Mm. Well, for the record, the feelings he had when she mentioned keeping him were mostly positive. Pretty much all positive. Positive modulo him being himself.

Giggle.

"Okay. Then. I would like to keep you for as long as you are comfortable being kept. And. Figure out a way to cleverly make you not grow old and die for no reason. Or preferably ever, but. Definitely not for no reason."

He can't say he has given the matter a whole lot of thought or emotional importance but sure if she cares so much he can go along with immortality for her.

She smiles a delighted grin, coming out from hiding under the blanket to show it, but mostly to kiss him. Yay!!

She's adorable and kissing is much better than he ever thought.

It iiiiiiiis!

“You’re great,” she murmurs to him, fondly.

He finds it very strange to just be given a compliment like that.

...she's pretty outstanding, too, though.

"Thank you." Kiss! She wants to keep him. Now she just has to figure out how to do that! At least from the ravages of entropy. (Fuck entropy.)

... It would be incredibly callous to immediately start asking about whatever the fuck her sire did to/with him that probably-traumatically got him his speed and teleportation powers, wouldn't it. Damn. Uh.

She pulls away and makes a slight face about this. She... does kind of need to know if she is going to figure out an anti-entropy solution for him. Clearly whatever's going on needs to be thought of in order to figure that out.

...he's not a mind reader, he can't tell why she suddenly got sad.

"Not sad, exactly, uh. ... Iiiii will probably need to have a better understanding of what's going on with your speed and teleportation before I can enact any kind of anti-entropy solution. For the same reason why you shouldn't use Meuk's vats. And it sounds like getting that involved my sire. And probably it was traumatic, because. My sire."

He snorts, at that. No, sorry, he doesn't mean to dismiss her concerns, just. It's been ten years and all of the trauma has sublimated into simmering hatred. He can show her the numenera that did it, the Order of Truth probably still has it, or has buried it somewhere.

And you know, he's not even sure what her sire's goals were by throwing Aleks into the untested machine and turning it on. Maybe they just wanted to see what it'd do and had gotten tired of working with him.

She nods, then gives him a peck on the cheek.

"Maybe I'll remember their reasoning and need to go break something over it. Okay. I want to have some more actual tangible practice with numenera after existing instead of just... a bunch of archived semi-memories about how to mess with stuff, before I go messing with this stuff." She motions to him. "Since this stuff is important."

Aleks snorts again. So now he's "stuff", huh?

"Your body is stuff! You are the pattern of processes being run on the stuff!" Then she smiles. "But yes. Congratulations, stuff."

Very well.

So, now that she no longer seems to be a morning zombie, does she want to get some morning nutritional sludge and then go about being her manic pixie dream self?

Giggle.

"Yeah, sounds good. 'Manic pixie dream self'? Manic I will accept, but pixie and dream are just inaccurate."

In lieu of responding he relocates the both of them to the living room couch.

...then teleports back to his room to fetch his prosthetic foot to put it back on. Now couch again.

"So, would it be weird if I asked you where you left your other foot?" she wonders, getting up to fetch the nutritional sludge so he can put his foot on in peace. Nutritional sludge! It's edible, but it has a really gross name! "Especially if I mention that I want to study it for science?"

Aleks has absolutely no idea where it is. He was a bit too preoccupied trying not to pass out from pain and immediately teleported away and by the time he came back neither the metal bench he accidentally intercepted nor his foot were anywhere to be seen.

His prosthetic is pretty neat, though. It's got a sort of metallic glassy look when it's off but when he puts it on it assumes his skin tone and the seam between his ankle and it is barely visible. He can't really move it or anything though it's just for balance.

"Darn. I guess if I run into enough dead ends once I actually start your immortality project, I could make a quest out of tracking down your lost foot. Do you have a preference for your flavor of nutritional slurry, dear?"

If his prosthetic sucked she'd feel compelled to make and or find him a new, better one. So. She's glad that it doesn't suck! She feels she already has enough to do, especially for only being a day old.

He can always get rid of a pinky finger if she needs one. It's a small price for immortality.

And no, no real preference for the sludge.

"Absolutely not. Go with a toe, or take your foot off and sacrifice half an inch of your shin," she jokes.

Sludge! Sludge for them both!

"But seriously, no. I would rather avoid sketchy mad science on and with people, thank you."

Good, he kinda likes his body, even if it's now partially made of transdimensional bullshit.

Also good thing she can read his mind so he doesn't have to pause eating to talk.

"I like your body too!" Nom. Nutritional sludge. "And yes. Lucky you." Nom! "Meanwhile I have to take breaks."