and discovering and art, yellow is attention to detail, orange is caring and teaching and healing, purple is making things. Not - perfect, but very strong, because it has been that way so long. If you don't fit you can color your hair - I was supposed to be blue but I hate government and like learning."

"I guess if you can do that it's not a problem."

"It would be so a problem if I had to be government! Some colors it's easier to do the thing that interests you than others. Some people think we should stop the colors, but most people like the colors - like having a country or a religion, people like having something that is theirs and they are good at and respected for and that comes with a community."

"Guess that makes sense. We don't have that. Uh, we have nobility, which is like - your ancestors were in charge and they want you to be in charge after they die - but it's not a color and if you didn't want to be nobility you could probably go do something else easily. My country doesn't technically have this any more since the war."

"What do you have instead?"

"The country is ruled by a guy whose title is Appointee and people vote on lots of lesser positions like who runs the guard and who handles taxes and stuff and all those people decide on an Appointee, who can be one of them."

"That makes sense. Here countries also used to have nobility and now mostly vote. Some small places still have nobility, and more places have it but have the real decisions made elsewhere."

"There was an Emperor who ruled - a lot of - not the whole world but all the parts of it we knew about before we talked to elementals more. But then when more people had magic there were a lot of rebellions and he died and his empire split up into a lot of countries like mine."

Nod. "When the population pressure started to get bad there was an empire here who conquered everybody he wanted or who wasn't being strict enough about laws about children. When he died Anitam got free and built our own country."

"Your country is so big. It's hard to imagine somebody conquering it."

"The wars at the time of the Oahk Empire were very terrible, tens of millions of people dying. And when the Empire won they had soldiers take all the blues in a line and go down the line killing one in three, that was nearly a million people dead that way."

She shivers.

"Done now. We have peace."

"Good."

He nods fervently. 

"Are other countries excited about us being here too?"

"They are! They have been calling our government to say how did the aliens get here can they meet you can they take you home if there are worlds they should get a world first because their children are hungry, that kind of thing. The government has been saying wait and give the aliens time to learn things."