"It's not - I don't mind being a dragon, or some unfactionated firebird or probable-human knowing that I am a dragon. I just don't want this to turn into a chain of a lot of people being really totally trustworthy up until someone thinks that I'm going to kill their hiding sphinx friend or relative because they don't trust that their friend's boyfriend's brother's friend's sister's friend or whatever says that it's okay and this is a nice dragon, and in such a condition of uncertainty they'd better kill me first. I probably should have asked you if you were comfortable keeping secrets from literally everybody before I said. Although given the timing I bet you could have guessed."

"I can keep secrets from Jaromira in the short term. I don't know about the long term, I've never tried. I expect she'd be more comfortable with it if she believed you'd be alright with her telling Daphne at some point in the future if and when you trusted her more, but I also expect she'd do it regardless."

"And then who will Daphne want to tell?"

"I don't know that she'd want to tell anybody. She and Jaromira have friendly acquaintances in the supernatural world, but they're not close to anybody here but each other and arguably us. And it would hardly be relevant to her mundane relatives. Personally, I'm in favor of telling them and swearing them to secrecy to anyone else specifically because they're assisting us with the magic project; no one else is, and it wouldn't be as relevant to anyone who wasn't. And I did say 'if' and when," he shrugs, "and it could be that a prerequisite to trusting her is being sure that she wouldn't tell anyone you hadn't personally vetted and approved. Jaromira isn't impatient, but there's a difference between being asked to keep a secret indefinitely and being asked to keep a secret forever."

"Alright. I can definitely keep a secret from her in the short term. ...I can't promise that it won't be obvious to her that there is a secret, but if she knows it's not my secret she won't pry."

"Frankly, a wyvern who never takes significant midform let alone fullform but definitely does have scales is a dead giveaway the moment you know there is a secret."

"...If you really were a wyvern, the wings-for-arms thing would be sufficiently impeding to dexterity that I doubt my sister would think much of it that you're never in midform. If I come home acting like I have a secret and I tell her it's not mine and I act as gleeful as I'm not sure I can refrain from because all this is awesome, her first guess is likely to be that we had sex and either you didn't want to tell anyone because reasons or I didn't want to tell her because teasing."

"We don't know that I have any awesome powers yet. I may not. What we do know is that it's very easy to lose critter lineages in medallioned families, there could be sphinxes around who hate my guts and are just as likely to have awesome powers, and I may have just permanently failed at infosec that might be preventing me from having magical assassins after my blood."

"...If she guesses, she won't tell. Not anyone. Not if I ask her not to. She may not be as happy as she could possibly be not telling Daphne but she won't." He puts his hand on hers. "I don't think she will guess. And I can not tell her, if it matters to you this much, and if she guesses anyway, she'll come to me before anything else and I'll tell her it matters to not tell anyone and she won't."

"Okay."

"...I don't expect you to trust her as much as I do. But I do trust her, and--I care about you. I don't want you to get hurt. And she knows that, and knows that it would break something if she did something that got you hurt. ...And I can keep it down to normal levels of magic-is-awesome-May-is-awesome-the-world-is-awesome if I try, I think."

"Okay. Just - hold it down to letting her think we had sex until we know if I even have cool powers and we'll go from there."

"Yeah."

May scrunches up in her chair, knees to chin.

"...I'm sorry. I think it's wonderful and I don't want you to be sorry you told me and I don't want you to be afraid for your own safety and I especially don't want you to have to be afraid for your own safety. And I don't want to pick sides between sphinxes and dragons but if a sphinx starts something I'd pick your side in a heartbeat. And. I want to make this better and I don't know how, I'm not good with people and I don't know if there even is a way to make this better."

"It's my own fault anyway, you didn't do anything, I'm sure you would have gone into complete detail about your ability to keep secrets if I'd just waited until we weren't thinking about dragons and intimated that it was something unrelated and asked you."

"I still don't want you to be upset. Not my fault doesn't--fix it."

"It's not even like I have any particular reason to believe that hidey sphinxes would want to restart the war any more than I do, you know? It's just nerve-wracking."

"Yes. I wonder if it would help anything if we found them first, if they existed, or if it would just make them more nervous."

"It's a very awkward detente to break."

"I think I do want to see if we could invent a spell to find them, first. Just so we know for sure if they exist."

"Since there all we want is the result and not the ability to reproduce the spell, if I turn out to have decent powers I could hack something together and not break stride on the major projects, I guess."

"Yes." He bites his lip. "Are you going to be okay about it, though? If we don't find out? If it's going to be a long-term psychological problem--if it took breaking stride for, that might be better than the alternative."

"I'll live with it. We don't even know if I have powers yet and we can find out tomorrow cheap and easy, no need to make plans contingent on either answer now."