"It's going fine," he says. "It's pretty much just staying in the habit of not looking too close, now. And it's actually kind of interesting, looking at this stuff just for what it's like and not for what it means."

"Like - when you're kinda dozing off and you can hear the sound of someone's voice but not the words?"

"That's a pretty good way to put it," he says, "yeah."

"Neat. I'm glad that's going well."

"Yeah," he says. "How about you, anything cool going on in your life?"

"Those elves are still following me. I'll probably need an escort to get off campus when I graduate, if they haven't given up yet."

"I'll do it," Celo says cheerfully. "I fucked 'em up once, I can do it again."

"Thanks," laughs Bella. "Now I'm imagining introducing you to my parents."

"I have no idea what your parents are like but I can't imagine that as anything other than hilarious," he says. "'Hi, this is Celo, my nymph buddy, I promise we haven't fucked'? Unless we get around to it in the next few years, I guess. Or would they even care? I'm kind of hazy on parents."

"My dad would absolutely care."

He snorts. "In a 'congratulations' way or in a 'going to knife me' way?"

"I would not expect either of us to be congratulated. He probably wouldn't knife you."

Celo giggles. "Okay, so what would he do?"

"Probably he wouldn't want to definitively know. If he suspected he'd make sure I had some ridiculous number of rings of protection and, I dunno, tell you to be nice to me."

"Yeah," says Celo, "funny thing, everybody's pretty sure I can't actually get anyone pregnant, but I carry rings anyway." He grins. "And I'm already nice to you. If we had sex I wouldn't suddenly stop."

"Noted."

He beams.

"Speaking of carrying things, how does that work? It's very nifty."

"How should I know?" he shrugs. "I just put stuff away, and then," a foil-wrapped ring appears between his fingers, "take it out again." He flips the ring back and forth a few times and disappears it back to wherever it came from. "It's great. There's nothing more fun than using sleight of hand to make it look like you're pulling something out of thin air when you're actually pulling it out of thin air."

"I'd like to be able to do that," says Bella. "It seems really handy. I suppose it's just a nymph thing?"

"Just a nymph thing," he confirms.

"Oh well."

"You could still learn the sleight of hand, though!" he says, grinning.

"I think I'd rather learn telekinesis. Less prep time, at least as practical," she winks. And she manages to nudge a pie onto her plate without touching it.

Celo applauds.