They're already holding hands. "Restore," incants Bella.

"Is that unwelcome?"

"Mmmmaybe."

"I can think of at least three ways to fix it. Two of 'em involve me."

"Go on."

Bella laughs. "You want a list? I bet you can think of them all yourself."

"I want your list," says Brilliance.

"Miscellaneous self-injury. Standard issue agony beam. A certain incantation that isn't 'pants', if you're there now."

"I could be persuaded." This section of her village is stylized rope bridges between treehouses and towers. She comes to a stop inside one of the treehouses.

Does the treehouse have comfy places to sit and/or snuggle?

It does! Enormous beanbaglike poufs. Bella flops into one and holds out her arms invitingly.

Brilliance hugflops onto her.

Snuggly hugflops. "Comes in about a thousand flavors because it was designed for some folks rather attached to their variety," she says. "Got a preference?"

"Surprise me."

It's kind of weird selecting a type of pain rather than just a nice clean integer, but Aurora contemplates her options and goes with depressurization in a vacuum. Since she's not sure if he even needs air pressure to be comfy, this should be novel. She starts him up at one triangle. "How's that?"

"Weird!" says Brilliance. "But in a good way. More?"

Nudge-nudge-nudge. Ten triangles. "I'm going to be very timid about moving this unless I get actual numbers," she says. "I don't want to spook you."

"Timid's okay," he says, hugging her. "I like timid. Go for more?"

Nudge-nudge-nudge twenty.

Bella carries on nudging up in piecemeal increments of ten when prompted and snuggling her boyfriend.

"Yeah, stars are everything from ten thousand to just shy of a hundred thousand," says Bella. "It doesn't seem like a lot? Wow."