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Annie is sitting with Ice and Phix in the Belfry. (Phix has determined that neither she nor Max knows near enough about runecasting to hope to approach Aya's little problem in the next, like, year at least, but she's taking notes to deliver to Iobel, who has not yet abandoned so much hope yet cannot be at this meeting for queen reasons.)
"If you could just say more about the subjectivity of it, it might give me an idea of something new to ask the alethiometer," says Ice. "Obviously having it look directly at Aya is an option, if it just can't get enough information off the necklace, but ideally we'd exhaust the possibilities first."
"Or Prime would just give her what she wants," mutters Phix.
"Let's not be weird and pressure-y about that," says Ice. "Annie?"
"...Sorry," says Annie. "I just had a mental image of Aya holding a soul bird and the soul bird looking at Prime and wanting to be petted and him refusing to do it. I think I would sooner let the alethiometer look at me than give her another - thing to pine about. I should work just as well, shouldn't I?"
"You might," says Ice, "unless reciprocated necklace arrangements look different or are different forms of breakable than one-sided ones, in which case you might not."
"Poor hypothetical soul-bird," murmurs Phix, scribbling.
keep_busy
prodigal_miser
"Yeah," winces Vernaia. "That would be pretty awful."
Cypress pets her.
Cypress pets her.
castmyown
"... I'm pretty sure Prime's trying? I don't - he's weird. I don't quite get him."
shesepankh
"You've got a better shot at getting him than us. One hopes," says Phix, stretching a wing and then unhaving the set thereof. "Like, if being Aya right now were not staggeringly unpleasant we could be a lot more leisurely about getting her the hell fixed, that would be nice."
castmyown
"Yeah. It's - not like he's some weird freakish zombie version of me, or anything. But he's kind of hard for me to relate to because there's - he's really depressing."
dark_light
"Which would also be nice to fix but is even theoretically probably less amenable to magical breakage."
keep_busy
"Anyway, uh, subjectivity - ugh, this is all depressing enough to make me wish me and Aldaras had happened the other way around, because she's a me but like I keep saying I touched it and he already loved me and I can't make heads or tails of how Prime's feeling. Is Aya any better at reading him? The question's bound to be of exceeding importance."
prodigal_miser
"... I'd say she's in a better position to read him, rather than being better at reading him," muses Cypress. "If I'm honest, I'm probably the one best to analyze him. Hooray for that."
keep_busy
"Well, analyze away, if I'm going to have any insight on subjectivity I have to know what she's working with."
prodigal_miser
"Right, okay. Mmm. It's pretty obvious he's spent a very large amount of time being self sacrificing and - er, noble. And I believe that at some point he realized that he, personally, could not take any more self-inflicted punishment. So he's sort of. Doing whatever he likes, keeping people at arm's length, subtly lashing out, being really bitter about everything..."
castmyown
"Don't forget the way he hates everything, I'm pretty sure he just secretly hates everyone now."
keep_busy
"...And by 'everyone' you mean...? Because that makes me want to ask Ice if she knows how to put Aya into a coma. Or we could skip straight to killing her, again, until we think of something."
prodigal_miser
Cypress shakes his head.
"If he hated Aya I think he would have just dropped her then and there. So he doesn't."
"If he hated Aya I think he would have just dropped her then and there. So he doesn't."
keep_busy
"Okay, so he is capable of hate and what exciting second emotion?"
prodigal_miser
"... Right, okay, step by step. If I hated everyone, was bitter and alone and hiding behind a wall of sarcasm, how would I feel if then met my wife?"
keep_busy
"Aaaand having determined that no answer to this question is forthcoming, next...?"
prodigal_miser
"No, I mean - I would be pissed that I didn't meet her - four hundred years ago."