And maybe we'll figure something clever out and not die and the Dwarves will invent a way to use electricity to kill the Enemy and then we can live somewhere pretty and help people once I'm in fewer pieces -

Maybe.

I love you.

She can just say that now~

I love you. 

Can I kiss you now?

Yeah - is there anything like holding still I should do to make it easier -

Unfortunately it's more complicated? 'don't do a really long list of things I haven't fully catalogued that'll remind me -' but I want to kiss you anyway, maybe with practice we'll figure it out.

...Maybe you could list at least some of them and I'll avoid those and learn new ones as they come up?

Don't call me by the name I was born with, don't pull my hair, don't touch my ears, don't bite me, don't laugh slightly?

Okay -

- I can't actually hear laughter, it's possible I sometimes laugh and can't feel myself doing it -

Well, then, I'll tell you and we'll figure it out.

Okay.

When we would cuddle back before I loved you and I could tell you how to move so that it didn't wake up any nightmares it - it was vaguely the sort of thing I would once have found ridiculously hot but I couldn't but now I can again -

You can tell me to move however you like.

I trust you. I love you. We'll figure it out. 

She tells her heart to stop racing, wrong kind of heart racing. And she kisses her. And it's not really Annie it's Thauron and Annie is Thauron so that doesn't matter and there are so many things she throws into place between her and the world so it hurts less to keep existing and she shoves them more firmly into place and tries not to care who it is -

Annie can't read her mind. Annie holds mostly pretty still (being kissed makes it very hard not to kiss back and squirm a little) and makes non-laughter noises of rather unmoderated volume and doesn't pull her hair or call her name or touch her ears or bite.

Then they can do this for a couple minutes until she collapses shuddering and crying and not in contact with Annie but barely able to perceive that anyway -

"- I - what'd I - how do I -"

You didn't do anything, sorry, that's just - the best I can do - I'm sorry - 

You don't have to kiss me it is not obligatory I will be okay -

I won't - unless I guess I was hurting you enough by beating my head into a panic like this that you preferred I didn't try, maybe, but actually feels like I just need to stop beating my head into a panic -

That would be ideal but if you can't actually do that -

I have no idea if I can do that but I haven't tried very hard yet. 

Is - sheer exposure - really the best thing to try -

I don't know but it involves kissing you and none of the other solutions involve that and it has been five hundred years, it's obviously not just going to get better on its own, not in your lifetime -