"Mmnrhg?" is his eloquent reply.

"Wake up the alethiometer says I've solved immortality."

That is a good way to get him awake. Ish. "What?" he says, slurring a little and rubbing his eyes.

"I have a spell! The alethiometer says it will work! On people with daemons, anyway, I have to come up with another version if I want to cast it on bears or zombies, but the alethiometer says it's a go any which way I ask it. I drew you a diagram, come stand in it and be immortal."

"Iiiiit may or may not be six in the morning but this is important. You can be first, I'll do Dad after you."

"Mmkay. 'M flattered, love." Where is the diagram? He will go there. He may or may not need to be led.

"Good." Pause. "Sooo you can go back to sleep if you want. I just couldn't wait."

"I know but I was really excited!"

"Never would have guessed." Adarin opens his arms for a hug. "You did it, my dear! Knew you would!"

She practically tackles him. "The really hard part was the bit with the arm motions, the alethiometer was very clear that there was a fifth missing or lost or something part to witch magic that I had to incorporate but it could not be specific enough so I had to basically A/B test a million things but I have the spell now and you are immortal."

Hug, snuggle, snuggle. "And you get to keep me forever," he says, smugly. He would like to be with Isabella forever. Because he loves her.

"Yes. I get to keep you forever. Yay." Kiss!

Path agrees! Lots and lots.

Vern comes with lovely reasons, too, for why Isabella and Path are great choices to spend the rest of forever with. In summary - lots and lots.

"We should get maaaaarried," sighs Isabella, trying rather vainly to squish closer to Adarin.

Adarin laughs. He will help with squishing as close as possible. "We should! Oh look, you have the ring for it and everything, it's almost like we planned this."

"Ooh. I am a backwards prophet. I should be honored with backwards flower garlands."

"My dear," says Adarin gravely. "You will have all of the backwards flower garlands your heart desires."

"You are so good to me."

"Only so much as you deserve, love." Snuggle, snuggle. "... Which is a lot. I am bad at thinking of romantic things to say at six in the morning."

"It's okay. You can go back to bed if you want."

He snorts. "No, it's fine, I am now mostly awake, if I try salvaging sleep now I won't be up until noon."

"Okay. Do you want to come along to watch me cover my dad? He should be a little more dramatic, the alethiometer thinks he might get younger fast enough to see."

"Ooo. Sure, why not. I will - ... Put some clothes on, Isabella, did you drag me out here naked while I was sleepy and vulnerable?"

"There's no one here! I was excited! I'm sorry."

Adarin bursts into helpless laughter - look! It is the return of the blush! "I love you so. You're adorable. Next time give me a blanket or something, though."

"Next time I make you immortal?" she asks, tugging him to his feet and towards the back door.

"Yes. Next time you make me immortal, blanket or something." He is tugged both to his feet, and towards the back door! "Or do not immortalize me when I am sleepy and vulnerable."

"I will keep this in mind, love."

"Good, good. Because also, cold."

"Sorry. Forgive me?"

"Pfff. I forgave you immediately."

"Awwww."

"Well it was for the sake of keeping me forever, so. All for it."

"I'm very enthusiastic about keeping you."

He giggles. "I noticed. I feel the same, love."

"Good. My Adarin forever and ever."

Well, he will just have to scoop her up to snuggle. "Yup!" he agrees, brightly. "And we will be the perfect utopia world that other people stumble across when looking for sleepy-tea flowers."

"We could be preemptive about it, once we're all comfortable. Go looking for places that need sleepytime tea."

"Hmmm..." He says, thinking. "Sure, but we'd need to be careful. And not get our plane invaded, because that would be bad."

"Yes. Much more careful than the obvious case of this going wrong."

Adarin snorts with laughter. "Fair point, but not all planes are safe and filled with lovely immortality bestowing witches, love."

"Yes, I know. We can be exquisitely careful and slow about it."

"Good! Because I plan to live forever."

"Continue to plan that! I approve entirely. Put on clothes and I will go add my dad to the immortality list."

Adarin will wait with her, absently working on how to make his sister's magic flying tree branch - he thinks he almost has it. It's taunting him now. He's so close.

Isabella might not be very helpful on this project. She is full of happy energy and keeps wanting to kiss him.

That's okay. The project can wait a little while for him to kiss her back, laughing at the happy energy. "You're cute when you're excited," he informs her.

"Then I had better maintain a bunch of things to be excited about all the time, hadn't I?"

"Yup! We'll find you lots of things to be excited about, it'll be delightful."

"Sounds good!"

"I'd hoped so!" Kiss!

Kiss kiss.

Adarin finds this amusing and snickers a bit. "She has been like this for hours, it's adorable."

"I can make you immortal, Dad! Stand over here and Kesathi goes over there and I will!"

"Whoa," says Charlie, "just like that? You already drew it?"

"Mm-hm! I spelled Adarin this morning and then we came here. Oh, I need an animal though, I'll be right back." And she ducks out the door.

Charlie looks at Adarin.

"Six in the morning, she dragged me out of bed and outside to get immortalized," says Adarin affectionately. "It worked, we're pretty sure, she is extremely excited about it."

Isabella comes back leading another deer behind her after a few minutes.

"Put a tarp down. Carpet cleaning's a hassle."

His future son-in-law smiles happily at him. "It feels more dramatic from the outside. Worked just fine, I'm assuming?"

"If it hadn't gone off the stuff would still be here. How do you feel, Dad?"

"Oh, all right - good but not so good I couldn't be imagining it."

"I think he was quantifying, not really doubting."

"Awww, but I had such a nice chance to be supportive, I love doing it so much!"

Charlie smiles quietly. And hugs his daughter.

"You're very good at it, love. How do you like being immortal, Dad?"

"Ask me again in a few hundred years," Charlie suggests.

Adarin smiles at them both. "Glad you'll be there then," he says sincerely. "We can see if there are any large breakthroughs in fishing pole technology."

Isabella laughs and squeezes her dad. "As long as the new fishing poles don't take all the inexplicable supposed fun out of the inactivity that is fishing."

"Here's hoping," says Charlie dryly.

"If not - we can be like witches who are several hundred years old and be obstinate in our ways."

"Being quite like witches in this respect would require the ability to make your own fishing poles out of materials you can gather from the wilderness."

"Awww. I don't get to be a real witch and not have any electricity at all. Darn."

"But you had no electricity for a long time before you came here, didn't you have enough of that?"

"I yearn for home," drawls Adarin. "The land of no indoor plumbing and no Wikipedia. Or microwaves."

Isabella giggles. And kisses him.

"And more so all the time. Its future is now projected to contain considerably more Adarin, for example!"

He laughs. "Yup! Thank you for that, my dear." Snuggle.

"No need to thank me, citizen, I operate solely out of a desire to improve the Adarinity of the world."

Charlie chuckles affectionately and heads up the stairs. He looks a little younger, maybe, around the eyes.

"Adarinity. I wasn't aware my name could decline, that's interesting to know," he snorts.

"It can if I try hard and believe in myself."

Adarin laughs. "That's the spirit, love, you're doing a fine job already."

"Let's! I have trees and clouds to look at while you make her immortal!"

"I could just leave you here and pick you up after if you like."

He snorts. "No, it's fine, I'm being flippant. I would actually kind of like to be there when my sister is made immortal."

"Wanna be immortal?"

"Fuck yes! Ada, Ada can she -" She looks at her brother.

"... Eeeeee yes make me immortal, I don't want to get old and wrinkly, I've got hundreds of years but I want more!"

"Try not to die," snorts Adarin with fondness.

"Yeah, you're not now extra-proof against any form of non-aging-related death except maybe a little that you shouldn't count on. But congratulations."

"Thank you! Can I hug you? I want to hug you!"

"Sure, why not."

Hugs! Celebratory hugs!!

"Use your time well."

"So I shouldn't go on a mass murder spree. Huh. I'll have to change my plans for next Tuesday."

"Yes, thanks, much obliged."

Zeviana keeps a straight face for a few more seconds, then bursts out laughing. She was joking.

Isabella kind of assumed, but doesn't think it was that entertaining. She meanders back Adarinward and drapes herself on him. "I'm gonna find my mom and teach her the spell," she says. "And the queen. And then I am going to hire a public relations organization."

Adarin is perfectly happy to be draped on. He snuggles her, smiling. "Sounds lovely, my dear. I can follow you around, keep you company? Or be - I think the term was 'eye candy'? I can be that."

"You are delicious eye candy, and you may follow me or go home without me as you prefer."

"Well you're adorable when you're excited about getting immortality out to the world, so I would like to follow you."

"I want to get this distributed efficiently in a way that either discriminates effectively in favor of decent people or is at least resistant to disproportionate exploitation by non-decent people," she explains while she researches. "Telling the clans works reasonably well because none of them are in such dire straits that they'll do it for favors if it goes against their better judgment and mooooost of them have okay judgment. I expect it to go mostly to witches' husbands and sons, which doesn't skew noticeably. But for everyone else I want some kind of nicely crafted - ad campaign, some way to funnel people in past witches who are willing to help."

"Hmmm," says Adarin, considering. "You could open a charity, recruit volunteers for helping Africa or something, they help, and as a bonus they can also get immortality?"

"...Oooh. Okay, I will still need to advertise that, but I like this angle. The trouble is that it requires me to design a charity that arbitrary mortals can effectively contribute to so maybe I should see if I can co-opt an existing one. ...Or several. I could just drop on charities with a small army of witches like a ninja and immortalize all their volunteers. Participation goes up everywhere, nice people get immortal."

Adarin giggles. "Ninja witches - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the visual, it's funny. You could offer witchy services to various charities, then use that as a springboard for good recruits for immortality?"

"Hmmm. Okay, works for me. Net gain in charity, plus people become immortal. However, there might be a problem when dealing with families - some might not want to be immortal unless their spouse or children were too, for example."

"We'll stick around the soup kitchen long enough for people to run home and get their relatives. The spell takes a while anyway."

He smiles and moves to snuggle her. "Good. Though there might be a stampede of people claiming to be relatives or people asking you to wait two hours for their husband to get off of work, or something."

"The stampede is why it's a surprise, and two hours is well within the time frame I had in mind. Maybe I keep a few cooperative witches in reserve for second swings by each target to cast on anyone who is legitimately part of the intended scope but couldn't make it."

"Mhmm. But overall, I like the plan. And not just because it started as my idea, either," he teases.

"You're very clever." Kiss. "I'm sure there will be details to figure out once we're underway, but this is probably solid enough to bring to some professionals who know how to launch charitable campaigns like that."

Snuggle! And an amused Adarin. He is pretty sure he knows where this is going. Snuggle.

It's fine by Adarin, too. He loves her, so.

She loves him toooooooo.

"Oh gosh. Well, I'm flattered to be one of the select few things you're impatient about. What do you want to do about that?"

He laughs. "We can change the wedding date, or I can ignore the alien sensation and keep on being delighted with you, either one. Depending on your preference."

"When would you want to change it to?"

"Sooner!" says Adarin brightly. "I am not picky on the when, but I seem to want it to come sooner."

"We could do it on the half-anniversary?"

"Sure! That sounds wonderful. I get to marry you sooner!" Kiss.

Kiss! "Is it sooner enough, is the question."

"I have no idea what will sate this - strange impatience. I think so?"

"Because at some point we have to actually issue invitations and then it will get much harder to change the date."

"Mhmm," he agrees. "I'll stick to half-anniversary. You might just need to distract me more if I get impatient and start talking of eloping like a madman."

"My parents would probably be disappointed if we eloped."

"Yes, that's why it's your responsibility to distract me if I start talking about it."

"Okay. Gosh, I wonder how I shall distract you. Sex just seems to get you thinking about it, apparently."

He laughs. "Immortality projects! Except talking about those will lead to sex, so I suppose we will start a vicious cycle. Of large scale altruism and sex."

"I think that's a virtuous cycle."

"One of those things, surely."

"My next project's resurrection," Isabella mentions.

Adarin thinks of a reply to that, but can't manage to say it because then he is kissing her.

Kisses!

"I lo," and then she is too kissed to finish the sentence.

"I can make an exception."

"Aww, how kind of you." Kiss!

"I love and forgive you, it is very kind of me."

"You are wonderful, kind, and forgiving. And I love you."

"Good. Continue."

"The kissing or the compliments? Trying to do -" (kiss) "- both at the same time might -" (kiss) "- be a problem."

"I have every faith in your abilities."

He laughs. "Thank you, my darling. You're gorgeous," (kiss) "funny," (kiss) "incredibly smart," (Kiss, kiss, kiss.) "have an excellent scope of morality," (kiss) "fantastic drive to meet your goals," (kiss) "and also Path is the fluffiest, softest little owl. Of all time."

"How do you know that I am still soft and fluffy today if you don't check?" chirps Path from where he's glommed onto Vern.

And Isabella scoops her up and flops onto her fiancé, sighing, while Path presses happily against supplied surfaces of Adarin.

Isabella is in white (but it's silks, like the kind she wore to go for separation, not really a dress). Because Tradition. She is immensely pleased to have the rings. And to have Adarin. And to be kissed-because-bride.

Vern is so supportive of this attempt to kiss. If it fails, they will preen each other, it's very low risk. Also adorable.

Charlie cries.

So does Ranata.

Adarin will hug them both if given the chance and only be a little bit sad that his dad isn't here. It's a happy day, he will not be sad that his father isn't here to see him get married.

They will both hug him! Ranata is most enthusiastic.

Well. Well. This is fascinating. Are these untried spells? They should experiment. Can't let magical inventions go untested.

The nicest. She loves him intensely. And on this occasion somewhat magically.

That is the best answer!

Birdful snuggles?

The birdiest of snuggles.

Adarin declines to holler. They have rings that talk to each other. "By 'it,'" asks Adarin, taking stairs three at a time, "do you mean resurrection?"

"YES!"

"Oh goddesses a list of herbs as long as my arm and the poem's soooo long and I have to tweak the scansion to incorporate the resurrectee's name on a per-occasion basis and there's two different parts where I have to sacrifice things, not just one, although I'll be able to do birds this time it doesn't have to be deer, and the diagram will be so fucking huge but it will work."

"Okay I have some of this already but -" She writes up a shopping list and then adds, "Will your sister want to be here? I'm assuming here the first person we should get is your dad?"

"She will want to be here if we're resurrecting dad. Which I want to do first," says Adarin, grinning. He takes the list and reads it over. "Think I can ply your clan to hand over herbs if I throw cool magic things at them? I can make another portal bag, I could grab Ana while I'm there."

"The clan will have the herbs, Mom can get them for you and nobody'll blink, it's not that much of any one thing. Scaling up I'll probably want an actual deal with a - commercial basil farm and whatnot, I guess - but for the first one no need."

He nods. "Then I will go get them, along with Ana - should it not be immediately? Do you need time to get the diagram right, or - or to fix the poem for his name or something...?"

"It'll take a while but not more than like - an hour unless I make a mistake."

"Okay," he agrees, laughing a little. He twirls Isabella around and kisses her with delight. "I love you, I love you, I love you so much you are amazing."

"I aaaaaam and I love you toooooo," she says breathlessly when the kiss is broken.

Kiss. "I would go on about how great you are but resurrection! I will be back soon, I'm teleporting there, because resurrection."

Castarilan finds him! "What are you doing here?" he inquires.

"Isabella just made a resurrection spell I need my sister and herbs to do it we're resurrecting my dad," he says, all in a rush.

Castarilan always looks kind of excited, but perhaps the way he just looped the loop is extra-excited. "Oh wow! What do you need herbs-wise? Zeviana's at the cookfire I think!"

Adarin provides the list. "That, I will go get her, meet back - where are we, I honestly have no idea, um - come find me at the cookfire and we will fly or teleport back."

"Okay! Ranata will bring you herbs! Cookfire's north-northwest from here!" And Castarilan zooms away.

"Isabella made a spell for resurrection, Ranata's getting the herbs, we're getting dad," he says. Then he notices her nudity and his eyes snap shut. "Aaaugh I feel like I should be traumatized but I don't care we're getting dad back, come on why are you sitting get dressed we have to go."

Her brother helps, he hands her pieces of silk and knots things that are hard for her to reach because it will mean that they get to Isabella faster. It's not like he doesn't know how witch silks work, anyway, he's married to a witch.

Ranata shows up with Castarilan fluttering after her and an armful of assorted herbs a few minutes later. She is clothed.

And now so is Zeviana! She looks at Ranata and grins. "Okay - flight or teleportation, do you want to come and watch?"

"I'd like to, but won't I just complicate things? I imagine he'll be confused."

"Okay, fair enough - Ada, teleportation?"

"You'd have to do it, I will write you a spell for it," he says. "We can't do it on clan lands, anyway, I've got time."

"Okay," agrees Zeviana. "Last call for coming to watch resurrection, Ranata, otherwise we take the herbs and we bolt while Ada furiously maths."

"Go ahead," laughs Ranata, divesting herself of herbs.

Zeviana takes them, then starts walking towards the nearest clan border. "Ada, math."

Isabella is finishing carefully sprinkling ashes into the elaborate shape. It's not really circular; it's a series of lines at odd angles to each other with runes nestling in the spaces they bracket.

"Hi, honey, we have herbs!" exclaims Adarin, setting them down near her and sorting them. To make things easier on her for resurrection.

"Thank youuuuu I will need them presently!" She checks her notes and adds another ash rune. "Hi, Zeviana."

"Hey! I would hug you but you are runeing so I will not until after!"

"Dad!" exclaims Adarin, and then Veron is hugged.

By both twins. There is a lot of hugging.

Isabella sits down hard on the ground surrounded by goose blood and ashes and looks supremely pleased with herself.

"Thought you weren't supposed to call me that...?" says a confused Veron, surprised but hugging back. "How did I get here? Why are there hugs?"

"Mom blew you up. Along with the rest of the city."

"... And I'm not a smeared stain on the floor?"

Eyebrow raise. That's a new one.

"It's been - five years? Six? Fuck it, years are so hard to measure ever since we moved here, I'm so confused - a while! It's been a while!"

Adarin gently explains what has happened while Veron is dead. He includes an explanation of planar travel, daemons, Isabella, witches, and a brief history lesson.

"Okay," his father replies, stunned. "I - will... digest that. All of that."

"I'm sorry for the culture shock," Isabella says. "There wasn't any reasonable way to do this someplace more familiar."

"Yeah, I bet, wow. The entire world?"

"Yeah. We're technically refugees. From the refugees."

"Right. Okay. And you are married now." Pause. He smiles a bit. "You look happy."

"We are!"

"Congratulations," he says, warmly.

Awwww.

"You should name your daemon," says Adarin. "It's a bit of a shock to get one, but I like having daemons."

Zeviana snorts with laughter. "Adarin named his after you, dad."

"Did you now," says Veron, some mix between faintly amused and honestly touched.

"Likewise, little white bird. Who is named after me."

Adarin coughs again, looking embarrassed. "I missed you a lot?"

Path preens Vernaia proudly.

"I'll have to get used to 'dad,' you know."

Veron snorts. "Guess so, yeah. Not complaining, though."

"You get official father status rather than unofficial secret father status!"

"... I've got no idea. I've never had to name myself before - um. Ideas?" asks the possum. "Peanut gallery, ideas for a name for a less confused possum?"

"Do you just want something relatively generic for a daemon? Lecasryn is just named what Path would've been if he'd been female and both names came out of a baby name book."

"Nimersa. Acair. Lyderys. Xahare. Thiolithai. Ninyfal," suggests Isabella off the top of her head.

"Hi!" agrees Path.

"Hello!" says Vern, brightly, hopping over to Xahare to nuzzle.

"Daemons do parallel socializing!"

"... Right, okay. There will be a lot of things to get used to."

"Yeah," agrees Adarin, "but this is honestly a really nice plane."

"I believe you, just - culture shock."

"We also have a colony on another planet and I have a robot army there!"

"...sorry, should I try to slow it down?"

"... Probably a bit, thank you, though."

"Okay."

"We should make you immortal, and I should put the translation spell on you."

"You get to be young and pretty forever but if someone shanks you you're dead. So, bloodline without the time limit. Or the crazy."

".... That was Adarin's wife, too, wasn't it."

Adarin grins. "She's very smart."

"Oh, the resurrection does the immortality part as part of the same process!" chirps Isabella. "No need to do a separate spell for it. I thought that would have been clear from the verse."

"Thank you?" says Veron. "Are you sure it worked?"

"Yup!" says Zeviana in English. "If Ada says it worked, it worked."

"Dooooo you want... like... a nap? A sandwich? I don't actually know what state of hunger and/or tiredness resurrectees may appear in because you are first."

"No, I'm fine, thank you. I could go sit down, though, because - lots to take in."

"Of course. Come in," says Isabella, heading for the door and opening it with the less goose-blood-y of her hands. She gestures at the furniture and goes to burn the geese.

"I'm extremely fond of it!"

"I'd tell you how I got it but it might be shock-y!" calls Isabella from the firepit.

"Well now I'm curious. How'd you get it?"

"I have an artifact that dispenses absolute truth that I interact with via thingamajigs Adarin made me and I asked it where to find a house in the middle of nowhere I could just kind of take!" she says, coming inside to wash her hands.

"Absolute truth. Uh. Okay."

Adarin cackles. "I am the luckiest man alive, you have no idea."

"I am starting to get some idea," snorts Veron. "Congrats."

Now there is no more blood on Isabella's hands, so she can go up to her husband and kiss him for that, mwah.

He is delighted with this! Kiss!

"Also cute. Glad you're happy, Adarin."

"So happy!" he agrees, giggling.

Isabella is happy too! Look how happy she is, snuggling her husband like that.

Veron shrugs. "Nah. But who cares if you light some candles and people clap? You're happy, she's happy, I assume you're taking over the world or something together. Robot army and resurrection and immortality and everything that you can do. So. No complaints."

"We are ludicrously rich off a portal network and colonizing space and everyone gets to be alive as soon as I have some logistics worked out and it's awesome!"

Veron bursts out laughing. "Wish I could say I was surprised, but. Nope."

Isabella beams.

Adarin grins and snuggles his wife.

"I mean, I wasn't expecting the flavor to be 'anti-death economic takeover with colonization of space' but... Kinda knew something big would happen. Adarin's that kind of kid. Glad I get to see it."

"I may be contributing more than my share, flavorwise," muses Isabella. "Honey, was there something big you wanted to do? We can probably fit in more things somewhere, we're immortal."

"Hmmmm. Colonization's mine, don't worry - I suppose we could start checking other planes? Become a plague of utopias."

"Ooooh yes," says Isabella. "A utopian plague on all their houses."

"They will curse our names as they live long, happy, and comfortable lives."

Zeviana snorts.

"Guess Kystle's not worth salvaging anymore, huh?"

"We're helping the refugees, carefully, because mages are prickly, but... Yeah, no. It's - there's not going to be anything left."

Adarin snuggles his wife. "Sorry."

"Eh. I vote we wait a hundred years or so, then go in spells blazing, beat the fuck out of the bastards, resurrect everyone we can find the names of, and then throw a huge party."

Adarin snorts. "Maybe. As a possible project sometime in the unforeseeable future."

"Anecdotally, several clans of witches have gone ahead and started earlier and larger batches of children than they otherwise might have since I figured out the immortalization and they can expect to keep their sons, which means more daughters too, which means more witches to help with mass-production! Being able to resurrect too will only help."

"Ooo. That's helpful!"

"Mm-hm!"