"For how long."

"I'm not sure what you mean? For the rest of our lives?"

"You don't think you'll - be momentarily encouraged, and then once you think I've recovered enough of my capacity to want things, decide that actually it would be better if I stopped using this capacity very much for the sake of not asking things that end up leaving you more frustrated with the situation than you would otherwise be?"

"I think that will not happen. I want to give you things, Korva. I wanted that even at the start, it was just that the one thing it felt like you wanted was - something I didn't have in me no matter how hard I tried - and now if it's like that I can just leave you alone -"

...nod. She turns away from him again, a little.

"I am thinking of the first day we came here. I remember - no, I don't remember what you said. I remember it was something about - being grateful to me for trying to solve my own problems. For not making them your problems. I remember thinking that - the tendencies that you were noticing and thanking me for were things I was doing because I was afraid of you. And wondering if the things you wanted from me were mostly - not wanting things. Even if the process that produced it was - knowing that you were not someone who could be trusted with information about what things I wanted."

"I think - 

- I want you to be okay, and if that is inconvenient to me I think I'm no longer so - exhausted - that I can't work with that.

I think sometimes it won't even be inconvenient? It's nice to do things for you that make you happy. But if it's inconvenient that's fine."

...nod.

"I don't actually know how to - get closer to recovering. Maybe I would have ideas if I thought about it more."

"Have you been practicing your magic?"

"Not with the intent to get better at it. Prestidigitation's useful for changes. Lullaby's useful for getting him to sleep."

Nod. "Dunno what else. You could travel, if you wanted."

"...can I."

"Yeah. Probably not - that much - but we could go to some places that are safe."

"Like where."

"Forest somewhere? Ocean somewhere? We could take the kids to play at the beach, when he's a bit bigger."

"That might be good for him.

"Sometimes I want to see the sky?"

"Well you can go anytime to the winter palace, it's not in the Dome."

"Oh.

"That might be good to do. Sometimes."

"Yeah. It's not much of a change of scenery but it's a little bit of one."

She is having a little bit of trouble imagining how it could avoid being one. It occurs to her that she hasn't left her room in months. She doesn't know how many of them.

"Are there... plants there. Like, a little garden, or something."

"Yeah. There's courtyards with plants, fountains, people play music..."

"That sounds okay."

"Maybe you should explore a bit more. Seems like it might help with figuring out what you want."

"Being in places that have palace people is... hard."

"Because they're all horrible? I have that problem too."

"I don't know that any of them are especially horrible. I just don't like - thinking about other people seeing me. Now that I'm like this. I think it was easier when I was more out of it, I didn't - I'd sort of turned off the part of me that was capable of caring about being humiliated."