[It's cute,] says Queenie. [You should let me play matchmaker, I'll fix you up good.]

[I have a sneaking suspicion that if I do I will wind up blushing beet red wondering why I ever invited you to move to my universe.]

[Only a little bit,] Queenie promises.

[What is that supposed to mean?]

[It means I think you guys would be cute together so I'm not gonna get too awful about it because I might make you really uncomfortable and that would be sad?]

[...Okay, I'll buy it.]

[Good!]

[Yes, heaven forfend I dither for a while like a nineteen-year-old girl who's never been on a date before instead of sending a staff member to tell the guy I like that I like him like a third-grader. I mean, like a dignified magical space empress.]

[Awwwwwww,] giggles Queenie. [Well, if you wanna dither, nobody's stopping you.]

[I don't assign intrinsic value to dithering, I suppose.]

[So you should ask him out,] Queenie concludes. [Or conspicuously not tell me not to ask him out for you.]

Queenie giggles again.

[Shush,] says Bella, squirming, not that the squirming is visible.

[Okay,] Queenie says merrily. [Talk to you later!]

[Later.]

[Of all the ways you could have reported this to me, this one is not a way that tells me whether to regret talking to the little bird.]

[Were you expecting to regret it? I don't regret it. Well, not if you say yes.]

[I'm just going to take that as a 'yes Ripper I will get dinner with you' and not a 'yes I was expecting to regret letting Queenie be the messenger here'. Mostly because, on second thought, the second one goes without saying. She also said she would make us both, and I quote, 'nice clothes you won't mind being on a date in', which is sweet of her. And apparently the Jokers are getting together and making both the dinner and the place we'll be eating it.]

[That's very nice of them. Queenie actually makes most of my clothes even though that's not her job, but I guess this calls for a per-occasion outfit.]

[I guess it does!]

[Did they also schedule it for us?]

[Nope, that part they're leaving up to us. When are you free?]