"I'm sorry about your father and your friend. Am I the first--un-kidnapping?"

"Yes you are."

"In three thousand years? Well don't I feel special."

He grins at her.

"To be fair, the kidnapping and rape and torture is a pretty reasonable deal-breaker for most people to have."

"True."

"I don't think I actually knew I didn't, before last night."

"It's a little interesting that you don't."

"I mean, nonconsensual torture is definitely bad! But it's not like you do more torture if I like you, so why not?"

"Very logical!"

"And so far you have been delightful on basically every level except that, so."

"I like delighting you. It's not something I get to do often and I am rapidly developing a taste for it."

"That seems likely to be pleasant for both of us."

"Yes it does!"

"So on a moderately related note, I've been wondering if being able to get into the capital to access the healing fountain means also being able to get into the capital to access the youth fountain."

"Yes."

"Because considering the statistics for violent death over the course of a normal human lifetime, and the fact that I don't anticipate wanting to kill myself like a normal kidnappee probably would, that seems like a much better bet than the swan thing."

"There's definitely something nice about not having to worry I'll kill someone by accident, but yes, I'm not surprised you'd prefer the fountains given the drawbacks of swanhood."

"Yeah. I mean, it would be nice if everyone had access to the fountains, but the old capital is basically deadly to people who aren't, well, you, and if it suddenly stopped being deadly people would probably fight over and break them."

"People do have that unfortunate tendency to be people," he agrees.

"Yeah. Do you do your immortality with the fountains or something else?"

"Something else. It's in the foundation of the magic. Which is why I haven't offered it to you already - I'd have to tear the whole thing down and start over, and, well, imagine trying to juggle a hurricane."

"Aha. I hadn't currently been planning on asking, I figured you had a reason."

"If I could make you immortal with a wave of my hand and not have it destroy you in a century, I would definitely want to do that."

"You say the sweetest things."