"Wow, your government is really screwed up."

"They thought that we should let the situation unfold a little while longer before taking action. It wouldn't do to seem too rash, you see."

"Seem it to who?"

"Ourselves, as far as I can tell."

He pauses. "I truly hate the old guard. You may have worked that out already. I really do not like them."

"Why are you and your human at such odds over it? I mean, it could just be that you haven't had much chance to come to an accord..."

"Harry... he lies to himself a lot. If he could let himself believe the Council is as wicked as they are, he'd feel like he had to thwart them. But the first time he went up against them, he was a malnourished, traumatized high-schooler in shackles and a blindfold. He couldn't even speak in his own defense. That powerlessness... it's never really left him, when it comes to the Council. He once spit in the face of a woman who could literally freeze the blood in his veins, yet a few hundred old men have him so terrified he can't even think them wrong." He laughs humorlessly. "Let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks child abuse doesn't pay off. But me, I embody a lot of the things he didn't want to be able to think. I'm the one who hates what those old men did to him. I'm the one who thinks Justin needed to die, no matter how black the magic we had to use. Christ's own sake, I'm the one who had to tell him he swings both goddamn ways. What kind of twelve-year-old bullshit is that?"

"I'd wonder if you needed messianic help but I'm not sure how I'd ever get home."

Livingstone sighs. "I'm not doubting your credentials, you understand, but you may be better off messiahing your own world first. It sounds like it has fewer entities who can kill with a stray thought."

"Yeah, yours might be a little less entry-level."

Path flutters up from where he was interacting with Livingstone - since that conversation doesn't seem to require him at all - and says, "Are you okay?" to Harry from a safe distance.

"...Yeah. It's not- apparently splitting off a piece of your soul leads to very awkward conversations. Or maybe that's just me."

"For us it happens at birth, so we didn't know to expect it to be particularly awkward," apologizes Path.

"I mean, it's not like I haven't had this particular conversation before. At least now there's apparently a less depressive part of me to talk about it for me."

"We're good for that!" agrees Path. "You can spread the topics around."

"It is nice. I imagine it'll get better still once we have time to like each other a little bit more."

"If your daemon doesn't like you something's wrong," says Path sagely. "But he seems to mostly be irritated on your behalf so that's good."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, that does come into it. But he's also very, very irritated with me. And I think he's being a dick about it, but ultimately he does probably have some good points, on account of he's my soul. So if we work that out I think we can get along a bit better."

"Good!"

Harry nods. "So, since that's apparently all retroactively taken care of, I've got plenty of time to work over the fact that I'm apparently gay. Which is, um, strictly better than thinking about Justin. I guess."

"He says you're bisexual. It's different," says Path.

Path chuckles.

"Yes, many things have permanent effects. The most portable options would be blessed weapons and things like that. What do you have?"