We could do that if we wanted everyone else who lives at the palace to decide we are the palace-returning cohort and join us and that would be fine and not suspicious but it would be hard to get any kissing in.

Ah. So if we don't leave together when do we get any kissing in?

I know some corners in the theatre district, I can send you directions.

Okay.

It is an excellent play, and the translation is wholly adequate, and lots of the lines - and all of the monologues - are osanwë'd anyway so he could probably have caught most of it.

Huh, that's an interesting artistic convention. Makes sense if everybody's telepathic.

And after the play there are telepathic instructions about streets to walk down - very pretty streets! to meet Findekáno in a fabrics shop closed for the festivals.

Kib follows these instructions.

And so Kib meets Findekáno in a fabrics shop closed for the festivals! Did you like the show?

I did! Although I'm sure I didn't catch all the references and connotations.

Telepathy is for having conversations while kissing, right? We could! Nobody would even look at us except to wonder what kind of alien you are, that would be novel!

This is one of telepathy's major benefits! I think I'd find it extremely ...hmm. Satisfying. Validating. He pulls Kib closer for more kisses.

Mmmmm kisses are great even if they have to be had in a closed fabric store.

And when they get tired of kissing and hair-petting Findekáno holds Kib close and listens to his heartbeat and resists the urge to tell Maitimo that he has good taste in men to crush on and wonders if there is an acceptable way to ask if Kib's society attaches particular significance to whether one has ever had sex.

Snuggles! Obliviousness to complicated internal monologues!

Well. He can, when they get distracted from all of this contented resting and start kissing again, slide his hands under Kib's shirt and see if Kib is inclined to stop him with an explanation of his home world's cultural expectations or, really, at all.

Despite being sort of predictable now that you think about it - and maybe the Unbegotten among the Elves don't have navels, Findekáno never actually thought about it - this is pretty weird and also an excuse to take his own shirt off so he can explain what the weird thing is.

...Well, I'm glad I'm getting this explained so I didn't ask somebody why they have a distressing-looking puncture scar. It doesn't hurt or anything?

No. It's not particularly interesting to the touch at all. I've never seen someone without one.

Its absence is also not especially interesting to the touch, not that you can't investigate. Mind you don't tickle me.

You dislike being tickled? I will remember that.

It's not so much that, it's that I get even less coordinated than usual and I would flail right out of your lap.

I expect that if I had your permission to do so I could keep you in my lap no matter how much you were flailing.