"Those are my parents and that is weird."

"How exactly does the dimension-hopping thing pick dimensions to hop to?" Mitros says.

"It, uh, doesn't, supposedly, random," Cam says, glancing between Maitimo and Mitros and Iobel.

"...We'll talk later," Iobel tells him, parsing this with somewhat more alacrity given better background information.

"Supposed to be random, but instead it picked one where the first people you'd meet would be yourselves. That's interesting. 

Anyway," he says, "I was confused for what I assume is the reason you're now confused. Iobel is my greatest asset and closest friend and the inspiration of many of my ambitions and a fantastic spellbinder in her own right who is probably going to invent immortality if my father does not beat her to it. And you two are - civilly acquainted." AND YOU GOT A BOY, YOU GOT IOBEL AS A BOY, YOU GOT IOBEL AS A BOY AND YOU POLITELY TOLERATE EACH OTHER HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN. He has communicative telepathy but he doesn't want to charge it and he doesn't need it, Maitimo obviously got the message. 

"...I'm assuming you met under different and pleasanter circumstances," Cam suggests. And possibly yours is less fucked up? he does not say to Iobel.

Loud and clear. "I'm not sure it was the most favorable possible introduction."

Mitros buries his face in his hands. "That's what confuses me so much," he says to Maitimo, "do you realize how much fucking up you had affordance for - with both of them -"

"Yes," Maitimo says. "Later."

"Why later, because I feel like this is going to be really distracting as background fact during a conversation about electricity - or maybe you should all talk about electricity and Cam and I should go discuss our life stories, if this distraction is unique to us or me or something -"

"I think we are all distracted but should maybe do this in different rooms," Mitros says, "it will save time to not phrase things to save feelings. I really want to get the short version before we do that, though -"

"If there is ever a war," says Maitimo, "and hundreds of thousands of people are dying every day and there's endless piles of work and it feels indefensible to spend the effort on communication required to not have an annoying-but-strategically-insignificant level of background hostility with your ex, do the communication work anyway. You failed to factor in the probability that the strategic situation will change fast enough to obviate all your logistics and very much not obviate the benefits of functional communication."

"...it's not even very much communication work!" Mitros says. "You two are startlingly good at that even under extreme pressure! It would have taken you an hour and a half!"

"Yes, and we thought it would be an indefensible use of time to try. And now you're warned against the mistake and will not make it."

"...thanks," he says. "Now long version, separately?"

Iobel gets up and inclines her head to Cam, who follows her. "You walk very briskly," he observes.

"You're keeping up."

"I've got wings and a tail and they help and I would still not usually walk this briskly."

"I've got a spell, I'll charge it for you while we talk."

"Lovely."

Mitros is a King, he can dismiss everyone else. Findekáno and Finankar leave. 

"Please at least tell me you got the chance to fuck him before you did whatever you did."

"There was a war on. That I don't even regret."

"Well then I am going to sit here and regret it on your behalf, good lord, Iobel as a boy..."

"...is there a spell for it, or did you just -"

"Have to get married to be King," he says, "but she also belongs in power so it worked out all around."

"So is yours just less fucked up," Cam says, when he's parked in Iobel's room with her cat sniffing him suspiciously, "or what."

"I suppose he must be, how fucked up is yours?"

"He told me point blank I was his type and I was not even slightly tempted to go for it in any context that actually involved having him in the room at the time, the drama with Findekáno was just that conspicuously toxic - they were on the downlow shortly post-breakup when I arrived and without 'homosexuality is unthinkable' goggles on I still had them figured out the moment I saw them interacting and didn't want to touch it and it didn't get better."

"You're gay?"

"Bi."

"Huh. I'm straight, and Mitros let me think he was too for three dates after he picked me up at a party dropping hints about wanting a queen and then out came the entire fiasco -"

Findekáno and Finankar just look at each other ruefully for a minute.

"Don't talk me back into it," Findekáno says.

"...are you planning to, like, find someone else, or just quietly regret that the only person you want is someone you're better off without..."

"...empirically the latter?"

"...you can probably borrow mine."

"Is he actually any different though."

"I don't know what yours did."

"Well, we initially broke up because on his father's orders he started a stupid fight that ended with thirty thousand people dead, and I came in and saw him under attack and helped. And then he felt  it'd been entirely justified and I didn't agree so we decided to put us aside for the war. But then situations kept repeatedly arising that demanded we work closely together and - you know how the only mood he doesn't try to poke to see where he stands is 'unreasonable hostility'  - so I ended up defaulting to that. And we were functional. But unpleasant for everyone around us. You should have a better fallback."

"Resign?"

"It was legitimately too important to resign."

"Ugh."

(Cam explains his life story up to the part where he turned into a demon; Iobel explains her entire life story and introduces him properly to Cricket and Cricket deigns to be petted; Cam explains the rest of his life story with a hundred and fifty year "nothing much" inserted before he wound up on Araman.)

"So," Maitimo says, "he asked me what I'd have done if Findekáno wouldn't keep it quiet and - well, what would you have done?"

"Hmm, there wasn't time pressure, was there? Sat down for about an hour and tried to come up with options better than the ones popping into my head."

"I said one of the ones popping into my head."

"Knowing presumably that he'd be incredibly upset -"

"I wasn't trying to seduce him! Why is this so hard to get into your head!"

"I - I think you've correctly identified the mistakes you made, I am just losing my mind over how wasteful it is!"

"- I mean, sure, he's pretty, Elves are kind of all pretty actually it got to the point where I had to start ignoring it, they're ridiculous, but that can't compensate for having to be a secret all by itself and he wasn't offering me a monarchy -"

"My only hard power is the Department of Education, although people do listen to me beyond that and he does in particular."

"He wasn't even offering me a Department of Education! He didn't even actually hit on me, tell you the truth, the bit about me being his type came up when he was addressing that Findekáno thought we were fucking, why that would seem plausible."

"I suppose I don't know what it looks like when he's attracted but not trying as opposed to trying but not attracted..."

"I mean," Findekáno says, "what are the odds there are exactly two? There's probably one somewhere who isn't screwed up, and I'll just wait for that one."

"That doesn't sound like a healthy mindset."

"If Endore gets more socially liberal I can maybe even occasionally have casual sex."

"While waiting for your lover from a dimension where he can cut the power games out once you break up."

"I mean, if you want to point me at someone better -"

"Mitros is mine and I think I'd love him even if he locked me in the dungeons to feed my family into a black hole for the greater good. If he brought them back. Which you said he did."

"The ones he could."

"The black hole thing, assuming I'm getting all the significance of it without having the physics -"

"You are, there's not much to get besides 'planet and everything on it gone'."

"Well, I don't know how much it helps but it sounds like you won."

"Pyrrhic victory." The computer fails to translate. "Uh, I won, but it sucked."

"Do you believe the unpronounceable Maia about five hundred years -"

"...Not sure. But it doesn't sound impossible."

"You won."

"It sucked."

"But you won."

"Marrying someone you don't want just - Elves wouldn't do that. It's pretty fucked up."

"Finankar and I broke up and remained very good friends and eventually talked things through and got back together. Y'know. If you're calling me fucked up."

"Yeah, I don't think it's a feature of breakups in general, I think it's a feature of breakups under intense psychological pressure due to constant horrifying atrocities occurring that are by design just barely within my capacity to prevent or mitigate. Those ones are bad for me. I should avoid them."

"I'm sorry."

"I wasn't - that's not the point."

"It kind of is. You won and now there's six of you grinding your teeth to the bone in atonement, and you're all alone, and you're planning on staying alone - because if you won't try for Cam, you aren't going to find anyone worth trying for -"

"I do not stand a chance with Cam."

"Yep, I noticed immediately. I am just saying that's pretty fucking unfortunate."

"Do you want to, like, hug my parents or something...?"

"...I feel like that would be awkward. They won't recognize me and we'll probably have a way into Limbo soon."

"Okay, just thought I should offer. How hard would it be for me to learn to use a computer like you've got?"

"...learning curve would be a bitch, might be worth it, do not want you to be the first test subject on the chip in your brand of human though."

"Fair enough. Magic necklace?"

"You mean like the one you're wearing right now?"

"Yes, like that. And here goes your grace spell -"

"If you actually end up ruling an interdimensional empire and then you asked Cam out he might consider it."

"You are way more invested in this than I am!"

"Yeah, I kind of resent your world just getting, on every possible level, a sad ending..."

"I agree with you about that but you are missing all of the important levels and focusing on one thing that I don't even want that much, besides idly recognizing he has a personality I'd work well with under completely different life circumstances!"

"I sort of feel like you're lying to yourself here."

"Findekáno didn't invent resurrection to win me back but he invented resurrection and brought me back and it didn't fix anything. Some things aren't fixable."

"Bullshit."

"How old are you, seventy-five?"

"...try a third of that. What's your point?"

"I don't want to rule an intergalactic empire very badly anymore and I really hope you never understand why."

"Because you're depressed, yeah, I wouldn't want to be-"

"Not. It."

The three questions match and a lot of little trivialities match and he gives her a non-chiplocked computer to watch Atriama ("the subtitles will be badly translated but I think it'll still work") and other items, he teaches his computer her alphabet more properly and hashes out some translations that it wasn't handling by itself, Cricket sits in his lap, and Cam winds up sending Maitimo and Finekáno each a message that they're all set to talk electricity whenever the others are.

They've all four gathered in the conference room again but take a little while to tell Cam and Iobel they're ready.

"In the interests of honesty," Mitros says, "I spent most of our time haranguing Maitimo on the lost opportunity to court a boy Iobel and mostly just kind of avoided thinking about this, because what happened here makes perfect sense to me and also scares me to death and that didn't seem like as fun a conversation."

"I also assumed Maitimo'd take advantage of the opportunity there," Findekáno says. "It's out of character and a little worrying."

"I think he's dealing with some psychological issues stemming from the war," Mitros says. "If he were healthy he'd be ruling a few planets by now."

"Mitros is overly sure of himself," Maitimo says, "and has ulterior motives because he wants to vicariously have sex with alternate versions of his wife. He is probably right, though."

"I am obviously right," Mitros says. "Also I'm really regretting that I'm not sexually compatible with myself -"

"That occurred to me when we got forking," Maitimo agrees.

"...I am perfectly compatible with myself but don't find that at all tempting," Findekáno says, "wow."

Mitros frowns. "...is there an obvious reason why the two of you haven't just asked Cam for past, less psychologically scarred versions who still like each other?"

"It'd creep Cam out," Findekáno says. "I asked him to roll back Maitimo by three months for pressing strategic reasons and he refused. He might not have trusted my motives, though. And - I wouldn't erase the memories that got me to the point of not desiring to be in a relationship with Maitimo, and it amounts to the same thing."

"I considered it," Maitimo said brightly. "Making younger versions of me and sending them to Findekáno as a present, and hoping he got the hint, and then I'd have explain to my Findekáno at length everything I did to make it the considered opinion of his older self that we shouldn't be dating and he'd blink at me and say 'well, planning to do that again?' and then I'd have him back. But. I was in fact bad for him."

"Is anyone else," says Finankar, "really worried by this bizarre self-abnegation 'I won't take this thing I want, I don't deserve it' thing, I've only ever seen that on Mitros when he was apologizing for something, he sure as hell never steered with it -"

"He also did not feed any planets into black holes, now did he."

Finankar looks up at him, alarmed.  "Dude. If you are really an alternate version of my Mitros I am very worried about you. Why don't you - stop living among people who expect and reward conspicuous displays of shame and self-loathing over something you did, I think that's the operative ingredient here..."

Mitros nods as if in sudden realization. "Yes, definitely. Come live here, maybe."

"It'll be my pleasure to aid you in catching up with modern standards, but in the long term I'm needed at home."

"You're literally redundant there!"

"And I don't like it here particularly, it's ugly."

Findekáno snorts.

"I guess maybe I should give it some time," Mitros says. "But do spend that time becoming emperor of something, when we find another universe with a boy Iobel you can tempt him with power."

"Why don't we teach electricity," Maitimo says.

And then they ask Cam and Iobel to come back.

Cam and Iobel come back in rather chipper moods, her with a magic necklace and him with a bounce in his step. Iobel sporfles when she sees the Elves and that gets Cam going and they both sit down, stifling giggles.