Xga'ul comes from a race of monogendered semi-aquatic people called Rylpema. They're soft-bodied with cartilaginous skeletons. Their society puts a lot of emphasis on the needs of the whole and loyalty to one's family. That said, Xga'ul is an unusual rylpema who would never let society get in the way of doing what their six hearts tell them.

Xga'ul's boyfriend is from a far off planet that made contact with the rylpema a mere five cycles years ago. His race has two typical sexes, and he's apparently from the one that doesn't gestate the child. He's a xenolinguist, and one of only a few of his kind who can fluently speak the rylpema's languages of bubble-popping noises that vary in pitch.

While Xga'ul's parents and extended family mostly reacted with horror upon learning that Xga'ul had gone through with the pairbonding ritual with this alien, the alien boyfriend's family is surprisingly accepting, and merely happy that their strange nerdy son found a partner at all.