"You either both declare yourselves to actually enjoy long silences, or you break off your doomed relationship.  People usually try to check that sort of thing before getting to the first date.  That's half the point of gendertropes.  To the extent you can be captured by a simple standard description, you can compare your gendertropes quickly and before spending too much effort on things."

"Us both having an infinite supply of conversation and both being bad at steering the topic back to romance is a separate gendertrope, however.  And then you have to check whether both people are okay with dates that turn into fascinating conversations, that continue later and later, until eventually, sixteen minutes before the hard deadline on bedtime, somebody finally raises the question of whether they were possibly supposed to remove any items of clothing a few hours earlier."

That sounds great, if not for the part where it probably results in less emotional attachment of Keltham to her.  The Asmodia thing - probably only applies to girls who are asexual, Ione is guessing?  Like you can't have sex with other people, or be able to have sex with other people, and not have sex with Keltham.  Probably?

"I think I'm okay with that happening sometimes.  If it happened always, that would be a problem..."

"I wonder if that happens a lot when Nethysians marry each other."

"That's not something you've already got lots of data on?  The Nethysian sub-gendertropes, or whatever the equivalent of that knowledge is for Golarion."

"I know about Nethys only - what I could find mentioned in books.  Books that I could find without mentioning to anybody what I was looking for."

"Library magic not good for that?"

"Didn't get that until after I was a wizard.  And then, even after I knew every title that was in the library at the Ostenso wizard academy and could read those books more privately, there weren't any books specifically about Nethys, or books about all the gods either.  Just a handful of books about particular gods whose churches nobody had ordered purged recently."

"I realize now that this was entirely down to old Cheliax but, at the time, it didn't - really help me be less nervous about anything.  I was just thinking about how all the Nethys books were missing.  Not how also all the Iomedae books were missing, and the Milani books, and the Abadar and Irori books, and all the Asmodeus books looked newer than most books in what was left of the theology section."

"They had something against Lawfulness?"

"I don't know.  It's not like they'd say so.  I can guess why they might've done that but, you could guess too?  Or maybe not, if you're an alien...  Lawful churches, Lawful people, are the ones who might point to old Cheliax and say, how about if we try something else which is not that."

"Which eventually the Church of Asmodeus did, so it's not like their fears were unfounded."

"There's a lot of dath ilani proverbs about fears that realize themselves, because that's a kind of - self-sustaining phenomenon that's more likely to persist.  In this case, I'd ask, would in fact the Church of Asmodeus have done that, if old Cheliax hadn't first purged their books, and probably, I'm guessing, some of their people."

Oh, Keltham.  He really is way too nice for Cheliax... well, Ione just has to make sure he wants her with him after this inevitably blows up.  Until then of course Ione will very carefully and properly act only to delay that day, not hasten it, while that continues to serve Nethys's unknown purposes.

"My fear about how Asmodeans - would treat somebody openly Nethysian - was the same way, I guess.  I didn't - ask the right questions, try any experiments, before this, because I was afraid of how it would look if I asked..."

Ione looks down at her hands.  "Stupid," she says quietly but with some contained heat.

"If you don't particularly want to talk about this part, I observe that we're not presently discussing romantic things.  If our lives aren't governed by tropes then you do not actually need to tell me your hidden backstory if you don't want to."

He's noticed that Ione possibly seems to be trying to work around to this discussion topic, which, if it's not tropes...

"It's - relevant to a romance-related thing -"

"This is really hard to say."

Then he'll wait quietly and with a neutral expression while she organizes her thoughts to say it, as is only polite.

"We were a bunch of second-circles pulled out of Ostenso wizard academy and after you explained about heritage-selection it was becoming clear that you knew a lot of important things and you rated more resources than a bunch of second-circles and I thought once that became apparent to whoever was in charge they'd pull us all right out of the project and replace us with women who were prettier or smarter or more knowledgeable or all three, and, I wanted to stay, I wanted to go on learning, so I -"

"I tried to make you the best offer I could."

"It was a sincere offer!  Don't get me wrong!  If you still wanted that from me, as the price of leaving Golarion with you, someday, or even just - getting to go on learning from you, for now - I'd pay it in a heartbeat, and your spell for fair pricing, should show that -"

"If you tell me that, what I offered, is the reason you were interested in me, and you're not interested otherwise, then I'll just do it that way, and I won't be mad."

"But if I'd known then that, things would turn out, the way they did, that what I was afraid of, wouldn't happen, if I thought that there'd be - other options than what I said -"

"I wouldn't actually have said, what I said, it's not what I want most, if there's other options, I'm really really sorry."

"Keltham please say something."

"I think you're scared of some things that, once again, are not in fact going to happen to you."

"Okay.  Good."

"Details?"

"Wasn't actually sure I wanted complete unreciprocated service from you anyways, my new gendertrope was sort of ambiguous about it.  Especially if you're doing it in trade for knowledge and not as a sex thing, because then there are questions about whether you would've gotten that anyways, or what more than the default you were expecting to receive in return...  I was going to check if it was a sex thing before even trying to proceed with testing a relationship like that, because if it's not a sex thing there are so many additional questions."

"Actually now that I say it, I don't know if a relationship like that could work for my gendertrope if it's a sex thing.  But I'm sure it doesn't work for my gendertrope if it's not a sex thing."

"Okay.  Okay.  I didn't say it was a sex thing for me, please note, I wasn't - trying to lie about that, at all, I wasn't thinking about trying to lie about that, I told you that I wanted to give you anything you wanted from me, because of the value from listening to you and hearing things and that's - that was true - I guess I should've said it wasn't a sex thing but I didn't know you would think it was.  I was just trying to trade - to give enough that I'd be worth keeping around."

"It's okay, Ione.  I would've asked more questions before I did anything, anyways."

"Are there... actually other relationship options for us.  Because it sounds like, if not, I don't even - get the option of offering you, what I initially offered, because it wouldn't be a sex thing for me, and you require that."

"I am, in fact, getting enough sex already and regardless, that I wouldn't particularly want to trade anything for having sex with somebody who wasn't into that or into me."

"I want to go where Keltham goes and see what Keltham sees and learn what Keltham learns.  I would follow him away from Golarion even if we were never coming back and it'd just be the two of us out there forever."

"I think he's nice.  I definitely like him more than I've liked any boy before."

"None of which is saying, in that many words, that you want, for yourself and out of your own desires, to have sex with me."