"Yeah. Although honestly if you're not gagging people you could have some kind of sensible referral system where you can summon specific daeva into and qualified for whatever you want done with clearly specified nonhorrible wishlists, on the first try."

"Good idea. I can't think of a single reason we'd be gagging people, even if it didn't incidentally solve all these problems."

"I know, right? It's so dumb. This one guy post-Revelation decided that the best way to make a buck off having been a summoner before it was cool, since the bottom was about to drop out of all the markets he'd been in before, was to go on talk shows and stuff, and he popularized the gagging demons thing - my abridgement of the book I found didn't even have that - and he was very charismatic, I guess, it spread all over the place -"

"I hope he was a demon for karmic reasons, but doesn't sound like the type."

"Angel, checked once."

"I just can't imagine how you get anywhere - find someone who'll make you a war fleet without asking any questions, as if that's not terrifying in its own right?"

"People are actually very timid about the use of demons on Earth - I was never actually allowed to terraform Mars but nobody beat me to it either -"

"Huh. What a - costly cultural thing, wonder if there's a way to fix it - maybe we can just fly over in our beautiful spaceships and be noticeably much richer than them because we are less timid - admittedly we did a lot of fucking around so we could reliably pay for spaceships while staying within the rules, but still -"

And his expression crumbles, abruptly, and then returns to cheerful.

"- what?"

"Didn't think something through, I don't think you want me to say it."

"I can if you want just - Eru, Cam, the look in your eyes - I'm so sorry -" Hugs?

Hugs. "If you don't tell me I'm going to wonder."

"I was going to say that perhaps it will do something for the public reputation of demons when the emperor of the multiverse has a demon boyfriend and then I realized it. Won't."

"Yeah. Probably best not to advertise me. Trot out your brother's girlfriend to improve the reputation of demons."

More forceful hugs. "I'm sorry."

"I must make really impressive faces - it's not a catastrophe every time it comes up, you know."

"Am I making it worse by being bothered by your faces? But I don't mean "I'm sorry for bringing it up", I mean I'm sorry I can't make you co-emperor of the universe you deserve it and you'd be really fucking good at it -"

"No, you're not making it worse." Sigh. Squeeze. "If I'd found the door just a little earlier, just a couple months... then I'd be really excited about being co-emperor of the multiverse you have no idea, just, over the moon about it -"

Squeeze. "I think I do have some idea, that's the thing.

I will not put you on PR campaigns but I'm not keeping you a secret either."

"If you think you can walk that tightrope and have manageable public opinion..."

"Oh, you know me, managing public opinion's going to be the hardest part."

Snort. "At some point you may encounter a genuine challenge on that front."

"Elves are an unusually easy medium to work in, admittedly, but I am pretty sure I can do it. And if I can't - hand the title to a fork from before Milliways, maybe. It would hurt a lot but I could still do most of the same projects and I do not think you deserve however-long-you-want-to-be-involved-with-me of sneaking around so I'm not damaged by association with someone who did exactly what I'd have done in their place."

"I'm not in the least sure that the proposed forking arrangement would be less net hurtful than just secreting me away."