“I am not sure that your presence will improve my presentation,” Vree said, battling weariness. Bad enough that he was expected to attend a convention of the greatest minds in xenoscience. Worse that he was expected to present something to them! “It will be long, and likely boring to you.”

“First off,” Human-Amir said, laying across Vree’s bed because Vree couldn’t get him to use a chair, “You’re always forgetting that I’m a xenotechnology specialist. I like science conventions. Second, your presentation is about humans. Don’t you want one there?”

That was, in fact, precisely what Vree did not want, thank you very much. Skies only knew what his humans would think was appropriate.

Although it was true, they were both scientists themselves. Perhaps they would behave.

And perhaps Vree’s home-star would turn blue and the Great Mother Desert would turn into a lush jungle.

“Absolutely not.”

Human-Amir grinned up at him, folded into an unlikely contortion that could not possibly be comfortable.

“You know you can’t stop us, right?” he asked cheerfully, and tilted his head at Vree like a cubling. “We want to cheer for you.”

“I do not want to be cheered for. And get out of my bed!”

+

As it turned out, Human-Nerea also wanted to go to the convention, but was promptly carried off by a group of scientists who were studying groundwater on different planets.

Vree hoped she actually came back, or he would have to go get her, and he would rather not.

The presentation was, in short, a shipwreck.

Oh, it was going just fine until Vree got to the part about humans and their astounding array of abilities. Most of them concealed those abilities carefully, and really, there was no telling just how many of them could do any given thing.

Unfortunately, they were really very good at hiding their tricks, and very few of the scientists in the room were inclined to believe him. There was laughter, and Vree tried valiantly to rally. He had expected some disbelief. His claims were outlandish to anyone who didn’t know a human or six.

Human-Amir, however, took offense.

Very strong offense, in fact.

Too fast for Vree to stop him, he marched himself up onto the podium beside Vree, and smiled brightly at the crowd.

Of course, he knew perfectly well that teeth-showing was a threat to most races. He did it anyway. Or maybe because of that specifically. Vree wasn’t sure.

“Hi everyone!” he said, and ducked Vree’s grab for him with nimble dexterity. “My name is Amir Al’Kazafer. I am a human. I am also classified as Other, subclassification, Pyromancer.”

And then he set himself on fire.

The room erupted into chaos.

Vree buried his head in his hands and tried unsuccessfully to remind himself how prestigious this invitation had been, and that at least they believed him now.

“Human-Others as, as the name implies, are human, and something else,” he tried to continue gamely. Apparently, his calm helped the room at large to settle, because the screaming tapered off somewhat. “As Human-Amir helpfully demonstrated, he is classified as Other for his magical ability, see my recent paper on Human Magic if you have questions, or see me after this presentation, which stems from Nonhuman decent.”

“A lot of us are Earthbound,” Human-Amir said cheerfully, and began making shapes out of fire to amuse himself. Pens scribbled notes furiously every time he did something new. “That is to say, from Earth, or appeared within Earth-history presumably from the planet. Not all Others are Earth-origin, however.”

Vree took the cue and desperately tried to salvage the situation. He had seriously hoped not to be the one to explain djinn and dragons to the galactic community, but it appeared that he was not getting a choice on the matter.

“Djinn are, according to human history, beings of smokeless fire and may well be interdimensional in origin,” he explained, and Human-Amir helpfully illustrated a djinn’s form with his fire. Vree wished he would stop. “Dragons are, at first sight, much like winged lizards, but are in fact shapeshifters with absolute mastery of their physical form. They often have the entire range of human magical abilities, with variations dependent upon age and species.”

He was going to have to do a paper on dragons.

Lord Petros would probably want to be there for the presentation

Vree would really rather he not be, but he wasn’t about to tell the dragon what he could and couldn’t do.

The rest of the presentation went as smoothly as could be hoped, which was not at all, and Vree took it as a win that no one had yet tried to kill his human.

Then again, Human-Amir was still on fire, and that did have a way of dissuading attack.

No one really wanted to see what he could do when he felt the urge to be more than a nuisance.

Towards the end of the presentation, Human-Amir let his flames die out and satisfied himself with offering off-handed comments regarding whatever Vree was talking about that moment.

Vree was seriously contemplating killing him, and damn the consequences.

By the time he managed to wrap up the whole disaster, there were a dozen prestigious xenobiology experts clamoring for his attention, and Human-Amir was looking very pleased with himself indeed.

Vree did his best to answer their questions and wondered how exactly he had gotten himself into this mess.

Human-Amir was just smug. He waved cheerfully from his seat and laughed as Vree tried to answer twenty questions at once.