"Just a little bit."

"We'll see if Elizabeth can take him, I guess.

"Wonder what happens to all of us if he kills her."

"Might depend on whether Starfarer's gods are as good as he thinks they are."

"Yeah. - didn't mean to be depressing. Just - thinking of things that could still get in the way of hypotheticals besides, uh, me deciding that I'm being very silly."

Nodnod. "Makes sense. Elizabeth is probably underestimating how dangerous the thing she's doing is."

"Oh, she absolutely is. But - at this point I don't think I can be entirely confident that it's beyond her. Still kind of terrified of what happens when she decides she's ready, but - "

Nod. 

Snuggle.

"It's possible it all works out, though. And it's possible that - I'll keep feeling about how I do now, and maybe eventually trust you enough that I'm - less of a mess, and I won't uncover any evidence that I'm actually being incredibly dumb, and - we could do it, then. In theory. Have a life."

"Mmhmm."

"Probably have to wait until she's ready to fight Asmodeus to talk to your family about - I think you said you had to ask permission. Not that I'm ready now. Just - thinking about what the steps would be."

"I do, yeah. If I don't have it - no Osirian'll see it as a marriage."

"Then I guess we'd have to look into getting it. Hypothetically."

"I don't think it'll be very complicated or anything. Guess they'll want to know if you'll behave yourself if somehow Abadar comes for me."

"Well I dunno, what would that involve?"

"'s really unlikely, right, I'm as far away on an alignment chart as a person can get and there are fortysomething other heirs. I can't even imagine - I guess something that wiped out all of Sothis in some way you couldn't resurrect them."

"So if it did happen you'd be - pretty much inheriting a crater surrounded by miscellaneous desert?"

"Lotsa people don't live in Sothis. But I at least wouldn't have to worry about the palace being an unpleasant place to be stuck."

Snuggle. "Sorry. My geography could use some work. I think - if I want to marry you at all then I'll take your responsibilities seriously enough to cooperate with them in the event of an Osirian apocalypse. - but you'd owe me, when we got to Elysium. If we got to Elysium."

"I'd owe you so much."

Giggle. Snuggle.

"We'll hope for not that."

"Really does seem very very unlikely or I wouldn't - drag you, drag kids, into it."

Nodnod. "Forty other people in the line of succession seems like a pretty safe amount of distance."

"Maybe we can use the evil slavers' pregnancy technology to get the pharaoh's wives pregnant and then there'll be even more."

"Maybe so.

"It's kind of - nice, how you hate the palace so much. Like - obviously I'm sorry you hated your childhood, and stuff, I don't mean that, just - it makes it easier to believe you're not gonna get bored and want to go back to it."

"D'you worry about that?"