Well, that's nice of him.

...wow, Sun-dark can immediately see the appeal of watching oneself with Maitimo, no wonder Dawn-shining was having such a good time with that.

How delightfully unlike the events that the fork remembers as having occurred yesterday.

Yes very much so. He is mostly managing not to think about that.

Dawn-shining Taliar loves his husband sooooo much. His husband is the best.

And then it is time for cuddles again. The Taliars snuggle up happily.

Still a few things I need to tell him, muses Dawn-shining, trying to decide the best way... do you want to explain what you used to get out of not caring about consent, or would it be better if I sent the memory of what you said?

Why don't you tell him -

All right.

He reaches over and ruffles his alt's hair. Prepare to be enlightened, he says, and then sends the memory, with approximate context of when it was being said and what they'd been talking about beforehand. He stops short of including what he did after Maitimo finished speaking.

His breath catches.

"Oh," he says quietly.

It's - it makes perfect sense - and if the Maitimo of the past was in front of him right now, Sun-dark would want to kiss him - would want to put his soul in his hand and drown in loving him - and that Maitimo is not here, and the Maitimo that Sun-dark is going to seduce doesn't even want his undying devotion - but the war is over and there's another entire Taliar to go around being Dawn-shining at things, and Sun-dark can afford to go hand his soul to Maitimo's sad alt and love him undeterrably.

And it'll help him. Even if it takes him a while to admit that.

Well, yeah. If I didn't think I'd do him any good, I wouldn't even be considering it. He reflects on this assertion for a moment, and then adds, Well, not seriously, anyway. There's definitely a part of me that just wants to find out how badly he can fuck me up, but that is not the part that gets to call the shots.

What a perfect time to mention, Nahira's flower is daffodils.

In context, and in that tone of voice -

I thought you said it was going to be less bad than I wasn't imagining!

It is! You can handle it, he says cheerfully.

...show me, says Sun-dark. Show me how you handled it.

So Taliar sends him just a flash of the moment he stopped feeling safe.

That's the night of the first time I encountered daffodils in Arda. And it went just about as badly as it could've gone, and I handled it.

It's surprisingly easy to extrapolate the parts of the context he isn't being directly told - there's enough substance in the brief memory to get across the concept of hypothetical consent, and it all falls into place neatly from there.

Sun-dark contemplates the feeling in the memory. Like being made of nothing but willpower and pain.

He observes that he is really extremely tempted to get competitive about it. Anything his alt can handle, he can handle just as well. Better, with an example to learn from.

I am crazy, he announces. You're crazy. We're both crazy.

Yes, you are.

"And you are - I don't know what," he says. "But whatever it is, I like it."

Appropriately appreciative of my toys.

"Sounds about right."

He gives Maitimo a kiss.

"It is really very tempting to stay," he says. "There's no way I'm going to do it. But it's tempting. It's... this," he gestures at the three of them snuggled up comfortably together, "this is what I want to have. But being a present for your alt is what I want to do."

I bet you can get both, if you're determined enough.

"Mm. No, I don't think so," he says. "Going off to seduce your alt means giving up the option of staying with you two, and I'm genuinely losing something there, it really won't be the same even if we end up just as adorable. But that's okay. It's hardly the most significant thing I'm giving up."

Implicit in his choice to go be the other Maitimo's present is the possibility that he might never regain the full power of his soul, and the other Maitimo might never decide to start respecting his consent. That's why his chosen soulname embraces the loss of power. He is the Taliar whose soul is in eclipse, and he'd better be okay with that, because if he isn't okay with that he should definitely stay.

But you want to go?

Yeah, he says. Between what I want to have and what I want to do, the second one always wins.

'Have', in this context, is about things that are rewarding on the level of personal enjoyment. 'Do' is about things that are rewarding on the level of challenge and accomplishment, difficult things that work toward valuable goals. And he's a Taliar. The outcome is inevitable.

Then - have fun. Be a delight.