"--you don't like even thinking about the way that I am."

"...I wish you had more ability to decide things for yourself and I keep feeling like if I was really doing right by you I'd be looking harder for a way to give you that." 

"...I can try to decide things for myself if you want me to but I don't want to do that? I like being the sort of being that I am."

"— I will work on internalizing that and I'm sorry that's — I don't have the words for this." 

Are they going to have this conversation in a classroom? Apparently they're going to have this conversation in a classroom.

Thanks, Sunnydale Syndrome. 

"I have agency. I can make choices. I belong to you and I don't belong to Lilith because I decided I didn't want to belong to Lilith and the rules have loopholes. But I was also made to be the sort of person who is really happy when they have someone to love and to take care of and to make happy, and you're not doing me a favor if you try to stop me from doing that. And-- and it's bad for humans to be slaves but I'm not human, it's not bad for me to be a slave, it's doing the thing that's good for me and that I want and. And if I wanted to leave you I would, your orders have loopholes I could drive a truck through."

"Okay. — I'm not going to close those loopholes unless you want me to, but. I won't try to stop you from doing that. 

I love you." 

"Nope, if they have loopholes you have to let me learn about how popcorn and roof tiles and teddy bears are made or I'll leave you."

"We can make popcorn together when we get home and you can see for yourself how it's made. Roof tiles and teddy bears I have no convenient demonstrations for." 

"But WHY does it explode like that?"

"Things expand when they cook! Dried corn is no different!" 

"What happens if I microwave rice? --Probably we should figure out Lilith and then think about that."

"Probably, yeah. — as far as I know you just get warm rice, rice needs water, but I've never actually tried it." 

"I can take an oath for a year and a day and then-- if you don't like it it can be over?"

"...yeah. That's — a good idea." 

He says, in a strange and serious tone, "I swear to serve Sasha Mikhailov, descendant of King Solomon, the master of djinn. I swear to protect him, to obey his orders, to take care of him, to comfort him in times of sadness and rejoice with him in times of joy, to love him. I swear to tell him what I want and to make my own choices in pursuit of what I think will make me happy. All this I swear for the next year and a day."

He's very quiet. 

Not nervous, not sad. Just — what do you say? What is there to be said? 

"I love you. Thank you."

The response to that, on the other hand, comes easily. 

"I love you. Thank you." 

"Why are you thanking me? I'm the one that gets to belong to you." He adds as an afterthought, "and not Lilith."

"And I'm the one who gets to have you, and to have your love and your trust." 

"You'd never want to hurt me."

"No. Never." 

"--I don't think it's even occurred to you how many of my spells were designed to punish me."

He thinks about it. "...stay, I guess? Being stone sounds unpleasant and faerie royalty probably don't run into situations where they're not supposed to have a dog but a statue of a dog would be fine very often." 

"You can take away my ability to speak. You can make me desperate for you to touch me and then lock me in a room by myself. You can turn me into a corpse and I'm totally aware and I can feel everything. I can heal any physical damage you do to me."