Yeah. So - we had to guess, with you.

I don't know. I don't even really think I should get to decide - you could let anyone who cares vote or something -

You're the best source of information we have on what could possibly be done for yous at this stage of the timeline.

You can make it all stop.

If that's the best we can do, yes.

I mean, you also apparently have the capacity to edit me into something that wants to be alive. If that's what people who care about me want it's probably the best thing to do, but it's not the best thing for me.

I understand.

And she passes this on too.

"Findekáno -"

"Yeah?"

"Should the procedure for mes from far enough along in the timeline be 'edit them sort of against their will into someone who wants to be alive, hand them over to the various people who still care about them" or "quick execution without any effort to communicate first".

"Well isn't that a fucking question."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry -"

"Don't be. I don't know the answer, though."

"There are probably infinitely many Ardas."

"If it were about me I'd say 'fix them' but it's not about me, that's - I think maybe it's up to the kids -"

"They haven't weighed in."

Hug. 

(Kib is uncharacteristically quiet.)

"I'm a hypocrite," he says to Kib, "I was pretty willing to drag you kicking and screaming back to the world of the kicking and screaming."

"I literally told you that you could do what you wanted with me. Repeatedly," Kib says.

"I mean, he told Bella to make him into whatever the people who wanted to talk to him wanted. That just - doesn't feel like consent to make him not want to die."

"Yeah - I mean, it seems unfair to expect anybody who's been through all that crap to understand ideas like 'the people in question are not planning to prop you up in the corner as decoration and care about what you want in addition to their own independent purposes' but it's kind of a crucial idea here -"

"I don't think he's processing it as 'people care about you' at all. More like 'people have a claim on you' -"

"Which is also - kind of fucked up but it's a little late to address that?"

"Yup."