Keltham is not quite sure what to feel about that 'neutral' thing, but thanks her and goes in to rejoin his Carissa.

"Hey. Did she say yes? She said she was going to say yes."

"She did."

Keltham is currently more curious than aroused, but this is not hard for somebody as pretty and vulnerable-looking as Carissa to fix, if she is being proactive.  Is she being proactive?

She'll pause a bit to see if he's going to be, but if not, then, yes, she will. She will drape herself on him and pet him and make small delighted noises about absolutely everything.

That'll get him revved in short order.  He didn't know that level of Sexy Adorable was even possible.  Everything about Carissa is brighter, somehow, than she seems usually was before, rather, hopefully.

Very small amount of pain to see what happens, at some point when he feels like that?

Gets a much stronger reaction than normal, but not necessarily in a bad way. She clings, and looks up at him as if she feels totally powerless in his arms.

...oh.  He didn't know he needed that, so much, he hopes that there's still some way to get this reaction tomorrow.

He'll try letting himself go a little, now, to do those things he feels like doing, himself, and see what comes of that.

He will not be unwatchful for distress and increasing distress.

Nope. She's okay. She wouldn't be okay, if he did any of a hundred normal things you do to a girl you're fucking and don't really care about, but he doesn't do any of those, because - 

- he doesn't feel like parsing out what love is precisely, but he feels something for her he's never felt for anyone before -

- and he doesn't even know to think she's pathetic, just to think she's his.

When they're done she does start crying, for completely mysterious reasons that don't correspond to her mood at all.

Recognizable substantial-base-rate gendertrope.  Keltham is fine with it.  He will pet her hair, unconscious of any particular new associations this might have for her; his hands, at least, don't feel much like Abrogail's.

(So, uh, Worldwound problem?  It's not necessary to have solved right now, not at all, Keltham learned that lesson rather early on; but you have to hand back your dath ilani boyfriend card if you don't at least wonder about any current outstanding Problems.)

He's very not like Abrogail. If she succeeds in making him into Abrogail, then - 

- well, then she'll have risen high in the esteem of Asmodeus, who can break and remake her on a scale Abrogail can only dream of, so. Nothing to do but keep winning.

(Worldwound problem has not mysteriously vanished. Maybe if Abrogail had been focusing on that.)

Dath ilan does ever try to shape people, Carissa Sevar, they just do it differently.  Not so differently that they never recognize petting somebody's hair as part of it.

"You're going to hate this."

"Guards? Take this bearer of bad news away and feed him to the crocodiles." There aren't guards; they're in his private study. 

"Cake girl showed up."

"     "

"      "

"Yeah. So, team shows up, gets a room, wards the room, baby's born, all of that goes totally smoothly. Four minutes after the baby's born, there's a knock on the door, and a Chelish wizard woman carrying a cake waltzes in and says, "congratulations!" Dimension Anchored, Mind Blanked, the team had as a precaution barely been briefed and correctly decided the thing to do was to get the fuck out as fast as possible, only she counterspells the Teleport and says, 'no! stay! celebrate!'"

"Aren't they actively in the middle of a war with Nidal, with virtually all their high level casters at the front."

"I mean, they've got some at the palace. One of whom saw fit to deliver cake. She insisted they eat it. It was not poisoned. It was reportedly delicious. ... I have a sample."

"It's not magical."

"It is not magical."

"And not poisoned."

"Not poisoned."

"If you put slices of it out on a dessert table with a bunch of other cakes, do people disproportionately take it, are the ones who take it any different from the ones who don't, are they any different an hour later -"

"I'm not bringing it anywhere near the palace but we'll see if we can test it in Alexandria, where the cake sample presently is. And I can ask Nefreti, though it might be wiser not to."

"Indeed. 

What could they have gotten off us - what did the team go in knowing -"