He squeezes him. "Maedhros was pretty jealous of me, and this at the same time as explaining to me how I'd determine this isn't a hallucination and why I shouldn't then kill myself, so it's not as if he were merely misinformed."

"My alts may be piecemeal jealous of me," allows Kib. "...Cam doesn't get the appeal but Iobel does."

"Yeah, I noticed. I am kind of curious about how Cam ended up - not how he ended up with a Bell, that makes perfect sense, but how he ended up not getting the appeal - I would almost be tempted to assume a hilarious misunderstanding but it could not plausibly have endured this long."

"I could ask him but it'd be awkward if you witnessed it."

"Oh, if he would rather have altly conversations without me around I will leave once we've extracted our briefing. Unless you want to be cuddled while you learn computers, and even then we could probably talk Aydanci into taking the job."

"I wouldn't not like to be cuddled while I learn computers. But yes, Aydanci thinks they sound fascinating."

"Think programming's involved. Somehow. Without any magic, even." He extracts them from the festival. "I want to learn, but not as urgently as I want to learn the political structures, what everyone's doing..."

Extraction, yay. "Of course you do."

"My alt said when he got me an eidetic memory necklace he'd also get me a book of a couple million names. Findekáno said 'surely at some point you stop wanting to -' and both of us said 'nope!'"

"That's really a ridiculous number of names!"

"Names and pictures and descriptions! Once you have an eidetic memory, why not?"

"You could still invest the time spent learning all the names on learning anything else."

"Or I could find someone in the book of names who'll be better at doing that than me." The palace has a rooftop garden with the fluffy grass. He steers Kib towards it.

"...when did you plant this?"

"In a fit of optimism that you'd someday get better, couple months ago. Then I changed my mind and almost ordered it torn out and then I decided I was being silly. Also figured I could take you here even if you weren't better, it'd just - be a little heartbreaking."

Kib pets the grass. "I thought I was doing a reasonably good job of seeming normal within the scope of things I was doing at all..."

"Well, a notable feature of all my fondest romantic memories of you is that both of us were utterly unable to stop talking logistics of ruling the world and eventually at least switched to osanwe so we could kiss while doing so. Either that or we'd just spent a couple hours simmering at each other over Governor. You were being a very normal you absent everything I fell in love with."

"Simmering over Governor was fun."

"Can I look forward to it again or do you think the Enemy'd steal your ideas?"

"Maybe with pervasively bizarre starting conditions."

"Can do. Set on a planet without a breathable atmosphere, made up of sealed archologies set up by an advanced civilization that's since abandoned them, with leadership chosen by popular vote... and people appear fully grown, rather than at birth or as babies...and everyone has the vampire mate bond thing, and Hex's magic system. How's that."

It gets a laugh, that's how it is. "I love you."

"Love you. Missed you." Tumble into fluffy grass. "Not pervasively bizarre enough because I can do more pervasively bizarre."

"...it's probably pervasively bizarre enough. Although I don't know how Hex's magic system works with appearing as adults."

"Hmm, maybe you have a window to choose, maybe everyone's got them, maybe they appear in early adolescence or something...."