Well, there's in and there's available. Revelation is not the second thing.

Zane is available, and willing to make mirrors. He really doesn't care. He's with his dad, in the secret dad bunker.

"Yeah, apparently murder doesn't work. Also, she didn't get kickass immortality and powers. Just death and subsequent resurrection. So. Bummer."

"Hey," he says, for lack of a better idea.

"Hi. Do you want to come in?"

"I know. I'm sorry. Would you like a hug?"

She nods and leans into him.

She shrugs. "Nothing much has changed except now we know it doesn't work."

"Okay," he says. There's a - pause as he tries to get his thoughts in order. It is surprisingly difficult to turn back on the 'tact' switch after very thoroughly turning it off. "Did you not want me to be there...?"

"I - it - I knew how to get myself through it but it bothered you too and I didn't - know how to -"

"Yes. But - if a a similar situation should occur in the future - please tell me beforehand?"

"Okay."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Hugs are easy, so he'll keep doing those.

Snuggle.

"I poked various mages at my home to agree to spelling mirrors," he says, conversationally, because this is the sort of thing she would probably like to be informed of. "Zane made them, I handed them off before I came here."

"That's good, we always seem to want more of those than we have."

"Exactly. If only they grew on trees."

"Maybe we should look up Tayane and see if there's anything worth pulling out of magics. We could summon a fairy to get them safely, or something."

"There's an idea. Are magics likely to have anything worthwhile?"

"They don't usually produce useful things, but they sometimes can. Case in point my door, and the healing I got before that and the disappeared shackles. Some people get stuff out of magics with fishing rods and other tools and sell them."

"Fishing for magic. That must be an interesting hobby. Well, we can go check?"

"Sure. When you and Cypress have mana again. Maybe when I've had more time to be - accustomed, and can play tour guide less distractedly."

"Yes. A distracted tour guide is the second worst kind, I hear."

"After?"

"One that is also on fire, I assume."

She snorts. Snuggle.

Snuggle.

"And we can see if Eseo is still practicing slavery and do - something, about that, if they are, but perhaps they've phased it out of their own accord."

"Yes. We are very magic, I assume that if they haven't, we can look at them sternly, I shoot lightning out of my hand, and then they will politely agree with us that yes, slavery is bad."

"I have never seen you shoot lightning out of your hand."

"I can, I just don't. It's showy but wasteful."

"It sounds very impressive, anyway. I'm just not sure you can gather all the people who participate in an entire nation's slave trade in one place and show off to them."

"Darn. Scary flight and minor showy effects, then. Or I can steal scrolls from Max and Phix, and show off with those."

"Or we could just bring the critters themselves, they get shapeshifting for free."

"That too. We should see if they'd like to go."

"If I recall correctly it's safe to overfly magics. They only reach up so far; birds flying over them don't get turned into things. So we can make passes over them to see if there's cool stuff in the middle."

"Well, convenient that we can all fly, then."

"Well, Annie and Aldaras can't yet, right?"

".... Well. Okay, convenient that eventually we will all be able to fly."

"Yes. And I don't suppose Annie and Aldaras would add a lot to the expedition anyway. Unless Aldaras's artifact tracking extends to useful things inside magics."

"That would be useful. We should find out, I've been essentially ignoring them in favor of..." He motions to Aya.

"Thank you, though. I - other people can quiz them."

"You're entirely free to quiz them," says Prime. "I can go quiz them, too, I was just - you are more important to me than they and their resources are."

"Don't tell them that I'm more important to you?"

"... When you put it that way, nevermind, feel free to tell them."

"That's just the same way you put it. I don't see why it would go badly."

"I don't know, the - 'By the way, in my giant scheme of numbers, you really don't stack up when compared to other people in my life' might be found to be insulting. I've had problems with it, but I think I'm just overthinking things now."

"I don't think Annie would care that some alt of her fiancé she's barely met doesn't rank her particularly highly. Even when Katydid warned everybody not to use their Adarins' numbers as a scoring system for an inter-Bell contest no one took the opportunity to wonder about other Adarins' numbers for them."

"They were planning to...? Right, good for Katydid. And that's - interesting. I won't worry about it, then."

"Apparently Rain told her it would be a bad idea, she didn't just reiterate that it would make her feel bad."

"Good for Rain, he was absolutely right."

"And of course Annie would have ruined it anyway."

"That. Aldaras's scale is quite thoroughly broken."

"That sounds uncomfortable, if you're used to working in numbers."

"It still - functions, it's just very thoroughly broken when it comes to Annie, and that breaks other things, too. It looks like he's used to it, anyway."

"He did not. I'm sorry, I should have asked."

"It's okay. I'd get more useful information out of Annie anyway, probably. Bells are non-numerical."

"Yes. And similarly, I think I got more useful information out of Aldaras than I would have gotten from Annie."

Snuggle. "Well, you're not the one who's necklaced."

"I am not." Pause. "... Occasionally I wonder what would have happened if I were."

"Instead of me or - too?"

"Too is an obvious answer," clarifies Prime. "We would never go outside. Instead of you, though, I have no idea."

"... Sorry, I realize now that that was an unhelpful set of sentences."

Aya makes a little noise that neither agrees nor disagrees, and squirms again, and puts her face on his shoulder and sighs.

"Sorry. I am genuinely trying very hard not to torment you."

"I am pretty tormentable right now. I'm not sure if you're going to get anywhere with that plan in the long run without at least kissing me."

She giggles and nuzzles the side of his neck and says, "Does it matter? I'm happy."

Behold, it's the return of the hair kiss. Back with a vengeance!

"You can speculate."

"I wouldn't have taken that long to kiss you."

"I did not take very long to kiss you," defends Prime. "It happened yesterday."

"I appreciate it very much."

"I'm glad."

There is a knock on the door.

"I am officially out of ideas of things to ask the alethiometer about the necklace that might yield helpful results, even the second wave of oddball wacky questions after last night," apologizes Ice. "I can't guarantee that the spellbinders can't produce anything - but I think Chamomile has no help for you."

Prime - is silent. But he does hear the general gist of the conversation.

"Thank you for trying."

"I could do nothing less. Katydid says a couple weeks on the inside for a complete spell that even might work, though."

"I understand."

"Annie says a few days not molding the necklace barely makes a difference, so I'm keeping it for now in case I have any sit-bolt-upright-at-three-a.m. ideas for things to ask the alethiometer, but you're in for a while. I'm sorry. I'll get out of your hair."

"Thank you," says Spring, watching her alt go.

"And so the universe continues to conspire against us."

"Yes," he agrees. Pause. "... What would you like me to do? I can - leave you alone to your thoughts, or hold you, or say something distracting and flippant and snarky, or distract you with a project, or - something?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to - self-soothe. I'm not entirely sure I can."

"But it's not fair to require you. You have things to do, lots of them, it is not okay if I need you around most of my waking hours just to emotionally function, I have to figure out something else."

"I agree. But I do still care about you, and I trust you to know when to ask for me to show up and be sarcastic and old and occasionally snuggly."

"Well. Thank you. I still need to - be able to self-regulate. Like I'm supposed to be able to do. Not even my - necklace programming wants to require you as much as it made me do, not when it's nonreciprocal and you have other priorities. It is not a very consistent necklace."

Aya giggles.

"I don't know. I don't want you to leave, but if you have other things to do don't let me keep you."

"Yes. But I have decades of experience managing my head under very different conditions and I'm not sure what circumstances I need for it now, or how much it even admits of management any longer."

"That makes sense. We can be orderly about this, try different circumstances and see how well managing your head is in each of them, and stick with what works best?"

"I suppose. Some of it can be expected to morph over time - if I can believe Annie - so that makes controlled setups awkward."

"A bit. But it might be worth trying, if you're willing?"

Nod, nod.

"Recording I'll leave to your expertise. What should be our control?"

"You going about your business as usual, I suppose. Without me - interfering."

"All right - how is 'business as usual' for me defined? From before the necklace incident occurred?"

She nods.

"I can manage that," he says. "A day or so, or less time...? I don't know how long it usually takes to dissect your own mind."

"Usually it's easy. Usually I'd be done already. I don't know anymore. Annie's in - different circumstances, it's fine for her to keep Aldaras around as much as she wants, it would be cruel not to - so I can't exactly use her as a baseline."

"Okay. We can try a day, then, for neatness?"

"Okay."

"Yes. Please. You will not go far wrong if you just assume I always want you to kiss me."

Mmmmmmmmmkiss.

And Prime goes and does work. It's pretty run of the mill and ordinary. For him. He's sort of vaguely worried about Aya in general every time he has free moments to spare, but - let's not screw with the small sanctity of the test, hmm? And if he's clever (which, he likes to think he is somewhat clever) he can play his cards so that he doesn't have many free moments. There, problem solved.

"Hi," she mumbles.

"It's what you'd expect from somebody who touched a magic love necklace."

"I figured," says Prime, calmly. "I mean - personally, my ultimate win condition, in your situation, would be 'find a way to make the person I was in love with return my affections without forcing them to touch the necklace.' But I don't know if that's your ultimate win condition, or if yours allows for more flexibility." Pause. "I'm not, by the way, upset at you for wanting things, Aya."

"I usually allow myself arbitrary license to want things. This is different."

"I know. There is a conspiracy evil love necklace involved. But I'm - it's okay to talk to me about it. I will not freak out and flee because you've been fighting something desperately and feel like it would be best if I were informed of what you're fighting."

"Is it likely that you'll slip?" he asks, seriously. "Later down the line."

"I've managed this long. I - don't know."

"Okay. It - might be best to have a test run now, when I'm warned beforehand and as prepared as I can possibly be, instead of slipping later and catching me unawares, if you're unsure."

"Were you expecting it to be about you? It's myself that scares me - my moving parts won't move anymore." She shudders and leans on him. "I don't know what sort of project I'm good for right now. Something easy, I guess. Playing tour guide in Tayane and turning my alts loose on anything that requires complex problem-solving, maybe."

"I was expecting emotional manipulation," teases Prime. "And emotional manipulation is very much about who it's aimed at. Tour guiding works, but I suspect there are better options, too. Something easy, hmm. ... I should clarify, I have zero desire to give you a useless busy work project or, for example, make you some kind of secretary. That would be a hilarious waste of your time and talents, and I like being efficient. Please don't worry about something like that, I'm a callous bastard, I don't give people fake work to make them feel good about themselves. There's a colonization effort going on in my Kystle right now, it's rather small scale and people are all very confused about day and night being a thing. I've also been adapting borrowed technology specs for their use, and I'm trying to make a stable supply line so I can get the delightful things called 'factories' up and running. It's going to entice people to lessen the strain on New Kystle's magical resources, because the fancy roads that climate control are not free, and really, Kystle's more livable and better for farming anyway. Do you want to go organize things there and make people all behave, or would you like another problem entirely?"

"Are you claiming to have had no emotions in reaction to my little speech? And I think the cultural gap between me and people from New Kystle is more than challenging enough when I'm proselytizing like I've practiced for most of my life and when my brain's behaving itself, so unless you don't have another obvious candidate for the job -"

"I have emotions in reaction. I just shove them in a box and ignore them. I'm offering it to you because you would actually have a basic understanding of how things work in a non-tidelocked planet, which is in short supply. Considering there are about five people alive who have actually lived when it was normal and not bizarre and strange. I'm one of them. The others are: my sister, and Lynn, who are busy, my father, who is still quite culture shocked - and I'm not actually so callous as to throw him at something when he's recovering from being resurrected - and Nereus, who is not allowed to go near anything sharp, ever. Let alone people. Essentially, none of them are in a position to tell people that it's okay for the temperature to change along with the sun disappearing and that it doesn't mean they'll immediately freeze to death. Or - actually, they're not experienced with seasons either, a fourth of them bolted through a portal when winter arrived. There is not another obvious candidate that knows about that sort of thing unless I outsource, and you are my first pick there."

"Okay. And -" Pause. "... Do let me know if you don't actually want to? Help with things. Please."

"I want to help you. Explaining seasons doesn't sound hard. A project might be good for me."

"...You already know how seasons work."

"Sorry. It seems I wasn't paying attention to what you wanted to do. I hadn't meant to manipulate you, there. I was - trying to help."

"I know you were. I'm - I didn't feel like you were trying to manipulate me."

"Okay. Sorry," he repeats. Snuggle?

Snuggle. "I can explain seasons to people. That sounds within my current range of capabilities as long as it doesn't take up absurd amounts of time."

"I wasn't doubting your abilities, but I would - I don't want to give you jobs based on just whether or not you can do them, but on whether or not you want to."

"My wanting of things is kind of screwed up."

"I - maybe. But I don't think I helped, there."

"There might not be a way to help, I might just be permanently screwed up, and if people need seasons explained to them I might as well."

"It's rather important to me that you also be happy," sighs Prime.

Prime falls silent, too because he doesn't know what to say. What is there to say?

Snuggle.

"You're still concerned about me neglecting you...?" muses Prime, after a while.

"We're both immortal. You seem convinced that I'm going to - get better, at some point, that the necklace is going to be a footnote in the next brochure we hand out to new alts, 'oh by the way Spring is irrevocably in love with Prime to a degree for which magic is strictly necessary, but don't worry about that, it doesn't affect anything, she has it under control except for perfunctory kisses every third week. And. I'm. Not sure of that."

"I'm convinced that there is a win condition here, somewhere, not - necessarily that you get 'better.' I'm not, for example, ever expecting you to fall out of love with me, now, or for you to stop considering me your main priority. I'm - not expecting to go through the period of a year or so, and then be able to say, 'Okay, now that we've done that, and pretend everything is as it was before the necklace.' I'm quite certain that's strictly impossible, at this point."

"And you don't think you're going to - get sick of it."

"... No. I don't."

Snuggle.

".... I have no idea how to interpret that. Um. Help, please?"

"I have strongly mixed feelings about that?" she squeaks.

"Okay. Should I never bring it up again?"

"I would like to be kept informed and not allowed to influence the decision in any way."

Prime nods.

Shiver.

"... Do you want me to explain my logic, or should I pass on it?"

"I would like to know. And not be allowed to influence your decision in any way."

"Okay. To put it shortly, I'm - upset. For various reasons. And I would like it fixed, I'm not going to proclaim that the universe goes right back to where it was before. But I want a solution. Because I'm afraid that no matter what I do, I'm letting you down, because I - can't live up to disturbing love magic."

Squirm.

"And it bothers me that this is on the conspiracy necklace's terms, not - either of ours. I feel like we're being set up and there's nothing I can do about it. And I hate it."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he insists fervently. "It's - not you."

"If it had been anyone else you could have walked away," she murmurs, "you said."

"And probably felt horrible for the rest of my life," sighs Prime. "Justified, but also horrible."

"Oh."

"Yes."

Snuggle.

Snuggle.

"I love you."

"Thanks."

She giggles. "You're welcome."

"Sure. Why not."

"Well because it's likely it'll be very boring on your end, unless you have a mirror around?"

"I have a mirror." She unsnuggles and fetches it.

"Yes? It can't be anything but, mages have zero ability to see the past or future."

"But - that's the old lady's house. It barely looks any different. Those flowers are annuals, they'd have had to be replanted, why would they be the exact same flowers she had me plant hundreds of years later with her dead and me gone...? The shutter's still broken - why would the shingles still be there, they're wood, shouldn't they have had to be replaced...?"

"I - have little to no idea? You left Tayane with a method we know nearly nothing about. It might have had strange effects?"

"Maybe. Can you find the magic I fell into? I can look up in my notebooks where exactly it was, if that's not specific enough."

"That - seems like it's likely? What would you like to do?"

"I'm not sure. I wasn't even considering this possibility. I suppose it's a good thing I wasn't in a hurry to resurrect my parents, that would have been confusing."

"A little, yeah. ... Do you want me to try and look for your parents? Or anyone in particular?"

"If they're still alive they're more urgent than I'd previously thought, though mostly as a subset of the dealing with slavery thing. Meanwhile, the fallen wagon probably hasn't even been reported yet. I've been technically free since the first time Ice resurrected me, any magic that rids a slave of the heel mark frees them - Aelare's blessing, it's called - but they won't have that on the books, and that annoys me."

"Me too. You're not a slave."

"That sort of depends on what you mean. They don't have meaningful power over me any more, and haven't since I fell into the magic, but they do have a piece of paper that says they own me."

"... The former. A piece of paper that says something but can't be enforced is a piece of paper. But I would still like to make it go away, because a piece of paper shouldn't have any capacity to turn people into chattel, in any circumstances." Pause. "Thoroughness, and all."

"Well, that and if I'm going to do anything in Eseo I will need legal free status."

"That, too."

"Not that very many people would recognize me, and I do have a clean heel now, but just in case."

"Yeah. .... What circumstances happen to get the heel tattoo?"

"In my case they did it when I was a baby, because my parents were - are, I suppose, probably - slaves. Freeborns are sold into slavery if they have debts they can't otherwise pay or if they commit certain crimes."

"I don't remember how my parents wound up in their situations, but they were freeborn, I remember that."

"We can always ask them, if we get the chance to meet them."

"Can you find them? I don't remember the name of the farm they were on when I was sold, and they may have been moved since, and they won't look like anybell else's parents, but..."

".... Maybe? I can always look. But it could take a while."

"The people with my piece of paper might have a pedigree for me, I suppose, that could help tracking them down."

"It could, but - I also have no idea how to find the piece of paper."

"Oh, I was thinking I'd walk into the office and show them my heel and ask for it."

Snuggle. "It's possible they'll give me a hard time, but it's at least reasonably likely to work."

Snuggle. "I'll go with you, if you like."

"You can - I feel like this might make it look like you're trying to steal me, they might want to check my heel more thoroughly if there's someone obviously with me who could have supplied paint or something."

"... Good point. I can sit it out, then? So as not to cause you problems."

She nods. "When will there be enough mana floating around to make the trip?"

"A few days. Less, if I spend the entire time asleep, but I'm rather useless if I do that."

"You'd make a good pillow," she dares.

"Would I? How would you know, you haven't tested it."

"I can make an educated guess."

"I see. Well, do let me know if you have any more educated guesses."

"Mostly at the moment I just have the pillow one. But if you have too much to do it's fine if it takes a bit longer, a few days won't make a difference."

"I do have some things to do," admits Prime. "So I can't sleep forever. But I am free to try and nap now, certainly."

"Do you want to be a pillow while you do it?"

"Sure," he snorts. "Why not. It'll be new and interesting."

She giggles. And unsnuggles enough to allow relocation to proper pillow habitat.

Pillows in Prime-Land live in many places. They're very hearty creatures. Look, as he goes and relocates to a couch.

And Aya snuggles up on top of him, like unto a blanket. It's so symbiotic.

Yes! Yes it is. Behold, how he can snuggle his not-technically-a-blanket. He's glad that he can be her pillow.

Snuggle snuggle snuggle. Aya is not Phix and cannot quite purr, but she can give the impression of wanting to quite strongly.

Aww, that's cute. He's glad she's so happy.