"I'm not like this about things I didn't do."

"It was the right thing to do. The - awful - is all located in the situation in the first place."

"I murdered fifty-five million innocent bystanders, only most of whom I can bring back. Their planet had some magical properties I couldn't replicate when I made them a replacement planet and the ecosystem's going to be shot because I can't put most of the animals back smart enough to walk and breathe at the same time and they were post-scarcity because of the intervention of the magic god things which are now dead and staying that way and I can't resume any pregnancies that were interrupted after a few weeks and before the chips were fully formed and Elves are fanatical about that, I have heard the most absolutely heartbroken crying about people's babies - yesterday a little girl wanted to know if I could get her dog and I cannot get her dog - it is not appropriate to whistle while I work."

 "- can you - put the pregnancy-as-it-was-at-a-few-weeks -"

"Yeah. The helpers your alt sent with me are gonna ask when people are slightly less shellshocked if that's an acceptable facsimile. Didn't want to spring it on anyone."

"Muggle England has a child mortality rate of 30%".

"And I will be eager to come through your door and modernize your planet and eradicate malaria which at a generous estimate may be responsible for as many as half of all human deaths to date where you're from, and then follow up with the thousand next best interventions, and I will do coffee instead of sleep for that too, and first I am going to put all the Elves back - they really do have inhuman levels of baby-obsession - and it would not. Be. Appropriate. To be cheerful. While I have not even undone the murders I can undo."

"And you're not going to - burn out, or -"

"Don't get me wrong, as long as time is paused there I will take advantage of that, but no, I was not planning to burn out and I expected to be able to follow through on that."

"How long is it going to take?"

"Few more months for this planet. Putting the war casualties back will be a few more beyond that. Might lay down some infrastructure too."

"And how long have you been at it -"

"Months. I'm fast but there are so many."

"You are fast, that's - wow, like 10,000 an hour."

"I figured out what order to do them in on the way there. Make 'em in batches."

"Okay. Let me know if you need anything we can do."

"Recommend me some books about what you can do, maybe there's something you take for granted that'd be useful even if it wouldn't solve the central problem?"

"Uh, sure, Gamp's Fundamental Limits On Transfiguration, Keddles's Charms For Household Use and her Charms For Hobbyists, Ketteridge's Garden Guide To Magical Plants and Marjoribanks's Herbology, Third Edition - fourth edition's better if you happen to read French -"

"I do. Perks of being a daeva, we cheat at languages." Stack of books.

"Lucky you! Uh, Strougler in An Enchanter's Overview, Hipworth's Potions for the 19th Century, Alderton in Duelist's Guide. That should at least mention most spells and give some clue as to what there's promise for in future development."

More stack. "Thanks. You occupied or should I give you some books too?"

"I would love book recommendations from the future, my runes homework can really kind of wait."

"Inconveniently much of my education was aimed at demons and assumes the ability to create arbitrary material objects but I should be able to come up with some things that don't..." And presently Timothy has a stack of his own, medicine and electrical engineering and computer science and such.

"Thanks. ...do you mind if I use a dictation quill to take notes, I can make it so you can't hear me speaking to it but some people find that annoying in its own right."

"Won't bother me."