"He might not want you staying in the house when I'm not present and awake," Bella says after a moment's thought.

"...that's weird," says Brilliance. "I mean, that's really weird. I'm your device."

"You look like a dude. Might have more luck if I present you as a talking pack of cards," shrugs Bella.

"Whatever," says Brilliance.

"Well, he could show up any minute," Bella says, picking up Brilliance's plate and putting it in the sink. "You want to live here, you probably wanna be a deck of cards. Or the staff."

He shrugs, and stretches out and wriggles much in the attitude of someone slurping the last bit of milkshake out of the cup, and then he shifts down to deck form and hovers over the chair.

Bella plucks him out of the air and goes to sit in the living room with some of her neglected homework. "We didn't get around to going to the colorful sand planet," she observes. "Maybe after dinner, assuming Charlie doesn't react worse than I'm expecting."

"...and what if he does?" says Brilliance.

"Then I occupy the evening dealing with that. Worst case scenario, he's a huge pill about it, you hang out not-in-the-house till I haul back to Renée's, I live with her till I turn eighteen and then get a job I can cheat at effectively with magic and move out. Anyone's guess whether I could get Lexi to move again," sighs Bella.

Brilliance snorts.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing, just - I don't know how you deal with all these rules."

"I have more freedom than most seventeen-year-olds because my parents know I'm responsible," Bella says.

Brilliance shivers. "Lucky you, I guess. Glad I'm not a human."

"...Are you?" Bella hesitates to point out that humans never have to planet-hop for centuries of high-stakes sleepless tedium and rarely spend their childhoods being tortured, but the notion is there.

"Sure I am. I mean, my life up until now has been pretty shit, but if I was a human I'd be dead, and now I get to do all kinds of stuff that you can't because the people who made you are controlling your life."

"They're looking out for me. Most people my age do pretty idiotic things even with more parental supervision than I have. They get drunk and crash their cars, or flunk out of school with no skills and no plan and spend the rest of their lives unable to get decent jobs, or they get pregnant, or whatever. I know I'm not going to do that, but Charlie only mostly knows I'm not going to do that. If he didn't set any rules at all that might be convenient for me but it would probably, given the way humans work, mean he didn't care."

"Well, I'm still glad I don't have to deal with that shit," says Brilliance.

Brilliance glimmers.

He glimmers again, a little ripple of light, like a visual laugh.

"Hi!" says Brilliance.