Aurora is now hunting for Minus.

Minus is standing in a corner, drinking tea.

"Hey," says Aurora. "Is that the funky elf tea that Pattern likes or something else?"

"Plain Earl Grey, I'm afraid."

"You know," says Aurora, "there are ways to do mindreading that aren't quite as, I dunno, free-roaming, as the standard or what Rose does. Brilliance didn't want to be quite an open book so it's like Sue-linking on his end. If that's what got you and Juliet delayed, if you don't want her just looking at arbitrary things."

"Yes. I've been thinking about the optimal design, but it's not coming along as quickly as I'd like. What exactly do you have with Brilliance?"

"I read with standard interface, but only what he pushes me, or leaves deliberately open if it's a memory; by default I don't get anything. And this is still quite enough," she adds dreamily, "to get me high as hell on being adored, because damn."

"What is it with you lot and recreational telepathy?"

Aurora laughs. "It's... hmm. Good question. It sort of pushes a lot of buttons all at once. Satisfies curiosity in more depth than would be naively expected possible, makes it clear we're in agreement with someone whose opinion we value about how great we are, intense expression of trust with a vulnerability we can't bear to throw around ourselves so it's especially touching to get - well, not in my case, there's no problem with just pushing chosen thoughts, if I ever want to set that up, but I bet the standards get an extra rush for that. And - we're fairly good at intellectually believing things just on the basis of reasoning them out or having indirect, but there's an emotional difference between 'someone told me this thing existed' and 'I can see it in motion'. Like the difference between getting a postcard that says 'wish you were here' versus an actual hug."

"Aha," he says.

"It's just really really nice." Aurora closes her eyes and says more seriously, "And if you copied my version you could pick and choose what to send."

"I see that Juliet has given you the warning," he observes.

"Yeah. I'm sure plenty of Bells have been and gone offering hugs and support and whatnot, you can add me to the list."

"Amariah is the only one who has actually hugged me," he says, smiling.

"Do you want another hug?"

"I've nowhere to put my tea," he says, gesturing with the cup.

"I'll take that as a 'no' instead of a 'please conjure a table' till further notice. You should probably be aware that the first thing Juliet is going to want to go looking for is how to take care of you, she still seems kind of - I lack adjectives, but that is what I expect her to want to read, even before delicious telepathic expressions of love om nom nom."

"I don't believe there is much to be found about how to take care of me. Love, however - plenty of that."

Aurora shrugs. "That'll be good too. But she'll look. She wants you to be okay. If she has any reason to guess that you are not okay she will carry on looking for ways to render you okay."

"So I have observed."

"So there's that, I hope my and Brilliance's setup is a useful template or inspiration or something."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."