She picks up her notes, scans them. "Well, it was uncomfortable, but you know that. Uh, prototype procedures are likely to have side-effects and I think it would be hard to find test subjects who wanted rid of their lifebonds to refine it and the side effects might be that bad or worse. The research project might not turn out and I think it being pending would make it harder to get settled in some sort of workable relationship in the interim. That assumes, which we have not established, that the default non-research-project outcome is in fact having something that might reasonably be called 'a relationship' instead of courtesy notices regarding our geographical plans and you assigning me a discreet bodyguard or something. Which I would consider your prerogative because you didn't ask for this any more than I did and have complex secret plans in motion, but it does seem like it sacrifices the silver lining, that being, uh, really nice hugs and so on, probably hugs don't stack up very well against complex secret plans."

Leareth nods. "I came to roughly the same conclusions as you did about researching ways to undo lifebonds, which I think puts it mostly off the table unless Nayoki knows something she thinks is very obvious that I have never heard of. I noted that being a thousand miles away from you is not very feasible for getting any kind of intellectual work done and this would be...awkward...if you wished to stay here. I..." why is he starting to blush again this is stupid, "considered how much I value the silver lining parts, such as nice hugs. I am not sure but I suppose I would value that at all." 

He frowns. "...I thought about compatibility and I asked some of my colleagues who would know more. I think that, obviously, you are far more compatible than any randomly selected person would be. Most people are not compatible at all. I think I might have wished to speak further just based on your research alone - not because it is related directly to what I need right now, necessarily, but because it indicates creativity and scope of vision which is rare. My sense is that surface incompatibilities are very possible. The disagreement we have about mindreading and such is not surface-level but I am curious if having an in-depth conversation would enable us to better understand each other's views. I am not very motivated to try to understand most people's views because in the past when I tried they were generally stupid, but I have - perhaps rather biased - motivation to listen to you more than to most people." 

Leareth lifts his hand, lets it fall. "I am not sure where I am going with that, except...I think the fact that we are lifebonded is at least some evidence, to each of us, about what the other is like. ...Also I feel very awkward about the difference in age and experience and power generally, I am sorry about that." 

"How dare you have been born two thousand years ago, serious lapse of judgment," she says. "You're very attached to your current location? I have - students, colleagues - I guess if you can Gate that far it's not like I couldn't see my parents - what was it your colleagues said, did they just confirm your impression of compatibility based on you describing me?"

"I asked about lifebonds in the abstract first and received some anecdotes that conveyed that impression. Oh - also that people sometimes seem to change a great deal. However, I am not very happy about involuntary change and I imagine neither are you, and I expect we are both more stubborn than average, so I am less sure how that would go." 

"You imagine, huh. Um -

I'm not sure how feasible it is to attempt to formulate a relationship based on a valuation attached to that relationship of 'at all, I guess'. I haven't had any, and presumably you had your half a million descendants with somebody, so perhaps you're about to tell me that actually it works great, but that is my suspicion."

"...I did most of the descendant-having in the first five hundred years and coasted on that," Leareth admits. "Also I tended to - make arrangements with women who were excited to have children, especially children who might be Gifted, and provide for their livelihood. I have probably ever had an actual relationship but I...mostly did not have a desire to, in the last thousand years or so? So, this is very awkward and strange for me and, while I am prepared for nearly all contingencies, I do not feel well-prepared for it." 

"Prob- oh, right, you mentioned it's a - lossy process -"

"Yes. I keep notes, obviously, but I have limited time to reread them, and relationship advice from my past self is not something I would have prioritized." He shakes his head. "Empirically, the amount I value romantic relationships when I am not lifebonded to someone is 'zero', and this mostly has not troubled me at all; however, I...am beginning to suspect that it will trouble me if the extent to which we interact is merely courtesy notices regarding our geographical plans. This is very weird for me." 

"Okay, so - what do you see this looking like instead of courtesy geographical updates, I'd always imagined eventually somebody would come along and decide I was the greatest thing since the invention of cheese on potatoes and we'd have some fairly conventional courtship situation and get married and go from there but you are clearly very complicated so what am I working with here."

"I - um - is cheese on potatoes your go-to best thing to exist? I hope it is not a major incompatibility for you that I am not very fond of potatoes." 

"It's an expression, I have not carefully sieved a list of all the things in the world to choose the best one. My mom says the cheese on potatoes thing."

"It must be a Rethwellani idiom, I am not versed enough in the language to know all of those– Why do I want to meet your mother. Is that a normal relationship thing? Is the way lifebonds work that they just make a person want to do all of the normal relationship things?" 

"It is a normal relationship thing and I do not know if lifebonds do that specifically or if they just make you interested in one another's lives and so do normal relationships."

"Is your mother an important part of your life? I have said that there have been many people whose lives I was interested in but generally their mothers did not come up as part of the conversation." 

"I lived with her till I went to university and have dinner with her once a week. My father I see much less often given the travel time but I'd do it more if I could casually Gate hundreds of miles; we do write."

"Would she disapprove greatly of me if she knew all the context - it is probably not a good idea to tell her," he adds quickly. Why does he care if she would disapprove this is so frustrating. 

"Uh. I would describe her as 'open minded' but that means 'she has friends of the sort who'd be stoned by the crowd if they described their romantic weekend in a public place' and not 'she will roll with the murder thing'."

"You know, fair enough, that would be rather an unreasonable amount of open-mindedness to ask for." 

Relationship things...

"If it were up to me I would want to have conversation about what I am working on and what you are working on and, oh, history and magic and mathematics and languages and architecture and..." Probably Belrun is less well versed in a lot of those fields and so maybe that's unfair. "Possibly while hugging, it is confusingly nice. But I would - wish to do some things you found romantic just for that reason, I think?" 

"When you say hugging is confusingly nice how much should be reading into that. Like... hugs are supposed to be nice. People like them, they are popular."

"I am not most people and I generally have not felt I had the luxury of the kind of close friendships that involve hugging, much less romantic relationships. I did not feel that I missed it too much until now. I am aware that there are - things other than hugs–" Ohhhhh. "I think I am - not normally set up as a person to be very drawn to...physical intimacy," why is he blushing he is not a teenager he is very much the opposite of that. "Apparently being lifebonded changes that? This is very confusing." 

"Oh dear. Okay. I guess we will figure that out as we go like most people do and that can be the one thing that is not very strongly influenced by you being two thousand years old, except insofar as it absolutely is because that must be an adjustment and a half."

"Do most people go around having these - kinds of feelings - more regularly? How do they think or get any work done?" 

"This is noticeably more than usual!"

"Well, then, I am sorry about that too." 

"It's not intrinsically unpleasant but I was going to be kind of put out if you weren't on the same page."