I don't usually want things. I want information, I don't want to be tortured, I want the Enemy to die. I think those are the only things but I do know the feeling of wanting things.

Well, you're not going to be tortured in any case. You can ask me to show you things or tell you things; you can say yes when I offer to tell you things or show you things; I might be upset and I might tell you no but nothing worse than that will happen and even that should be pretty rare. I can't do much about the Enemy from here but we're working on that. If you find that you want other things you can tell me, and again I might be upset or say no but nothing worse than that is going to happen. Okay?

Yes.

I want to not need catering to, that's also a thing I very much want. I want to feel like in interactions I am not dependent on the goodwill of the other person, especially when I haven't earned it by doing anything and when I can't be sure you don't work for the Enemy.

I mean, if you weren't here I'd probably be dead by now and now it's looking like I might at very least live to see spring, that's not nothing. And you are working on the rest; I'm kind of amazed you're conscious at all, never mind healing at that pace - I wasn't especially expecting you to survive a week, you know, I was mostly thinking that at least with me it wouldn't get worse.

The Eldar are very resilient, and the Enemy had no intention of ever letting me die. Why were you thinking you'd die?

...I'd gotten to the end of the things I needed to do for myself. Not things that I could do for myself, but to the point where answering 'what needs to be done' with my own projects and nobody else's hurt more than it helped. That wasn't going to stop being a problem; I might've lasted a little while longer before I started answering it with 'die' systematically rather than impulsively, but not much longer.

Huh.

Do you prefer being alive?

...yes?

Then I guess that's good. That you are.

Yeah. I wasn't, y'know, kidding, when I said that doing things for you is almost as much for myself. And yeah, I know that's really iffy, ethically, but of the options I don't think it's so bad - low bar, but, here we are. I'm doing the best I can.

If you really don't serve the Enemy then I don't see any ethical problems. I'd rather be needed.

That takes some of the wind out of her sails. She very much wants to hug him and/or be hugged and doesn't have a way to stop doing that even though she's pretty sure he'd be uncomfortable to see it.

Well, I do. But thank you.

What's the problem that you see? My vulnerability?  I hurt you every few minutes, while you are literally not creative enough to really hurt me.

I don't see any possible way that conversation could go that wouldn't end with one or the other of us regretting it.

Fair enough.

I do genuinely want you to be okay. Most of the worry is that someone will lose track of that or give their own needs priority over it. I'm not sure I'm immune to the problem, but I don't think I'm running into it yet at least.

Being okay is not as important to me as killing the Enemy.

Yeah, I'm coming around to wanting that too. But that's not really part of the thing, there. It's more about, if there's a conflict between what I need and what you need, or what I want and what you want, what should happen? And it should be that you get what you need or want and I take care of my needs and wants elsewhere, because I'm more able to do that.

...that seems reasonable as long as it's understood that I only have the three wants. Less reasonable if you're going to try to reconstruct the wants you think I should have.

...I'm mostly noticing it and reacting when you seem to want things? It does seem more plausible to me that you're wanting things and not noticing it than that you only have the three, but I suppose I could be wrong about that.

I'm sort of trying to act like how I remember I'd act if I were normal, as best I can, which is badly. That'd probably seem like wanting things. I don't think I'm failing to notice wanting things, but I suppose that could be too. Either way, it doesn't seem useful for you to prioritize what I can be inferred to want over what you actually do want.

It would really bother me to stop doing that. It's... I've been, not where you are mentally, obviously, but in a situation that was at least sort of similar, with thinking I didn't have wants. My tribe's healers put me back together, and that was part of how they did it; not at least trying to repeat the trick would feel like abandoning you.

Okay. Are you going to be disappointed if it turns out I actually do not, though?

I'm going to be upset, probably, in that case. But not at you, it's not your fault.

He's evil and my brothers are going to kill him.