Private Finished Owl with a Cloud

"Jerks are to be ex—I'm sorry, what?" Her eyes widened, making their violet color visible to Hazel. "Several times? Oh my, are you okay? I hope the perpetrator was punished."

Béatrice quickly recomposed herself, returning her eyes to their seemingly closed state and bringing her voice back to its energetic tone. "I do not mind explaining my species to you. I should not be surprised that someone recorded information of us, but I am pleased we have kept hidden this long. Only recently have we been revealing ourselves more often. Go ahead with your first question; I am ready."

"W-Well, at least you got away alive, and you can float too, so that must be helpful." Her mouth twitched, almost turning into a frown, but she was good at covering that up with a smile and subject change.

Béatrice expected a question regarding their culture or magic, so one about their anatomy caught her off guard. Luckily, this was an easy one. "We are sexless. We reproduce by crafting eggs out of the elements we can control for our young to break out from." She then also took a slice of the cheesecake to bite. "Hopefully that makes sense."

"Generally, we do not care for genders, but some of us will pick one if we are interacting with a gendered species for simplicity sake. And we can reproduce asexually, but it is not common. The popular method is for two oricenta to merge their magic to craft an egg over months, and the more love, dedication, and magic you put into your egg, the stronger and healthier the child will become. Afterward, you lose the majority of your magic and become almost too weary to function. The same happens with those reproduce asexually, but it takes much longer for the child to be born, and they lose their magic for a much longer time.

"Next, yes, we get married, uh, somewhat. It is a bit different from how humans do it. Our marriage does include the merging of our last names, or we create a whole new name that represents our family. If we were to translate our names, most people would find us to have very . . . unusual names. Names like Firestorm Volcano. It is why most of us just change our name completely when joining a new culture. We also merge the markings on our faces, or make our own." She pointed at the four circles under her eyes and the crescent moon on her forehead. "My wife and I merged our last names and our markings. Polygamy is also popular too. When you can live for hundreds of years, sometimes people want to try out new things together."

Before continuing, she took in a deep breath, then continued. So much to talk about, and she didn't want to go too fast. Hazel still had a lot more to write.

"Lastly, we live in communal families. Most others have families with ten or more members. Twenty-four is the age of adulthood, but living alone is, well, not *taboo* so to say, but seen as weird and concerning. Even my family is considered to be concerningly small. I only have my wife, two children, and my parent who visits here from time to time. There is a family we are very close to, however, and we have been thinking about living under one roof for a long time. Oh, to reference an earlier point I brought up, communal families help a lot when the parents, or parent, is weary after giving birth. And our kids develop most of their abilities so, young, its a huge help to have fifteen other family members there to make sure they are always watched over."

"Servants are not very common. With such a large family, it is expected that everyone makes sure to keep their parts of the house clean. I think servants are not healthy anyway; we should all learn how to take care of ourselves without help by the time we reach adulthood." Béatrice stifled a laugh, as back home she was horrible at cleaning, even after being alive for nearly three hundred years. It was ridiculous that she was preaching about servants not being necessary when she relied on the rest of her family to help her clean up her messes.

"Back to the egg crafting thing, that is not how it goes exactly. Mm, this will be complicated, so stick with me, please. Oricenta can be split up into two categories: the Main oricenta are those who have only one of the four elements, and the Mixed oricenta have two of the four elements. I am not going to list down every variation unless you ask, but if, say, two Fire oricenta bred, they would make another Fire oricenta. If a Fire and an Earth bred, they would make a Magma. If a Fire and a Mud oricenta bred, then because one parent is only Fire and the other is Earth and Water, the child could be Fire and Earth, Fire and Water, or just Earth and Water. Think of it like math: Fire plus Earth plus Water. Finally, two Mixed oricenta could create a Main oricenta if they both have the same element. Going back to our previous examples, it could be a Magma and a, uh, we can go with Steam, which would be Fire and Air. That would be Fire plus Earth plus Fire plus Water. The child could end up being Fire, Magma, Mud, or Steam."

So much exposition and it was all complicated too. She wondered how well Hazel was holding up. Béatrice swore she was rambling nonsense and got a few pieces of information wrong. How embarrassing if she did, and considering her job as a biologist, she should have been an expert on how her people bred. So far she couldn't spot any wrong information, but with all she was saying, she couldn't be surprised if Hazel found her wording complicated.

"And generally, it takes two oricenta to craft an egg over six months, and then we lose most of our magic for about a year. Oricenta who reproduce alone take double the time. It isn't set in stone, however. Some people have more love and dedication for their child, so it takes a shorter time. Some are magically stronger than average, so they can create a healthier child more easily and still have extra magic afterward. There are also people weak magic, and those with no magic are infertile, but, well, they would have more problems than not being able to reproduce."

"Sorry, I do not think I understood that first part? Air and Water would be Cloud, which is what I am. Magma and Cloud can be broken down to Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. They could then produce, well, all of them really. Smoke, Magma, Steam, Sandstorm, Mud, and Cloud. And yes, we do have preferred environments. Air oricenta prefer to live in higher altitudes and can live on clouds, while Earth oricenta stick to the ground, and sometimes will live underground. Fire oricenta live in hotter, drier environments, and Water live in colder, wetter environments. Personally, I prefer snowy areas full of trees, but my powers have me more suited for areas surrounded by water. Not like I can't control snow and absorb it, it is just a little more difficult."

Béatrice then took another cupcake to take a bite out of. This was kind of fun. She should have brought her notes to help organize her thoughts, but this was a great challenge for her. Sometimes her mind would get scrambled up, and she would rely on notes to keep organized, but so far, she was doing pretty well.