"I love you, too," he says, squirming a bit under the kisses. "I'm feeling—weirdly happy, I don't know, maybe it's not that weird, today's the first time you've told me you loved me and I feel pretty and witty and gay and I definitely pity any girl who isn't me today."

Giggle.

"On slightly less happy matters, I might be able to convince Jackson to get back to therapy, and hopefully he'll go and get a personality and dump Mr. Abusive Whip-guy."

"I'm still probably not a good repository for personal Jackson information even though he hasn't harassed me in a while."

"Uh, yeah, sorry."

She ruffles his hair. "It's all right, lovely, I'm not going to go put it on the internet or anything, just, you know."

"I know." He shrugs. "My two personal weaknesses—or, well, one personal weakness and an instance of the other—cannot interact. How poetic."

"I feel like a poem about this would be really awkward."

"I think half of what's known of Nordic mythology comes from poems, if they can handle a person giving birth to an eight-legged horse I'm sure this won't be that big a deal."

"Ha, fair enough."

"Loki: the original gendershifter."

"There is apparently a fringe theory according to which many pagan deities were mages and psions going a little overboard."

"Ha, I could see that. Although I'd be hard-pressed to describe giving birth to an eight-legged horse as going a little overboard."

"Wouldn't necessarily have had to actually do it, just look like it. Or that story's fake and the others have a basis in truth. Or 'birth' is a metaphor for 'make'."

"Why would anyone even do that, though. That's way too many legs!"

"I dunno, maybe they thought it'd be faster."

"There's just no way an eight-legged horse is fast without some major redesigning going on, and I'm pretty sure learning to fly is better anyway."

"Maybe they're a fan of spiders and think other creatures should be more like them."

He laughs. "Ah, yes, giant spiders. Just what the world needs. What could go wrong."

"Horse spiders! Not the same as the kind with mandibles and eight eyes!"

"I still cannot picture it, I mean, where do the legs even fit? How are they shaped?"

"I don't know, I wasn't there."

"Tomorrow I'm gonna see if I can find a drawn picture of it or something in the library."

"Sounds like a plan."

He grins and leans closer to her in that way that he wants petting and/or head scritches.