"With the mirrors and pausing to let me take pictures of anything pretty. Yes."

"Sure. It's unlikely to be global leadership; you can find whoever's running a specific country okay?"

"They. Look exactly like us. Down to the crowns. Well, the presence of crowns, anyway."

"To be fair, ours are unique and magical. What... I have never heard of this before in my life, what should we do?"

"I mean, I guess they could just look like us, there are sometimes strong resemblances between people who aren't even related, but they are together, wearing crowns, identified by your scry as running a country, I'm very suspicious. Look, they have critters, too - I can't tell if those are daemons or pets, they're not birds though..."

Her husband peers at the blurry scry. "A snake daemon? I don't see myself as a snake person, love. I can maybe see you as a cat, but a snake is weird."

"Can you see yourself having one for a pet?"

"... Maybe? I don't know why, though."

"I'm not sure why I'd have a cat, frankly, maybe everybody gets a pet in this country or something."

"Possibly. It's still worth investigating, though. I have the mana to take us there now, but we should let my sister know if we plan to crash their date immediately."

"We can mirror her," agrees Isabella. "Birds come along or stay behind, you think?"

"Mm-hm," agrees Path, cuddling her.

Iobel is alarmed!

"I second all of those questions!

"Sorry for dropping on you like this! Okay, next time, we should probably appear somewhere out of the way and, like - knock," says Isabella. "But we don't know why we look like you either and came partly to find out!"

"Agreed," says Adarin, in accented but perfect Marlese. "Sorry, I should have thought of something better than immediately teleporting to you both. Wow, that is weird, you sound like us and everything. Hello!"

Edarial is just going to stand here and be confused. "... What?"

"Okay I should have made a checklist or something, but, you, what's your name," she asks Iobel, "if you wanted to find out if I was you, what would you ask me?"

"I... well, you look like me... are you a clumsy spellbinder with parents that also match and a penchant for notebooking?"

"Clumsy witch, haven't checked parents, notebooking yes! My name's Isabella Amariah."

"I'm not actually clumsy anymore, I fixed it - and - my name's Iobel Swan. Iobel Maryah Swan."

"Witches don't do last names but my dad's is Swan! Well, in English, anyway."

Edarial eyes Adarin, and the cypress crown. "Are you a prince with terrible parents and a twin that likes fighting a bit too much?"

"I don't know about my birth father, but my mother was quite terrible. My sister likes fighting a bit too much and has the social finesse of a newborn three-legged moose. My adoptive father is quite wonderful, though."

"Sister," repeats Edarial. "... My twin is a male."

"Oh wow, boy Zeviana. Or not-Zeviana, maybe."

"Where did you say you were from?"

"I'm from Earth! Adarin is from Kystle originally and he's the one with the plane-hopping magic."

"Yup!" says Adarin, brightly. "This is the fourth plane I've been to, that's how we got here."

"'Plane'?"

"Essentially, another world, but you can't reach it by non-magical travel. Well. Maybe there will be technology for it eventually, but as of right now my plane-hopping magic is the only thing I know of."

"And you are a magical, plane-hopping prince."

"Nope! I am a magical, plane-hopping... Person. Wait, love, have we declared ourselves emperor and empress yet, or are the crowns just a fashion statement?"

"I told the robot army that English for Senior Equipment Maintenance Specialist is 'Empress', does that count? I think I told, like, a mayor of a town in the colony but haven't formally announced it. But prince, no, unless you count the son-of-halfblood thing?"

"I'll accept that. We are technically emperor and empress, and I am not a prince. Son-of-halfblood really doesn't count, I mean, I suppose she was technically queen but no one treated me in any - princely fashion. Not to mention all titles from Kystle are utterly meaningless. So I'm just - not counting it."

"But we are looking for interplanar resonance, whether it counts for purposes of your own life doesn't necessarily have much to do with whether it means he's a you. Although I'm increasingly convinced!"

"You seem to be a me, all right. A very... perky... me."

"You're wearing a tiara, do you not have enough to be perky about?"

Adarin peers at Edarial. "Did something happen? If you are us, which, you seem to be, then I am perfectly happy to help. With whatever it is."

"Yeah, um, wow, story of your life, Iobel, go."

"...Born in South Fork. Parents divorced, I moved here to Emavan with Raney. Became a spellbinder at age seven, acquired Cricket -" She picks up her cat and switches languages to murmur to him. "We're figuring it out, kitty, I'll explain when I know enough myself -" She switches back. "- who is my familiar. Attended school, self-studied, opened magic shop, did research. ...I don't have a tactful way to put the rest of it."

"There were a bunch of palace guards in his pocket. They had Cricket - he'd been poisoned and I had to hand him over to get him healed in a magic fountain on the palace grounds. I don't know if you have spellbinders - if our familiars die we're vegetables, mentally dead. I thought it was Edarial behind it; there was - forged handwriting involved - I didn't meet him until the wedding. Or talk to him enough after it, to find out, for months."

"Yes," says Edarial, quietly, looking guilty and sad and retreating back into a raincloud of misery.

Isabella hugs her counterpart.

Iobel drops Cricket (he lands quite neatly) to hug her back.

Edarial doesn't say anything, he just accepts hugs and tries not to cry.

"I'm assuming at this point that you two met more happily."

"So much. Do you want the story or would it make it worse?"

"...I'm not sure if it would make it worse but I want it anyway. Edarial might not, I guess."

"It's fine," he says. "I'm... Curious, regardless."

"That's. Cute."

"...I can make people unaging, although not invulnerable. And resurrect the dead," volunteers Isabella.

"...Trade you for a casting of my anti-clumsiness."

"I don't think you can use my spells, but I can resurrect some people for you. And I would love an anti-clumsiness."

"I can create portals that let you instantly travel from one far-away location to another. Among other things, but that was among the most immediately useful, for us."

"It sounds it," says Iobel, starting to charge her spell. "Is that how you got here?"

"No, but it's probably how we'll get home. And it is how we are fantastically ludicrously rich back home."

"Mhm. They are permanent unless the surface they're on is broken, it's convenient."

"So you can make some for us, possibly...?"

"Yes, but not right now. I used a lot of - magical power to get here, I need to wait for it to recharge a bit before I can do other things."

"Out of spells for the day?"

"Mana's more of a - continuous substance. Do you run out of spells? Does any of this have to do with why your eyes are glowing?"

"Spells aren't a continuous substance. We get six spells or one hex a day. The spells have to charge. I'm charging your anti-clumsiness now. It will take a few more minutes."

"That's tidier than mine. It recharges at a fixed rate that goes faster if I'm asleep. Technically if I wanted to I could try and do something else magical today, but uh - something of a bad idea. If I run out of mana entirely, I die, if I get close, I will wish I was dead. Essentially."

Isabella pets his hair. "Don't do it, love."

Edarial doesn't protest the release of hugs, but he does look between Adarin and his wife with a complicated expression.

Iobel's in about the same boat there.

"My magic has no intrinsic usage limitations at all except for the time it takes to cast a spell, but for most of it I need to be sprinkling herbs on things or drawing diagrams or sacrificing animals. Resurrection takes two birds, immortalization takes one mammal, ideally a biggish one, I was using deer at first but now I have something worked out to get cows and pigs. And to use it you have to be a witch, meaning the daughter of someone herself a witch."

"I am not surprised," sighs Edarial.

"Here, anyone can be a spellbinder if they want, though if you're going to it's best to do it young. But you need a spirit animal. Do you have those?"

"...I don't think so. We have daemons, which we left home, but they're our souls and don't enable any practical magic and we have them from birth. On my world, anyway; Adarin didn't get his till he came to Earth."

"Is there a way to check? It could be a similar situation to Earth, we might have miraculously gained spirit animals when we arrived."

"How old are you?"

"Um, in my years at least, I'm almost twenty-one, he's a year older, does that sound reasonable for how we look or do we need to figure out conversion factors?"

"It sounds reasonable. At that age you'd probably still be able to see your spirit animal if you tried, although I wouldn't bet on you being able to understand their - how are you speaking Marlese, anyway?"

"Translation spell!" says Isabella, beaming at Adarin.

Adarin grins. "I'm actually extremely proud of it!"

"What does it translate, just Marlese?"

"Every language. Ever."

"It's the best spell."

"...Does it just last? Kitty, these people can understand you by strange magic, you are warned," she adds to Cricket in his language.

"It just lasts! It's awesome. Anyway, I don't see anything except for your spirit animals."

"Cricket and Berathyme aren't spirit animals anymore, they're familiars. We bound them to physical form to become spellbinders and now they don't fade the way unbound spirit animals do."

"And I don't see any spirit animal, either. Oh, well. I suppose we can't expect to get all types of magic to fall into our lap."

"Having a familiar's obviously a vulnerability, anyway, and it sounds like your magic is probably better in most ways than ours."

"...I think, from what you've said, that having a daemon is a much worse vulnerability."

"I am inclined to agree. Are you effected if your familiar is hurt, or touched?"

"No," says Edarial. "Only killed."

"Yeah, it's not as much of a vulnerability."

Isabella nods.

"Why - what happens?"

Adarin returns the favor, then moves behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. It's out of a mixture of love, affection, and the desire to comfort her a little about a topic that they've both been on the receiving end of. Snuggle.

Edarial is a little weirded out by his alt so easily snuggling an alt of his wife. But he doesn't say anything, except, "That sounds terrible."

"The only things that can happen to me through Cricket - not that I wouldn't strenuously object if someone harmed him - are unmaking if he dies, and magical lockdown if someone casts a certain hex on him."

"Yeah, it doesn't sound like I want one - what do you like about it?"

"Vernaia - my daemon - circumvents some of the social awkwardness I have. She also helps me with my thoughts, and organizing them in general and offering insights that I missed. She offers new ideas to solve problems, except they're still our ideas so they come from the same style of thinking and I don't have to - translate or reinvent them or anything. I'm never truly alone, not with her there, but it's not the pressured sort of 'someone is there,' it's more soothing. Not to mention, she reminds me when I forget to feed myself."

"I think I would go through notebooks at least two or three times as fast without Path to talk to. He doesn't count as not-privacy, he gets me, and he can still talk back with his own voice and form memories independently. Good for multitasking, too."

"But maybe not as useful for a - a you who isn't accustomed to it."

"Perhaps not, but I adjusted well enough. Though I suppose there would be no other daemons for yours to talk to, which would be a terrible pity."

"How so? Would they get bored?"

"Well, yes, but I mean - daemons talk to each other, and do subtext between two people. Things that would have gone unsaid, if it were just - me. Or Isabella."

"Some people's daemons won't even talk to non-daemons at all. In general they're working in parallel."

"Familiars are kind of limited in their ability to do that because none shares a language - well, much of a language anyway - with more people than their spellbinder. But otherwise they're independent people."

"Do you want me to cast translation spells on your familiars?" offers Adarin.

"No. Not for Cricket, anyway. He's - not friendly."

"Berathyme would benefit, though."

"I can cast it on her, later, then."

"You will then have to listen to Cricket commentating," Iobel points out.

"Well, what does he commentate on?"

"People. Negatively. He loves me, he's reasonably tolerant of Raney and Kalars, and he despises most everyone else."

"Do I count as you?" wonders Isabella.

"He hasn't decided, apparently, or he'd be more talkative."

"Okay. Then I can just - not put translation spells on familiars?"

"Familiars are individual people. Perhaps Berathyme is lovely and everyone around her would benefit from her being able to converse in Marlese. I don't think you should cast it on Cricket in particular. But if you already have it on you, you will already have to listen to him, and so will Edarial if you bespell him - I'm thinking about random other people."

"... I would like to leave Cricket and Iobel their privacy."

"We can, if necessary, obtain privacy in the relatively customary way that people who share languages between them all must do. I certainly want this spell on myself."

"It's useful, certainly, I'm just - worried about privacy, some familiars are used to not being understood. Their actions would change if they knew they were understandable."

"Yes. I'd tell them as it came up, certainly."

He nods. "I'll consider it. Maybe it's too useful to pass by, if I consider it. Berathyme can have the spell, at least."

"Do familiars get lonely? Only being able to talk to one person?"

"They can learn the vernacular, but it doesn't come naturally to them, they have to learn it all deliberately and don't seem to pick it up from any amount of mere exposure. But Cricket knows some, enough that he used to staff my till when I ducked out of my shop during the day. Zevros has been teaching him... choice phrases."

"... You let - er, him - teach phrases? If he's - my sister, in male form, that is a bad idea. The ones that aren't curse words will be graphically violent or sexual innuendos."

"They are," sighs Iobel, "but Cricket likes them, and he's reasonably obliging about holding his tongue when I tell him to."

"Good luck."

"He taught Berathyme phrases, too."

"... Of course he did. Good luck to you, too."

"She's reasonably circumspect about using them."

"Hey, Cricket, can I pet you?" Isabella inquires in Cricket's language.

Pet pet pet.

"Awww," says Adarin. "That's cute."

"Isn't he soft?"

"So soft. Yes you are. Soft kitty."

Cricket purrs quietly.

Cricket looks suspiciously at Adarin. "I don't know. Are you terrible? You look a lot like the neglectful one."

Iobel facepalms.

Eyebrow raise. "I try very hard to not be terrible. Love, have I neglected you?"

"Never."

"Hmmmm," says Cricket. "Fine, you may pet me. But I will bite you if you do it backwards."

Edarial doesn't think he wants a translation of the proceedings. He'll just... Stand over here. Petting Berathyme. Maybe also being a bit miserable.

Iobel... looks at her husband but can't think of anything to say.

Isabella notices but can't think of anything either.

"Sure," sighs Edarial, in his resignation voice.

Adarin gives his wife a quick peck, says, "Be back in a bit, love," and then gently leads Edarial off to have a talk.

"Okay," agrees Isabella, still petting Cricket.

Iobel watches Edarial and Adarin go, then looks away and watches her alt pet her cat instead.

When they're far enough away, Adarin says, "Okay, I will be your tactful, non-violent Zeviana with minimal cursing. What are the exact things that are making you miserable?"

"... Everything?"

"Everything? Forgive me for the language but while I am standing in for our twin - I am calling bullshit."

Edarial shrinks a little. "All of the - everything dealing with the throne, or Zevros, or marriage, or Iobel, and it makes it worse that you and - yours are so... Happy. Like if I'd been stronger or cleverer or something I could have prevented it and we could be happy, too."

Edarial is hugged. He nods, then buries his face in his alt's shoulder. "I don't know what to do."

"Okay," mumbles Edarial. "How do I - fix my marriage?"

"Tell me, how valid do you consider a wedding that neither party wants?"

"... Not... Very?"

"So you're not married. A large amount of people just happen to think you are."

"It's... Really not that simple."

"Yes it is. Because if you are unofficially not married, that means that you can do it again and get it right."

"... But..."

"Okay, if your marriage is valid then what sorts of things have you done together?"

"Not really all that much," sighs Edarial.

"Mhm. Bare minimum, what is in your head for what makes a marriage a marriage? Besides the vows, the vows we both know are meaningless if you don't mean them."

"Whatever it is, it's missing, and the fact that it's missing hurts. Right?"

Nod nod.

"So, the marriage is invalid. It does not exist. Then nothing is missing, and you can stop being stuck in your head thinking about how horrible it is. Because if you keep doing that you're going to lose the second chance entirely."

"Okay, now - good news. If Iobel is even vaguely similar to Isabella, she is a delight. You will get along fantastically if you give it a chance. Stop reading too much into her words, don't act like you're not. I know better, I saw. That's not fair to her, and we both know it."

"I... Should probably stop that, yeah..."

"With love, yes, yes you should. You are the emotionally complicated one of the pair of you. You're the one that's all subtext. So - display some actual text or she won't know what to do with you."

"... You're meaner than Zevros," complains Edarial.

"No, I am being selectively mean and brutally honest. Sorry, but it's the best way to help."

Sigh. "I don't know how to display text anymore. I'm working on it."

"Essentially. Are you okay with going back?"

"Thank you, we're done," says Adarin.

Edarial is looking less like a raincloud and more thoughtful. Improvement!

"I am intensely curious, but you probably went off by yourselves for a reason."

"Did this conversation have any immediate ramifications I should know about?"

"Yes." He looks at Edarial expectantly.

Adarin facepalms.

Edarial is... Just going to look down at his shoes.

"... Do you want me to try and explain it?"

"Oh wow, I want to help her and I do not even - I haven't seen you like this so my expertise is kind of limited," sighs Isabella in her husband's direction.

"Yes. Please. Explanations are good."

"I was under the impression that was why we were in this garden in the first place," says Iobel.

"The - the layer of detachment is not actually going to help with any things," says Isabella.

"It really isn't," sighs Adarin.

"I'm - aware that I'm doing it but not aware of an alternative."

"... I don't really know of a way to help with that. Isabella?"

"Uh - hmm - let's you and I wander off?"

Adarin nods at his wife, and then goes and gives Edarial another hug.

"How much of this is you wanting to be queen?"

"Some that, some inkling of might-have-been I had even before you showed up, some concern about political instability if the king gets divorced - he'll also have to re-marry, for legal reasons, so I don't think it would really improve anything if I stepped aside."

"Okay. I have a small colony over which I am empress. If you want I will take you home with me and declare you to all and sundry to be my sister and you can be a princess in your own right and help me with my numerous projects and we can set up useful trade and contact between the relevant worlds and you can accomplish things with at least as much scope as you're currently looking at and there will be a portal so you can still visit your parents. I'm not worried that much about the country - this situation is, in fact, unstable until you fix it, eventually one or the other of you will have officially had it, and he'll make a fine king as long as his consort is no worse than 'vaguely inoffensive'. So. On the what-might-have-been basis, and any concern you have for his personal life and its comfort if he marries some vaguely inoffensive girl. What do you want, Iobel?"

"We are deliriously, preposterously, flagrantly happy."

"But yours seems - better adjusted than mine."

"Well. Yes, considerably, but yours will work on it - not as fast as we do, but that doesn't mean he can't get anywhere."

"How fast is not fast, I don't know how to undetach when all I have to attach to is acting like I'm an acid-spitting porcuipine."

"Good question. I'm not saying you should leap instantly into being as sappy as Adarin and I are, that would probably be uncomfortable for everyone involved even if you managed the choreography. I'm not sure. I wonder if you'd be well-served talking about things other than the two of you? Like, going for a walk in the garden is a reasonable idea but I'm not sure it's the best idea. Mine didn't exactly ask me out for milkshakes and quiz me about my childhood as a bonding exercise, there was no explicit bonding exercise, we had stuff to do."

"We have things to do, but we haven't exactly been collaborating. I've been finding bits and pieces without help for months and more recently he's been - delegating."

"...Okay, maybe my resume will help him promote you to actual cooperative work of some kind if you don't have enough of a concrete accomplishment collection on your own."

"I don't think it's entirely lack of confidence in my skills; he's also just used to working by himself, I think."

"Maybe Adarin can help him on that front."

"I also actually don't know anything about running a country but what I've managed to piece together recently."

"Then he should teach you. Front-load some effort now and collect on the investment later. And then he can watch you be awesome, if he's an Adarin he is equipped to notice you being awesome in exactly the right way."

"What, exactly?"

"I have not detected any deficiencies in the noticing of my awesome, although I hesitate to declare improvement literally impossible."

"Heh."

"You have stuff to do besides running this country, now, anyway, you have first contact with a new world to manage, and he's no better or more practiced at that than you are."

"Vouch for my competence at running political units and give your alternate tips on collaborative political-unit-running so he will work with her and teach her what he knows instead of just assigning her things."

Semi-skeptical look, but Edarial nods.

Adarin frowns at Edarial. "You're being subtext again. Stop it."

"I'm a little concerned about trusting an entire country to..." He trails off. He gets a look from his alt. "Fine! Okay, she has been nothing but cold and - and distant and I keep trying to tell her things and I get no emotional response from her. I am worried that if I hand her a country she will react the same with the people under her care."

"Wow, ouch, but, not subtext, so that's good."

"Emotional responses do not feed the hungry - they could conceivably stop wars under the right conditions but my skills do not lie in rhetoric so I focus my efforts elsewhere - emotional responses will not get contraptions invented or cram spells into my head any better or line up economic incentive neatly - and if they don't help, and if I can control them, I will control them and have those pieces of energy left for being useful. You've seen me with Cricket and with my mother, you know I'm not some kind of ambulatory statue."

"Immediate family members and total strangers are two different beasts. I saw you heal some people, that was promising, but it very well could have been a political move so that if things went south you would have people indebted to you. Other than that - I know you as the woman who glares without explanation and gives no response when I try and explain myself!"

"... Oh, my, that's half of the problem, right there. She's not under your wall of paranoia, is she?"

"No."

"...Wait, what?"

"You think I healed people who were most recently found in the employ of the man who poisoned and kidnapped my familiar because I thought they'd do me favors later? What kind of plan is that? And you have since learned the reason! Why hasn't it percolated yet?"

"That doesn't mean that you're going to miraculously get good at explaining why when it concerns me to know! The lack of that is extremely bad!"

"... Okay, hold on, please, both of you. Iobel, there is a thing you should know about my alternate. He is extremely paranoid. As in, my list of people I trusted was at two before I met Isabella. One of them was dead at the time, and the other was my sister."

"What does he think I'm going to do, then?"

"Well I'd have to know the specifics of his life to get things exactly, but from what I can guess - right now, he is aware that you want to be queen. Because of that single fact alone, he is probably quietly worried that you're going to do any combination of the following: kill, depose, imprison, emotionally torture, or manipulate him. Not because of anything you, personally, did, but because that is what he is used to. And you haven't gotten past the wall of paranoia yet, so you are at a disadvantage."

"I do hope for basic charity of interpretation from even total strangers."

Isabella hugs her.

"... Sorry," says Edarial.

Iobel looks at him but doesn't say anything.

"Would it help," says Adarin, "if he told you about what his childhood was like and why exactly he is paranoid? Or if he doesn't want to, I can tell you about mine, and you can extrapolate what his was like and get why he is paranoid."

"I really don't know. So far all of this seems to have plausibly worsened the situation. But I have a standing job offer on another planet now so why not, go for broke."

"Okay. Mine, then, because I've pretty neatly moved on and give no fucks about it anymore. My mom was insane, waffling between creepily saccharine sweet and absolutely terrifying. To the point where I did not know what would set her off, so I avoided her. Birth-father, nonexistent, I had guardians, but they were not - parents. If you recall that thing I mentioned about my magic if I'm almost out of mana - I went through it. When I was eleven. Because they blackmailed into doing it to see what my actual mana reserves were, so they could more accurately use me to make things. They did it to my sister, too, multiple times because her reserve's higher than mine and they wanted cool magic things."

Edarial stares at Adarin.

"... I didn't have the - dad."

"Thanks," says Isabella, equally quiet.

Adarin keeps hugging Edarial, because he is pretty sure he needs it right now.

"... I-I am... Extremely sorry, that it - does this," mutters Edarial. "I don't mean to just - assume everyone is plotting something terrible."

"I mean, a lot of the people around you legitimately are. Iobel isn't, I can state that roughly as confidently as I can state that you're an alt of my husband and she's an alt of me for any definition of 'alt' worth considering."

"Okay. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"I do honestly want the country to have the best chance it can. Meaning if you will be a good queen, then I'll help you do that. That being said, it's - I mean, it's really helpful to have another me telling me that it will be okay. But I keep trying and you keep being incredibly cold and that doesn't exactly make it easy to trust you. So I don't know what the timetable would be for me letting you in? But I could help you be queen. By... Actually teaching you."

"...I think we have a nasty catch-22 here."

"You think?" mutters Iobel.

Edarial makes a little sad sound.

Adarin hugs him. "Would a - trial period help? Where he shows you how to queen and you both see if you work together as well as Isabella and I do? Then after that you can decide if you want to be a sister princess or a queen. We'll need some time before making the portal anyway, mana and all."

"I'm not actually sure that's going to help - Iobel has a point that we are plausibly making things worse. I'm - hm. The catch-22 in question is that Iobel is having a hell of a hard time mustering personal warmth for someone who not only does not especially trust but also apparently mistrusts her, and Edarial's having a hard time trusting someone who's coming off as cold, and I'm not sure how to - cut the Gordian knot, so to speak - Iobel, why do you love your cat? He's so obnoxious you don't want him to be able to talk to other people if you can help it, why do you like him?"

"Second thing."

"This is about the noticing thing you mentioned, isn't it. Cricket detests most everybody, but he produces reasons on inspection - that they're careless or cruel or stupid or whatever - and they are reasons that he has observed legitimately don't apply to me, and consequently he's fond of me. He isn't just indiscriminately affectionate or loyal to me because I'm his binder, he loves me for reasons."

"Noticing thing?" asks Adarin.

"Your wife," says Iobel dryly, "mentioned as a perk of the relationship that you are good at noticing how awesome she is in precisely correct ways."

"Supply. Demand. Compound interest," deadpans Isabella. "I'm not completely optimistic - I mean, presumably they can do the work, but if she just does the work and isn't smiley and friendly while she's doing it because everything about him is screaming I actively dislike you and expect you to do potentially horrifying things? Remember that when we met I was in a fairly good mood and managed to impress you with pretty much the first substantive thing I said beyond 'yes of course you have a talking bird why wouldn't you have a talking bird'."

"I don't actively dislike her," says Edarial. "She's just - frustrating. And occasionally distressing."

"It's not like I have been eating bonbons and playing board games with my cat for the last several months," Iobel points out. "I've been doing my best."

"... Yeah. Thank you for it," he says, sincerely.

"And you're welcome. But Adarin's optimism seems already contradicted, is the point."

"Well, during most of the last few months I was avoiding you because you were - not personable for completely understandable reasons. So I - admittedly might have missed most of it?"

"Well. I took notes."

"I'll have to translate them into Marlese and separate them out from neighboring personal things, but yes."

Edarial nods. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Shouldn't take me more than a day or so, I haven't found that many things to do."

"I've liked what you've done so far with the things I've given over."

Iobel rejects two potential responses and finally settles on, "I'm glad."

He smiles at her, a bit.

Isabella leans on her husband with a hopeful smile.

"They'll figure it out, love," he murmurs to her, in English. "I kind of feel like if there's a next time with another pair of us I should just... Not mention the paranoia."

"It would still be there, wouldn't it?" Isabella replies.

"Yeah. So it might not solve anything after all. But you made it past my paranoia wall pretty nicely, and I don't think you were aware how deep it went at the time."

"I wasn't, but - she was aware that he wasn't treating her like a trusted ally, even if the exact underlying psychology was a mystery."

"True. He's also more of a - mess than I was."

Isabella nods.

Snuggle.

Edarial notices the conversation, but obviously doesn't understand a word of it. He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't ask.

"Anyway," says Iobel. "It sounds like you need to be in this world for a while, but I'm not sure how we are going to explain both suddenly having identical twins. Who are, I think, slightly younger than us. Did you come with a plan for that in mind?"

"Yep, I can cast notice-me-not spells on me and Adarin and we can follow you. The drawback is that you won't be able to see us and he won't be able to see me - I will still be able to see him because I have a blessing that covers this sort of thing - but we will be able to follow you until you tell us all clear."

"I will endeavor to be a duckling," says Adarin dryly.

"Assuming you want us in your place, of course. If you don't we have sufficient stuff to camp out and I can fly around on this thing," she gestures with her cloud-pine, "to someplace appropriate for camping."

"I don't see any obvious reason you shouldn't be in a palace guest room as long as you are unobtrusive as you say."

"Agreed."

"Good, I can leave the camping to my sister."

"Should I cast those spells now or is there more to discuss first?"

"I can't think of anything we need to discuss right now." He looks at the other married couple. "You?"

"You'll be able to hear us if we think of something to say on the way there, yes?"

"Yep!"

"Then, no, nothing we couldn't handle indoors."

Edarial nods.

"Then in that case - all free for spelling, I am excited to be doused in herbs."

Isabella kisses him, rummages in her portal bag, comes up with some herbs, douses him in them, and recites her verse. He is unnoticeable. She does the same to herself. She is also unnoticeable.

"...Okay," says Iobel. "Home, I guess."

"Home," he agrees.

Adarin likes his wife's magic, but he kind of wishes he could at least like - hold her hand while she was unnoticeable. Oh well. He will follow Iobel and Edarial.

"The canal boats might be awkward," remarks Iobel as they head for the exit of the garden. "But you - they - it is hard to address unnoticeable people - flying would be a reasonable way to follow us, we won't be traveling that fast or become untrackable at any point."

...Now Isabella has to figure out how to wrestle Adarin onto her cloudpine while he's incapable of paying attention to her or anything she does. Well, if she can't manage it she can break his spell and start over while he's on the branch.

While he is briefly confused by being wrestled onto a branch, he is still capable of logic, and puts the pieces together as to why he's being wrestled. So, he doesn't resist. Onto the branch he goes!

Okay, cool. Isabella will fly after the canal-traveling monarchs.

Walk walk walk. Boat boat boat.

Neither's Iobel. Well, she's talking to Cricket, summarizing the conversation for him, but not otherwise.