Oh, yes, she may have forgotten to let go on her own.

"Oh good - I'd apologize for my selfishness but it's my understanding that for some reason most people don't find nearly so much joy in designing schedules as I."

"I enjoy some reminiscent things but not specifically schedules."

"What things, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I like data visualization stuff - charts and graphs - though generally not enough to do it by hand, usually I have tools that haven't been invented here."

"What sort of tools? And what were you making charts and graphs of?"

"Computers would... take a long time to explain, might be a good topic to save for when I need to hold your hand for a long time and won't be able to shut up. I was working on assembling a picture of how espers and dungeons worked on a statistical level."

It's very confusing how he mentions plans for holding her hand. It would be inappropriate in an unfiltered manner considering her emotional response to the suggestion, but the strictly speaking polite response to a man who is not even courting her suggesting as much would also not fit this situation at all. Nonetheless she's easily distracted from the subject by his response to her second question.

"Oh that's fascinating, what sort of statistical quantities were you attempting to analyze?"

"Again, I am if we follow through on any of these plans for superheroics going to be subject to magical loneliness which turns me into an illiterate chatterbox which I can only fix with extended physical contact with a compatibly magical person, do you want to use up all the good conversation topics now?"

"Oh, I suppose not. I can be kept in suspense."

She will note the subjects down for later exploration.

"Sorry, I'm just in the habit of strategizing pretty aggressively about having things to talk about with whoever'll be available when I'm getting guiding and that's going to be strictly just you for the foreseeable. Normally I can contact people who aren't in the room with me."

Lucette opens her mouth, closes it, and adds another item to the list.

Success.

"I apologize for my society being unhelpful regarding the management of the downsides of your powers - it has that problem with demons sometimes as well."

"I mean, your society is unhelpful with it because it doesn't know what backlash is, we had that problem till we worked it out too... in what way is it like that with demons?"

"Well, there's the issues with commoners not knowing about haunting at all, but even for nobles I think it is harmful how people can't acknowledge their hauntings much at all - at the very least my life would have been easier if there had been books on the subject."

"Poor Sophia, I mean Lady Brynd, from the party last night, just wanted to matter of factly remark on the weekly torture that everyone there has to know must exist in some form, and everyone stared at her like she'd - there aren't even books?"

"Not that advise on how to handle aspects beyond that basic logistics. Staff can still be very helpful and there's some amount of wisdom passed down through means other than books. Also people won't usually judge too much if an empowered shows up to an event shaken or upset. But yes, I was thinking of Sophia - it should be Lady or Miss Brynd to you but she is a particular friend of mine. I think her treatment of her haunting as an everyday part of her life is rather understandable but society at large does not. It's not wholly without reason - most people feel their own torments are private and don't want to discuss them. I just wish this treatment was not enforced universally in such a fashion as it is."

"Some espers keep their backlash private, if it's exploitable or embarrassing or they just don't feel like discussing it, and some of us just tell everyone - I do that to explain how I act when I'm backlashed, because I can't just handle it in private - and there's no reason you can't have both types coexisting."

"Typically my society doesn't discriminate between subjects people are expected to be willing to talk about and those that are socially appropriate to talk about. So I am expected to be adept at navigating conversations about my parentage as that is an appropriate topic of conversation, and conversely it's innapproriate for Sophia to talk about her demon since many others are unwilling to talk about theirs. And thus there isn't room for different treatments of the same topic."

"Well, that's stupid."

"Extremely."

"I don't know much about how this sort of thing changed over time in my world, alas."

"I wonder if greater populations would help just from reducing the need to have a single pool of potential partners for marriage."

"I kind of want to invent the dating app only it's analog, or something."

"Should I add that to the list or would you rather explain now?"