Leareth smiles at her. :I suppose not. My bad: 

:It is also usually wise to act like you are not very ambitious even if you are, right. Or at least ambitious only in the right directions.:

:I think it depends what strategy you are playing? But sometimes, certainly: 

:Sure, sometimes you want to seem ambitious enough to be interesting. But - if you've already got something going for you on the interestingness and valuableness front, safer not to be ambition, there are more people who'll kill you for being ambitious than people who'll kill you for being unambitious. - I know you won't. I'm really not in doubt about that. But as far as ...habit forming...goes.:

:Yes, I know. Your habits were adaptive, before - and are probably better-suited for most people in most places than mine. You were clever and careful and you survived living in Cheliax: A waft of - not exactly approval, not exactly pride, but something vaguely in that direction. 

:And you want something different and - hmm, I'm not sure what I get out of changing it? Aside from making you like me. Which is obviously very appealing but that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea to be aiming for.:

:That makes sense. What else would need to be true, for you, for it to seem like a good idea broadly?: 

:Well, it'd have to - help me get what I want? Which is - I want to be immortal and become a ninth circle wizard and help you build your god and eventually ascend or something and have a dozen personal demiplanes that outlive me by twenty thousand years and that future adventurers ransack for ancient magical secrets -:

Leareth just looks at her for a moment, intently, and then smiles, the startlingly genuine smile that she's only seen once or twice from him. 

On one level that makes a lot of sense because telling people what you want is a very very intimate thing to do but on another level it's very silly because it - kind of is pretend, right, she has no real reason to think she can make it all so. :Or something in the same genre as that, I'm not attached to most of the specifics:.

:Of course. The path to the thing you actually value, there, may end up being a different one. But in Velgarth, you have a somewhat unfair head start here, which is that I am one of the first people you met, and - I have just been given significant reason to want to help you with your goals: 

Leareth extends a hand to her, still smiling, but somehow a more solemn smile now. :Allies, in achieving godhood or something equivalently absurd as that?: 

- she takes his hand. :I - don't understand myself to be promising anything I haven't already? But - yes.:

:Well, no, but I think there is value in speaking of it explicitly: Leareth squeezes her hand. :...I think what you said before is not exactly right. That changing your habits-of-thought around ambition would cause me to like you. I do already like you: 

:I'd noticed. But - probably you can like people more than this. At least I was assuming as much. Maybe this is as much as you ever like people.:

:The other me seemed to think I could like people more. I cannot tell yet if he is right: 

:I'm pretty sure I can like people more. It just doesn't usually seem smart.:

:Not for me either. But maybe this time is different: 

:Is there something I should tell Calib about ...what you want, here.:

:Oh. Right: Leareth's expression is that of someone who's only just remembered this is relevant. :I...am not sure. Certainly it does not bother me for you to continue to date him, it - does not feel to me like the sort of thing that ought conflict, but I am aware I am not most people: 

:You really aren't. Uh, I don't know if it conflicts, but I guess I expect it to be awkward and make him sad all the time? I don't know. I guess we will try to figure it out without worrying about how you'd like it to go.:

:I certainly do not want to make him sad all the time! I expect you will have better judgement than I do, here, on what will help versus make things worse: 

Leareth sighs. :Apparently this is rather complicated. Oh well. ...I notice I want to hug you, would you like a hug?:

: - sure. ...did you not at all expect the making him sad thing, that seems like a blind spot of sorts.:

:Now that I am considering the question, it seems unsurprising, but - no, I suppose it did not occur to me to think about it until you said something. Usually I - do not end up having a personal life that would cause conflicts with any of my staff: 

:That sounds - forget lonely, I think I'd probably do the no close personal attachments thing by default because it's stupid, but - uh, I'd be touch-starved.:

:That is what Nayoki thought about me; it is why she told me I should hug you, before: