"I don't think that if the Ansati Empire suddenly started existing again he would want to actually rule it, but..." she waves a hand. "Not really likely to happen."

"Yeah."

"So when you say your girlfriend fought him..."

"He tried to kidnap her, she set him on fire, they went at it for a while and then made up? Like I said, I wasn't there."

"Y'know, it's funny, I never even heard of pain magic before I got here. This is either really improbable or people've been playing silly buggers with me my whole life."

"I'm a really improbable person."

"It just sort of seems like the improbable is snowballing, is all."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I was apparently the first kidnappee ever to get the guest-room-library-not-a-swan treatment, and now it's happened three times in a row and the latest instance is a pain mage in her own right."

"I think he swanned Anlei while they were fighting, actually."

"...Oh."

Shrug.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thanks, I guess."

"...And then they made up afterwards, you said? She's--not mad?"

"Yeah. She likes him."

"He's very likeable but I think I would find it harder to not be pissed off at him for turning me into a swan half the time. Kudos to her, I guess."

"They also set each other on fire a whole lot."

"I'm not too fond of being on fire either but, you know, to each their own."

"I like being on fire, but I get the impression our host really doesn't."

"It didn't seem to bother him when I was learning to hold pain magic and it kept blowing up in our faces, but that's not exactly the same thing as being on fire."

"Yeah, I think Anlei set him on more fire than that."

"Well, good for her, under the circumstances."

Fia giggles.

"What've you heard about the first two kidnappings?"