"You've been so helpful, I think I don't mention that enough."

"I don't think I've done much a teleporting rock couldn't do. 

Uh, I guess I am a teleporting rock.

I mean a normal one."

Bella giggles. "A teleporting singing rock who could introduce me to another world that needed stuff!" A pretty teleporting singing - um.

She giggles too. "And warn you about some people who turned out to be pretty all right!"

"It did make sense to be cautious based on what you knew, and you didn't overwarn me to the point where I didn't talk to them in the first place."

"Good thing, because I don't know that anyone else could possibly have wanted the Enemy dead badly enough."

"Someone might've but it would have been hard to find them."

Bella is so great.

Bella is now going to write up the constitution of [to be named later]!

She has occasional suggestions but is mostly distracted from the discussion by the impulse to just stare at Bella, because wow.

"Do I have something on my face or are the surroundings ugly or what?"

"Uh. 

You know how I said if I kiss you I'd probably fall in love with you?

Watching you save the world might. also do that."

"Oh. Like - might do, or has done."

"Sorry. It kind of snuck up on me."

"You don't have to apologize, you're the one with the really unpleasant potential outcomes here if it doesn't - line up nice forever."

"Hmm? I'd be - okay, just write lots and lots of heartbreakingly sad songs. Elves don't always - it doesn't always line up, and people mope forever but I don't know that they usually regret it. I don't regret meeting you. I can't imagine I ever would."

"Moping forever sounds really unpleasant to me, I've been dithering because I didn't want you to maybe have to mope forever if it turns out to matter that I'm, you know, subjectively mid-twenties and psychologically human and stuff and this all adds up to insufficient permanence..."

"Sorry, how would that matter? And I don't want a romance anything at all like my parents' but they have a much bigger species difference..."

"Humans, especially in our teens like I legally am or twenties like I subjectively am if you count all the looping for the full value of the time, usually don't settle down forever with our first girlfriend. That's actually really uncommon. It didn't seem - like I should bet on it not happening when it matters to the point of 'you'd never be able to find somebody else', without really, really strong reason to think it was a good bet."

"So you just....need to go date other girls? To get practice at it?"

"I don't think it's a practice thing so much or I would have mentioned that. I'm not sure what it is though."

"Okay. Well, if I'm going to be in love with someone forever I'd want it to be you."

"...so if you already went ahead and fell in love with me does that mean no particularly novel risk is in play if I kiss you."

"Yeah. Yeah, it does mean that."