"If you have a friend, and then you learn your friend likes you, and you can't kiss your friend - and we really, really can't - then everything is more awkward and no one is better off."

"Why can't you?"

"There's a law against it that my brother just put into place for a really good reason, and she's twenty-one and I'm three thousand, and she's working on getting strong enough to stop the evil god that killed my father and tortured my brother and is trying to destroy the world and romance would be kind of a distraction. And if people found out they wouldn't trust her. And I do not in fact know if she'd want to, though I'm very pretty so she probably would."

"You are very pretty," she nods sagely. "Those are good reasons, I guess. Are they going to go away at some point?"

"She'll stop being twenty-one in a year, I'm pretty sure that's how years work. She'll stop being intolerably young in a few centuries, that's also how years work. If we beat the evil god then I will definitely make it known to her that I would like to kiss her." 

"She'd rather know. If she wants to kiss you she's not going to want to kiss you less because she doesn't know you want it too and she'll be more distracted by fretting over whether accidentally letting it slip will make you not like her anymore than by waiting."

"I'm more worried about the case where 'kissing me' isn't even on her mind and now that it's been raised she's distracted by it."

"Okay but me reading her mind about it wouldn't make her sad."

"You sure? I guess you would be. Sure, fine, if you run into her you can read her mind and determine whether she'd like to know that I'd like to kiss her, or that I'd like to marry her someday conditional on an understanding that I am very very much firstly of the House of Fëanor, and if either of those things are things she'd prefer to know you can tell her."

"She might be sad because she's not a telepath and didn't know to be sad about that before," she says thoughtfully. "Anyway I don't know what the House of Fëanor means but Emily--or whatever her twin's name is--is always going to come first for us."

"Her twin's name is Illia. And yeah. I know. I think she will understand why my brothers and my father if she can bring him back are the same, to me."

"...If she's not a mutant which one of her parents is the mom?"

"I am not sure I can usefully answer that question. She's told me about her mom and her dad. Her mom's, ah, her mom. Her mom did some bad things to people who hurt her, is that what you mean?"

"Okay so her mom is her version of Daddy, then, probably."

"I am a bit confused."

"I have two dads. Daddy and Papa didn't know Emily and I would even be possible before we happened but sometimes mutants have weird physical stuff. Aunt Raven is blue."

"Yeah, in my universe - well, I guess I don't know, don't suppose anyone's ever tried. I am pretty sure that would not work in my universe, and I bet Odette would have mentioned if it worked in hers."

"I don't see how it would if you don't have mutants." There's a vague undercurrent of distaste at the idea of not having mutants but obviously it's not his fault, he's perfectly nice.

"We have Valar. They could probably do that kind of thing, they just never ever would."

"What are Valar?"

"The kind of thing Huan is, except more powerful. Odette's trying to get as powerful as them because we need to kill one."

"Why wouldn't they help people have babies?"

"They wouldn't help two men have a baby because they don't approve of that."

"That's dumb and they're dumb and bad," she decides firmly.

"Can't say I'm their biggest fan."