She kisses him. 

A piece of her is telling her that this is pathetic, wanting to do this with someone, feeling like she has a right to decide what happens just because she can manipulate the fairy rules, feeling like she should ever get to decide anything when it has to do with what she wants, feeling like what she wants matters, like she's allowed to want things in the first place for reasons that don't have to do with taking care of other people.

A different piece of her is telling her that this is really good, see, good job, Connor will be happy that she wants to kiss him now, please let him keep being happy, please let him want to be hers, maybe she should kiss him differently and see how happy she can make him, please just let Connor keep liking her, please please please -

She tells both of the pieces to shut up, repeatedly, because they keep creeping inward from the edges of her consciousness and trying to chase out the piece of her that is actually getting to make kissing decisions right now. It's harder to hear, because unlike most of her pieces, it's not a piece that's very good at words. But she takes his head in her hands and kisses him more thoroughly and less hesitantly than she usually does, like he belongs to her, like he is hers to kiss, like she could do anything she wanted and it would be allowed, and if all she does is kiss him then that is not because there are rules keeping her from doing something else, it's because this is the thing that she wants from him today. And the piece that is making decisions says yes, yes, mine, mine mine mine.

For the first time since they came to fairyland, the debt from kissing runs her way.

"Mine," she whispers, a little uncertainly.

"Mhmm. Love you. Want you to be - okay -"

- this pretty much causes all of the pieces to short circuit, so she has to stop kissing him. She does not stop holding him.

He loves her he loves her he loves her.

" - love you too. I think."

Holding him is good. She is good.

"I think. Possibly. There is some evidence that - I like it when you talk about, um, belonging to me. And stuff."

"Oh. Good. I can keep doing that."

...she is just going to keep hugging him for a while.

That sounds good.

Eventually maybe she will be kind of calm again and they can go find Zana and get some dinner into her.

That sounds good.

And then she can tell Zana a long story and they can all go to bed.

She will maybe not kiss Connor again without being prompted but she will definitely want to snuggle a lot.

Snuggles are real good.

Spell: Together

When you are touching someone, you can read each others' minds.

To learn this spell, hold someone's hand. Tell them 'waratel'. Tell them what else you are thinking. 

"It changed," he tells her.

She reads him the spell.

"See? Much better than the stupid one."

Snuggle. "Mhmm. Can I have it?"

"Up to you. I'd take this one, though."

"I wanna take it."

She takes his hand. 

"Waratel. Um, I'm thinking that - I'm excited to be able to hear what you're thinking, and kind of excited for you to see what I'm thinking about but also kind of nervous because a lot of what I think is stupid, and I'm thinking that I like you, and that I'm really glad I started reading all my spells to you so that you can tell me when they're stupid and that as a result I have this one and not the other one. And that lying in bed with you is nice."

And he's thinking that he's really glad she didn't take the other spell and he's mad the book offered it, why would you do that, how does it decide what to offer anyway and why are they so frequently things that'd be bad for her if she took them? Really they should've been doing more experimenting or at least careful note-taking there. And he should probably respond to the rest of what she said but he was thinking about this and didn't really pay that much attention and was that rude? Ugh. It feels like his thoughts are louder now that he knows someone's reading them. What if she thinks he's stupid.

Hee. His thoughts are cute and sweet and good. She kind of wants to kiss him because he's cute and sweet and good and she wants him to be happy, but she's not sure that's a good enough reason and - oh right he's listening to everything she's thinking now. Gah. Hopefully he doesn't think she's stupid either.

Maybe this was a bad idea because all they'll ever think about is whether the other person is thinking they're stupid and whether they want to kiss each other for the right reasons. Not that he worries about whether he wants to kiss her for the right reasons because he's not in charge of that but he'd sure worry about it a lot if he did? Maybe he wouldn't and would just kiss her a lot. Maybe that would make him not any better than those fairies who might've done anything, really, if she hadn't known how to stop them - he shouldn't think about that because he thinks probably she has thought about sex a lot less than him and it will probably freak her out and - maybe he will think about his dog. His dog's name is Dog. Shoot now she knows.

- God why is he so adorable. He gave his dog an adorable name and he worries about adorable things and she's not really entirely a hundred percent sure that she loves him but she definitely likes him really really a lot. She is not terribly worried about them not figuring this spell out because, like, they can always stop touching for a while? Although it would be sad if they couldn't snuggle at night so probably they should at some point figure out how to, like, be comfortable with each other's thoughts enough to, like, calm down a little and sleep.

She's not sure whether it would be bad if he kissed her a lot without thinking about whether this was good for her, probably at first that would have been pretty bad because she would have been scared, but she does not think it would be as bad as the other fairies, because he cares about she feels, and stuff, right, and probably if something was really really upsetting and hurting her he would have stopped, right?

Yeah he wasn't imagining that he would kiss her while she was sad about it or something that sounds like it would actually suck. He doesn't think he's a bad person. Like, arguably he is since he is a fairy and his life plan is kidnapping people - is it still? Uh his life plan is probably kidnapping people if he can figure out how and that kind of makes him a bad person but not the kind who wants to hurt someone.