" - my guiding principle for making decisions that are really important is that I should listen to Timothy. My guiding principle for making decisions that are not really important is - how satisfying I would find it to read an account of my actions? So I care a lot more about narrative, about movement, about new experiences, that kind of thing, than most people? It's not just that I like drama, it's that I want my life to be dramatically satisfying. If the - Elf understanding of a dramatically satisfying life is different then what I'd want is different."

"The thing with Amriac is dramatically satisfying?"

"- well, I'm also a teenage boy and she's pretty and she gave me all the music. But - yes. I would prefer to be the sort of person who summons a demon and takes her shopping and takes her to dragon preserves and is heartbroken when she gets bored."

"...and your alt prefers...?"

" - whatever his culture has as the matching narrative -"

"A century of grieving for the destruction of our home planet. Or did you mean romantically?"

"That is what she meant."

"Same answer - he would not feel comfortable pursuing someone right now which is a fact about him, not about the right way to react -"

Sigh.

"Sorry."

"Sorry."

Sigh.

"A century? Really?"

"Elves're fairly bad at getting over things."

"Then it's a really good thing you have humans around. Dear god."

"I mean, he'll do other things ever during the century, right?"

"Yeah, definitely - we've all been working nonstop on the peace treaties and redrawn borders and reconstruction, and we were not planning to wait a hundred years to deploy whatever resources we can in your world. He just - won't do things that aren't time-sensitive and Elves do not conceptualize romance as time-sensitive."

"I suppose it wouldn't be if people didn't think it was."

"Exactly. If there are cross-species romances they will be full of hilarious misunderstandings - or, more likely, sad Elves going 'but I pined after her for five hundred years! what did I do wrong?' - but internally it satisfies everyone."

"...maybe, before five hundred years pass, there should be an announcement that pining is not the same thing as courting, in case someone is confused."

"It'd be inappropriate to announce right now, but yes, at some point I'll make sure people know that humans will not find it romantic to learn they have been passionately pined after."

" - but then what do you do if you like someone and aren't ready to court them yet -"

"Maybe you should ask your brother, I'm not really an expert on humans."

"...Depends on why the holdup," Cam says.

He does not elaborate.