"It's why I'm not a fan of the idea, vassalising more people is yuck. Even if only temporarily and to help everyone."

"Yep."

"But still, more people than we have right now would be welcome. Oh, and by the way, I found out there's a thing called Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft which could be used here for us to find a place far enough away from the Queen."

"Handy."

"Yeah. And that's the kind of thing we could have more easily if we had access to more mortals, especially politically relevant ones."

"Well, you'd know more than I would about how to get their ideally voluntary cooperation."

He grins. "I have next to no idea how to do that at the moment. I'm throwing ideas at walls to see what sticks."

"The situation's not good but it's not unstable either, we have time to think."

"Yeah, we'll probably need to, like, sit down sometime and start really brainstorming ideas and listing resources and writing it all down and stuff."

"Yeah."

He smiles at her. "So, how're you feeling?"

"...I'm fine? Do I not seem fine?"

"You do, but I mean, like... Plan succeeded, months of anxiety and spending many hours staring at screens are over, a strong contender for 'worst person alive' has been neutralised, you could be on the verge of crumbling down or something."

"No, I'm not crumbling."

"Good! Good."

...okay, how does he phrase this.

"I think so too."

He still does not know how to phrase this! Having a crush on a fairy is hard he did not expect this why does he have a crush on a fairy this is terrible how does he do this.

"...are you crumbling?"

"Nnnno."

"You don't look so good."

"No, I mean, I'm good, I just, erm..."

"Hm?"

"I, er... I wanna ask a question slash say a thing and I'm not really sure how to do it."

"...well, without knowing what it is I can't help you."

"Yeah, I know."