He shrugs. "Not terribly. There's an appeal to being unique, too."

Snort.

"True. But on the other hand, how will you have a giant orgy with your alts when there's only two of you?"

"Oh, Dwayna, you know far too much about me," he says, laughing.

She giggles. "I'm sorry, should I stop? I don't want to make you uncomfortable, just, I don't feel it helps if I pretend I don't have absurd meta knowledge, you know? Feels too close to lying."

"No, don't worry about it, I'm just more used to presenting a—more serious face, so to speak. I'm Commander of the Pact, after all. People don't typically speculate about my sex life, except sometimes to brag."

"Makes sense. I get it. I wouldn't bring it up in front of your subordinates, I don't want to subvert your authority or anything? ... But also, you can probably talk your alt's sorta-girlfriend into a threesome with you two, so, information for you in case you come across them later. I am very kind, you're welcome."

He raises both eyebrows. "I'm sort of more surprised that my alt has a sorta-girlfriend than that he'd date someone who might be up for a threesome, to be honest."

"Ah, yeah, Pedro mentioned. I'm not sure what their relationship is going to shake out to be once it's being written, but they definitely do sleep together before the sun goes out. After, they realize they had been together, and probably sleep together again, because hey, why not. She's..." Aestrix trails off. "Well, okay. When she wakes up, her personal data is stolen. So, all of her notes to herself about her previous life are gone, and she's pissed about this. So she goes, and probably with your alt's help, she annihilates the thief and takes back her stuff, which is all pretty normal. And then, in the lucid-dream alike, she chooses to simulate the burning wreckage of those who dared to oppose her, and perches smugly in the middle of it. Like it is the natural state of the world for those who dare to oppose her to be in wreckage around her. Apparently this was the thing that made Pedro think he'd get all gooey for her."

"Ah."

Aestrix giggles.

"Lucky bastard," James says, shaking his head.

"Aw. Chin up, she's one of mine, you might run into an alt of her at some point."

He grins. "I sure look forward to it."

"Aw. Now I'm tempted to try to figure out how to put her into Tyria, but I don't think I know the era you're in well enough to pull it off. Oh well. There's an infinite multiverse, anyway, and I'm giving you a way to explore it, so. Oh! That reminds me." She digs through her pockets and comes up with some kind of laminated card. A two toned blue symbol takes up the left half, sitting on a shimmery black surface with subtle iridescent markings. Penned in beautiful swirling calligraphy in a brilliant gold is the name 'James Orland.'

"Your library card," she explains, with a large smile and entirely too much glee. "So you can get back here."

"You're enjoying this far too much," he says without heat.

"I am! I really, really am!" she giggles. "Okay, so your library card cannot be lost and cannot be taken from you. You can find it in whichever pocket you look for it. If anyone hostile tries to take it from you, it'll explode in fire. If someone that you'd prefer not to set on fire tries to take it from you, it'll—hm, harmlessly disappear. I have not decided how you will use it to get to the library yet, any ideas? Making you say 'I would like to check out a book,' seems a bit much, even if it's funny."

"Well, if you're phenomenally powerful I could just—wish to be here, while holding it or something?—what happens if I want to come back here but I'm naked and with no access to clothes?"

"Sure, wish to be here while holding it. Uh, good question. I could attach your house to the library, or put a book in here that'll take you to your house? And then put infinite clothes in that house. Does that work?"

"The... sort of situation where I'd be wishing to come here naked would probably not be one where I have access to my house."

She has no idea what scenario he's implying, but suspects she would not like to speculate, and to be honest, she doesn't really need to understand the specifics to help him out with his request.

"... I could put a trunk of infinite clothes somewhere without ruining the aesthetic? Or stairs up to some spare rooms that have, like, a bed, a closet, a bathroom, and a kitchen?"

"—you know what, you don't need to worry about it, it's not likely to come up."

"Nope, nope, too late, you brought up the problem and now I am going to aggressively solve it," she sniffs. "Spare rooms upstairs on the very top floor, living amenities available, if you need to run from your house there is now a place for you to go."

"I... was not exactly thinking I would be in my house or anywhere owned by me in such a situation."

"Well, people can henceforth not get into the library without a library card, and if you get a spare room no one that you don't directly invite in can get into it either. And you can instead just go home if you'd rather do that." She crosses her arms and fixes him with an impressive Mom Look. "Does that solve your problem if you fuck your way into trouble?"

He laughs. "The specific image I'm picturing is me having, as you put it, 'fucked my way into trouble' and not having access to my clothes and therefore to my library card. As it is if I had such a problem I'd hope to be able to fight my way out."