"Princess, I think if you weren't clearly attached to yours truly you would have a flock of suitors all the same," he says, a smirk playing on his lips. "That's also a thing we should talk about," he adds, musingly, then shrugs. "But in any case I'm not actually sure what their reaction would be, Ascalon is charr territory now, with perhaps the exception of Ebonhawke."

“I’m up for just never mentioning it again. Then I never have to find out,” she says, pausing to wash the soap out of her hair. “Anyway, the culture thing was just waving at a concept, what I mean is that I don’t want to leave either of us to assume how this delightful whatever it is will go? Because I bet if we did that there’d be a huge gap. Somewhere. And I hear those can be hazardous to one’s health.”

He grins at her and turns her head to kiss the tip of her nose. "What was expected of me, romance-wise, was just... never going to happen. I am not going to settle down and have many royal-blooded kids and teach them table manners and play Krytan politics. I had not expected to... ever do anything resembling romance, even. The closest I have to that is Canach and." He raises an eyebrow and shakes his head before continuing, "And I think this is in our blood. My older sister, Deborah, was a Seraph and later joined the Vigil—they're one of the groups dealing with dragons, or were before we created the Pact—although now she's taking care of her late boyfriend's family here in Divinity's Reach.

"So I suppose what I mean to say is, I cannot promise stability or children or even a very long life. And that has informed most of my choices in the romance and sex department so far."

She nods.

“Yes, that makes perfect sense, and is a very responsible sort of decision. I like children, but I’m not... I’d want to do right by any I’d have? And I don’t think I could do that with my current set of goals. Not responsibly, anyway, not without exposing a child to danger and being their mostly absent mother, and...” She trails off. “It feels like I have more pressing matters. So that’s not a loss for me, I don’t think my lifestyle would work with having a bunch of children. Or maybe any.”

"I've also, ah, had my share of lovers. Of many genders and species."

She blinks, then scoots over to scrub his back. “I’m sort of curious about the range and mechanics there, but that seems like it might be prying a bit too much to actually ask. I’ve been with a fair number of humans. Probably less than you, from the sound of it. Some casually, some... not. Uh, distributed genders too, since I doubt you’re going to tell me to grow up and marry a nice boy instead of ‘pursuing childish indiscretions.’”

"...was that how it was? How positively ancient."

She giggles.

“Oh am I allowed to kiss girls in public now without getting condescending looks?”

"Yes. You met Marjory, right? I will introduce you sometime to her girlfriend, Kasmeer. Both of them helped defeat Mordremoth. And Kas is a mesmer, too, I'm sure you will have much to discuss."

“Ooo, a mesmer friend of yours. Yes, I’ll want to have a highly technical chat with her. I’m glad she can kiss girls in peace. My parents didn’t condescend, but. It happened. It was very grating.”

"I can imagine. Some people find it peculiar to have relations with sylvari, and somewhat unimaginable to do so with charr, but I have been with both—yes Canach, but not Rytlock, I think Rytlock swore off humans after Logan."

“Charr’s brave, I’d be too thrown by the... everything... to get as into it as I’d feel the other person would deserve. Canach is cute, though, that one I can see. Sylvari are weird to have relations with, because of the age or... I suppose Canach was a bit prickly? Is that, does that follow everywhere, he was in armor I couldn’t really tell. Wait, no, this is rude, I should not ask intrusive questions about your previous partners, I apologize.”

He laughs. "I would have to ask him if he has problems with sharing this information but I would expect not, sylvari are all fairly laid back about sex and all bisexual. But yes, people wonder about these things and find it strange for others to decide to figure it out empirically." He shudders a bit when she scrubs a particularly nice place to be scrubbed at then says, "So, I take it you are not about to run away screaming?"

She blinks at him, confused. “... No? Why would I do that? If you’ve caught anything, there are spells for that, and I don’t expect you’d have slept with me without warning me if any were incurable and transferable? I do not expect my partners to be as untouched as freshly fallen snow. I don’t see a problem with finding things out empirically.”

"Well, then. I think this takes us to the other thing I would want to discuss, which is that I am... not sure... I would do well with exclusivity."

“Ah,” she says softly, and scoots towards him so she can cuddle him.

“I wasn’t going to assume we were exclusive until we talked about it. I do fine with exclusivity, but I might not need it. I don’t know for sure, though, it came with all my previous serious relationships. ... Well except for that threesome, but for the most part it was exclusive. Uh, what does your perfect future look like? What things do you need?”

"I need..." He pauses to think about it. "Things to do. Meaningful things, things that matter. New things, new places, new people. I think that is the best way to describe it."

She nods, and hums thoughtfully. “But you don’t drop the old things once the new ones have shown up.” Snuggle. “And you're not... using people, you're doing a new thing with them, and it’s all sincere and above board and honest.”

"Sounds about right."

She pets his hair fondly, then retrieves the appropriate soap and moves on to washing his hair.

“Well,” she says while she gently scrubs, “I don’t have any moral problems with any of that, it sounds like positive experiences all around? I don’t think I want to deprive you of them. That sounds like something important is getting lost by being with me. But on the other hand, I don’t know if I’d be hurt by it or not. It’s dealing with squishy feelings, and those are hard. My citation for that one is how I cried on you about how great you are.”

He hums thoughtfully (and perhaps with pleasure at the hair washing). "I would prefer to keep you."

“I’d prefer to keep you, too! You’re thoughtful and mature and brave and strong and our life goals line up nicely and we’re really great together, and I just want us to work.” She finishes scrubbing his hair, and kisses his shoulder fondly. “Want to not be exclusive, but take it slow and give me warning before running off to try new people? Until we know how I’ll feel about it in the moment.”

"That sounds like a solid plan."

“Okay. And hopefully we can give each other what we need without giving anything really vital up. That’d be nice.”

"It would be. And you know what I need right now? I think I need a kiss."