"Was. Conversation sort of dwindled," Bella says.

"Don't you have to learn all the magic and then go around being Supergirl?"

+...Kind of not really?+ says Brilliance, sounding a little nervous.

+Something I said?+ she asks.

+Yeah,+ he says. +I mean. Look, I'm not gonna blow up your planet, I hope we're pretty clear on that by now, but there are a lot of ways you could force me not to if you weren't sure and they are all really nasty, so - I scare easy on this one.+

+You made it pretty clear that at least one prior attempt at forcing you not to destroy a planet didn't work,+ Bella points out.

+...uh, speaking of not being the most comforting thing somebody could say...+

+I'm just saying if you don't trust my ethics, there's also my sanity available to stop me. I'm still not going to torture you.+

+Okay, but now I feel like if you found a way that would work but would still kind of count as torturing me, you might go for it,+ he says. +I don't know you, I don't know your ethics, you seem pretty nice but what do I even know about what nice looks like? I'm a goddamn magic wand! The last time I had a conversation with someone else who could think was four hundred years ago and probably involved begging them not to hurt me again, which by the way, has never worked before I met you!+

+...Not killing six billion people is extremely fucking important, but since not torturing people is also extremely fucking important I would have to be looking at a clear risk before I'd start trading them off against each other,+ Bella says slowly. +I will get jumpy if you say certain things, but it looks like that's kind of mutual, right, and being jumpy doesn't lead directly and unerringly to torturing you.+

+I am not going to blow up your planet. I am not going to blow up your planet!+ says Brilliance. +I am really, really, really not going to blow up your planet! You could blow up your planet if you fired me up and cast the right spell, you'd probably even live through it if you transferred out quick enough, does that sound like fun to you? I bet it doesn't! Because you don't want to blow up your planet! And neither do I!+

+I'm pretty used to caring more about people not dying than anyone else around me,+ Bella says.

+Yeah, well, maybe you do,+ says Brilliance. +I don't know, I'm not you. But last time I blew up a planet, I didn't even have a concept of six billion people. I'm not sure I could do it again even if I had to. And I don't have to, your house is not a secure lab in the middle of a military complex, I can just transfer out if I get scared enough. Wouldn't even have to knock down a wall.+

+That's good, I guess.+

He sighs.

+We good? I want to help you not be scared of me, I don't know what to do to that end though.+

+Not be scary?+ he suggests weakly.

+What'm I doing that's scary besides being slightly skittish around the resident superweapon I just met, or is that about it?+

+...yeah, that's pretty much it,+ he says. +I mean, it's not that I don't get why you'd be skittish. I don't know. Maybe it would help if... if you talked more about why you feel like that, when it comes up? So then it's a conversation about us both being people with feelings, and not a conversation about how dangerously unpredictable I am?+

+Yeah, sure, I'm good at that kinda thing. You want to do some of that about the wildcard remark or is that just going forward?+

+Might as well. If I know where you're coming from, maybe I can be less scary.+

+That'd be swell. So, like. Wildcards aren't - consistent. Like, I can't think of an actual card game example right now, but the idea is that it can be one thing one moment and another the next, so if you're going on about how you're like that, then no matter how sincerely you don't want to do something awful at this moment, I have no particular grounds to believe that you aren't going to change your mind next week.+

+Gotcha,+ he says. +Whereas what I mean when I say I'm a wildcard is more like... I'm a person who wants things and does stuff, and sometimes the things I want might change unexpectedly or the stuff I do might not be what somebody else wants, but that's part of being a person, it's okay for me to be like that. It doesn't mean every single thing that's true about me might just up and disappear any second. It's just, you know, today I'm a Black Ghost deck, tomorrow I might be something cute I saw in a casino, maybe next week I'll be tarot cards, but any which way I'm still gonna be me.+